Because God is Spirit, He is also omnipresent. This means the essence of God is everywhere.
God cannot be confined to geographical places. His Being fills up endless infinity. God Himself
declares --
There is no end to God. He is everywhere. He is not measured by time nor limited by space. He
fills all not so as to be contained in them. We are not pantheists. For example, we do not look at
a tree and say, "God is in that tree, therefore, let us worship the tree." But we believe that God
who created the tree is everywhere in the essence of His being. So being wholly spirit, God
cannot be divided or separated such that one part of His being is in one place, and another part
somewhere else. The whole of His being is always everywhere.
I. THE UNLIMITED PRESENCE OF GOD --
People have always tried to limit the presence of God. Israel of old, for example, tried to confine
God to the temple in Jerusalem. Some believed God dwelt in the actual structure. God, however,
cannot be limited to a structure built by human hands. What is known as the "Shekinah" did dwell
between the wings of the cherubim over the mercy seat. But this was only a symbol of God's
presence, not the full essence of it. Solomon understood this --
Stephen recognized this and told the people of Jerusalem when he preached the Gospel --
In the Old Testament, the tabernacle and the temple were actual locations where God established
the throne of His majesty. God was present at the temple, but He was also present everywhere
else. The temple represented the greatest manifestation of God's presence (His attributes) to be
found on earth at that time. It represented the place where God would meet with sinners, where
His favor could be found on the basis of sacrifice -- satisfaction to His holy law and justice. This
earthly temple pointed to eternal salvation by God's grace through Christ, based on His
righteousness alone. Today, the church, which is made up of believers, represents the throne of
God. This throne will never be replaced by another temple, because all that the temple
represented concerning God's abiding presence is fulfilled in Jesus Christ and the righteousness He
brought in to enable God to be a just God and a Savior.
As we realize then the spirituality and the omnipresence of God, we must concern ourselves with
the presence of God as pertaining to ourselves. People today claim to feel or know the presence
of God in their lives, in their worship services, and in providence. They say, for example, when
they survive some catastrophic event, "God was with us," and in a sense, this is true as God "is
the Saviour (Deliverer) of all men, specially of those that believe" (1 Tim. 4:10). Those who
take this verse to mean universal atonement do not know what the apostle is teaching Timothy.
He is speaking of physical, temporal, and providential deliverance. For example, when a person,
believer or unbeliever, is cured of cancer, it is God ultimately who brought about that cure. God
delivered that person from death by cancer. The presence of God was with them in a temporal
providential way. But God is the Deliverer specially of those that believe, His children. The
question is -- What do people who are delivered in these temporal areas do in realizing the
presence of God? Do they seek Him, the true and living God, or do they continue to worship an
idol? Most continue to worship an idol and attribute their temporal deliverance to that idol, even
though they call him God.
Think about this. Idolatry involves attributing unto man that which belongs only unto God. The
Bible tells us plainly that salvation is of the Lord. Therefore, to attribute any part of salvation to
man is idolatry. Those who believe and preach a universal atonement, those who believe and
preach any false gospel, any way of salvation other than God's way of salvation based on the
righteousness of Christ, believe in and preach an idol. They may claim to "feel the presence of the
Lord," but the god who is present with them is an idol, one who cannot save, one who is neither a
just God nor a savior. Their "feeling the presence of the Lord" is merely emotionalism and
mysticism that is not grounded in and opposed to the truth of the omnipresent, true and living
God.
What about the presence of God in our lives? When it comes to man's state before God, all men
and women without exception are either under God's just sentence of guilt, condemnation, and
wrath, or they are under His grace in Christ. All who owe a debt to God's law and justice, all who
are guilty and void of a righteousness that answers the demands of God's law and justice, shall, if
they remain so, feel the presence of God's wrath eternally. This is why Adam and Eve,
immediately after the Fall "hid themselves from the presence of the Lord" (Gen. 3:8). They
realized they were subject to God's displeasure and wrath. After Cain slew Abel and God sent
him away, it said "Cain went out from the presence of the Lord" (Gen. 4:16). Cain could not
get away from the omnipresent God, but he was out of God's favor. Paul spoke of those "Who
shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the
glory of his power" (2 Thess. 1:9), because they refused to obey the Gospel (2 Thess. 1:8). The
Psalmist spoke of the dreadful presence of the Lord to all who reject Him for an idol --
On the other hand, all who are in Christ, having His righteousness imputed to them and receiving
Him by faith, have the presence of God's grace, mercy, and eternal love. God is against all who
come to Him seeking His favor and presence based on anything other than the righteousness of
Christ. God is for all who come to Him seeking His favor and presence based on the
righteousness of Christ (Rom. 8:28-39). The presence of the Lord for all who are in Christ is a
thing not to be dreaded but a thing to be desired. It brings confidence and comfort to all who are
in Christ. The writer of Hebrews expresses a confidence a "boldness to enter into the holiest by
the blood of Jesus" (Heb. 10:19). The holiest is the very presence of a holy and just God, and
we enter into His presence, not based on anything proceeding from our persons, but in the Person
and upon the basis of the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.
God's favorable presence, His presence of grace and love is only found IN CHRIST. God
revealed this in the Old Testament when He instituted the sacrifice as representing the
substitutionary atonement of the promised Messiah, when He established the priesthood, the altar,
the mercy-seat, and the sacrifices, of the Mosaic Law, and when He revealed in prophecy the
nature of the Person and work of the promised Messiah. Isaiah prophesied of Him -- "Therefore
the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and
shall call his name IMMANUEL" (Isaiah 7:14). Matthew applied this to Jesus -- "Behold, a
virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name
EMMANUEL, which being interpreted is, God WITH us" (Matt. 1:23). This is what we need
to think about when we consider the presence of God in our lives and in our worship. People may
be sincerely and zealously seeking to worship God, seeking His presence, but if they are seeking
His presence anywhere but in Christ, it is all in vain, even idolatry.
II. TWO APPLICATIONS OF THIS TRUTH --
A. JOHN 4:20-24 -- Christ is speaking to an adulteress, Samaritan woman, and He has been
showing her need of salvation by grace. She needed forgiveness of sins, but sins can only be
forgiven on the basis of satisfaction to God's law and justice. She needed a righteousness she
could not produce. But Christ, the Messiah, had come to produce such a righteousness to insure
the salvation and final glory of all whom God the Father had given Him. She turned to her own
religious refuge --
Christ shows her that this has no bearing upon eternal salvation --
All these places would be destroyed, and their significance would be nullified by His fulfillment of
righteousness and establishing the Gospel Economy. He tells her that her religion was born of
ignorance -- "Ye worship ye know not what." Then He says, "we know what we worship: for
salvation is of the Jews." He is referring to the significance of the Jewish temple, the priesthood,
the altar and sacrifices, all given by God to point sinners to Christ for righteousness and salvation.
The Jews had perverted this. As stated, they tried to confine the presence of God to that temple,
and they thought God had saved them, blessed them, and preserved them based on their heritage
and their participation in particulars of the Mosaic Law. They rejected Christ, the Messiah, and
His righteousness as the only ground of salvation.
In verse 23 Christ refers to the New Covenant when under the clear revelation of the Gospel, true
worshippers would worship God in spirit and truth. It would not be idolatry as the Samaritans
who worshipped in ignorance. It would not be as the Jews who sought justification and life based
on their self-righteous efforts, and who worshipped God in a temporal, ceremonial sense. Under
the Old Covenant the whole nation of Israel, believer and unbeliever, was allowed to worship God
outwardly, ceremonially. But Christ is speaking of spiritual worship in truth. He is speaking of
those who will experience spiritual rebirth and eternal salvation, who come to God pleading the
righteousness of Christ freely imputed and received by faith.
"God is a Spirit," and all who worship Him must worship Him, not in any material
representations or symbols, not in any confined places, but they must worship Him in spirit, from
the heart, and from a saving knowledge of Him, as He reveals Himself according to the truth as it
is in Christ. God seeks such as these to worship Him. How does He seek them? He seeks them
by sending His ministers to preach the Gospel to them and by sending His Holy Spirit to bring
them to saving faith and true repentance. He reveals Himself to them through Christ --
God reveals Himself to His people, true worshippers, as the God who justifies the ungodly based
on the merits of the blood and righteousness of Christ. Their worship will not be outward,
ceremonial, and temporal, but it will be true, spiritual worship from the heart as they see
themselves as children of God, adopted into His family through Christ.
B. ACTS 17:22-31 -- The Jews were not the only ones trying to limit God's presence to
geographical areas. The Gentiles did this too --
Paul spoke of the true and living God, and that instead of trying to confine God to our own
limitations and imaginations and places, we ought to seek after Him as He reveals Himself --
These things are revealed to discourage sinners from fashioning a god of their own image or
imagination. Everything we are and have is to be attributed to God's power and goodness to us
providentially. We are never to attribute these things to our own power and goodness. We are
all children of God by creation (not by adoption). We are born into this world as fallen, depraved
sinners who have rebelled against God. By nature we are in Satan's family. But by creation we
are all children of God. Therefore we are responsible to seek the Creator not to fashion our own
god.
God despised their willful ignorance and idolatry, and as an evidence of His contempt and
indignation, He overlooked them and gave them no new revelation other than what they had by
light of nature and natural conscience. God is an unknown God to those who have only the light
of nature. Many things can be known of God by light of nature but not that knowledge which is
necessary for salvation, the knowledge of God's glory revealed in Christ and salvation based on
His righteousness alone. It takes the light of the Gospel according to God's word to see this. So
God left them in their ignorance and He was just in doing so.
"But now commandeth all men every where to repent" -- This is a change of mind concerning
who God is, what He is like, what it takes to satisfy Him. It involves a change of mind
concerning ourselves as sinners to see the impossibility of salvation based on our character and
conduct. It is a change of mind concerning Christ and the ground of salvation, the righteousness
of Christ imputed, which excludes every other ground and exposes our idolatry and dead works.
It requires an admission of idolatry and dead works. Why? --
He gives two reasons: (1) The day of Judgment -- God has appointed a day when He will judge the world in righteousness. How righteous do we have to be? We must be as righteous as that Person whom God appointed and whom God raised from the dead, the Lord Jesus Christ. The great issue of the Judgment is this: DO YOU HAVE A RIGHTEOUSNESS THAT ANSWERS THE DEMANDS OF GOD'S HOLY LAW AND JUSTICE? It is impossible for any sinner to have it based on character and conduct. If anyone has it, it is only by imputation, God freely giving it. We then receive it by faith.
(2) God has assured all men -- God has given full proof and evidence of the fact that lost sinners
will spend eternity in hell, and all who are justified in Christ will spend eternity in heaven. How
has God given such assurance? He hath raised Him from the dead! Christ as the Great High
Priest paid the debt to both law and justice. He represents His sheep. He magnified and satisfied
God's holiness, faithfulness and truth on their behalf. They are pronounced righteous and holy in
this life and at Judgment based solely on Christ's righteousness and holiness imputed.
III. COMFORTING IMPLICATIONS OF GOD'S OMNIPRESENCE --
A. It is another reassurance of God's power to save His elect out of every tribe, kindred,
tongue, and nation --
God has chosen a people, Christ redeemed them, and He sends His Holy Spirit to regenerate them
and, by the preaching of the gospel, bring them to saving faith and true repentance (Acts 2:39;
Eph. 2:17). He is not willing that any of them should perish, but that all of them come to
repentance (2 Pet. 3:9). This should be a great encouragement for sinners to believe the gospel
and repent. God will save sinners for Christ's sake alone. His presence in the preaching of the
gospel is such that it gives every sinner who hears it substantial assurance of being saved and
glorified based on the righteousness of Christ.
We have tried to relate each attribute of God to the atonement and show how each attribute is
honored in its fullest in the atonement accomplished by Christ as He worked out a righteousness
that enables God to be just and justify the ungodly. Here we see the connection of God's
omnipresence with the atonement. The "shekinah" mentioned before that dwelt in the Jewish
temple under the Old Covenant was the greatest manifestation of God's glory to be found. Now,
this "shekinah glory" is found in God's redemptive glory displayed in the salvation of sinners
conditioned on Christ.
We have also tried to show how universal atonement denies each attribute. How does it deny
God's omnipresence? Universal atonement and conditional salvation denies God's omnipresence
as revealed in the preaching of the true Gospel. Universal atonement denies the certainty of
salvation based on the fact that Christ has met all conditions of salvation and that all for whom He
died and worked out a righteousness shall be saved. It denies this and places the conditions of
salvation on the sinner.
Every perfection of God, including His omnipresence, is engaged in making His elect full
partakers of the inheritance of grace. If God fails even in one instance, He would lose His glory
because if even one of His elect perishes, it would prove an imperfection or limit upon God's
character. Once God elects a people unto salvation, He must engage all the perfections of His
Being to accomplish His goal. Once God engages His glory on behalf of the elect, He must bring
them to heaven or lose that glory and cease to be God. A God who can be confined or limited in
salvation is no God at all. A God who cannot save is no God at all.
B. It is another reassurance that God is present when we meet to worship Him -- Remember
how Christ said,
When we meet together to honor and praise Him in the preaching of His Gospel, we can be
assured that His abiding presence and favor is with us. What about places where He is not
worshipped, where they preach and believe that which dishonors every attribute of His character
and casts shame and reproach upon Christ and His mediatorial work? If God is omnipresent, isn't
He there also? For example, doesn't the Bible say God is near to some people and far from
others? Isaiah said, "Seek ye the LORD while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is
near" (Isaiah 55:6). He was speaking of the preaching of the Gospel. God comes near, so to
speak, to sinners when the Gospel is preached to them (Isa. 46:12-13). Isaiah also said that
Israel's rebellion had caused God to be far from them (Isa. 29:13). Solomon wrote, "The LORD
is far from the wicked" (Proverbs 15:29). And David wrote that God knows the proud "afar
off" (Ps. 138:6).
These Scriptures do not deny God's omnipresence. We must make a distinction between the
essence of God's Being and His relationship to people. God is everywhere in His essence, but
His relationship to people is not the same. It is not that God is different in different place, or that
He changes, but people are different and people change. For example, if you were standing next
to an enemy, you would be aware of his presence, even though he were an enemy. But if through
changes in yourself, this person became your friend, you would be in the presence of a friend.
The Bible tells us that God's wrath abides on all who do not believe the Gospel (John 3:36).
God's presence is with them, but as an enemy. It is the presence of His holy and just wrath.
Universal notions of the atonement do not necessarily deny God's omnipresence as considered in
His essence, but they do deny God's omnipresence as considered in His relationship with His
favored people. For example, when people meet together and seek to worship God under the
preaching of a universal atonement and a conditional salvation, they honestly believe God's favor
is upon them. But their doctrine, their ground of salvation, denies every attribute of God's
character and denies Christ and His righteousness as the only ground of salvation. God's presence
is with them, but it is His wrath abiding on them. Now they do not feel God's wrath abiding on
them. In fact, they sincerely believe God's favor is upon them, but they are deceived. They are
not worshipping God according to His revealed truth.
So God is there in the sense of His omnipresence in the essence of His Being, because in that
sense He is everywhere. But He is not there in His abiding, favorable presence, His gracious
presence, as He is with His church where He is honored and magnified as the God who justifies
the ungodly based on the righteousness of Christ. All whom God saves are brought near to Him
as the one who justifies sinners based on the righteousness of Christ. They are "made nigh by
the blood of Christ" (Eph. 2:13).
C. This is another reassurance of God's eternal, abiding love and care for His children --
Because God is omnipresent, nothing will separate us from God and His love in Christ Jesus
(Rom. 8:35-39). No matter what we go through here on earth by way of trials and afflictions, we
can be assured that God will never cast us out, that He will never forsake us, and that His
presence is always with us. God's presence with us and within us, always and everywhere, assures
us that we are certain to be glorified based on the imputed righteousness of Christ alone.
The Psalmist also wrote concerning God's spirituality and omnipresence --
Isaiah wrote --
D. It is another motivation for God's people to be diligent in worship, obedience, and love -- This ought to make us realize that everything we do, we do in God's presence. When we sin, whether in thought, word, or action, it is done in the presence of God. This is not revealed to make us legally fearful and anxious. In fact, it is just the opposite. It is revealed to make us aware of the fact that God who loves us and gave His Son for us, God who has engaged all of His attributes on our behalf, expects love and obedience, worship and honor from those whom He has favored so much. He also expects us to confess our sins and promises that He is "faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9), based on the fact that "the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). So we are comfort by the omnipresence of God as "we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (1 John 2:1).
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