How can God be equally present everywhere yet indwell me through the Holy Spirit?
- Pantheism asserts that God minus the world = O; theism asserts that God minus the world = God.
The universe is the creation of God and thus, in respect to essence, no part of Him. The creation is ontologically other than God, a product ex nihilo of the divine will, not an extension of the Divine Being itself. Consequently, although all things are permeated and sustained in being by God (Col. 1:16–17; Acts 17:28), God is not all things. Again, God is not present as each point in space but rather present with/in each point in space.
This presence of God throughout the whole of space is not by local diffusion, multiplication, or distribution. Being wholly spirit, God is not subject to the laws of matter such as extension and displacement. He cannot be divided or separated such that one part of His being is here and not there, and another part there and not here. The whole of His being is always everywhere, no less nor more here than there, or there than here. J. L. Dagg comments:
“God is indivisible. We cannot say, that a part of his essence is here, and a part yonder. If this were the mode of God’s omnipresence in universal space, he would be infinitely divided, and only an infinitely small part of him would be present at each place. It would not be the whole deity that takes cognizance of our actions, and listens to our petitions. This notion is unfavorable to piety, and opposed to the true sense of Scripture: ‘The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good’ ”Whereas the presence of a body in a place of space excludes the simultaneous and in all ways identical presence of another body in the same place of space, such is not true of the Divine Being. God is, in the whole of His being, where everything else is (including matter). Substance or matter is in no way displaced or spatially excluded by the presence of God. To put it bluntly, when God created all things out of nothing, He did not have to “move out of the way” to make room for the world. He is where it is.
The Limitations of Human Metaphors
The doctrine of God’s omnipresence is not without its problems. For example, if God is everywhere present, and that equally, in what sense can He be said to “indwell” or “abide in” the Christian but not the non-Christian? Paul affirms that you “are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you” (Rom. 8:9a). And again, “if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you” (Rom. 8:11). It was Jesus who said, “If anyone loves Me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:23). It is in Christ, Paul reminds us, that we are “being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit” (Eph. 2:22). Christ Himself “dwells” in our hearts through faith (Eph. 3:17). And what is the mystery now disclosed to the saints? It is “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27).
Ps. 16:11—“In thy presence is fulness of joy. At thy right hand are pleasures forevermore.”Similarly, if God is wholly everywhere present, what can it mean to say the Spirit “descended” at Pentecost or “fell upon” believers (cf. Acts 1:8; 2:17; 10:44–48)? The same question is asked concerning those texts which speak of heaven as the abode of God. For example:
“Look down from heaven, your holy dwelling place, and bless your people Israel and the land you have given us as you promised on oath to our forefathers, a land flowing with milk and honey” (Deut. 26:15).
“From heaven the LORD looks down and sees all mankind; from his dwelling place he watches all who live on earth” (Ps. 33:13–14; see also Ps. 11:4; 115:3).The portrayal of God in heaven is not as difficult as it may appear. Clearly, the point of such descriptive statements is not to deny God’s presence upon the earth, or anywhere else for that matter. Rather, it is to emphasize the ethical and ontological transcendence of God vis-a-vis the creature. It is His holiness, His wholly-otherness if you will, that is being magnified. According to A. H. Strong,
“When God is said to ‘dwell in the heavens,’ we are to understand the language either as a symbolic expression of exaltation above earthly things, or as a declaration that his most special and glorious self-manifestations are to the spirits of heaven”The other statements noted above, however, are not so readily intelligible. The Baptist theologian J. L. Dagg attempted to explain the problem in this way:
“There are passages of Scripture which speak of God’s removing from one place to another; of his approaching and departing; of his dwelling in heaven, and of his coming near to his people, and taking up his abode with them. These are manifestly accommodations of language; just as when eyes or hands are attributed to him. They refer to the manifestations of his presence in his various works, and dispensations, in which such changes take place, as are appropriately and impressively expressed by this language”.Likewise, J. O. Buswell insisted that we interpret statements concerning God’s coming and going as “anthropomorphic expressions” which are “clearly figurative” (137). Berkhof contends that although God is present in every part of His creation, He is not equally present in the same sense in all His creatures:
“The nature of His indwelling is in harmony with that of His creatures. He does not dwell on earth as He does in heaven, in animals as He does in man, in the inorganic as He does in the organic creation, in the wicked as He does in the pious, nor in the Church as He does in Christ. There is an endless variety in the manner in which He is immanent in His creatures, and in the measure in which they reveal God to those who have eyes to see”.Unfortunately, Berkhof does not tell us in what sense God’s presence differs. A. A. Hodge attempts to do this by conceiving of God’s presence according to several different modes. In respect to essence and knowledge, He is present the same everywhere and always. However,
“as to his self-manifestation and the exercise of his power, his presence differs endlessly in different cases in degree and mode. Thus God is present to the church as he is not to the world. Thus he is present in hell in the manifestation and execution of righteous wrath, while he is present in heaven in the manifestation and communication of gracious love and glory”.Similarly, according to Shedd, “God is said to be ‘in heaven,’ ‘in believers,’ ‘in hell,’ etc. because of a special manifestation of his glory, or his grace, or his retribution”
Does this mean, for example, that whereas the gracious God is in the unbeliever, He is not in him “graciously”? That is to say, God’s perfect presence in all need not entail the same manifestation of divine power. His indwelling of the Christian is in some sense qualitatively different from His presence in the non-Christian. It is not simply a “spatial” but also a “spiritual” presence, such that distinctive divine blessings and operations are dispensed only in the believer.
Indwelling, therefore, is something of a metaphor designed to emphasize the unique personal and salvific relationship the Christian sustains to God, be it the new life bestowed and nourished, the new power by which obedience is now possible, or whatever. Thus to be “far” from God is not to be spatially at a distance but ethically and relationally incongruous with Him. Thus, drawing “near” to God does not require a journey, only repentance, faith, and humility (cf. Isa. 57:15; 59:2; Prov. 15:29).
This attempt at resolving the problem of God’s omnipresence and His “special” presence is not entirely satisfactory, Few, if any, of the terms I have used are precisely accurate in drawing what we know are legitimate biblical distinctions, However, we know that the Holy Spirit “indwells” Christians but not the lost. We know that God does give Christians a divine and supernatural enablement by virtue of His indwelling Spirit which He does not make available to the unbeliever. We know that at the second advent the unrepentant will be punished “with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power” (2 These. 1:9), whereas we who believe shall abide with Him forever. These verities are clear enough. We know what they entail. Our inability to reconcile them in every respect with God’s omnipresence is due only to our limitations, and in no way detracts from their eternal validity.
Storms, S. (2006). Attributes of God. Oklahoma City, OK: Sam Storms.
