OMNIPRESENCE OF GOD!

 

God's Omnipresence ?

Is God Everywhere - if so, How?

by Keith Hunt It is written that God made man in His image, after His likeness. He did not make mankind with "spirit" as He is made with Spirit (John 4), but from the dust of the earth (Genesis 1). Yet it is said that God made these two physical mankind creatures after His likeness. We have various emotions, because God does. You can read about the Eternal's love, His longsuffering and patience, His joy, His laughter. You can read in the Bible that the Lord sometimes cries, that He can be sad, that He can be jealous. You can read about God's caring and protection, and you can read that He sometimes gets upset and even angry. We humans have what is often termed "the universal language" - music. Even if we do not play a musical instrument, most of us enjoy listening to music, maybe different types yes, but we still all in the main enjoy music. It seems to be just built into us, to enjoy music, and why not for God invented music and He has it playing in heaven, with the voices of angels singing. Yes, He made mankind in His image after His likeness. We like houses, trees, rivers of water, and animals. So does the Lord. God had and still has, all these types of things in His place of living, the place we refer to as heaven. The book of Revelation gives us a glimpse of what heaven looks like, as well as the heavenly Jerusalem and the very throne room where God the Father sits on His throne with Christ Jesus at His right hand. We enjoy all these things because God does, and He made us in His likeness. I have proved in another study (Does God have a Body?) that the Eternal does have FORM and SHAPE, like unto us humans, for He made us after His image and likeness. I have proved before that He is a very real PERSONAL INDIVIDUAL BEING but made of everlasting glorious SPIRIT. We can only be in ONE place at any ONE time, and so it is with the Lord God, for He made us in His image, to be like Him. His personal being of form and shape can only be in ONE place at any ONE time. Oh, to be sure He can move from place to place, from here to there, way quicker than you and I can. Probably as fast as the speed of thought, which would make the speed of light (186,000 miles a second) look turtle speed slow in comparison. From the book of Ezekiel we learn that God is much like us in how He likes to travel around at times. Most of us like nice cars, maybe a James Bond type to travel around in would be our ideal. If you are like me, maybe a super looking golden horse with white main and tail, one like the late Roy Rogers moved around on (Golden Cloud was its registered name, but Roy named him Trigger), would be your choice to go place to place on. Or, maybe you like motor-bikes, or the peddle bikes. Some of us like to move across oceans in those huge floating fancy hotels we call Ocean Liners, or perhaps a sail boat would be your choice. Well, God likes and has a fancy mode of travelling the universe at times, a kind of super sonic flying throne room with strange looking creatures and far-out space age sounding wheels and whatever. It is described in the book of Ezekiel. A very interesting book to read, and one that has great prophetic meaning for us toda. God, I guess could just WISH or WILL Himself to be here or there in the universe, and be there at the speed of thought, but it's more fun to travel in a super sonic space age machine, is it not? Many of us would think so, and it seems so does God, for He is like us, or He made us like Himself. He enjoys other modes of travel than just willing Himself to be there, maybe He likes to see the sights along the way, as we do, after all He made those mind-blowing sights we now can see as never before with our Hubble Telescope. God is a literal Spirit personal being, living in a literal Spirit city in heaven called the Holy City, the heavenly Jerusalem. The Lord has form and shape, somewhat like unto us. Hence He lives in one place at one time, and He as a personal being cannot be everywhere in the universe at the same time. He enjoys at times moving around this vast universe that He created. At times He uses His space age flying machine with some of the spirit creatures He made at the helm, to travel His universe. He is in so many ways like unto us, but with ONE GREAT exception. He has a Spirit power/nature that comes from His very being, flowing out from Him, that can indeed be in the ENTIRE universe that He created IF He desires to send it out to cover that entire universe. We then need to ask ourselves the question, "Does God send out His Spirit to cover the entire universe all the time and at the same time?" Is that Spirit power nature (2 Peter 1: 3, 4) SEEING everything for Him that goes on in the universe and somehow playing it all back to Him? Does that Spirit power nature HEAR everything that is said (or certainly meaningful) in the universe and relating it back to Him? Well, from the example given to us from the very word of God, from Genesis 18, the answer to the above question would be a resounding NO, as shocking as that may seem to some from their theological perspective of what God is and what God does. From Genesis 18 (and also note Genesis 11: 4-6) it would seem that God has WILLED Himself that some things (maybe many things) He and His Spirit will NOT hear or see. It would seem that we can conclude that His Spirit does not AUTOMATICALLY act as some giant TV screen, or radio signal, transmitting everything that is happening on this earth or in other parts of the universe (if the example in Genesis 18 is to be applied to the universe at large) back to Him in heaven. And let's stop and think for a moment. Sure we can suppose God could have willed Himself to see and hear everything going on in the universe every second of time. We could suppose the Lord could have willed Himself to personally act upon everything He wanted to act upon...you know, doing it personally, by Himself all the time. Oh, yes, He could have willed Himself to have it so from the beginning, willed Himself to have it as "a one man show" as we call an act where only one man does everything. But then if so, there would be little need to have created angels to run here and there, doing this and that, serving us humans and all the other things angels do as shown in the Bible. No, the Almighty had WILLED Himself NOT to hear or see it all, all the time, or do it all personally all the time, for in so doing He would have still been only Himself (or as the Godhead is TWO personal beings), it would have still only been two beings running the whole universe, still a pretty lonely and demanding job, especially if you decide to create millions of individual humans who could need help for many individual needs each day. Then again some would argue God could do all that, look after it all, via His Spirit, and yes, I guess that could be so, but then as stated before, if so, why bother creating millions of angels to do things. Quite frankly, God did not WANT it to be that lonely of a job, running this whole universe and serving the millions of humans He would create on this planet called earth. He did not want the work of running and caring for all this universe to be so demanding on Himself. He wanted to share the work-load with others. He wanted to see the joy in other minds and on other faces, of doing something, looking after something, and being pleased they were doing a job well done. He was going to create a vast universe that He did not want to govern all by Himself. What fun is it if you build and create a huge complicated machine, that some parts of it can reproduce and multiply endlessly, and you personally have to oversee and do everything in way of maintenance and care and individual needs of a machine that can endlessly reproduce itself? Looking after such a machine for the rest of eternity could be quite demanding and still with only two of you (the Godhead being two eternal beings - see my study on the Holy Spirit) pretty lonely still. Why, after the six days of creation in Genesis one, God decided He would like a day to rest (not that He gets physically tired as we think of work and rest), and why not IF He should so desire, after all to work, work, work all the time for all eternity and to not have some time off to relax and enjoy what you have worked at, would be all work and no play as we say. And God being like us or we being like God, means that God likes to play at times, have some fun, take time to relax, go for a trip on His special favorite flying machine to parts of the universe we have yet to discover through our Hubble telescope. Yes, we like having time off, and having others whom we trust as responsible, look after our estate and work. So it is with God for He made us in His likeness. Now of course IF God personally sets His mind on some Human, then as David in the Psalms said, where could that human go to hide from God or get away from His presence. God has His Spirit that could be in all the universe at the same time IF He so chose it to so be. Or, God could will Himself to be with that human in a very personal way for as long as it would take to do His will with that human. Jonah tried to run from God, not wanting to do what God wanted him to do, but He could not. God used either one or both of the above to be with Jonah, and just could not find any place to hide from God. Yet, many humans God has NOT set His mind on, and they have not set their mind on Him. They do not know Him and He does not know them per se. Not in any real way and sense, He does know they were conceived and born and came into this world, but that for the most part may be as far as it goes. He is not dealing with them in a personal calling way and they do not know Him and do not want to know Him. God does with many of those individuals NOT PERSONALLY see and hear all the evil and sin they are living and practicing (again I refer you to the example of Genesis 18). Angels can and are often (if the situation calls for it) REPORTING to Him what is going on. In Genesis 18 such a crying report came to Him about the sin being pracficed by people in two cities on this earth. In human terms we would say that He could hardly believe what was being told Him about the full density of the sin of the people in those two cities.   He wanted to know (He obviously had willed Himself not to know everything going on on earth) if it was a bad as was being reported   to Him by the angels. He decided to personally come and see it all for Himself.  He did not decide to use His Spirit as some satellite beam machine to beam up to Him the sins of the people, and see it in His mind or on some heavenly TV screen in His throne room. To be sure, He could have done it this way. But it was not His will to so do it that way or even some other way only known to Him. He had willed Himself no such fancy technology to see the sins of the people in those two cities, but for such, at least in this case, He had willed Himself that He would have to go down and personally see it all for Himself, see that it was as bad as the angels had reported to Him. So yes, God has a Spirit that CAN IF He wills, cover the entire universe at the same time. But now, ask yourself, "Is it always covering the entire universe all the time?" I mean, what would the Spirit of God be doing say on the our moon? Or what would the Spirit of the Lord be doing on or near the surface of our sun, or out on the rings of Saturn? Yes, what would it be doing, unless of course God was going to change something with them or on them, as the Spirit did when moving over the face of the waters that covered the earth in genesis chapter one. But if the Eternal had no specific plan in mind to re-arrange something with those objects, then it would do little good being there, and maybe we could say it would be a waste of a good resource. Remember that most of the planets and galaxies continue and are held in their function, doing what they do, by the WORD of His power, so says the New Testament. Nevertheless, God can put His Spirit anywhere and everywhere IF He so chooses and wills, for whatever reason He wills and decides, to do whatever He wills and plans. In the most part I see that He does not will it to be so, for He has created angels to be in a large way, His ears and eyes and messengers for and throughout the universe, reporting to Him things that need reporting, and many times doing the things that need to be done that are within His will, plan, and purpose. And as well as not doing things to stop this or that, which God has decided to allow (He willed not to send angels to stop the evil done in New York city on the now famous September 11th 2001. I'm pretty sure God through at least His angles knew that some people had in their mind and in their plans of actions decided to bring this evil upon the people in those two Trade Center towers). God is everywhere via His Spirit and His angels, where He has willed them to be. Yes, He could will them to be in every corner of the universe, covering it all, at the same time. But, as I read the Bible, that situation may not have yet ever happened since the creation of the universe and mankind upon this earth. For there may as yet never have been the situation that needed such a willing of His mind. Some gang of druggies may decide to have a party bash one evening at a certain location, having a binge, getting drunk, high on drugs, and all the immoral sex along with it. Not one of them God is dealing with in any personal way, and not one of them God is calling to Himself and salvation. Not one of them is concerned about God or thinking anything about Him, maybe they all think God is dead or a figment of people's minds. Could well be there are no angels around their party, and no Spirit of the Lord hovering nearby or overhead. Could well be that God does not know a thing about what is going on in their little corner of the world, and just lets what will be, be. Allowing whatever happens to happen. Oh, He could be there as quick as the blink of an eye, if He or one or more of His angels need to be there. Hence He is a God that can be anywhere at any time, in any place, in all places, via His Spirit and angels. He can of course be in that drug loaded party IF He needed to be and so chose to be there for His will and purpose. He personally through the second member of the Godhead (Christ Jesus) was as Paul's party, to talk to Paul personally, on the road to Damascus, but there again look at how God decided to use Paul in His work on earth. Some people just blatantly tell God to "go take a walk" or "go fly your kite" and you know He indeed just does that (probably has some pretty fancy kite to fly) and He is just not anywhere in THEIR little playground. He can be in your playground, IF you will just invite Him to come and share your life. He has even said He and His son Jesus will via their Spirit live WITHIN you now while you are on this earth, and then if you endure to the end of this physical life with them, you will be granted ETERNAL LIFE and GLORY in their family Kingdom. Take the time to read and study and meditate on the studies I have for you under the heading Salvation - Law and Grace. Take the time to study the article I've written called "A Christian's Destiny." Your future can be something that is beyond human comprehension.            …………………… Written June 2002