All right, we'll begin by reading from Psalm 139. Psalm 139. O Lord, Thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down sittings and my uprisings. Thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down. and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, O Lord, Thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before and laid Thy hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me, Even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee, but the night shineth as the day. The darkness and the light are both alike to thee. Let's pray. Glorious and faithful God, Thou who art immense in Thy every attribute, and art full of infinity and omnipresence, from whom we cannot escape, even if we tried. We bow before Thee this morning and crown Thee Lord of all and beg of Thee to assist us as we seek to stammer just a few things about Thy incommunicable attributes. Lord, we confess that the very definition of that word declares to us that we are standing on the borders of mystery and infinity and eternality, things far beyond our comprehension. And so, let us come with reverence. Let us take the shoes from off our feet, for the place whereon we stand is holy ground. Lord, grant us impressions this hour of Thy vastness in greatness and infinitude, so that we might worship Thee as Lord of lords and King of kings. We ask all this in Jesus' name. Amen. So we're going to look this morning at what is called the incommunicable attributes of God. And I suppose that this will take us two or three lessons to cover, I should think. And yet, even as I say that, I'm acutely aware that all that we say on this subject is just a mere introduction to the magnitude of who and what God is. What we're dealing with in these attributes is really infinity itself. And that's where we want to begin because that's the only place to really begin when you look at incommunicable attributes. Now, there are several ways in which theologians speak about the infinity of God. We could say that infinity is a term used to summarize several different biblical ideas about God. Particularly two of these ideas about God come to the foreground in the Bible. The first being how God relates to time, and the second being how God relates to space. When we're thinking about the infinity of God with reference to time, we usually speak about the eternity of God or the eternality of God. When we're using the concept of infinity in reference to space, we usually think either of, or both and probably, both the immensity of God and the omnipresence of God. Relating infinity to action, we say God is omnipotent. He's all-powerful in His actions. If we relate it to awareness, we say God is omniscient. He's aware. He's got all knowledge. On the other hand, we can also just take the term infinity and apply it to all his attributes. All those things that are spoken of in the shorter catechism about God being a spirit, the catechism says, who is infinite in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. He's infinite, says the catechism, in everything. Everything he is. Now that raises the question, how do we arrive at this idea that God is infinite? Infinite in his perfections. And what do we actually mean by that? Well, we can begin with several scriptural proofs. Leviticus 19, verse 2. says, Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy, for I, the LORD your God, am holy. That's quoted in 1 Peter 1, verse 16, because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy. And then, if you compare that with Matthew 5, verse 48, be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. Now, what do these verses teach us? Well, I think they teach us that God's moral perfection, or you could call it His holiness, is a model for the behavior of His people. We as believers are to be holy as God is holy. We have to be perfect as God is perfect. We have to be imitators and image bearers of God. Now the point I'm getting to is this, that these texts are not simply asking us to strive for a somewhat higher degree of holiness. But when they ask us to characterize ourselves by a holiness and a perfection that is comparable to the holiness and perfection of God himself, they're really asking us to be like God, who is the very embodiment of holiness. So, God is the reference point The reference point that determines for us what the nature of holiness is. In other words, holiness is not something out there, apart from God and man, by which God and man orient themselves. It's not that God is holy according to some abstract conception of holiness. No, He is the definition of holiness. He is the center of holiness. So when we are told to be holy, God is asking absolute perfection of us. We are to be holy beyond anything we could ever be in this world. And because there is no reference point beyond God with respect to holiness, we can say that God is infinite in holiness. Infinite in holiness. Now, what I've just done with holiness, you can do with every single attribute of God in one way or another, taking scriptural texts about it and then arguing from there that this is the essence of God and therefore this is infinite. You can do the same thing, for example, with His wisdom and His power. These are reference points by which we determine what power is. what wisdom is, and so on. So God is the embodiment, the model of knowledge, of power, of holiness, and of all the other attributes that characterize His being. Now, we get then to this whole concept of infinity by traveling this positive route with regard to all the attributes of God. A positive way of understanding, by way of eminence, we understand that God is not just at our level, not just higher or higher or higher, but He is. He is His attributes. But scripture has another way of teaching us this infinity, and that is by traveling the same route, only negatively. Cornelius Ventile argues that if we are to understand infinity, we are to travel both routes simultaneously. Now what do we mean by negative route? We don't simply look at the attributes of God positively as the level of perfection that resides in them to exponential degrees, infinite degrees. But infinity also suggests that there are, here comes the negative side, no limitations, no limitations. No limitations can be assigned to these perfections. For example, Psalm 145 verse 3 says, Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and His greatness is, and then a negative term is used, unsearchable. So God's infinity teaches us that we can neither raise man to the level of divinity, that's the positive route, we can't reach up to this great height as we go higher and higher and see then that God is these things, but also we cannot reduce God to the level of humanity. That's the negative route. There is no such a thing as infinite humanity. And so Isaiah 40 verse 18 puts it this way, to whom then will you liken me? Or what likeness will you compare unto him? There is nothing like God. No perfection, no likeness compared to that of God. God is incomparable. God is infinite in all his perfections. Who possesses transcendent perfections, infinite perfections, other than the living God? Now, if you bring these two sides together, both the positive and the negative, You begin to understand the complete character of the infinity of God's attributes. You are to be holy as He is to be holy. You're to be perfect as He is perfect. And yet, what is He really like? His greatness is unsearchable. So therefore, you can't even begin to approach to be like God ultimately. One very powerful area in the Bible where God teaches this is in Job chapters 38 to 41, Job 38 to 41. And there the Lord shows Job that even though Job as a man has dominion over the beasts of the field, for he's the vice-gerent of God, man, including Job, of course, cannot even understand the animals in relation to the perfection of God, the infinity of God. Do you understand the Leviathan, God says to Job? Even the animals, from God's perspective, exceed man's power to grasp. How much less, and that's the argument God's using with Job here, how much less are you Job? Are you brother? How much less is man able to comprehend the infinite perfections of the God who made the animals? So you see, this whole idea of God's infinity approaches us from a whole bunch of perspectives in scripture. It's really everywhere. The idea then that God is infinite in all his perfections is a common theme of scripture. not simply because he possesses a higher degree than we do in his perfections, but there is simply a transcendence in all his perfections that we do not and cannot possess That's why we call infinity an incommunicable attribute of God, something not in common with us, incommunicable. And that's why the Lord gets angry when we try to strip Him of this infinity and treat Him as if he were one with us. As we can read it in Psalm 50, verse 21. Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself, but I will reprove thee and set thy sins in order before thine eyes. Now consider this, either forget God, lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver it. You see, God is very angry with us. This whole idea of making Him just a kind of a good man or a great man or an excellent man or something not infinite. All right, so there you have this first so-called incommunicable attribute of God, which really is more of a characteristic of God than it is a specific attribute, that God is infinite in all his attributes, both positively and negatively. That brings us then to the second point, to the concept of the immensity of God, which is the infinity of God with reference to space. Now, none of the incommunicable attributes are easy for us to grasp. You're probably going to breathe a little sigh of relief a week or two from now when we get to the communicable attributes of God. Because at least these, God has in common with man, though different in essence, because he is God. But at least we, in our minds, can grasp something of these things. And the immensity of God is, well, very difficult for us to even begin to get our arms around. We can't, ultimately. We are prone to identify immensity with obesity. But the term doesn't mean that. Of course it doesn't mean that with respect to God. Nor does it mean that God is somehow extended through space in the way that a cloud of gas expands to fill a specific area. That's not the idea of immensity, because then you would think of God as being partly here and partly there, depending where that cloud of gas is. But the immensity of God refers to the transcendence of God, with reference to space itself. The immensity of God refers to the transcendence of God with reference to space itself. Now it's impossible for us to elaborate this notion exhaustively. But really what we're saying is immensity means that God has no dimensions. And how do you comprehend that? No dimensions. That really is the idea behind the Westminster Confession's expression that he is without parts or passions. He has no dimensions, he's not subject to space, and for that reason the created cosmos cannot confine him. Now, there are several relevant texts here. A few of these I'll let you look up on your own. 1 Kings 8, verse 27. And I'll look at that in a moment with you, but you can look up comparable texts. I'll leave these for you. In 2 Chronicles 2, verse 6. Isaiah 66, verse 1, and Acts 7, verse 48, all these verses bring us within the same sphere of 1 Kings 8, verse 27, which says, But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee, how much less this house that I have built. Well, you know, of course, that this text is drawn from Solomon's testimony with respect to the house that he built for the Lord. Solomon acknowledges that what he built for the Lord is much more suitable for serving God's glory than the tent that preceded it. But, when it comes to who God is, Solomon is saying, He is so incomparably greater than this house, that even this house, so magnificently built, can't begin to house God. We can't fit God into categories that we design for Him. God cannot be confined in brick and stone. God cannot be confined in the efforts of the imaginations of our mind. Even our mind doesn't contain categories or doesn't design categories large enough to contain God. Not even the heavens can contain God, His dwelling place. Behold, the heaven of heavens, the heaven and heaven of heavens. cannot contain thee, how much less this house that I have built. God is immense. So far from being subordinate to the heavens and being in part of the heavens or even filling the heavens, the heavens are subordinate to God. He's the creator of them. Deuteronomy 10 verse 14 puts it so poignantly, Behold the heaven, and the heaven of heavens is the Lord's thy God, the earth also with all that therein is. This then is the immensity, the infinite immensity of God. Well, this is of course a very important doctrine. in Scripture, and an important one for us to absorb into our thinking, to inspire humility in us, so that we humbly realize that we cannot control God, we cannot monopolize God, and we cannot treat God as if He's on our level. how desperately we need this attribute of immensity to filter into the minds of those who claim to be Christians today all around the world. People often talk about God with such shallowness, with such banality. Well, if I were God, I would do this. They treat God as if He's on their level. no understanding of this infinite immensity of God that my greatest imagination cannot box God in. God is God. Now there are many scriptures that teach us these things. I'll just give you an example or two here. Micah 3, verse 11 says, The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money. Yet will they lean upon the Lord and say, Is not the Lord among us? No evil can come upon us. See, really, this is an indictment of the people of Israel. And the prophet describes these people in the preceding verses. The rulers abhor justice and pervert equity. They build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with wrong. And yet they lean on the Lord and say, is not the Lord among us that no evil will come to us? They're proud. And they need to realize the immensity of God. And the same thing in Jeremiah 7, verse 3 through 7. God says to Israel, you know, amend your ways and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Don't trust in lying words saying, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these. For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings and execute judgment between a man and his neighbor and so on, then I will cause you to dwell in this place in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever. You see, the temple, the temple, the temple. They were building off the idea that the presence of God was in their temple. But Scripture is saying, God is saying, I'm far bigger than your temple. And the presence of God in the temple is not a limitation which guarantees your safety, Israel, in the land, in spite of your moral disqualifications. Please don't think of me, God is saying, as someone you can control with your hands and put into a building. You can't think of me the way the pagans think of their idols. If the idols speak at all, it is only because man speaks for them. But I'm not that way, God says. You can't make me speak. You have to listen to me speaking. I am the immense God. I'm the God who's not made with hands. Acts 17 verse 24, The God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands. I am the only dimensionless God. The only one. I'm not subject to space. So this God is by no means a pantheistic God, a God within the confines of creation. So this surely rules out the concept of pantheism, a view in which the whole universe is divine, a view which, in effect, limits God to the dimensions of his universe, as well as destroying the creator-creature distinction. Well, this then is the doctrine of the immensity of God. And that brings us then to a third closely related idea, the omnipresence of God. And I'll make a few comments on this as well, and then we'll open it for questions. The fact that God has no dimensions and cannot be confined to space, that is his immensity, might suggest to our minds that God has no relationship to space. But precisely the opposite is the case. The way in which immensity is related to space is in terms of this concept of omnipresence. Again, the point is that we cannot set the absolute attributes of God over against the relative attributes of God. That is, you can't set the attributes of God against His predicates, as we saw before. You can't set the transcendence of God over against His personality. God is immense. And the way in which that infinity is related to space is in terms of omnipresence. So God is everywhere present in and with his creatures. Thus the immensity of God must not be construed in such a way that it destroys the personality of God. Nor must it be construed in such a way, therefore, that it removes him from having relationship with his creatures and his creation, and particularly with men who are created in covenant with him. So, We have said that God is not extended through space as a gas fills a room, because that would imply divisibility, that God is somehow more here than there, or is somehow here and not there, which would constitute a denial of his simplicity. Omnipresence, however, helps protect this personality of God and a misunderstanding of it by saying that God is not just in part present everywhere, partly here, partly there, but God himself is present everywhere. And He is not present everywhere just in one or two or three attributes. It's not just that His power is present everywhere, or that His authority is brought to bear everywhere, or that His providence, His providential mercy extends to all things. But the doctrine of God's omnipresence is teaching that God himself is present everywhere. And this presence of God everywhere is not like a mere physical presence. It's not like a body presence. You could say of Jesus, he was on earth, if he was in Capernaum, he was not in Jerusalem, in terms of his body at least. But you can't say that of God. Our presence is circumscribed by our bodies. My presence in this room right now doesn't go beyond my body and in some sense my voice, but I've got the limitations of my body. You can draw a circle around me and say your physical presence is circumscribed by this circle. But God is not circumscriptively present. You can't draw a circle around God anywhere and say, This is the boundary of God. So theologians have spoken of circumscriptive presence, saying that this describes man but cannot describe God. God is everywhere. So circumscriptive and omnipresent are really antonyms. Another term that theologians use is definitive presence. The thought here is that God is not definitively present, as are the angels. The angels are not circumscribed by their bodies. They have no bodies. So they're not circumscriptively present. But they're said to be definitively present. That is to say, they have a particular place where they are present. Gabriel came to Mary. He was there. He was present there as he spoke to Mary. The angels are not everywhere present, are they? But they're sent from one place to another place to do the will of God. They're sent forth as ministering spirits to minister to those who are heirs of salvation. But this too is not the way that God is omnipresent. God doesn't just come to one place and leave other places. Omnipresence does not mean that God is circumscriptive, does not mean that His presence is definitive, but it does mean, and this is the word that the theologians have been using, His presence is repletive. That is to say, God being repletively present, being fully present, is Himself present. He fills all space. The limitations of space have no reference to him. He's present with us in this room. Not part of him. not a few of his attributes, not 99% of his attributes, but the whole God, the full being of God is present even now, present everywhere, present with our families, present throughout the world, present with other people. Now that's a staggering thought. When we're little children, We tend to think that God is only up there or out there. But scripture says He's everywhere present. Psalm 139. David says, Even if I were to make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. There's nowhere I can go where God is not. And sometimes God teaches us that in a graphic way. met an evangelist in New Zealand when I went to New Zealand the first time and we weren't actually out of the airport and he was already telling me about his conversion. I was bonding with him. It was just a great time with this dear, dear brother in Christ. And he was telling me that he was so rebellious against God when he was young that he wanted to get as far away from God as possible. And he grew up in the Netherlands so he thought, The best way to get away from God is to go to the opposite side of the world. So he literally, physically took a globe, and he went like this. Netherlands. Boom. Turn the globe around. New Zealand. I'm going to New Zealand. So I went to New Zealand to get as far away from God as he could. And he got to New Zealand, and the very first person that met him when he got out of the airplane said, Are you a Christian? Couldn't get away from God. Couldn't get away from God. But it's so hard for us to grasp, isn't it? Not so long ago I had a mother tell me this rather cute story, actually. My wife and I had a good laugh over it, but there's something interesting about this story. Because what this little girl was grappling with on a little girl's level is really what we grapple with on an adult level. So they're riding along in the car, the girl's in the back seat, she's three years old. And she's talking about God, that God is in heaven. And her mother responds, yes, God is everywhere. And the girl says, God is everywhere? Mother says, yes. The girl thinks a little while and she says, is God in this car? Mother says, yes. The girl thinks a little while and she says, is God sitting beside me now? Mother says, yes. And the girl, she was sucking on a sucker. She said, God, do you want a lick? And we're like staggered. But you see, she's saying, she's trying to relate to this whole concept. God is right beside me. How does he want to relate to me? And that's not only, He's omnipresent. So you have these two incredible things. He's so immense that the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him. He's so transcendent that we can't begin to comprehend Him. Yet He's sitting beside you. He's so imminent. He has so much personality. That he's right here, right now. He's always here, now. And so our response then is to treat him like a man. When we think of his sitting beside us, we say, do you want a lick? We say something on a very human level. Because now we're thinking only of his personality. But what scripture does is brings these two things together. So you have both immensity and personality. And whatever cancels one or the other out is a diminution of God. And so we don't say, do we? God, can you have a lick? Because we remember the immensity of God. And yet we do say, God is in this room right now because we remember the personality of God and the closeness of God. And so this combination of doctrines, immensity and omnipresence, which by the way, the scriptures maintain both without any tension, teach us that God is the inescapable God. He's not only beyond anything we can imagine, but He's also in everything we can imagine. You can't go anywhere where God isn't. So, Amnai, meaning everywhere, presence of God, means that ultimately we can't just think of God up there and out there. but we have to realize we are always living Coram Deo, always living in the face and in the presence of God. So to say that God is only up there or out there is a caricature of the omnipresence of God. That's actually what the pagan deities taught, or rather what people taught about their pagan deities. that God was located somewhere else. And often in pagan cultures, God was in the hills. God was at the highest points of this earth. God was up there, up there on top of the mountain, up there on top of the hill. So we read in 1 Kings 20 verse 23, And the servants of the king of Syria said unto him, There, that is Israel's gods, are gods of the hills. Therefore they were stronger than we. But let us fight against them in the plains, and surely we will be stronger than they. We look at this doctrine of immensity and omnipresence and we say this is ridiculous. You see, the Syrians thought of the God of Israel as a kind of mountain deity. So if they're going to fight in the plains, well, then the Syrians say, we'll gain the upper hand because Israel's God is a God of the mountains. He likes the cool atmosphere of the upper regions. He won't descend down into the plains and fight for his people where it's warm. He's up there. He's over there. He's not here. But the Bible, Gives a very different picture of God, doesn't it? Jeremiah 23, verse 24. Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord. Psalm 139, verse 7. Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Whither shall I flee from thy presence? It's a rhetorical question. No place. Acts 17 verse 28, For in him we live, and move, and have our being, as certain also of your own poets have said, for we are also his offspring. You see, this is true of all men, whether they realize it or not. God is inescapable for every man. Now there are various ways in which God is present, present in our universe. First, God is present ontologically. So when we speak of this repletive presence of God, that God is present everywhere, we could break it down and say, He's present, first of all, ontologically, though not physically. That is to say, He's present everywhere at once, along with or at each point in space. Well, that's difficult for us to understand. Yet, we have a little bit of that idea, don't we? When we speak about a human being, an immaterial human mind takes up no space. Takes up no space. But it's present. It's present with the person to whom it belongs. So we speak of our mind as being somewhere up here, somewhere up here in the brain, but our mind, the mind itself is not physical, is it? Or the soul. So, we have some kind of concept of a general spatial location, and yet we say it's not spatial. Well, if God is everywhere present and he is spirit, He is ontologically present at all spaces in an immaterial way. Then secondly, God is present only ontologically, but he's present totally. That is to say, in the totality of his being, So there's not one part of him at my house and another part of him at your house, but the fullness of his being is present everywhere. We've already implied that. Thirdly, God is present in a special way with his people, morally and ethically. He has a spiritual relationship by faith with his people. And in that relationship, his people are indwelt by Christ and the Holy Spirit. The fourth, with regard to unbelievers, God is present with them, but not present in his favor, ethically. So what this means is that though God would be ontologically present, even in hell, inhabitants of hell have no awareness of His favorable presence or any hopeful, moral, or spiritual relationship to Him. They're really without hope until they're born again. They're really born again in this life. They're without hope. without God in the world and of course if they come to hell they're without hope eternally. Now, this does not mean however, everything I've said thus far, does not mean that God cannot be manifesting himself in a special way at a specific place, at a specific moment. In other words, somehow, taking everything I said, we still have to make distinctions. As Babing says, God is not present in the same degree and same manner everywhere. And at first that strikes us as strange language, considering what we've said so far. But Bobbing provides numerous examples of this. And the point he's making is, though we must insist on the omnipresence of God, that omnipresence is not to be placed into conflict with the special presence of God. Omnipresence is not to be in conflict with the special presence of God. Sometimes God speaks of a special presence with which he manifests himself. If anything, rather than conflicting with one another, what we have to say is that the omnipresence of God is the very foundation in terms of which we understand his special presence. Let me illustrate this for you. God created the heavens and the earth. They belong to Him. He possesses them. Neither heaven nor earth can contain God. And yet, in the Scriptures, the heaven, particularly the heaven of heavens, is represented as the special place of God's dwelling. And heaven, therefore, is a reminder of the transcendent majesty and glory of God. So that we don't think of God simply as another man, like so many do today, someone who lives down the street or in the apartment upstairs or next door. And at times, Scripture picks up on this language. to manifest that special dwelling place of God. For example, Ecclesiastes 5, verse 2. Be not rash with thy mouth, let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God, for God is in heaven and thou art upon earth. Therefore let thy words be few. Or going back again to 1 Kings 8, where Solomon is praying, In verse 30, he says, Harken thou to the supplication of thy servant and of thy people, Israel, when they shall pray toward this place, and hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and when thou hearest, forgive. You see, when we go to pray to God, How did Jesus teach us how to pray? He said, well, begin this way, our father, which aren't everywhere, which aren't in heaven. So heaven is a place in which God's presence is localized in a particular sense. supreme sense. Scripture often represents God is in heaven, looking down on the earth. Deuteronomy 26 verse 15. Psalm 115 verse 3. And the risen Jesus, who is still man of course, but he's also God, is presented as being at God's right hand. In the Spirit He is with us always, Matthew 8, 28, verse 20, but in the flesh He is absent from us and is in heaven. So, the way to understand this is not to say that God's power and God's knowledge and God's freedom to act are somehow greater in the holy places than elsewhere on earth. God is almighty everywhere. But we might say it this way, that his presence at times in the lives of his people, but also his presence in the special place of heaven, is more intense, more intimate. And so when the scripture speaks of God being with his people in a special place, God coming to visit them, it doesn't mean he wasn't with them before. It just means something special is happening, where his presence is more intense in their consciousness. Or it can work in reverse when God comes down to the earth to punish Israel. It doesn't mean He wasn't there, but you see, the penalty for disobedience now becomes more severe. It's more intense, a more intense presence of His justice and judgment. And so the Bible is using all these pictures for us to explain this intensity of God without denying the omnipresence of God. So for example, wherever God makes his dwelling place on earth, we could say that place becomes a kind of throne for God. We become more aware there of his power to bless us as well as to curse us. So this doesn't only happen on the side of God's ledger that portrays mercy, but also a side that portrays judgment. Even the Bible speaks of Satan in his dealings with God about Job going out from the presence of the Lord. Not as if Satan could ever leave the presence of God altogether, but going out from that intense encounter with God, where they actually had a kind of conversation about Job. So again, this is not easy for us to grasp, but I think we need to understand this whole concept of God's presence and special presence and make some distinctions there. Isaiah 40 verse 22 says, It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers, that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in. So there you have a picture of God dwelling in the heavens as if it were a tent, and sitting upon the earth, and looking at everybody like they're grasshoppers. And yet God is everywhere present. So you have this whole theme that runs all throughout scripture of God dwelling somewhere. God in a house. God in a tent. God in the tabernacle. God dwelling in Jesus Christ in tabernacling with men, in tents with men. And that's why when the temple was destroyed in 70 AD, What scripture is basically saying is that New Testament believers, Paul saying this to the Corinthians in particular, New Testament believers are the rebuilt temple. And the Lord Jesus Christ dwells in believers in a special way. The household of faith, again the image of the house, is where God is pleased to dwell with his people. And notice how that is consummated in the final day of redemption in Revelation 21 verse 3. Behold, Revelation 21 verse 3. Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them and be their God. This is covenantal language all throughout scripture. God having a special place and a special presence with his special people. And so one day we will go to heaven, into that heavenly temple, and there we will sing the praises of God forever, glorifying, magnifying the High and the Lofty One in that special place of His special presence. Now, let me provide some applications here. When it comes to God's omnipresence, there are several concluding applications that take us from this whole world of grappling with the incomprehensibility of it all, down into the nitty-gritty of edifying applications. The first is this, if God is omnipresent everywhere, we ought to rely and depend upon him in all our fears and dangers. We ought not therefore tempt him with sin as if he were not present, but we ought to trust him with our greatest mountains and burdens and mysteries. You see, one reason why we're so overtaken so quickly with ungodly fear is because we don't sufficiently steep our thoughts in the consideration of God's omnipresence. Secondly, if God is omnipresent, that means there is a way open. particularly to believers, that in Jesus Christ I may have constant communion and fellowship with Him. In other words, I don't have to say, well, God is in heaven above and I am here on earth, and since there cannot be communion, or it's difficult to have communion, between heaven and earth. Why should I seek Him? How can I commune with Him? No, I'm not presence teaches us He's not a God of far off, but He's near, He's nigh unto thee, even in thy heart, even at thy lips. One of the Puritans put it this way, When thy heart doth but breathe and pant toward God, when it conceives thoughts too big to be uttered, thoughts which dark themselves like lightning out of our bosom into his bosom, even this is, in the account of God, as truly solid and substantial communion with him as the performance of the more solemn and conspicuous duties of religion. There is converse with God, a converse which no place, no employment, no condition of life can possibly hinder. So what an encouraging doctrine this is, the omnipresence of God. When we're walking ungodly, it's a frightening doctrine. But when we're walking in God's ways and seeking his face, it's a comforting doctrine. Thirdly, we glorify God's omnipresence when we walk in humble, childlike fear before Him. See, if we realize that God is always present and we want to honor Him, then whatever we do, wherever we go, whenever we speak, We will not do this in a vain, selfish, frothy, light way, but we'll do so in the presence of His Majesty, remembering that we are always standing in the presence of God. Viewing our lives here, as prefatory to our lives in the land of glory to come. So if God is omnipresent here, how much more intensely is he not omnipresent in heaven? Therefore, this earth is our training ground to walk in the sense of the presence of God. We are surrounded by God always. The omnipresence of God should also teach us to be very much aware of our thought life, our thought life. Thoughts of rebellion, profaneness, ingratitude, selfishness, thoughts of pride and envy and malice that arise within us, these are all known to God. God searches our secret chambers. He searches the innermost recesses of the soul. He lays open the hiding places of iniquity within us. So that on the presence of God, which is like a flame of fire that lights up the innermost recesses of our being, calls us to repentance, calls us to put a check on that stream of consciousness that often runs through our thoughts that is not edifying. This doctrine ought to make us go to God every day, confessing our sin. washing afresh in the blood of Christ. And finally, the omnipresence of God ought to make us realize that we should never forsake or forget our God who never forgets and never forsakes us. You know, if we are worms and no men, as the psalmist says, but God doesn't forget us, but remembers us in the day when He makes up His jewels, how shall we forget Him? And so, in times of sorrow, times of sickness, times of bereavement, times when we feel deserted, Let us flee to the omnipresence of God. And let us say, Lord, Thou knowest all things. Thou art everywhere present. Thou knowest that I love Thee. Why art Thou cast down, O my soul? Hope Thou in God, for I shall yet praise Him for He is the health of my countenance and my God. In times of temptation and trial, be still and know that God is present. and know that this doctrine will carry us all the way, all the way to eternity. Even on our dying bed, God does not forsake nor leave his people. I will never, no, never, no, never forsake you. I am always present with you. My Godhead, My Majesty, My Grace and My Spirit. Hebrews 13, I think it's verse 5 or verse 8, has a five-fold negative. No, never, no, never, no, never. Meaning an incredibly strong positive. God's omnipresence guarantees that we will be present with Him. through the blood of Christ forever as believers in glory. All right, any questions on these three matters, infinity, immensity, and omnipresence? Yes, sir. The Psalms of David 121 is making a reference of a hill. I will lift up my eyes unto the hills. Is it just a symbolism by mentioning a hill? Or maybe it's like telling the pagans who usually think that their God is on the higher places. That is when we focus on the presence of God. Yes, that's a good question. And that text has been interpreted in various ways by our forefathers. Some saying that David is really saying, he's making a comparative statement and saying, I'll go beyond the hills. My God fills everything. Others saying, no, he's simply saying that his God is in control of the hills because the other deities felt their gods were in control of the hills, so his God is superior. So there's different ways of looking at that particular text, but however we look at it, the one way not to look at it is to simply think that David is somehow, or the psalmist is somehow confining God to the hills, because that would conflict with everything he says in Psalm 139 and many other places. Yes, Tiago. Yeah, that's a great question and we will be getting into that question Later on, as we look at the attributes of God, we'll be specifically dealing with that phrase, no passions. But let me just say right now, to whet your appetite for it, they did not mean that God has no feeling or no emotion. But if you say someone is really passionate today, that can actually be a good thing. He cares a lot about something. But there is a way of using the word passions, which means that you're out of control. Like you're a dad and you lose it because you got passionate. And so you lost your temper. So it's in that sense that they meant it. Basically that God's not, God doesn't engage in mood swings God doesn't come to a day and say, well, I feel like doing this today because I'm just in that kind of mood. Tomorrow I'll be in another kind of mood. He's not capricious, in other words. He's not a God who's out of control. When he does get angry, he does have feelings. Obviously the whole Bible tells you his feelings and passions. But when he does get angry, it's a controlled anger. He knows exactly what he's doing. It's consistent with his whole character. So we'll look at those kinds of things. But it's a very good question, and a lot of people have asked that question. A lot of ink has been spilled over that expression, God has no passions. And it is a complicated question, given our belief in the unchangeability of God. But we'll look at it more carefully. Who else has a question? Yes, Tim? If I was doing a series of sermons on the attributes of God and really going in depth, There's a chance I might use those terms and really define them carefully. But the kind of thing I just did with making five applications with you on the presence of God, that's the kind of thing you would really emphasize if you're preaching, the applications that flow out of this. doing just a sermon on the incommunicable attributes of God as a whole, I wouldn't get that detailed and probably would not use these terms and use simpler terms like God is totally present rather than repletively present. Repletive is a little bit beyond people. So, probably not, but I wouldn't say definitively not because I've been known to try to teach my people some fairly substantial theological words from the pulpit. People can take up to two, maybe three new words per sermon if you explain them clearly and they're key to your thinking. You explain them very clearly, that's what's important. But what you cannot do is take four, five, or six words like that in the sermon and explain them because it will overwhelm people. I had a guy in my church who was kind of neat. He said, yeah, there's a few people I know that they don't like it when you use big words. He said, I like it when you use big words because I put those big words down beside me and I pick them up again at the end of the service and I go home and I look them up in the dictionary and I study them some more and I learn. Well, that's great. You've got people like that in your church. But not everybody is that way. So a lot of people will just get frustrated when they hear words that they don't know. But the difficulty is when you misjudge or sometimes you don't know an audience very well and you can misjudge what people do know and what they don't know. So my rule of thumb is if in doubt, explain the word. If you think there's a good portion of the congregation that may not understand that word, just explain it. If you've explained it before, but it's been a while, you might say, you know, I've explained this before, but it's worth repeating because I want you all to be with me here, and then explain it again. So they're with you. Don't assume too much. I'll never forget the time I preached and used the word crucial six or seven times in the sermon. This was a really crucial point. I had someone come up to me afterward and say they were so frustrated because I kept using this word crucial. What in the world did that word crucial mean? See, that surprised me. I thought my people could understand the word crucial. It was in a Canadian church and they were second generation immigrants and they were more familiar with the Dutch language and so this word was above them. So I was obviously speaking, above at least that person, I was probably speaking too high of a level. So I'm actually aware of that. Even until today, if I preach in a Canadian church with more Dutch immigrants, I try just to be just another little bit level simpler to accommodate their vocabulary. Other questions? All right, we've got a little time. Shall we start? Let's start eternity. With a little bit of time, we're going to start eternity. Doesn't sound very good, does it? God's infinity in relationship to time is called eternity. There's lots of biblical evidence that God is eternal, but what is difficult is to determine exactly what that means. How should we understand divine eternity? Historically, there are two major understandings of divine eternity. The one with the longest pedigree in the Christian tradition is to simply view it from the perspective of timelessness. To say that for God, eternity means timelessness, timeless eternity. That is to say that God exists endlessly outside of time. This language particularly became common already in the ancient church during the Arian controversy, remember the Arius versus Athanasius, in the fourth century. At that time already, Orthodox theologians were insisting on God's timeless eternity to oppose the Arian contention that there was, quote, Arius said, a time when the sun was not. Remember, Arius said the sun was the first born creature. And so the Orthodox theologians replied and said, no, both the father and the son existed before time. They were both eternal. Time is the creation of God, so God is above time. They themselves are essentially timeless. Augustine wrote In his confessions about God, the present day does not give way to tomorrow, nor indeed does it take the place of yesterday, for thy present day is eternity. But the classic statement of God's atemporal eternity is found in a book called Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius. Book 5, section 6, where Boethius writes that God's eternity is the simultaneous and perfect possession of infinite life. A simultaneous and perfect possession of infinite life. And that definition held sway in the church for many, many centuries. Later on, In the Reformation era, the Socinians opposed this view. They said that God's eternity simply means that he has no beginning and no end, not that he's above time or outside of time. So they opposed the idea that had been common in the church for quite a while. That all of time, all of time is immediately before God. And God lives in no time at all. Past, present, future are all for Him as but a day. Are all present, as it were. Now, Sosines' position, of course, was necessary for him to take because he denied God's exhaustive divine foreknowledge. But there are other theologians, reformed theologians in fact, who also have difficulty. Difficulty with this whole concept. James Thornwell is one who seems to deny it and support it at the same time. Charles Hodge says that all external events are ever present to the mind of God. He sees how they succeed each other in time as we see a passing pageant, all of which we may take in in one view. But Hodge went on to say that he was agnostic concerning the relation of succession to the thoughts and the acts of God. And he wondered, almost aloud, if God could be truly personal if there's no temporal succession among his thoughts. I'm not sure anymore where I got this extract. I think it's maybe John Frame's book, but I give Frame the credit here for this. Hod says, nevertheless he believed that even in human life there are temporal anomalies in our thought processes. As when someone recalls on his deathbed a language he had spoken long ago but had seemingly forgotten, and he granted that there could be even more temporal oddities in the thought of God. So I'm just telling you these things to show you that there's no definitive resolution of this. Is God simply involved in timeless eternity, or does God actually relate to past, present, and future in a personal way? So the second notion of eternity views God as everlasting. or Sempaternal, Sempaternal, which means he's from eternity to eternity. The fundamental idea here is existence at all times. God never had a beginning. He will not die. His existence is endless, backwards and forwards through every moment of time. Now, in this conception, then these fears expressed by Hodge and Thornwell are taken more strongly, and the theologians who embrace this view of eternity say there is succession of time in the mind of God. Even though he created it, God sees things as past, he sees things as present, and he sees things as future, and that this is an essential predicate of his nature. Both conceptions agree that God's existence has always been and will never end. So that's the good news. And I think that's where we have to end. Now, what does Scripture itself have to say about this? Well, there are a number of texts in Bible that speak in relationship to God's eternity. Let me just give them to you in categories. Someone has put it this way, that there are seven categories. I'm just going to give you the categories, and you can look up texts and so on. Some texts speak about God's endless existence in the past. For example, Psalm 93, verse 2. Secondly, some speak about His endless existence into the future, such as Psalm 9, verse 7. Third, some just focus on his endless existence, doesn't focus on either the past or the future, but just say he exists endlessly, always. For example, Psalm 102, 24-27. Fourthly, some texts just focus on God's existence before the author's time or before creation. Jesus saying, before Abraham was, I am. John 8, verse 58. Some texts also focus on the idea that they show that God's decisions and purposes stem from before creation, like Ephesians 1 verse 4. Some texts focus on God's eternality simply to underscore the dependability of God. God's always been here. He's solid as a rock. Or the authority of God determines His end from His beginning. Or the sovereignty of God. He's in control over all things. Genesis 17, verse 8. Jeremiah 10, verse 10. And Daniel 4, verse 34. And some texts seem to teach that there's a relation between possessing endless existence and one's perspective on time. The classic text here is 2 Peter 3, verse 8, with the Lord, one day is as a thousand years. A thousand years is one day. Some people would exegete that as saying, you see, God is timeless. Other people would say, no, it's just that his existence is so long that he has a different perspective on time. He may still have past, present, and future, but it's very, very condensed because his time is so long. So, on the one hand, we have to say, wrapping things up now, that God has no history, he's got no beginning, he's got no end, he's got no succession of moments or of consciousness. On the other hand, We have to give real significance to the idea of the personality of God. So even if God doesn't have a sense of past, present, and future, He talks to us as if He does at times in the Bible. Bobbink perhaps summarizes it best when he says, God is represented as being imminent in time, even as He is transcendent above time. You see, that's where we grapple to comprehend it. He's imminent in time, even as He appears to be transcendent above time. So we need both, you see. To maintain the whole personality of God, He's got to be imminent in time, because He has to relate to us, and to maintain the greatness and the infinity of God, we have to maintain He's transcendent above time. We shouldn't force our thoughts necessarily to embrace one category or another, is what I'm saying, but let the biblical language predominate, which seems to embrace both. Psalm 90, verse 2, "...before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God." Well, God then is directly involved with our time, no matter how time relates to Him. And yet He's not subject to time. Time doesn't rule Him as time rules us. Time often dominates us, but it doesn't dominate Him. God has created time. So what are the applications from this? Let me give you two quick closing applications. First is the wonderful greatness of God for the godly. From eternity past to eternity future, God looks down in complacency on his own purposes, looks at his own work. His counsel shall stand in all his pleasure. He's in control. He was, he is, and he forever shall be God. From everlasting to everlasting, He is God. He makes no mistakes. He never fluctuates. He's the eternal Jehovah. What a comfort that is for His people who put all their trust in Him. But the second application, and by the way, these two applications, comfort for the godly, warning to the ungodly, you can use at the conclusion of almost every attribute of God when you preach on the attributes. Because on the other side, you see, is this awesome dreadfulness of God for the ungodly. Because God's eternal existence guarantees that the wicked will never come to an end of the execution of his threatenings. They'll never escape condemnation. The wicked have no future. but a fearful looking for of judgment, because God is eternal. Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men." Okay, God willing, next Tuesday then we'll look at the immutability of God, and then we'll start moving into the communicable attributes of God. Whose turn is it to pray?