We can never really be two places at once but we make way to get from one place to another. Whether by walking, running, or riding in planes, trains and automobiles, we have fast and faster ways to move from place to place. But, as finite beings, we can only be present one place at a time. None of this applies to an omnipresent being. An omnipresent being possesses immediate and simultaneous access to every coordinate point in all existence. Such ubiquity essentially eliminates the necessity to move from place to place. Whether here or there, the omnipresent being is always present.
David apprehends God to be an omnipresent being and finds the omnipresence of God has profound implications upon his own life. Wherever the shepherd king goes, whether good or bad circumstances, God is with him, and darkness never overshadows the Lord. David declares:
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you (Psa. 139:7-12).[1]
David recognizes that “wherever he might wander, God would always be there ”and “God’s hand would always be there to guide him aright, whether he went up to the heavens or down to Sheol (nivmg), to the far east or the distant west (cf. Jer. 23:23 f.).”[2]
Sheol is a transliteration of the Hebrew word she’ol [שְׁאוֹל].[3] English words used to translate she’ol in commonly read Bible versions include: “hell” (King James Version), “grave” (New Living Translation), and “depths” (New International Version). The Septuagint[4] uses hadēs [ᾅδης] to translate she’ol in Psalm 139:8. Hadēs typically connotes the netherworld. David has in mind the abode of the dead or the netherworld. [5] He is confident that even in death the Lord would be with him.
David experienced many brushes with death. One of his most defining moments in life was facing off in hand-to-hand combat with the Philistine giant named Goliath. Armed with just one sling-shot and five stones, he took downed his super-sized opponent with single stone between the eyes. He walked through the valley of the shadow of death, and he found solace in being in the presence of the Lord even in those perilous times.[6] Even if he crossover from the land of the living into the abode of the dead, he is confident that the Lord would be with him there as well.
Other Old Testament writers acknowledged God’s omnipresence. Solomon declared, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!” (1 Kings 8:27). Isaiah proclaimed, “Thus says the Lord: | ‘Heaven is my throne, | and the earth is my footstool; | what is the house that you would build for me, |and what is the place of my rest? | All these things my hand has made, |and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord’” (Isa. 66:1-2). Moreover, Jeremiah prophesied: “Am I a God at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God far away? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord” (Jer. 23:23-24).
God’s omnipresence is also imbued in Paul’s address to the Areopagus: “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,” and “yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘in him we live and move and have our being’” (Acts 17:24, 27-28).[7]
What does it mean for God to be omnipresent as the biblical writers testify? Here is the way R.C. Sproul puts it:
When we speak of God’s omnipresence we usually mean that His presence is in all places. There is no place where God is not. Yet, as spirit, God does not occupy any place, in the sense that physical objects occupy space. He has no physical qualities that can occupy space. The key to understanding this paradox is to think in terms of another dimension. The barrier between God and us is not a barrier of space or time. To meet God, there is not a “where” to go or a “when” to occur. To be in the immediate presence of God is to step into another dimension.
There is a second aspect to God’s omnipresence that we often overlook. The “omni” relates not only to the place where God is, but also to how much of Him is in any given place. God is not only present in all places but God is fully present in every place. This is called His immensity. Believers living in New York enjoy the fullness of the presence of God while believers in Moscow enjoy that same presence. His immensity, then, does not refer to His size, but to His ability to be fully present everywhere.[8]
God is neither identical with the universe nor distributed in equal parts across the universe. The Lord is uncircumscribed with respect to locality. The Creator is distinct from the creation; yet, fully present with His creation, possessing immediate simultaneous access to all that is made.[9]
Wherever we go the Spirit of the Lord is always present (Psa. 139:7-10). Because the incarnate Son of God is fully divine, Jesus is in the truest sense “Immanuel,” or “God with us.” He perfectly lives up to the promise made to His followers, “Behold, I am with you always” (Matt. 1:21-23; 28:20). Not a single day is Christ absent from the life of the Christian. Yes, omnipresence applies to all members of the Trinity.
Whether our actions are good, bad, or ugly, nothing escapes God’s eyes, and everything is done in the presence of the Lord. There will be no hiding place for the wicked who have incurred divine wrath on Judgment Day, and all souls will be reckoned (Jn. 5:28-29; cf. Dan. 12:2; Rev. 20:11-15). Fortunately, so long as we have a breath, there is always an opportunity to seek God’s forgiveness and God is always available to anyone who comes to Him.
God is present even in the messiness of everyday life. The Lord stands in solidarity with the least, lost, and lowly of the world. Whether the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, or the imprisoned, ministry towards them is ministry towards God (Matt. 25:31-46). What we do in the presence of the Lord has everlasting implications.
The very realization of God’s omnipresence in the creation invokes awe and wonder. The Lord is fully present everywhere we go. Whether we find ourselves in a safe place or heading into the danger zone, God is with us. He never leaves nor forsakes. Come what may, He has got us. The Lord is there to share the good times, and present through every crisis. The right response is to acknowledge His presence, pray without ceasing, and worship Him in spirit and truth. Where can we go from the Spirit of the Lord? Nowhere for He is everywhere.
— WGN
Notes:
[1] All Scripture cited from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), unless noted.
[2] Leslie C. Allen, New International Bible Commentary, ed. F. F. Bruce (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1979), 648.
[3] The New American Standard Bible, New Revised Standard Version, and the Christian Standard Bible also employ the transliteration of the Hebrew — she’ol.
[4] The Septuagint is “the Greek translation of the Old Testament produced around 200 b.c. to accommodate Hellenization. The Septuagint rapidly became the Bible of synagogue worship and Jewish instruction, and in the New Testament is cited more frequently than the original Hebrew” (Matthew S. DeMoss, Pocket Dictionary for the Study of New Testament Greek [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001], 112).
[5] Succinctly put: “Sheol is the most common OT [Old Testament] word to refer to the abode of the dead. The term is not known in the literature of the surrounding cultures. In the OT a person who dies descends to ‘the pit’ (Is 14:15) and the place of ‘shades’ (Job 26:5). All are equal in Sheol (Job 3:11–19), and none return (Job 7:9). In Sheol the dead do not praise God (Ps 6:5)” (Arthur G. Patzia and Anthony J. Petrotta, Pocket Dictionary of Biblical Studies [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002], 106).
[6] David came close to death other occasions as well. For example, he spent many days hiding in wilderness exile. When Saul sought to preserve his kingdom by murdering the man after God’s heart who had been anointed to be Israel’s next ruler, David hid in the desert wilderness to preserve his own life. Years later Absalom sought to seize his father’s throne, and David once again fled until the insurrection could quashed. Whether David penned Psalm 139 prior to, during, or subsequent to these times of fleeing from Saul and Absalom, the everlasting presence of the Lord would have still been present with him just the same.
[7] The line “in him we live and move and have our being” comes from Cretica by Greek poet Epimenides of Crete. Epimenides’ poem was well-known among those at the Areopagus, and Paul quotes from the pagan poet to connect with his audience, and establish a common ground from which they could begin grappling with the message about God being revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, who died and rose again, and eventually judge the world. For further discussion on the citation of pagan sources in Paul’s Act 17 address to the Areopagus, cf. Brian Godawa, “Storytelling as Subversive Apologetics: A New View from the Hill in Acts 17,” Christian Research Journal, 30, 1 [2007]: https://www.equip.org/article/storytelling-as-subversive-apologetics-a-new-view-from-the-hill-in-acts-17/ and Douglas Groothuis, “Learning From an Apostle: Christianity in the Marketplace of Ideas (Acts 17:16-34),” Christian Research Journal, 35, 4 [2012]: https://www.equip.org/article/learning-from-an-apostle-christianity-in-the-marketplace-of-ideas-acts-1716-34/
[8] R.C. Sproul, Essential Truths of the Christian Faith (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1992), 43
[9] Hank Hanegraaff points out that “Scripture communicates God’s creative and sustaining relationship to the cosmos rather than His physical location in the cosmos” and “to speak of God’s omnipresence in terms of His physical location in the world rather than His relationship to the world has more in common with the panentheism of heretical process theology (currently popular in liberal circles) than with classical Christian theism. Panentheism holds that God is intrinsically ‘in’ the world (like a hand in a glove), while classical theism holds that God properly exists outside of time and space (Isa. 57:15)” (Hank Hanegraaff, The Complete Bible Answer Book: Collector’s Edition Revised and Updated [Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2008, 2016] 153). Access at https://www.equip.org/bible_answers/what-does-it-mean-to-say-that-god-is-omnipresent-2/
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