The Mystery Demystified

 

Chapter Four

The Omnipresence of God

WHO IS THE HOLY SPIRIT?

God is Omnipotent. This means that He has all power. Without limitations. There is nothing that He cannot do. There is nothing too hard for Him to accomplish. (Mat 19:26)

God is Omnipresent. This means that He is at this moment, and at all moments, literally and personally present everywhere in the universe. This is true without qualification. He Himself, personally is here with me in this room as I write, while at the same moment He is trillions of light years away in space, in His throne room in heaven. (Ps. 139:1-12)

How can God be here with me, while He is at the same time in heaven? How can He be said to, “fill heaven and earth?” (Jer. 23:24). Does it mean that His head is in heaven while His feet are on earth? Obviously not. What we need to understand is that the form of the Person which sits on the throne in heaven is not all there is of God. Though this is the form in which God appears to angels and to men. The wise man Solomon stated:

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 builded? (1 Ki 8:27)

If the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain God, then evidently, the part of God which is contained in heaven is not all there is of God. God Himself is actually the great conscious, living, presence which fills the entire universe.

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. (Acts 17:28)

One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. (Eph. 4:6)

There was a point, before time began, when God was all alone in the universe. Before planets, stars, systems, galaxies or angels were created, before He brought forth His Son, God existed, all alone. What was the universe like at that time? Was it an infinite nothingness? The apostle Paul described the church as being the body of Christ, “the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.” (Eph. 1:23) God Himself declares that He “fills heaven and earth.” (Jer. 23:24) Solomon declared that “heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee…” (1 Kings 8:27)

What do these statements mean? As we read these statements we see that God is a Being who literally fills the entire universe. He always has and always will. It is in Him that “we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28). Of course we are not speaking of some “universal intelligence,” or “collective consciousness,” we are not speaking of an ethereal essence or an unfeeling, impassive presence. God is a personal, warm, loving Being who is as much a person as I am a person, but whose powers and abilities are infinitely greater than mine. One of these abilities is the capability of being literally in all places at the same time.

Who will dare to say that this is not possible for God? Who will even suggest that this is not the plain teaching of the Bible?

Some have suggested: “God is everywhere, yes, but it is by means of His angelic messengers.” Others have stated, “yes, He is everywhere, but it is by means of another divine being called ‘The Holy Spirit.” Still others say, “yes, He is everywhere, but it is only His power which is omnipresent. He Himself is limited to His throne in heaven.” All of these ideas limit the power of God, and deny the Scriptures.

In John chapter four when Jesus met the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well, she asked Him a question which was very important to her but which showed that she was as ignorant of the nature of God as many people today are:

Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. (John 4:20)

Her implied question was, “where is the true place of worship?” or, to rephrase it, “where should we go to find God?” Jesus' answer was that from that time onwards, men would no longer worship in either Jerusalem or that Samaritan mountain. Why? Because “God is spirit …” (John 4:24). What does that have to do with anything? Well, when we recognize that God is spirit, then we will realize that He cannot be limited to one place. Not to Jerusalem, not to that mountain, not to Jacob's anointed stone at Bethel, not to Moses' burning bush. Wherever we are, God is there (Ps. 139:7,8), therefore we worship Him anywhere and everywhere. This is what is meant by spiritual worship.

WHO AM I?

Let me ask an important question: Is my body an integral and essential part of my identity? Please consider this question carefully. Man was made in the image of God and according to the Scriptures, we humans consist of both body and spirit. (See Ecc. 12:7; Eccl. 3:21; James 2:26; 1 Cor. 5:5; 1 Cor. 2:11; Luke 23:46; Acts 7:59) However, while we may, and will one day change bodies, we will never change spirits!!

Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. (1 Cor 15:50-53)

What this tells me is that the real me is my spirit. My body is just basically the house in which I live. Granted, the spirit cannot exist in a conscious state while separated from the body except God performs a miracle (2 Cor 12:2). However, all that makes me, ME, my memories, my thoughts, my being, are contained in my spirit. In other words, my spirit is my identity.

This is also true with God. God's true state is a spirit who has the capability of being in all places at the same time. Though He has revealed Himself to His creation in a bodily form, sitting on a throne in one specific location in the universe, we should not think that this is all there is of God. “The heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee …” is what Solomon stated. Yet the heavens do contain His bodily form. This bodily form is confined to one location, sitting on a throne in the judgement hall of the heavenly sanctuary. Yet at the same time, in one, effortless act, God is everywhere else in the universe. In His real identity, which is His Spirit, He is in all places, invisible, but very real and very present.

The Bible describes our relationship with God and His Son as being real fellowship. (1 John 1:3). This could not be a reality if we were dealing with an agent – a third person, or if we were only interacting with the power of God. Fellowship requires personality, real presence, mind interacting with mind on a personal level.

THREE PERSONALITIES

Jesus is one manifestation of divinity. He is one person and also one personality of the godhead. God, on the other hand, manifests Himself in two ways. He has two personalities. He reveals Himself on two levels. Firstly, He is a visible, tangible, bodily Being, sitting on a throne in a specific location in the universe. On the other hand He is also an invisible, intangible, omnipresent Being who fills all infinity. One great Being, but two ways of manifesting Himself, so, two personalities.

WHOSE HOLY SPIRIT?

Inspiration is clear that the Holy Spirit is the spirit, the life, the person of God, and as we are told in Eph. 4:4-6, there is only one Spirit. How is it then, that the Holy Spirit is often referred to as the ‘spirit of Christ?' (Rom.8:9)

God has a quality which is vital to the plan of salvation. This quality is the ability to unite Himself with the spirit of another person.

But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. (1 Cor 6:17)

Please read the following quotes very carefully and it will become clear how God's spirit is also Christ's spirit:

For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. (Col 2:9)

For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell; (Col 1:19)

And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self …. (John 17:5)

I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one …. (John 17:23)

The verse that best explains the relationship between Jesus and the spirit of His Father is the last verse quoted. Jesus explains in this verse that in the relationship which will exist between God, Himself and His people, the Father will dwell in Him, “ thou in me ...” and He will dwell in His people, “I in them ....” How does Jesus dwell in His people? He dwells in them by means of the holy spirit (John 14:16-18). But how does the Father dwell in His Son? Again, it is by means of the holy spirit. When Jesus was here on earth He declared,

Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. (John 14:10)

When we understand this, then it is easy to see why the Bible insists that our fellowship is with both the Father and the Son (1 John 1:3) and why Jesus said that both His Father and Himself would come and make their abode with the believer (John 14:23). The same spirit of the Father dwells in His Son, and is the means by which both the Father and the Son dwell in God's children and this is why the spirit is most often referred to as the spirit of God but in a few places as the spirit of Christ. The apostle Paul explains it in this way:

For through him ( Jesus) we both ( Jews and gentiles) have access by one Spirit unto the Father. (Eph 2:18)

When you or I go out and witness to someone and he is won to the truth, do you say, “I won him,” or do you say, “God won him?” Of course we say, “God won him,” don't we? Why do we say this? Because we recognize that although our voice was heard, our mouth spoke, our hands turned the pages of the Bible, yet it was God who was doing the work through us. God did it, but He did it through us. In the same way, Jesus created all things (John 1:3; Col. 1:16), but it was really God in Him that did it (Eph. 3:9). Therefore God is really the One who created all things (Rev. 4:11). He is the source of all power and all being.

And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. (Rev 5:6)

We see then that it is the spirit, the power, the life of God, but working through Christ, uniting with His spirit, which comes to us as both the spirit of God and of Christ. Then when that same Spirit dwells in me and works through me it is the work of God, Jesus and myself. All three spirits united in one. “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one …. (John 17:23)”

When this truth is properly understood and appreciated it will make a great change in the religious experience of those who receive it. The apostles were filled with the wonder of the truth that God Himself had literally come to live within men. They strove to make their hearers understand the wonder of it all. They knew that no one could really understand what God had done through His Son, by His spirit without being filled with joy and being filled with the motivation and the power to overcome all sin.

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? (1 Cor 6:19)

That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:3)