What Does It Mean to Live in God’s Presence?
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:02.000 | Podcast listener Derek from Toronto, Canada writes in to ask, "Pastor John,
00:00:09.160 | what does it mean to be in the presence of God? Not eternally in heaven, but living in his presence right now?
00:00:16.560 | I'm struck by Psalm 21 verse 6, which says, "You make glad with the joy of your presence."
00:00:23.520 | So if God is omnipresent, what does this mean to be in God's presence now?
00:00:29.920 | I think the first thing I should say is that the biblical writers were not naive
00:00:37.040 | in the sense that they thought God had a body with spatial dimensions so that he could have a locality
00:00:47.600 | in the universe. Stephen said in Acts 7, "The Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands."
00:00:59.440 | The point being, he's not that kind of being. Therefore, I think all the biblical imagery
00:01:07.840 | about drawing near to God or departing from God or being before the face of God, which is, by the way,
00:01:20.160 | the literal translation of presence. The word presence is almost always translating the
00:01:27.040 | Hebrew "pane" or "paneem" and means face. I think all of those images are metaphors or pictures,
00:01:37.120 | and I'll mention what they're metaphors of in just a minute, but let me stick in a qualifier
00:01:44.160 | perhaps first. To be sure, God ordained in the Old Testament that his "presence" be directly
00:01:52.800 | associated with the tabernacle in the wilderness or the temple in Jerusalem so that people could
00:01:59.280 | speak of entering into God's presence in the sense that they came near to the place where
00:02:07.040 | he had appointed his name especially to dwell or to be identified with. And in the New Testament,
00:02:13.760 | with the coming of Jesus into the world, we now have God in human flesh, which does have spatial
00:02:21.760 | dimension, and we can go right up to him and touch him or we can walk right away from him like Judas
00:02:29.040 | did. Jesus could be touched here. He could be kissed here. Indeed, even today, I think we could
00:02:41.600 | think that way about Jesus in our dying. 2 Corinthians 5, 6, we're always of good courage.
00:02:48.400 | We know that while we're at home in the body, we are away from the Lord, we walk by faith,
00:02:55.760 | not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home
00:03:03.040 | with the Lord. And what he means, I think, is literally the incarnate God-man, Jesus Christ,
00:03:13.680 | exists in dimensions that we don't fully understand in a human body that is different from
00:03:20.480 | ours and yet like ours, and that when we die, we will be at home with that Christ, that God-man
00:03:28.480 | incarnate Christ in a way that relates to his body in ways we don't fully comprehend.
00:03:35.440 | But with those exceptions, namely the localized presence of God in the temple in the Old Testament
00:03:42.000 | and the localized presence of God in the incarnate Christ, with those exceptions,
00:03:46.000 | the ordinary way of speaking about the presence of the nearness of God in the Bible
00:03:52.160 | is not connected with spatial orientation. And here's my answer to the question, "Well,
00:03:58.320 | then what does it refer to?" My summary answer would go like this. The presence of God or the
00:04:06.320 | nearness of God is a metaphor from two sides. One, our experience of it, and the other,
00:04:14.240 | God's expression of it. Our experience of it means that we taste or feel or realize
00:04:22.400 | the reality of God more directly, more authentically, more intimately, more effectively,
00:04:29.600 | that is, producing more effects in our lives more certainly, more satisfyingly, or more terrifyingly,
00:04:37.600 | and so on. In other words, his presence as we experience him is the heightening of his reality
00:04:48.480 | in our lives, either for good if we're in his grace or for ill if we're under his wrath, which
00:04:54.960 | is why Jesus makes all the difference here to shield us and make God a welcoming reality or
00:05:03.200 | presence for us. So, for example, we read, Psalm 100, "Serve the Lord with gladness, come into his
00:05:10.960 | presence with singing," or James 4, 8, "Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you." These are
00:05:21.120 | invitations into the fuller, more intense, more certain, more joyful, more satisfying,
00:05:30.480 | more transforming experience of the reality of God. That's my first half of the metaphor. The
00:05:39.840 | other half is that it refers to God's manifest influence from his side, not thinking now about
00:05:48.880 | our experience of it, but his more manifest influence. And I'm thinking of a text like Psalm
00:05:56.000 | 114, verse 7, "Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob,
00:06:05.280 | who turns the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a spring of water." In other words,
00:06:13.120 | when God manifests himself or his presence in a fresh, new way, stunning things just objectively
00:06:22.800 | happen in the world, whether or not anybody experiences them or not. So, in summary, God is,
00:06:32.480 | yes, to be sure, omnipresent in some of his influences, like his sustaining all things
00:06:41.840 | at all times, holding every electron and every sub-nuclear particle in its place. But he makes
00:06:53.440 | his influence more manifestly felt and experienced in particular ways, in particular times, and this
00:07:02.080 | is what we are referring to when we say with a psalmist, "For me, it is good to be near God. I
00:07:10.000 | have made the Lord my refuge, that I may tell of his works," or that's Psalm 73, 28. Here's 145,
00:07:18.000 | 18. The Lord is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth. That doesn't
00:07:25.280 | mean that God traveled some distance. It means he's near in the sense that he exerts his influence
00:07:33.920 | for our good in special ways and causes us to experience the sweetness of his reality
00:07:42.080 | in special ways. Yeah, amen. Thank you, Pastor John. Well, you can keep up with the daily Ask
00:07:48.080 | Pastor John podcast online or through our free apps. And for more, go to our online home at
00:07:53.120 | DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn, and there you can send us a question, just like Derek did today.
00:08:00.800 | Please know that we get between 1,500 and 2,000 emails every month now, so we cannot respond to
00:08:07.280 | any of them, but we do read them, so keep them coming to us. Keep those questions brief and to
00:08:11.600 | the point. That would be very helpful for us. Thank you. Well, we have a lawyer in heaven.
00:08:18.320 | We have an advocate who is pleading on our behalf right now and always, and this glorious truth is
00:08:24.800 | one we often forget. And tomorrow, John Piper will help us remember. I'm your host, Tony Ranke. We'll
00:08:30.400 | see you tomorrow.
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