The Presence of God in Scripture

God is omnipresent.  Many Christians understand this to mean that God is always equally present at all places at all times, and that God is not locally present at any particular place.  There is certainly a sense in which God is present in all places (Psalm 139: 7-10).  However, a careful study of Scripture reveals a much more rich and complex theology of God’s presence, one that can be traced through the whole story of Scripture.  And this theology of the presence of God in the narrative of Scripture has some important practical implications.

The Presence of God in the Old Testament

After God created Adam, He “placed him in the Garden of Eden to work it and watch over it” (Gen 2:15).  We should understand Adam’s task of “working” (Hebrew ‘bd) and “watching” (Hebrew smr) as a priestly task.  Just as the priests of Israel had the task of “working” (‘bd) and “keeping” (smr) the sacred space of the tabernacle (e.g. Num 3:8-9), Adam had the task of working and keeping the sacred space of the Garden of Eden.^[1]See The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the Human Origins Debate by John H. Walton (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2015), pages 104-115.  The Garden of Eden was a sacred space in which God’s Holy presence dwelled, in a way that it did not dwell in the rest of creation.  In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve lived in God’s Holy presence (Gen 3:8).  However, when Adam and Eve rebelled against God and sinned, God cast them out of the Garden.  As a result of Adam and Eve’s failure in their priestly role, humanity lost access to the presence of God.  

Later, after the Flood, humanity came together and said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens.  Let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise, we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth” (Gen 11:4).  Most scholars now agree that in the Ancient Near East, the language of “a tower with its top in the heavens” did not refer to a really tall tower, but to a religious structure called a ziggurat.  A ziggurat was a rectangular stepped tower which was believed to provide a way for the presence of a god to come down from heaven and be among their worshippers.  The purpose of the “Tower of Babel,” then, was not for human beings to attempt to rise up to heaven and become gods; its purpose was to try to get God’s presence to come down to earth so that human beings could have access to God’s presence again.  God was not at all pleased with humanity’s theologically erroneous belief that they could manipulate and force Him to be present among them through their own plans and efforts, and so God frustrated their plan and scattered them across the earth.  

After the Tower of Babel incident, God chose one man, Abram, and promised Him, “I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. . . All the peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Gen 12: 2-3).  God promised to make a name for Abram, which is exactly what the builders of the Tower of Babel hoped to do for themselves.  God will establish His presence among humanity again, but it will be on His terms, in His way, on His initiative, and with His timing.  

Centuries after Abram’s time, God rescued his descendants the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.  After God brought Israel to Mount Sinai, His presence appeared on the mountain, where Moses went up to converse with Him.  At Sinai, God made a covenant with Israel, promising “I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God.  And they  will know that I am Yahweh their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt so that I might dwell among them” (Exod 29:45-6).  The climax of the book of Exodus is not God bringing Israel out of Egypt (chapters 1-14); the climax of the book of Exodus is the construction of the tabernacle (chapters 25-31, 35-40), in which God’s Holy presence comes to dwell among the Israelites (40: 34-38).  After God brought Israel into the Promised Land, He eventually had Solomon build a temple, which then replaced the tabernacle as the place in which God’s Holy presence dwelled (I Kings 6-8; II Chron 2-7).  

The fact that God’s Holy presence dwelled in the midst of Israel (Lev 26:1;, Num 5:3, 35:34; I Kings 6:13) is central to the theology of the Old Testament.  Israel was God’s holy people because God’s Holy presence dwelled in the midst of them.  Because of this, the Isralites were called to live out their identity as God’s holy people by following the instructions of God’s Torah.  These instructions seamlessly integrate what we would call “moral” commands with detailed instructions for protocols, priestly duties, and sacrifices related to the proper care for the sacred space where God’s presence dwelled.  Unfortunately, Israel was unfaithful to God, defiling the sacred space of the temple, with the result that God’s presence left the temple (Ezek 10-11).  God allowed the Babylonian Empire to destroy Jerusalem along with the temple, and to take the Israelites into exile.  

In spite of this, God’s prophets offered hope that God would one day end the exile and once again dwell in the midst of His people (Ezek 37:27, 43:7-9; Zech 2:10-11).  This was partially fulfilled when the Persian emperor Cyrus allowed the Jewish exiles to return to their land and the Israelites were able to build a second temple.  However, God’s presence did not dramatically and gloriously fill the second temple as it had the first temple.  Israel was still awaiting the full fulfillment of God’s promise that He would end the exile and once again dwell in their midst.  

God’s Presence in the New Testament

At the time of Jesus, Israel was still waiting for God to return, free them from domination by their enemies, and dwell in their midst.  The New Testament depicts Jesus as the one who fulfilled these hopes of Israel, though in some unexpected ways.  It is in and through the person of Jesus that God fulfilled His promise that His presence would return to Mt. Zion (Mark 1:2-3; Malachi 3:1; Isa 40:3).  However, as the prophet Malachi had predicted, in Jesus God came to His temple in judgment (Mark 11:15-18; Mal 3:1-6, 4:1-5); Jesus declared God’s judgment on the Jewish religious leaders and prophesied the coming destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple.  Although the Jewish religious leaders had Jesus crucified, Jesus’s prophecy, along with His extraordinary claims about Himself, was vindicated when God raised Him from the dead, and, later, when the Romans destroyed the Second Temple in 70 A.D.  

Jesus’s disciples came to recognize Him as God Incarnate (John 1:1-18), as the one in whom “all the fulness of the Deity lives in bodily form” (Col 2:9).  In other words, although most Israelites did not recognize it, Jesus was the new temple, the place where God’s Holy Presence dwelled among His people, the place where heaven and earth meet.  According to the New Testament, the church is the “body of Christ” (I Cor 12:27).  By the power of God’s Holy Spirit, anyone who believes in Jesus, repents, and is baptized into the church has union with Christ and is part of His body.  Because of this, the church, as the body of Christ, is the new temple in which the presence of God dwells (I Cor 3:16-17; 2 Cor 6:16; Eph 2:21).  By extension, each member of the church is a temple in which God’s Holy Spirit dwells (I Cor 6:19).  

Currently, God’s Holy presence now dwells on earth in and through His church.  However, this is not the end of the story.  The book of Revelation envisions a future time when God will fully bring about a new heavens and a new earth: “God’s dwelling place is now among His people, and He will dwell with them.  They will be His people, and God Himself will dwell with them.  They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God” (Rev 21: 3).  This is, of course, the ultimate fulfillment of God’s covenant promises to His people Israel.  In his description of the heavenly Jerusalem that will come from heaven to earth, the author of Revelation states, “I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple” (Rev 21: 22).  In God’s New Creation, heaven and earth will be joined, and there will be no need for a temple to mediate God’s presence, because His Presence will fill all of creation.  God’s people do have access to God’s presence now, but this is only a foretaste of what their experience of God’s presence will be in eternity.

Practical Implications

There are some important practical implications arising from this account of the presence of God in Scripture.  First, many people believe that, since God is omnipresent, they can be in God’s presence wherever they are, and so they do not need to go to church.  However, as we have seen from our study of Scripture, Divine omnipresence does not mean that God is equally present everywhere at all times; it means that God is not limited by the category of space and can be present wherever He wants, whenever He wants.  Right now, God is present on earth in and through the church, which is His temple, and so it is necessary to be part of the church in order to have access to God’s Presence.

Secondly, many people wonder why, if God is both loving and omnipresent, there is so much evil in the world.  However, if we understand the fact that we are currently separated from God’s presence, this does make sense.  It is only natural that there would be evil in a world that is separated from the presence of God, the source of all goodness.  God is love, but we can only truly benefit from that love by entering into His Holy presence and having communion with Him.

Finally, there are important ethical implications of what Scripture has to say about the Presence of God.  In the Old Testament, the Israelites had to exercise extreme care in treating the sacred space of the temple with reverence and respect by following all the regulations and rules of the Torah.  If they failed to show proper respect for the Holy Presence of God, they risked being on the receiving end of God’s wrath.  In the New Testament, Christians themselves are now the temple, the sacred space in which God’s Holy Presence dwells.  No longer do God’s holy people relate to God’s presence as something external, dwelling in a building; instead, they relate to God’s Presence as something internal.  The same God whose Presence dwelled in the Old Testament temple now dwells in us, and He is just as Holy as He was back then.  How much more, then, do Christians need to be careful and scrupulous to avoid any hint of sin or unholiness in their lives than the Israelites during the Old Testament did.  If Christians really believed that they are the temple of the living God, and seriously reflected on this fact, we would see far less sin within the church and in the lives of individual Christians.  We would see a much more faithful church, a church which takes seriously its calling to be God’s holy people and to show the world who Jesus is.