Knowing God - Lesson 5 - Cameron Jungels - Wed PM, Feb. 5, 2014

“Knowing God” (Eastside Baptist/Wed PM/Feb. 5, 2014)

Review

v  The Existence and Self-Revelation of God

v  God as a Personal Being

v  God as a Triune Being

Lesson 5: “The Immanence and Transcendence of God”

Immanence and Transcendence are aspects of God’s nature that have to do with his relationship to the world.

1. The Immanence of God

What is God’s Immanence?

v  God’s nearness to the world and its creatures.

v  “God’s presence and activity within nature, human nature, and history.” – M. Erickson

God’s Presence and Nearness

Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them?” declares the LORD. “Do not I fill heaven and earth?” declares the LORD. (Jer. 23:24, NIV)

27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ (Acts 17:27–28, NIV)

God’s Spirit and Creation

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (Gen. 1:2, NIV)

Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. (Gen. 2:7, NIV)

God’s Spirit Sustaining all things

as long as I have life within me, the breath of God in my nostrils, (Job 27:3, NIV)

The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life. (Job 33:4, NIV)

14 If it were his intention and he withdrew his spirit and breath, 15 all humanity would perish together and mankind would return to the dust. (Job 34:14-15, NIV)

29 When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. 30 When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground. (Ps. 104:29-30, NIV)

God’s Providence in all Creation

45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. (Matt. 5:45, NIV)

25 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? 28 "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you-- you of little faith? (Matt. 6:25-30, NIV)

Immanence out of Balance

v  God becomes inseparably linked to creation.

v  His nature as a personal, relational being, distinct from creation becomes lost.

v  Pantheism

v  Liberalism

v  Panentheism

v  Process Theology

Applications of God’s Immanence

v  Mindful of God’s works in ordinary providence

v  God’s use of unbelieving people and entities

v  Care and concern for creation

v  General revelation

v  Gospel opportunities

2. The Transcendence of God

What is God’s Transcendence?

v  God’s “distance,” distinctiveness and “otherness” from creation

v  “God is separate from and independent of nature and humanity.” – M. Erickson

God’s Transcendence above creation

Who is like the LORD our God, the One who sits enthroned on high, 6 who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth? (Ps. 113:5-6, NIV)

But he continued, "You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. (Jn. 8:23, NIV)

God’s exalted knowledge

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. 9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isa. 55:8-9, NIV)

God’s Holiness (Set-apartness)

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory."4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. 5 "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty." (Isa. 6:1-5, NIV)

Transcendence and Immanence

For this is what the high and exalted One says-- he who lives forever, whose name is holy: "I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. (Isa. 57:15, NIV)

Transcendence out of Balance

v  When transcendence is emphasized, to the exclusion of immanence, we lose the dynamic activity of God, personally and intimately in the world he created and guides.

Applications of God’s Transcendence

v  God who is greater than humanity, source and foundation of truth, beauty, and goodness.

v  Incapable of full description or comprehension

v  Salvation is not a human work

v  Creator-creature distinction: we will always be created beings, even after glorification.

v  Reverence is an essential component of worship.

v  We pray to a transcendent God who can do the supernatural.

Keeping it in Balance

v  God is both immanent and transcendent. Both are a part of his nature as God.

v  Over-emphasizing immanence tends toward pantheism.

v  Over-emphasizing transcendence tends toward deism or agnosticism.

24 "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.' (Acts 17:24-28, NIV)