If God is omnipresent, then what is special about being in the presence of God?

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This is a question that reaches into one of the deepest paradoxes in Scripture. God is everywhere — yet Scripture consistently speaks of being "in His presence" as something special, a privilege to be sought and enjoyed, or for the guilty conscience, something to flee from. There are in fact two distinct things at play: God's essential omnipresence and His relational or manifest presence. God's Omnipresence: He Pervades All Things J.N. Darby addresses omnipresence with striking precision: As to omnipresence, God has no more to do with space than with time. He has created all things in a way apprehensible thus to us. In this creation nothing escapes Him. He is, morally speaking, omnipresent. He is not of, or in it, but pervades it. He is "through all"! He upholds everything, as He creates everything. J.N. Darby Darby goes further — omnipresence is not an "attribute" in the ordinary sense, but something inherent in God's very being: I do not connect omnipresence and eternity as attributes with God, not because they may not, in an ordinary sense, be said to be so... but that in our minds they are connected with time and space, which do not apply to God. There is no time when God is not; no place where His eye and hand, to use human language, are not. "I AM" is the proper expression of His existence. W.J. Hocking states it simply: He has no bodily shape. He is not circumscribed like ourselves, and He is an omnipresent spirit, and therefore though in heaven, He is here, and we being spirit are in His presence. W.J. Hocking Hamilton Smith, writing on Psalm 139, shows the weight of this reality: Thinking of his own failure in responsibility, the godly man is overwhelmed in the presence of the omniscience of God. He would fain flee from the presence of God, and escape His all-searching gaze. He finds, however, that God is not only omniscient but also omnipresent. There is no escape from the Spirit of God; no place that God cannot penetrate; no solitude where God is not; no darkness that can hide from God. Hamilton Smith The Turning Point: From Terror to Treasure What is remarkable in Psalm 139 is the shift. The psalmist begins wanting to flee God's all-seeing eye and ends by inviting God to search him more deeply. J.N. Darby captures this in his synopsis: There is, morally speaking, no staying in His presence; but there is no getting out of His presence, nor where He sees not, though conscience might be glad to flee. But this brings in another aspect. He knows all, because also He has formed all. This connects us with the taking perfect notice of us in goodness. He cares for us, watches over every member that is formed, as He knows our every thought; if He does, He has His own too, and these are precious to us. This is just the change and working of faith. It begins necessarily by conscience under God's eye; for it brings us into His presence, and then gets at God's thoughts, who has formed us for Himself. shift Hamilton Smith traces the same progression: Here, however, there comes a great change in his experiences, as the result of turning from himself, and his own works, to God and His marvellous works as the Creator. With this change of experience he breaks into praise. He realizes that he is God's possession, formed by God for God's own purposes settled before ever he was fashioned. Above all, he realizes that God's thoughts are towards him and not against him. They are precious and beyond comprehension. Hamilton Smith Here is the first key: God's omnipresence, when seen only through the lens of conscience and responsibility, is terrifying. When seen through the lens of grace, it becomes the deepest comfort. God's Special Presence: Moral Fitness and Dwelling Scripture also speaks of God's presence in a way that goes beyond bare omnipresence — a relational dwelling conditional upon a moral state. A.J. Pollock opens this up from Isaiah 57:15: GOD INHABITS ETERNITY. GOD DWELLS WITH HIM THAT IS OF A CONTRITE AND HUMBLE SPIRIT. There is an immense contrast! A Being so great as to fill all things, to inhabit eternity, yet so gracious, so condescending as to stoop down and dwell in the humble and contrite spirit. relational dwelling Pollock underscores that the contrite and humble spirit is morally suitable to be God's dwelling place: When repentance is present in the soul... God is able to dwell in that soul; for the contrite and humble spirit is morally suitable to be God's dwelling place. morally suitable This is not about geography — it is about fitness for His company. As Darby puts it: Standing before God fully revealed, supposes not our obligations to Him in government... but fitness for His own presence. This is in Christ only. fitness for His company Omnipresence vs. Filling: A Telling Illustration Samuel Ridout draws the sharpest distinction between God's omnipresence and the experience of being filled with His presence: God fills everything; He is omnipresent. So is the Holy Spirit... By God's omnipresence we simply understand that He is Himself, in His divine completeness, everywhere present. He puts forth all his power throughout infinity constantly. Thus, when we speak of being filled with the Holy Spirit, we simply mean that He has complete, entire control of our whole being. He occupies the entire man. Samuel Ridout He then gives a memorable illustration: A person is received as a guest into our home. He is a person of beautiful character, and singularly helpful. He is received into our guest-rooms, but is tacitly excluded from the more private parts of the house, where the work is done. Such a person would be said to be dwelling in our home, but you could not say he was filling the house. He is limited to certain parts of it. But, at last, through a fuller acquaintance, a sense of confidence, a realization of help already, and, above all, an increasing sense of utter incompetence in ourselves, we admit him, gradually, perhaps, to all the house. He makes his presence and his help felt everywhere. He fills the house. Worship: The Heart's Response in His Presence W.J. Hocking connects all of this to worship. The Lord's words in John 4 set aside the question of where one worships: Once a local centre for worship was needful. If you have a bullock and you want to sacrifice it, you must go somewhere to do it... But when worship is restricted to the heart and spirit, does the place matter? The spirit is that part of our being which is altogether independent of locality. Our bodies may be here in the Memorial Hall, but our spirits may be in the heaven of heavens. W.J. Hocking Being "in the presence of God" for worship, then, is not about entering a sacred building — it is about the spirit being lifted into conscious fellowship with the Father. Fulness of Joy: The Ultimate Presence The crowning expression of this is in Psalm 16:11 — "In Thy presence is fulness of joy." The article on "Fulness of Joy" in An Outline of Sound Words explains: The path of life for the Son of God lay through death, but it led upward to the Father's throne, so that the Son could say in Spirit, "In Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore." It is an amazing privilege to have communion with the Father and the Son into whose presence we have access with boldness and with confidence through the faith of the Son of God... There is no joy to compare with the joy that the Father's presence brings to the hearts of His own, those who can share His thoughts of His beloved Son, and who can share the Son's thoughts of the Father. Synthesis The distinction is between God's essential omnipresence — He pervades all things, nothing escapes Him, there is nowhere He is not — and what might be called His relational or manifest presence. Being "in the presence of God" in the way Scripture celebrates it means something far richer than being within the reach of an omnipresent Being. It speaks of moral fitness for His company, made possible only through the work of Christ. It speaks of conscious communion — the heart occupied with Him, not merely existing within His omnipresent reach. It speaks of Christ dwelling in the heart by faith, an ongoing and growing experience, not a static doctrinal position. And it speaks ultimately of fulness of joy — the deepest delight of the soul in the Father's presence, which will be known perfectly when we are with Christ forever. The guilty conscience, under God's omnipresence, can only cry: "Whither shall I flee from Thy Spirit?" But the redeemed soul, brought near through the blood of Christ, finds that the same omnipresent God is now for them — and discovers that His thoughts toward them are precious, and more in number than the sand.

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