How big is God?

God, who bounds everything else, is Himself without bounds. He sets bounds to the sea; Huc usque; "Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further"; He sets bounds to the angels; they, like the cherubims, move and stand at His appointment (Ezek. 10:16), but He is infinite without bounds. He who can span the heavens, and weigh the earth in scales, must needs be infinite (Isa. 40:22). "Do not I fill heaven and earth?" (Jer. 23:24). The humble heart is His throne, in regard to His gracious presence (Isa. 57:15); and heaven is His throne, in regard to His glorious presence (Isa. 66:1); and yet neither of these thrones will hold Him, for the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him.

It stands to reason that no man hath seen God at any time. We can take account of a thing if it be a score of miles in length or breadth, and if it be a solid substance to be weighed. But can we imprison the wind to measure its dimensions, or tell where the light ends? God is a Spirit; and heaven, and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him. He is everywhere present throughout this vast universe, greater than all He has created, not subject to change or break-up. Where could we begin to take account of Him? We may well ask this, as we read Job 38. He is "the King of the ages, incorruptible, invisible" (1 Tim. 1:17, New Trans.).

We feel no need to suppose God infinite in space (on the contrary, it shocks us); but in time we do. The reason is simple. Infinitude in space is gross, material not a moral central will and action. I do not judge of God as finite in space, because I do not materialise Him; but if He ceases in duration, and that is finite as to it, He ceases to be, because to endure when anything exists is not to cease to be. I fully believe there is an instinctive sense of God as supreme, that is, supreme as to us, and reasoning on what He is is consequent on this. It is a blunder to suppose that not being the author of evil limits Him. He can, as to power, do anything; but limiting means a stop being put to something in the direction in which it tends or might continue; whereas no evil is in God to be stopped. Power does not create evil. Were God the author of evil (save physical evil or punishment), it would be a limit to what He is - good. Mansel has not kept clear of the material idea of infinity. His adversaries are on that ground; but his great defect is not seizing consequences, at least in his reasonings, for he does state the thing in Lecture IV.

When the children of Israel were brought out from Egypt under shelter of the blood of the paschal lamb, on their way to Canaan, God could speak to them, as a redeemed people, concerning a sanctuary for Himself — God's dwelling-place with man on earth. He gave Moses a pattern of the Tabernacle; He revealed to him upon Mount Sinai His own thoughts about it, and directed him to make all things according to the pattern shown him (Ex. 25:8-9). The Tabernacle in the wilderness, which was thus made in accordance with God's command, is an appropriate and expressive type of the Church of God in its present wilderness condition during this dispensation — the dwelling-place of God in His redeemed, according to the Word — "I will dwell in them and walk with them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people" (2 Cor. 6:16). "But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain Him" (2 Chron. 6:18). What a vivid idea Solomon gives us of the infinitude of God in that expression! All created things are finite, unlimited as the spaces occupied by them may appear to us — heavens stretching beyond heavens in apparently interminable succession, but, in the nature of things, limited. Not so God; He is infinite. The Apostle John writes of the holy Jerusalem: "I saw no temple therein: for Jehovah God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it" (Rev. 21:22). When the Lord Jesus was on earth, He was God's dwelling-place (John 1:14). The redeemed are God's temple in which He dwells (Eph. 2:22); but God Himself is the temple in which they worship. Creation cannot contain His fulness; but those who love Him and abide in Him are filled INTO all the fulness of God (Eph. 3:19). God says, "Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool." "I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit" (Isa. 57:15; 66:1-2). Marvellous condescension of Divine and infinite love! God seeking the companionship of men! He desired to renew it with Israel, and, through them, with the rest of mankind. Broken by sin, He longed to renew it, and this He has done through redemption, as is here set forth in type. No sooner was the sanctuary provided, and everything accomplished according to God's word, than "the glory of Jehovah filled the tabernacle" (Ex. 40:34).

"But," Solomon adds, "will God indeed dwell on the earth?" David realized that God's dwelling in the darkness of the holy place did not by any means infer that God was confined there. In fact, "heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You" (v.27). God is infinite (unlimited) and omnipresent (present everywhere), yet in pure grace He specially signified the temple as the place of His dwelling in order to concentrate Israel's thoughts on Him as the Center of all Israel's interests.

But Solomon asks a pertinent question, "Will God indeed dwell with men on earth? (v.18). To do so would require an astounding act of grace, for the heavens and the heaven of heavens cannot contain God. He is infinite, without limits, and omnipresent, present everywhere at all times. We cannot understand the greatness of His being. He cannot be confined anywhere, yet in a very real sense He dwelt in the temple, in the holiest of all, though in thick darkness. This is a paradox in which we may rejoice.

In omnipresence there is the presence of God in every place. If it be heaven, He is there; it is His abode. And earth; "Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord" (Jer. 23-24). "Hell is naked before Him" (Job 26:6; Psalm 139:8). God is everywhere: He fills all places at all times. He fills space, earth, sea, and land. He fills our homes, with Him there can be no in and out, nor above and beneath. "The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth." "The whole earth is full of His glory" (Zech. 4:10; Isaiah 6:3). How deeply blessed to be able to contemplate this glorious attribute in our Lord Jesus Christ! In fact, each of these wondrous features may be seen in Him in His ministry. Could there be anything to surpass this amazing mystery of grace: — a Man here, who is in every way suited, as to His body, for the place He had taken, yet, at the same moment of time, in consubstantial union with the Father and Spirit filling all in heaven and earth?

I remember looking at a busy ant colony on a broiling summer day in Australia. My thoughts ran as follows. The distance between a man and an ant is very great, but after all it is but a finite distance. You can weigh the substance of a man and that of an ant, and you can find out how much heavier a man is than an ant. But can an ant understand what is passing through a man's mind? Can an ant understand the achievements of men? We know it cannot. But the distance between God and man is infinitely greater than that between man and ant. God is the Creator. Man is the creature. The distance between them is infinite. No arithmetic is of any use here. Is it possible that the mind of man can understand and comprehend God? He is "the only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; who only has immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man has seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen" (1 Tim. 6:15-16). We may well re-echo the words of Zophar, "Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea" (Job 11:7-9).

8 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; and Scripture itself so speaks practically, and it always speaks practically, because truly; 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. While time rolls on "I am" remains unchanged, and when time has rolled away "I am" subsists the same. It can hardly be called an attribute. This being understood, we may speak of eternal as a natural attribute of God.

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. He is not morally concerned in any motive (save as working in man in grace), but not a sparrow falls to the ground without Him.

The glory of the Son of Man (John 13:31) is clearly in relation to the Cross and His meeting God in relation to sin; here it is the glory of the Son in relation to the Father. The distinction is most marked. If we think of God in Essential Being we must take account of His attributes, such as, for example, His Omnipotence, Omniscience and Omnipresence. In the first of these, He upholds all things; sits upon the circle of the earth, holds the oceans in the hollow of His hand, weighs the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance. In the second, He knows all things." Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? says the Lord." "All things are naked and opened to the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do." Then, the third thing is His Omnipresence; He fills all things." The heaven is My Throne, and the earth is My footstool: where is the house that you build to Me? says the Lord."

These great features of Essential Godhead stand, as it were, on the outskirts of revelation and are beyond us for ever. If that were all we had, it would make us shrivel up into our own nothingness, as creatures of a day: Deity in its essential fulness and greatness could but keep us at a distance. There is that which stands for ever beyond revelation, a shoreless and fathomless ocean of Godhead. Here we come up against a wall, which says, thus far shalt thou come, and no further. This is the unseeable and unapproachable God, in His essential and impersonal Being as One.