If God is everywhere, is God present in hell too?

(2) Bildad had dwelt upon the glories of God as displayed in the heavens; Job declares His domain in the depths. It is not "dead things," but rather the "shades," the "things under the earth" (Phil. 2:10). This may refer to the evil spirits, to infernal things; and, according to the manner of the Old Testament, to Sheol and its inhabitants. (See Ezek. 32:18, etc.) "Dragons and all deeps" tremble at His presence. It is folly to think of the abode of the lost as independent of God. Whether it be "the spirits [now] in prison" (1 Peter 3:19), or the bottomless pit, or the lake of fire, God, not Satan, reigns. His will at last must be obeyed. "If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, Thou art there" (Ps. 139:8).

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?

All man's good is in the manifestation of God thus to the soul. In a world which His hands have made, and into which, though fallen, still His mercies come continuously, where His sun shines on the evil and the good, and His rain falls on the just and on the unjust, men vainly deem that they can do without Him. Alas! with the goods of his father in his hand, man can enjoy his pleasure in a far-off country, disregarding the famine that will surely come. They can think of doing without God in a world from which, though hidden, He is not withdrawn. Once withdrawn, they will find too late what they have chosen; for as heaven is God's dwelling-place, hell is the place whence He is forever absent: if God is light, hell is the place of utter and unimagined darkness.

The psalmist has written, "If I ascend into heaven, You are there.". Now, in the other direction, "If I make my bed in hades, behold, You are there." Hades is the condition of the soul and spirit as separated from the body by death. But the rich man of Luke 16:19-31, in that condition, did not escape the ordeal of having to do with God, whom he had ignored during his life. Or if one goes so far as possible over the sea where there are no inhabitants, even there God's hand will lead him, His right hand of power will hold him (vv. 9-10). Or if he seeks the obscurity of darkness, this is not darkness to God, for light and darkness make no difference to Him. He is the Creator of darkness, just as He is of light. Though men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil, it is folly for them to try this means of hiding from God.

(6.) Ps. 139:8: "If I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there": — a very strange quotation on Dr. Farrar's part, made still more strange by the poetry in his note.* Strange — because the word for "hell" is (as of course he knows) sheol; one of the words he speaks of elsewhere as denoting "a place both for the bad and the good," and which "means an intermediate state of the soul previous to judgment," and not, therefore, "hell" in the ordinary sense at all. Made stranger by the poetry he quotes: for that would make it appear that hell was a receptacle for those who cling in humility and love to Christ.

In the next section the three smaller divisions are similarly distinguishable. In the first, Spirit and presence are, I suppose,the same essentially, while heaven and hell — Sheol or hades, not Gehenna, — are wide asunder: it is omnipresence simply that is in question. In the next, it is relation to the Omnipresent, and that in dependence: the wings of the dawn and the uttermost parts of the sea convey the thought apparently of the utmost solitude; but "even there shall Thy hand lead me and Thy right hand hold me." In the third, exposure is what he cannot escape: darkness and light are relative only to man; for God there is no difference.

Then we have such expressions as the "depths of sheol" (Prov. 9:18), "the lowest sheol" (Ps. 86:13, Deut. 32:22), — in the last passage God's wrath being said to burn to it, — "though they dig into sheol" (Amos. 9:2), which show that the grave cannot be the whole matter there. So even in sheol (Ps. 139:8) there is no escape from the presence of God: "if I make my bed in sheol, behold, Thou art there!" Can that be nonentity?

Then we have such expressions as the "depths of sheol" (Prov. ix. 18), "the lowest sheol" (Psa. lxxxvi. 13, Deut. xxxii. 22), - in the last passage God's wrath being said to burn to it, - "though they dig into sheol" (Amos. ix. 2), which show that the grave cannot be the whole matter there. So even in sheol (Psa. cxxxix. 8) there is no escape from the presence of God: "if I make my bed in sheol, behold, Thou art there!" Can that be nonentity? Surely we may be excused then from following very closely the dissertations of those who have learnedly endeavoured to prove that sheol is the abode of dead sheep, of men's bones, and of weapons of war! For the first statement there is one passage produced, Psa. xlix. 14: "Like sheep they are laid in sheol;" as Delitzsch expresses it, "they are made to lie down in sheol, like sheep in a fold." This one comparison of the wicked lying down in sheol like a flock of sheep, Mr. Constable thinks sufficient to show, "to the astonishment and disgust of our Platonic divines and thinkers, that beasts go on death to hades"! In the same way, Psa. cxli. 7, "Our bones are scattered at the mouth of sheol," is made to assure us that "the bones of the dead are consigned in death to hades!" The psalmist plainly says they are outside.*

Moreover, there is no hiding from it, no place where it is not. "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?" Heaven? Not only God is there; His presence fills it. Hades?" Hell is naked before Him, and destruction hath no covering." (Job 26:6.) No wonder the psalmist should say, "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it." It is not that anyone might say, "God knows everything; and, of course, He knows all about me." A person might have that consciousness and yet not know what it is to be searched by the Spirit of God. We must come into the sense of it. Until it is so there will not be the full sense of what the salvation of God is.

It is in reference to the subject of this psalm that in Hebrews 4:13 it is written, "All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." Two things are brought before us in the end of this chapter - the piercing, discerning power of the word of God; and "His sight." The Word is the instrument of the Spirit. By it the Spirit of God deals with me; but, further, He makes me conscious of being manifest to God. There is no created thing that is not manifest in His sight. Thus I am not only sensible of the action of the discerning power of the Word, but of the all‑pervading, all‑searching power of the Spirit and presence of God; for "all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." Everything is open before Him - heaven and hades, the place of the dead, as well as the recesses of the heart of man.

He is omnipresent, all-present. He is everywhere. David says in Psalm 139:7-8, “Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? and whither flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into the heavens thou art there; or if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, thou art there”. God is always there. Many verses in this psalm speak of this. Wherever we can go He is there.