God is not bound by space but rather uses space for His own purposes, for His glory and our good. As he says in Psalm 23: “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” Even in a world gone mad, the believer can take comfort in the omnipresence of God. Yet the omnipresence of God has a double edge for humanity, as the prophet Jonah learned the hard way. In His attempt to flee the presence of God, he learned that he couldn’t.

“The guy upstairs.” “The big man in the sky.” These are just two of the more common, modern slang terms for God. Aside from being utterly irreverent, they transgress the Second Commandment of having no graven images of God in that they grossly mistake this important attribute of God: His omnipresence. Thinking of God just hanging out with the angels in heaven while we puny humans go about our business on earth is absolutely horrible, yet I wonder if Christians all too often slip into this frame of thinking. Yet the Bible is clear: God is omnipresent. But what does this actually mean, that He is omnipresent? I first want to offer a simple, yet perhaps paradigm shifting definition and explanation of the doctrine. Secondly, I want to propose that this doctrine is immensely practical for every believer.

Definition

While most would probably define God’s omnipresence as the fact that God is everywhere present or that He occupies all physical space in the universe, this isn’t quite accurate. We frankly have the scientific revolution to thank for that, in that theology and the study of God began to be influenced by our understanding of the physical world. 

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