It is argued by some, that the Great Creator has no fixed location, that He is everywhere existent, with no distinct dwelling place. Psalm 139 is used to support this contention:
“Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up to heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there …” (Psa. 139:7-8).
However, although it is true that the Almighty is in all places by His Spirit, it is also true that he has a specific fixed location where He dwells. Hence Psalm 33 describes:
“Yahweh looketh from heaven; he beholdeth all the sons of men. From the place of his habitation he looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth” (Psa. 33:13-14).
Our Creator then, has a “place of his habitation”. Again, Peter describes the same principle, speaking of God:
“who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.” (1 Tim. 6:16).
The question arises, if God is everywhere, and has no fixed abode, how is it that no man can “approach unto” Him – they are always in His Presence!
THE LORD JESUS CHRIST
There is another problem with the contention that is sometimes put forward: if God has no localised existence, then where is the Lord Jesus Christ? Hebrews 12 tell us that Jesus:
“for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2).
The question is, then, if God has no “right hand”, and no “throne”, then what is it that Jesus is in the presence of? His body is physical, albeit immortal, for he said: “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have” (Lu. 24:39).
The Lord, we are specifically informed, has a physical body. But where is he with that physical body? Something must be somewhere – and according to the Bible, the Father has a presence, and that is where the Son is located also. To deny that God has a specific dwelling place, raises insurmountable problems.
The Christadelphian Statement of Faith (the Birmingham Amended Statement of Faith, or BASF), states plainly that:
“the only true God is He who was revealed to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, by angelic visitation and vision, and to Moses at the flaming bush (unconsumed) and at Sinai, and who manifested Himself in the Lord Jesus Christ, as the supreme self-existent Deity, the ONE FATHER, dwelling in unapproachable light, yet everywhere present by His Spirit, which is a unity with His person in heaven. He hath, out of His own underived energy, created heaven and earth, and all that in them is.- Is 40:13-25; 43:10-12; 44:6-8; 46:9,10; Job 38,39 and 40; Deut. 6:4; Mark 12:29-32; 1Cor 8:4-6; Eph 4:6; 1Tim 2:5; Neh 9:6; Job 26:13; Ps 124:8; 146:6; 148:5; Is 40:26,27; Jer 10:12,13; 27:5; 32:17-19; 51:15; Acts 14:15; 17:24; 1Chron 29:11-14; Ps 62:11; 145:3; Is 26:4; 40:26; Job 9:4; 36:5; Ps 92:5; 104:24; 147:4-5; Is 28:29; Rom 16:27; 1Tim 1:17; 2Chron 16:9; Job 28:24; 34:21; Ps 33:13,14; 44:21; 94:9; 139:7-12; Prov 15:3; Jer 23:24; 32:19; Amos 9:2,3; Acts 17:27,28; Ps 123:1; 1Kings 8:30,39,43,49; Mat 6:9; 1Tim 6:15-16; 1:17” (BASF Clause 1).
Notice the wording used here in the phrases we have highlighted: God is a specific “person in heaven”, dwelling in a particular place – i.e. “in unapproachable light”. It is true that he is “everywhere present by His Spirit,” but it is nevertheless also true that he is a distinct “person” who has a fixed dwelling place.
Brother Robert Roberts describes how this position is actually a first principle doctrine:
“It is a first principle of the subject that God is a glorious person, dwelling in heaven, yet filling the immeasurable universe by His Spirit, which is the effluent energy of His person, constituting the basis, or force, or first cause of all things in heaven and earth, in this Spirit all things exist” (Ways of Providence, P. 233).
Again, he writes in his book Christendom Astray:
“Some shrink from the suggestion that Deity has a located existence. Why should they? The Scriptures expressly teach the located existence of Deity. We submit the evidence: Paul says in I Tim. 6:16. God dwells “in the light which no man can approach unto.” Here is a localisation of the person of the Creator. If God were on earth in the same sense in which He dwells in light unapproachable, what could Paul mean by saying that man cannot approach? If God dwells in unapproachable light, He must have an existence there, which is not manifested in this mundane sphere. This is borne out by Solomon’s words: “God is in heaven, thou upon earth” (Ecclesiastes 5:2); “therefore let thy words be few.” Jesus inculcates the same view in the prayer which he taught his disciples: “Our Father which art in heaven.” So does David, in Psalm 102:19, 20: “He (the Lord) hath looked down from the height of His sanctuary; from heaven did the Lord behold the earth, to hear the groaning of the prisoner.” And again, in Psa. 115:16: “The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord’s; but the earth hath He given to the children of men.” Solomon in the prayer by which he dedicated the temple to God (recorded in the 8th chapter of I Kings), made frequent use of this expression: “Hear Thou in heaven Thy dwelling place.” It is impossible to mistake the tenor of these testimonies: they plainly mean that the Father of all is a person who exists in the central “heaven of heavens” as He exists nowhere else. By His Spirit in immensely-filling diffusion, He is everywhere present in the sense of holding and knowing, and being conscious of creation to its utmost bounds; but in His proper person, all-glorious, beyond human power to conceive, He dwells in heaven. …. There is great and invincible repugnance to this evidently Scriptural and reasonable, and beautiful view of the matter. It is the popular habit, where serious views of God are entertained at all, to conceive of Him as a principle or energy in universal diffusion—without corporeal nucleus, without local habitation, “without body or parts.” There is no ground for this popular predilection, except such as philosophy may be supposed to furnish. Philosophy is a poor guide in the matter. Philosophy, after all, is only human thought. It can have little weight in a matter confessedly beyond human ken. The question is, What is revealed? We need not be concerned if what is revealed is contrary to philosophical conceptions of the matter. Philosophical conceptions are just as likely to be wrong as right. Paul warns believers against the danger of being spoiled through philosophy (Col. 2:8). Philosophy or no philosophy, the Scriptures quoted plainly teach that the Father is a tangible person, in whom all the powers of the Universe converge.
(Christendom Astray Pg 138-139)
The Scriptures are clear: we must accept the evidence it presents!
Christopher Maddocks
