Cultivating the Presence of God

I’m working with a group through L. Michael Morales’ excellent Who Shall Ascent theMountain of the Lord? on Tuesday mornings. As I’ve been preparing for tomorrow morning and making some notes, I wanted to take a point of his further so that we can make a very practical application from this rich biblical theology.

On pg. 100, Morales reminds us that “another parallel” between Eden and the tabernacle “is in the terms used to describe the work of the priests within the tabernacle complex and that of Adam within the garden of Eden, ‘to worship and guard/obey’” (pg. 100).

Let's look at those parallels.

Adam in the garden: “Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate [עָבַד] it and keep it [שָׁמַר]” (Genesis 2:15).[1]

The Levites in the tabernacle:

·         “They shall perform [שָׁמַר] the duties for him and for the whole congregation before the tent of meeting, to do [עָבַד] the service of the tabernacle. They shall also keep [שָׁמַר] all the furnishings of the tent of meeting, along with the duties of the sons of Israel, to do [עָבַד] the service of the tabernacle” (Numbers 3:7,8)

·         “…you and your sons with you shall attend [שָׁמַר] to your priesthood for everything concerning the altar and inside the veil, and you are to perform [עָבַד] service. I am giving you the priesthood as a bestowed service…” (Numbers 18:7).

Here’s the further point I want to make: these same verbs are used together in describing how God’s people, “a kingdom of priests” (Exodus 19:6; 1 Peter 2:5,9; Revelation 1:6; 5:10; 20:6), could maintain fellowship with God (as in the garden and tabernacle, but on a daily, personal level):

·         “You shall follow the Lord your God and fear Him; and you shall keep [שָׁמַר] His commandments, listen to His voice, serve [עָבַד] Him, and cling to Him” (Deuteronomy 13:4).

·         “Only be very careful [שָׁמַר] to observe the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God and walk in all His ways and keep [שָׁמַר] His commandments and hold fast to Him and serve [עָבַד] Him with all your heart and with all your soul” (Joshua 22:5).

Just as Adam maintained the place of fellowship with God (the garden) and the Levites maintained the place of fellowship with God (the tabernacle), the old and new covenant people of God, as “a kingdom of priests,” maintain fellowship with God through an obedience-producing faith.

Now, with this in mind, hear afresh Jesus’ words the last night before His death as He walked with the disciples between the upper room and the garden of Gethsemane: “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words [Christ’s words are His presence] abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love” (John 15:4-10).

We cultivate the garden/tent of our fellowship with God in Christ when we lovingly work out our faith by bringing His words into us (hearing, reading, meditation, memorization) and by taking ourselves into His words (obeying them in our thoughts, affections, and actions).

---

[1] I haven’t given these Hebrew words as they appear in the text, but in their root forms so you can see the similarities.

How Does That Make You Feel?

Confession: I like reading philosophy. I say this by way of confession because there’s been a lot of philosophy through the years, secular and Christian, that’s left me feeling dirty intellectually and theologically. Many writers have made greater commitments to their own reasoning over against historical and (more importantly) biblical orthodoxy. This makes me feel icky.

K. Scott Oliphint is different. He’s not the only one, but reading Dr. Oliphint leaves me feeling like I am better equipped to obey that specific part of the greatest commandment than I was before I read him: “You shall love the Lord your God with all...your mind” (Matthew 22:37//Mark 12:30//Luke 10:27). Dr. Oliphint’s philosophy is pleasantly accessible (without avoiding the deep stuff) and even doxological. I’m re-reading God with Us this Advent season and thoroughly enjoying it.

Like I said, I like reading philosophy. But I’m bad at doing it. I am neither a philosopher nor the son of a philosopher, and am incapable of going past a pedestrian discussion of the weather with a philosopher. But as I’ve been re-reading God with Us this afternoon (and nursing a persistently annoying head cold with Echinacea tea), I was reminded of a theory I once jotted down on paper but never submitted to the imitation eternity that is the blogosphere (wow...the spell-checker recognized “blogosphere” as a real word...sigh).

What jogged my memory was Dr. Oliphint’s discussion of God’s immensity, immutability, and impassibility (which occurs back-to-back on pgs. 79-88). When I say this his words “jogged my memory,” it does not mean that anything I am about to say is an echo of his words or would be endorsed by him (or any other real philosopher) in any way. Disclaimer sufficiently made.

I affirm God’s immutability and impassibility whole-heartedly. I have read some objections to this classic doctrine, but have still returned to the ancient confessions of these doctrines. God is unchangeable and is not impassioned (in the sense that He reacts to events with emotions).

A few years ago I was reading the account of the Flood and paused at the recording of God’s “feelings” at that moment: “And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him to His heart” (Genesis 6:6). God does not literally have a “heart” (neither do we, at least according to the common way we refer to it), but this figure of speech (anthropomorphism and even anthropopathism) adequately and powerfully conveys God’s attitude toward what was going on in the world at the time: “...the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (6:5).

We read this and automatically interact with the facts based on our experience of things: something happens, and we react emotionally to the occurrence of that something. Is this what’s happening here with God? Did God wake up one day, look down, see the wickedness of humanity, and change moods in response to this wickedness? If so, God is not impassible.

What occurred to me a few years ago was that God’s “emotions,” as revealed in Scripture, need to be considered not in the context of an “emotional life” of God (which, in this understanding, is analogous to our own “emotional life”), but as a function of revelation.

God is always, unchangeably grieved and wrathful towards wickedness. This attribute of God is not dependent on His being exposed to wickedness. It isn’t that the day before God “saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” all was well in the “emotional life” of God, but the day He “saw” everything changed in His divine “mood.” It’s that God is always grieved and wrathful against wickedness, and when it arose to a certain level in the civilization of humanity, God revealed this attribute of Himself through the subsequent events of His interaction with Noah, the Flood, and through the scriptural revelation of all this in the words of Moses we have recorded in Genesis. God’s mood didn’t change; He revealed an unchanging attribute of Himself at a specific time (and at a specific point in Scripture). He did not become; He revealed.

I believe the analogy for God’s “emotional life” is not in our own experience of feelings, but in God’s omnipresence (or, as Dr. Oliphint discusses it, God’s immensity or immeasurability). God is not limited by space or confined in it in any way. Dr. Oliphint mentions the following verses for this doctrine: Psalm 139:7-12; Jeremiah 23:23-24; Acts 17:28 (pg. 81, footnote 74.). While God is not limited by definite space as we are, He nonetheless allows His Presence to be revealed covenantally in specific places: the Garden of Eden, the Tabernacle, the Temple, the new covenant Church. For God to be “enthroned upon the cherubim” (1 Samuel 4:4; 2 Samuel 6:2; 2 Kings 19:15; 1 Chronicles 13:6//Isaiah 37:16; Psalm 80:1; 99:1) does not in any way mean that God solely existed above the images of the cherubim atop the Ark of the Covenant. Solomon actually even confesses that any limiting of the Presence of God is crazy (1 Kings 8:27//2 Chronicles 6:18). This would be as foolish as the reasoning of Aaron before idolatrous Israel on the day of the golden calf (Exodus 32:4). For God to be specially manifested in a certain place in the midst of His covenant people did not mean that He was limited to that place, but that He gracefully revealed His Presence to His covenant people within the bounds of that covenant.

I’d like to propose that His “emotions” are the same way. The “feelings” we see Him manifesting at certain points in Scripture are actually His constant, unchanging attributes revealed at a certain point to describe His covenant relationship, either with unsaved humanity (under the curse of the violated covenant of works) or saved humanity (under the blessings of the covenant of grace in Jesus Christ). He manifests His attributes as a function of revelation, not as a result of passion.

Well, I’d better stop before I hurt myself or cause Dr. Oliphint to somewhere break out in a cold sweat because his name’s been mentioned in the context of the philosophical ramblings of a non-philosopher.

God’s “emotion” is a function of revelation, not mutability or passibility.

The Means of God's Knowledge, Life, Presence

“But thanks be to God, Who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. And who is adequate for these things? For we are not like many, peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God” (2 Corinthians 2:14-17).

• “...knowledge of Him...” = “...the word of God...”
• “...from life to life...”
• “...as from sincerity, as from God, we speak Christ in the sight of God...”

This is how He manifests His knowledge, life, Presence: through His Word proclaimed. It is unbiblical (against what He has said & commanded, "the word of God") to seek these things from Him elsewhere. Gather to Him and hear Him unto knowledge, life, His Presence. And give Him thanks!