The Lord Surrounds His People

Charnock on the Comforting Use of God's Omnipresence

The precious promise of our Lord in the Great Commission is familiar to many of us: “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). How else could the Gospel go forth in power to the lost had not Jesus come with His Ministers to seek them? Though Jesus is no longer with us bodily—rather, our Lord dwells in the Heavenly Realms (John 16:5-11, John 17:5)—yet He is with us for He and the Father have sent the Holy Ghost to be our Helper (John 14:16-17,26, 17:7-11). In this sending, we see not just the Triune Economy of Redemption, but the revelation of God Himself and His Very Being. Let us lift our eyes from His Works to His Nature and behold the Glorious, Incomprehensible, and Unapproachable God and His Attributes, namely, His Wonderful Omnipresence.

For a little while now, I have been working through Stephen Charnock's classic The Existence and Attributes of God. His excellent treatise, cut short by the Lord who was pleased to call him Home, is divided up into fourteen discourses that center upon—as the name suggests—both defending the existence of God (Discourses 1-2) and an exposition of the Attributes of God (Discourses 3-14). The seventh discourse focuses on God’s Omnipresence, in which Charnock—in accordance with Holy Scripture—defines, defends, and applies the Attribute of Omnipresence to the Saints.

Charnock defines Omnipresence as “God is essentially everywhere present in heaven and earth.”¹ God is everywhere, He fills up all places, there is no space too high or low, small or big, long or wide that is hidden from His Presence. This is not to say that all things are God, as Pantheists would believe, when I pick up the water bottle that is sitting on my desk, that water bottle is not God. Yet, by His Nature, as He cannot be contained or limited to a finite space,² He fills up all places. As Charnock notes, “A body or spirit, because finite, fills but one space; God, because infinite, fills all, yet so as not to be contained in them, as wine and water is in a vessel. He is from the height of the heavens to the bottom of the deeps in every point of the world and in the whole circle of it, yet not limited by it but beyond it.”³ His Omnipresence does not only have relevance in regards to His Creative Power (that is, God is not omnipresence solely because He created all things that exist), rather, it also relates to “His Providence, supporting and sustaining them; for not only the creatures have their being in him, and from him, and therefore he must be near them; but ‘he upholds all things by his power,’ they consist in him, he provides for them, and preserves them all.”⁴ Such truths are not meant to remain as high notions for theological speculation alone. Rather, they descend into the very marrow of the Christian life. As theology moves from the head to the heart, it must enflame both our affections and our assurance. It is here that Charnock turns now to where we shall go, to see the great comfort that the Attribute of God’s Omnipresence provides. See Charnock’s wise application of this knowledge to our souls (emphasizes mine):

That God is present everywhere is as much a comfort to a good man as it is a terror to a wicked one. He is everywhere for his people, not only by a necessary perfection of his nature but by an immense diffusion of his goodness. He is in all creatures as their preserver, in the damned as their terror, in his people as their protector. He fills hell with his severity, heaven with his glory, his people with his grace. He is with his people as light in darkness, a fountain in a garden, as manna in the ark. God is in the world as a spring of preservation; in the church as his cabinet, his spring of grace and consolation. A man is present sometimes in his field but more delightfully in his garden. A vineyard, as it has more of cost, so more of care, and a watchful presence of the owner: “I, the Lord, do keep it,” viz., his vineyard; “I will water it every moment; lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day” (Isa. 27:3).

As there is a presence of essence, which is natural, so there is a presence of grace, which is federal—a presence by covenant: “I will not leave you, I will be with you.” This latter depends upon the former, for take away the immensity of God, and you leave no foundation for his universal gracious presence with his people in all their emergencies, in all their hearts. And therefore, where he is present in his essence, he cannot be absent in his grace from those who fear him. It is from his filling heaven and earth he proves his knowledge of the designs of the false prophets, and from the same topic may as well be inferred the employment of his power and grace for his people.⁵

Solely because God is who He is, we can be assured of His Special Providence for His Church.⁶ As Charnock notes above, because God by His very essence fills all places, we, as Christians, can be sure that God is able to fulfil all His Gracious Covenant Promises. He is Omnipresent, in all places, and upholds and preserves all things by His Power, and so He is with His Church wheresoever she goes. And so Charnock breaks down this use, explaining five key elements of this comfort (emphasizes mine).

1. The omnipresence of God is a comfort in all violent temptations.

   No fiery dart can be so present with us as God is present both with that and the marksman. The most raging devils cannot be so near us as God is to us and them. He is present with his people to relieve them and present with the devil to manage him to his own holy purposes. So he was with Job, defeating his enemies and bringing him triumphantly out of those pressing trials. This presence is such a terror that whatsoever the devil can despoil us of, he must leave this untouched. He might scratch the apostle with a thorn (2 Cor. 12:7, 9), but he could not rifle him of the presence of divine grace, which God promised him. He must prevail so far as to make God cease to be God before he can make him to be distant from us. And while this cannot be, the devils and men can no more hinder the emanations of God to the soul than a child can cut off the rays of the sun from embellishing the earth.⁷

2. The omnipresence of God is a comfort in sharp afflictions.

   Good men have a comfort in this presence in their nasty prisons, oppressing tribunals; in the overflowing waters or scorching flames he is still with them (Isa. 43:2) and many times by his presence keeps the bush from consuming when it seems to be all in a flame. In afflictions God shows himself most present when friends are most absent: “When my father and mother forsake me, then the Lord shall take me up” (Ps. 27:10), then God will stoop and gather me into his protection—or, in Hebrew, “shall gather me,” alluding to those tribes that were to bring up the rear in the Israelites’ march, to take care that none were left behind and exposed to famine or wild beasts, by reason of some disease that disenabled them to keep pace with their brethren. He who is the sanctuary of his people in all calamities is more present with them to support them than their adversaries can be present with them to afflict them, a present help in the time of trouble (Ps. 46:1).

   He is present with all things for this end. Though his presence be a necessary presence in regard of the immensity of his nature, yet the end of this presence in regard that it is for the good of his people is a voluntary presence. It is for the good of man he is present in the lower world and principally for the good of his people, for whose sake he keeps up the world: “His eyes run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him” (2 Chron. 16:9). If he does not deliver good men from afflictions, he will be so present as to manage them in them, as that his glory shall issue from them, and their grace be brightened by them.⁸

3. The omnipresence of God is a comfort in all duties of worship.

   Habitation notes a special presence: though he dwell in the highest heavens in the sparklings of his glory, he dwells also in the lowest hearts in the beams of his grace; as none can expel him from his dwelling in heaven, so none can reject him from his residence in the heart. The tabernacle had his peculiar presence fixed to it (Lev. 26:11); his soul should not abhor them, as they are washed by Christ, though they are loathsome by sin. In a greater dispensation there cannot be a less presence, since the church under the New Testament is called the temple of the Lord, wherein he will both “dwell” and “walk” (2 Cor. 6:16), or, I will indwell in them, as if he should say, I will dwell in and in them—I will dwell in them by grace and walk in them by exciting their graces. He will be more intimate with them than their own souls and converse with them as the living God—that is, as a God who has life in himself and life to convey to them in their converse with him—and show his spiritual glory among them in a greater measure than in the temple, since that was but a heap of stones and the figure of the Christian church, the mystical body of his Son. His presence is not less in the substance than it was in the shadow.⁹

4. The omnipresence of God is a comfort in all special services.

   God never puts any upon a hard task but he makes promises to encourage them and assist them, and the matter of the promise is that of his presence. So he did assure the prophets of old when he set them difficult tasks and strengthened Moses against the face of Pharaoh by assuring him he would be with his mouth (Ex. 4:12). And when Christ put his apostles upon a contest with the whole world, to preach a gospel that would be foolishness to the Greeks and a stumbling block to the Jews, he gives them a cordial only composed of his presence: “I will be with you” (Matt. 28:20). It is this presence that scatters by its light the darkness of our spirits; it is this that is the cause of what is done for his glory in the world; it is this that mingles itself with all that is done for his honor; it is this from whence springs all the assistance of his creatures, marked out for special purposes.¹⁰

5. This presence is not without the special presence of all his attributes.

   Where his essence is, his perfections are, because they are one with his essence; yea, they are his essence, though they have their several degrees of manifestation. As in the covenant he makes over himself, not a part of himself but his whole deity, so in promising of his presence, he means not a part of it but the whole, the presence of all the excellencies of his nature to be manifested for our good. It is not that a piece of God is here and another parcel there but God in his whole essence and perfections—in his wisdom to guide us, his power to protect and support us, his mercy to pity us, his fullness to refresh us, and his goodness to relieve us. He is ready to sparkle out in this or that perfection, as the necessities of his people require, and his own wisdom directs for his own honor, so that being not far from us in an excellency of his nature, we can quickly have recourse to him upon any emergency—so that if we are miserable, we have the presence of his goodness; if we want direction, we have the presence of his wisdom; if we are weak, we have the presence of his power. And should we not rejoice in it, as a man does in the presence of a powerful, wealthy, and compassionate friend?¹¹

Therefore, O Christian, look up, down, around, and anywhere for your God and you will find Him, “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.” (Psalm 139:7-10).

Surely the saying is true, that “As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people, from this time forth and forevermore.” (Psalm 125:2).

All Glory be to Christ.

1. The Existence and Attributes of God, Discourse 7, Stephen Charnock

2. This is the Attribute known as Immensity

3. The Existence and Attributes of God, Discourse 7, Stephen Charnock

4. A Body of Doctrinal Divinity 1.6.1, John Gill

5. The Existence and Attributes of God, Discourse 7, Stephen Charnock

6. “As the providence of God does in general reach to all creatures, so after a more special manner it takes care of His church, and disposes of all things to the good thereof.” (1689, 5.7)

7. The Existence and Attributes of God, Discourse 7, Stephen Charnock

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid.