Here's How God Can Be Everywhere at the Same Time--and What It Means

I've had occasion recently to reflect on the spiritual nature of God and on the fact that the better we understand the spiritual nature of God, the better we understand God.  In considering His spiritual nature and further considering that He is the source of everything that we know to exist in the physical realm, it becomes clear, fundamentally, that He is not at all constrained by the rules that govern the physical realm.  For what we understand of existence stems from our experience in the physical realm.  We cannot help but think of existence linearly, for example, because we are subject to the physical realm, and that is how things exist in the physical realm.  Things are made, they are used and then they are depreciated to nothing and disposed of.  People are born, they live and then they die.  We witness the physical realm and its rules, and we witness the limited existence of things, and we conclude that God must be subject to the same rules--He must exist linearly like us.  But it's not how things are.  God existed before the physical realm existed, and God created the rules regarding the physical realm.  He can, therefore, alter them at will.  He did not make the rules as a means to constrain Himself.  He exists apart from and outside of the rules of the physical realm. When you consider what He can do, because He is outside of the physical realm, you should be speechless.  

The physical realm, which includes time, space, matter and energy, was born when God enabled it to be.  So think for a moment about what existed before time, space, matter and energy: nothing.  Yet God occupied that nothing place that we cannot comprehend--because He is a spirit. That nothing space is beyond our comprehension, because there is absolutely no physical element to it, and we know and understand only the physical realm.  Notably, in a place where no physical elements exist, time does not exist, which explains why God is eternal and not subject to time.

Think about it.  Space (and probably time) did not exist until energy and matter were created by God.  Because matter and energy cannot exist without space, the existence of space was necessary to accommodate energy and matter.  Time did not exist (or at least it did not matter) before matter and energy, because time only matters when matter, space and energy exist. Thus, when energy and matter came into being (along with space to accommodate them), time immediately began (or became meaningful) as something of a byproduct--an offspring of rules that somehow govern the matter, energy and space such that it only seems to make sense to us when it is considered linearly.  This is why the Bible says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”  In the context of absolutely nothing, energy and matter exploded into existence at the Word of God.  It was most certainly a “big bang” when matter and energy suddenly came into existence.  Space (what we understand or experience as constituted in the heaven) was simultaneously created to accommodate the new physical elements of matter and energy (what we most directly understand or experience as constituted in the earth), and all originated “in the beginning” because time started (or became physically meaningful) at the birth of matter and energy.  Consider further that when matter, energy and space cease to exist, time will also stop (or cease to matter).  It is against this backdrop that we begin to understand how God's spiritual nature can account for His sovereignty, His omnipresence, His omniscience, predestination, and the magnitude of His forgiveness.

Here's how.  Since God originated the physical realm, and He is outside of it and not subject to it, then He is not subject to time or space, and He can, therefore, necessarily move through and exist in time and space in ways that to us are mind boggling.  For instance, because of these considerations, He can do the following amazing things: He can be with each of us at every moment of our lives at the same time, at any time or at all times.  This is how He knows us.  He can literally see the day of our birth and the day of our death at the same time.  Of course, He can also see every millisecond in between.  It is because of this fact that He can "foreknow" the date on which a person will accept the Word of God for salvation.  This is also how He can know the number of hairs on our heads (Luke 12:7)--because in a realm where God is not subject to time, He has all the time in the universe to spend with each of us--knowing us to the degree that He can take the time to count the hairs on our heads.  This is why we can be confident that when we call out to God, He hears us (Psalm 18:6)--all of us; He hears everything we say, He observes every one of our actions (Psalm 139:2).  Amazingly, we can better understand how God can be our intimate companion; indeed, He exists with us more closely, more attentively, and with more knowledge than we can ever possibly understand.  There is no need to try to hide from Him in our sin, because He literally sees us from every angle at every millisecond; it's pointless to try to hide; you cannot hide from a being with such a nature.   

While King David likely did not understand the science of it, he truly understood the impact of the spiritual nature of God, considering that he wrote the following passage, recorded in Psalm 139:

"Lord, You have searched me and known me.
² You know when I sit down and when I stand up;
You understand my thoughts from far away.
³ You observe my travels and my rest;
You are aware of all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue,
You know all about it, Lord.
⁵ You have encircled me;
You have placed Your hand on me.
⁶ This extraordinary knowledge is beyond me.
It is lofty; I am unable to reach it.

⁷ Where can I go to escape Your Spirit?
Where can I flee from Your presence?
⁸ If I go up to heaven, You are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, You are there.
⁹ If I live at the eastern horizon
or settle at the western limits,
¹⁰ even there Your hand will lead me;
Your right hand will hold on to me.
¹¹ If I say, 'Surely the darkness will hide me,
and the light around me will be night'—
¹² even the darkness is not dark to You.
The night shines like the day;
darkness and light are alike to You."

(HCSB)

Knowing that God has such power to know us so well, each of us should find peace in further knowing that we are so intimately known.  We can speak to God at any second of our lives, knowing that He hears us.  This is how we can understand that we can be called "children of God"--except that God has the ability to know us in ways that parents can never possibly know their children.  This consideration of God also explains His name; when Moses asked His name, God said that His name is “I am because I am.”  He is the one who always exists, because time is His creation--not His master; He is the only self-existing being.

So when God created matter, energy, space and time, He could immediately see and know everything that would take place, and He could occupy every facet of space and time and move through matter and energy as though it were a frozen frame--like moments of the Matrix--only to an insanely more enhanced degree.  Of course, He also has the ability to alter the course of any outcome--which is why He is sovereign.  He has the ultimate "butterfly effect" ability.

This consideration also gives us a window of understanding into the amazing salvation that we enjoy, because in the moment of Christ's death, God could actually witness all sins that each of us would ever commit at the same time as the nails were being pounded through Jesus' hands and feet and the same time that Jesus was taking His last breath on the cross and the same time that Jesus was being raised from the dead.  This is how all of our sins could be laid on Jesus--because God could see them all. Curiously enough, too, we say that Christ "died" on the cross; yet, because God is not bound by time, to God, Christ will die, is dying and has died on the cross--all at the same time.  The act of cross always exists as though it is always currently happening to God.  The superior act of Jesus, constantly occurring in the presence of God, overcomes the constant sins that we commit--if we have placed our trust in Jesus for forgiveness of our sins.

This amazing consideration regarding the nature of God--His existing beyond time and space--is also how God can, in His Word, give us prophecy.  He can see the events unfold and even the end of time on the day that time began.  So, explaining something to us about the future is like us talking about a historical event--only He sees all of the details in a way that enables Him to be 100% accurate--unlike the stories that we tell from our past.  Again, to God, the events will happen, are happening and have happened all at the same time.

The other ramifications of this consideration of God's nature are abundant, but this simple explanation, I trust, enlightens our understanding of how the nature of God, relative to the physical realm that He originated, explains His attributes of omniscience, omnipresence, foreknowledge and sovereignty as well as the definitive nature of His plan and His forgiveness of our sin.

In understanding this aspect of His nature, we have all the reason in the universe in which we exist to praise Him.

Mark Absher 
California
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