God’s Presence: Convicting, Loving, and Holy
Who was the first person to experience God’s presence? It was Adam. Before Adam sinned against God, he was like a child regarding morality. He didn’t know right from wrong. It wasn’t until he ate the forbidden fruit that he experienced God’s presence, knowing what he did was wrong. We might consider this a template for any experience of God’s presence today. It is written,
Genesis 3:8–12 CSB17
“Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. So the LORD God called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”
And he said, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”
Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
The man replied, “The woman you gave to be with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.””
This is not a man who is bold enough to lie to God. No one can lie directly to God. It was out of God’s mercy and love for Adam and Eve that He asked them these questions. God did not kindle His wrath at this point in time. After all, God knew what Adam and Eve would do before he even created the universe.
Moving on, we see others have experienced God’s presence. Noah, Abraham, Moses, etc., all experienced the presence of God. There is no trace anywhere in the Bible that we can be nonchalant when we experience God’s presence. God is Holy – completely separate from all creation. Creation itself cannot understand God because He is so far above us. We notice with God’s presence, as Isaiah says,
Isaiah 6:5 CSB17
“Woe is me for I am ruined
because I am a man of unclean lips
and live among a people of unclean lips,
and because my eyes have seen the King,
the LORD of Armies.”
If we understood God, we would not be acting as we do. I still sin. I still do wrong things. I often second-guess whether I should have done A instead of B. I say this with reverence, but God can use imperfect vessels for His own glory for His own purposes. We are mere clay in the hands of the potter. Some might say that God created some people to go to hell for God’s glory based on Romans 9, but I have a different perspective. I believe that Romans 9 is talking about Israel, which is why it says,
Romans 9:4–5 CSB17
“They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the temple service, and the promises. The ancestors are theirs, and from them, by physical descent, came the Christ, who is God over all, praised forever. Amen.”
But then it says,
Romans 9:6 CSB17
“not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.”
And,
Romans 9:8 CSB17
“it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but the children of the promise are considered to be the offspring.”
While Apostle Paul also says,
Romans 9:19–24 CSB17
“You will say to me, therefore, “Why then does he still find fault? For who resists his will?” On the contrary, who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Will what is formed say to the one who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?” Or has the potter no right over the clay, to make from the same lump one piece of pottery for honor and another for dishonor? And what if God, wanting to display his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience objects of wrath prepared for destruction? And what if he did this to make known the riches of his glory on objects of mercy that he prepared beforehand for glory— on us, the ones he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?”
When you put it all together, what Apostle Paul means when he says, “They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the temple service, and the promises,” he is saying the promises to Israel remain for Israel. So even though God may choose a vessel for destruction, the pattern, as a whole, still holds as the promises for Israel remain as they are still Abraham’s heirs, but only because they are descended from Abraham and not because they are part of the new covenant. And the same is true of gentiles. Despite not being Israelites, we are children of God, if indeed we are in Christ, not because of being gentiles. And God indeed welcomes Israelites into the new covenant as well, while keeping the blessing for Israel intact whether they are part of the new covenant or not.
I say all this about Romans 9 to show that God’s presence in this new covenant can be for all, and God does not discriminate based on anything about the person except to say that God often does choose to use an imperfect vessel for a noble use whether they be an Israelite or a gentile.
From all I have seen from the Asbury Revival, or what some call the Asbury Outpouring, people really did experience God’s presence there. And that’s a very strange thing. How and why does God meet with many people at once instead of with one person?
Well, that is the beauty of the new covenant. The blessings come not just to a select few, but God can reveal himself to as many or as few people at a time as He wants at any time He wants. The veil to the Holy of Holies has been torn asunder. God’s presence isn’t just for a few people spaced out over hundreds of years, but rather, God chooses to reveal Himself to many about once every generation to keep the flame of the faith alive.
We get our first glimpse of the Holy Spirit moving in many people all at once at Pentecost. It was a unique event that will probably not be repeated similarly. You can think about it as the reverse of what happened at the Tower of Babel. Notice, though, that God was present each time - both at the Tower of Bable and Pentecost. The first was when God came down to see what the people were doing. He didn’t like what he saw. Not that it came as a surprise to God, but God is jealous for His own glory, and the people then were idolators by putting faith in their own accomplishments. It should be obvious enough to see how the Holy Spirit was at work at Pentecost.
Does the Tower of Babel sound familiar to you? It does to me! All I see today is about things relating to progress. The next phone, the next car, the next AI, the list goes on. We put such pride in what “we” can accomplish. But this, too, is not something God does not see. Perhaps God will judge us for the idolatry we have committed. God could easily cause a nuclear war or an asteroid to hit the earth and decimate all we hold dear today. It very well could happen, and it’s not just hypothetical. But God is slow to anger and quick to forgive. That is why He sent His Spirit to us so we can commune with Him. The Bible says God will draw all men to the cross. God can do that any way He wants. He can send a great awakening that produces the fruit to send out missionaries to the ends of the earth. He can speak to people in dreams and visions in the most remote places in the world. God is able.
We need to understand that we are not God. We do not even know what another person is thinking; how are we supposed to understand an infinitely Holy God?
I leave you with this verse, which I think says volumes of our receptiveness to God and welcoming His presence into our lives:
Isaiah 55:6–7 CSB17
“Seek the LORD while he may be found;
call to him while he is near.
Let the wicked one abandon his way
and the sinful one his thoughts;
let him return to the LORD,
so he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will freely forgive.”