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"The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good" (Prov. 15: 3).
"Whither shall I go from Thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence? If I
ascend up into heaven, Thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there.
If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there
shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness
shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from
Thee; but the night shineth as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to Thee"
(Psa. 139: 7-12).
It is not merely that God knows and understands everything. The Lord is omnipresent
not merely by His knowledge, but by virtue of the fact that He "fills" heaven and earth:--
"Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not
I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord" (Jer. 23: 24).
The Companion Bible draws attention to the presence of the Hebrew accent here
which emphasizes the word "fill": "Denoting the Divine Presence which no `place' can
include or exclude." Another note, found in the writings of Charnock, is as follows:--
"As Eternity is the perfection whereby He hath under neither beginning nor end;
Immortality is the perfection whereby He hath neither increase nor diminution; so
Immensity or Omnipresence is that whereby He hath neither bounds, nor limitations."
Familiar usage has diminished the original meaning of the word "immense".
Primarily it signified something so great as to be incapable of measurement:--
"For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, Whose name is Holy;
I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit"
(Isa. 57: 15).
This verse certainly includes the thought of immensity in the modern use of the word.
The conception of "inhabiting eternity" is tremendous. But it is not mere size, for the
same verse tells us that the Lord dwells with him who is of a contrite and humble spirit.
The same thing is true with regard to time: "One day is with the Lord as a thousand
years, and a thousand years as one day" (II Pet. 3: 8). It is of course utterly false to
conclude that there is any proportion here. God is not to be conceived as 365,000 times
greater than man, for the same verse supplies an argument that would also prove that He
was 365,000 times smaller. Who shall say which is the greater exhibition of the almighty
power of God, the world revealed by the telescope, or that of the microscope? Is not God
as much at home in the appalling expanses of the Milky Way, as He is in the invisible
electron? Let us be grateful that, in terms that are understandable, He the Infinite One
has told us all that we need to know for our faith and comfort. If the Lord God be
omnipresent, we are never out of His sight, out of His mind, beyond His protection, or
beyond His care. Sin and all the uprisings of the flesh would die if we constantly
remembered that the Lord was near.