I'm struck by Psalm 21 verse 6, which says, you may glad with the joy of your presence.

God is omnipresent. What does this mean to be in God's presence now?

I think the first thing I should say is that the biblical writers were not naive

in the sense that they thought God had a body with spatial dimensions so that he could have a

locality in the universe. Stephen said in Acts 7, the most high does not dwell in houses made

by hands, the point being he's not that kind of being. Therefore, I think all the biblical imagery

about drawing near to God or departing from God or being in the before the face of God,

which is, by the way, the literal translation of presence. The word presence is almost always

translating the Hebrew panei or panim and means face. I think all of those images are metaphors

or pictures. And I'll mention what their metaphors are in just a minute, but

let me stick in a qualifier perhaps first. To be sure, God ordained in the Old Testament that his

quote, presence be directly associated with the tabernacle in the wilderness or the temple

in Jerusalem so that people could speak of entering into God's presence

in the sense that they came near to the place where he had appointed his name, especially to

dwell or to be identified with. And in the New Testament with the coming of Jesus into the world,

we now have God in human flesh, which does have spatial dimension. And we can go right up to him

and touch him or we can walk right away from him like Judas did. Jesus could be touched here.

He could be kissed here. Indeed, even today, I think we could think that way about Jesus in our

dying. Second Corinthians 5, 6, we're always of good courage. We know that while we're at home in

the body, we are away from the Lord. We walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are a good courage

and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. And what he means,

I think, is literally the incarnate God-man, Jesus Christ, exists in dimensions that we don't fully

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