Monday, December 27, 2004
Pantheism does not make a distinction between Creation and the Creator, so that the universe in effect becomes God. At the other end of the theological spectrum is Deism, which sees God as the First Cause, but puts God at such an extreme distance from events that He is effectually absent.
Both diseases of the soul are cured by the biblical doctrines of Transcendence and Immanence. Transcendence is the doctrine that God is "above all," that He cannot be known by experience. Everything that we see or hear or experience with our other senses is a created thing and is not to worshipped, nor is God to be worshipped in them.
Even Christ, the Mediator, is not now known by the senses. The Apostle Paul [2Co 5:16] said that we now know Christ no more after the flesh, for He ascended into heaven and is revealed by His Spirit that He has sent forth. Therefore we must seek God in the Scriptures in order to know Him after the Spirit and not the flesh. Every attempt to know Christ apart from the Scriptures is doomed to failure and spiritual corruption. "Am I a God at hand?" The answer, of course, is "No! Emphatically NO." [Jeremiah 23:23]
So the doctrine of transcendence delivers us from all sorts of pantheism and idolatry, for God cannot be found in the creature.
But the doctrine of Immanence is equally important. This doctrine is that God is present in every point of time and every point of space. He is "in all." In God we live and move and have our being. [Acts 17:28] We cannot so much as move without Him. There is no power but God's. Man cannot even raise his fist against God without using the energy and intellect that God continually supplies him. Even in his idolatrous worship, he can only offered to his idols the gifts that God has given him "For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal." [Hosea 2:8] The devil has no corn and wine of his own and neither does any man. God is in all and through all.
Thus the doctrine of immanence delivers us from an impersonal world of cause and effect, and faith sees all things coming from God for the good of His people and the establishment of His justice and truth. He makes even the wrath of men to praise Him and restrains all that does not work for His purposes [Ps 76:10].
How can these things be? It is the simple truth that God created all things by the word of His power and upholds all things by His power. Therefore all things are dependent upon Him for everything and can do nothing without Him; but it is also true that nothing that He made shall be worshipped as God, as the Second Commandment states.
The two mistakes that we make are these: 1. We deny Immanence, and put God at a distance from us, and refuse to see His hand in everything that takes place on the earth. Men's actions are real and sin is the responsibility of man, but without the concurrance of God in all things [albeit for a different purpose than man has], nothing would take place.
2. We deny Transcendence, and think that the creature is God and the creature's acts are divine. This leads to all sorts of evil and idolatry. The men who crucified Christ must bear the responsibility for their actions, even though His death redeemed the world. The murder was their act; redemption was God's.
Both diseases of the soul are cured by the biblical doctrines of Transcendence and Immanence. Transcendence is the doctrine that God is "above all," that He cannot be known by experience. Everything that we see or hear or experience with our other senses is a created thing and is not to worshipped, nor is God to be worshipped in them.
Even Christ, the Mediator, is not now known by the senses. The Apostle Paul [2Co 5:16] said that we now know Christ no more after the flesh, for He ascended into heaven and is revealed by His Spirit that He has sent forth. Therefore we must seek God in the Scriptures in order to know Him after the Spirit and not the flesh. Every attempt to know Christ apart from the Scriptures is doomed to failure and spiritual corruption. "Am I a God at hand?" The answer, of course, is "No! Emphatically NO." [Jeremiah 23:23]
So the doctrine of transcendence delivers us from all sorts of pantheism and idolatry, for God cannot be found in the creature.
But the doctrine of Immanence is equally important. This doctrine is that God is present in every point of time and every point of space. He is "in all." In God we live and move and have our being. [Acts 17:28] We cannot so much as move without Him. There is no power but God's. Man cannot even raise his fist against God without using the energy and intellect that God continually supplies him. Even in his idolatrous worship, he can only offered to his idols the gifts that God has given him "For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal." [Hosea 2:8] The devil has no corn and wine of his own and neither does any man. God is in all and through all.
Thus the doctrine of immanence delivers us from an impersonal world of cause and effect, and faith sees all things coming from God for the good of His people and the establishment of His justice and truth. He makes even the wrath of men to praise Him and restrains all that does not work for His purposes [Ps 76:10].
How can these things be? It is the simple truth that God created all things by the word of His power and upholds all things by His power. Therefore all things are dependent upon Him for everything and can do nothing without Him; but it is also true that nothing that He made shall be worshipped as God, as the Second Commandment states.
The two mistakes that we make are these: 1. We deny Immanence, and put God at a distance from us, and refuse to see His hand in everything that takes place on the earth. Men's actions are real and sin is the responsibility of man, but without the concurrance of God in all things [albeit for a different purpose than man has], nothing would take place.
2. We deny Transcendence, and think that the creature is God and the creature's acts are divine. This leads to all sorts of evil and idolatry. The men who crucified Christ must bear the responsibility for their actions, even though His death redeemed the world. The murder was their act; redemption was God's.
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