Psalms 139:8 (KJV) If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
The above verse is an expression of the omnipresence of God. It addresses God being everywhere at the same time. This is the first thing that comes into the average person’s mind when we think of God’s Omnipresence and the very thing addressed in the last blog Omnipresent God .
In the next two blogs on omnipresence we will address The theophany of Omnipresence, and the Indwelling of Omnipresence. Today we address the theophany of God’s Omnipresence, and there is no better place to start than to ask the question what is a theophany? A theophany a visible manifestation to humankind of God. In the Hebrew Text (Old Testament) God appears as an angel of the Lord, in physical form, in visions and dreams and as a burning bush. I think we need to understand that a theophany is much different than ta Christophany ( the appearance of Jesus after the ascension) in that in a Christophany the person seeing Christ recognizes that it is a vision. Like wise a theophany is not the incarnation because in the incarnation God dwell ed among physically in his dual nature ( truly man and truly /God)
Exodus 33:20 (KJV) And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.
John 1:18 (KJV) No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
Is this a contradiction of the Bible? If Moses or Abraham has seen God than John 1:18 contradicts what is written in the old testament about these theophanies. So is the Bible wrong or am I wrong in my thinking? For those that desire to have no truth there is a contradiction, but for those desire to a deeper meaning read on because the Bible has wonderful harmony in its scripture.
The Trinity
Let’s work with what we know about God; though it may be limited it is the only thing we can work
with at this time. God is a Triune God, meaning that we recognize God as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and in that recognition each God is a perfect and complete God but there is not three Gods only One. Therefore our prayer is towards only one God, which is three persons in one; this is what we call the Trinity.
Now armed with this knowledge of the Trinity let us look at the first chapter of the book of John for clarification, and understanding of this problem of theophany.
John 1:1 (KJV) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:3 (KJV) All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
John 1:14 (KJV) And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
1 Timothy 3:16 (KJV) And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
In John 1:1 we see that the Word was with God since from the beginning. John 1:3 tells us that even everything that was created was created by “God the Word” and that nothing that was created, was created except by Him (The Word). In John 1:14 we see “the Word” was made flesh. And since John 1:18 says no man has ever seen the father, we can only deduce that any previous theophany of God was of the pre-incarnated Son.
Why the pre-incarnated Son? Because one of the Attributes of God is His Immutability and that means God never changes, since God never changes we can say that even from the beginning that God the Son was both Flesh and Spirit. In John 8:58 Jesus acclaims his Eternalness which reflect this immutability with a simple statement.
John 8:58 (KJV) Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.
Since God the Son has always been both all man, and all God, both flesh and spirit therefore any incarnation of God seen by Abraham or Moses was in fact the pre-incarnated Jesus Christ.
A very enlightening verse concerning this theophany of Christ or in this case pre-incarnated Christ is found in
Amos 4:10-11 (KJV) 10 I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt
11I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have ye not returned unto Me, saith the LORD.
Do yourself and favor this week go through the scriptures and see how many times men have experienced a theophany and how many times they have spoken to angels.
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