Good morning, everyone. Nice to see you today. We're going to continue with our study of our confession of faith, chapter two and paragraph one. If you want to look at that in the back of the hymnal or in your personal copy. We're going through the part where it says, just continuing along in the sequence, it says, who is immutable immense, eternal, incomprehensible. Immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible. We've already covered the immutability of God, as well as, in two lessons, really, the incomprehensibility of God, which leads us to God's immensity and His eternity, And I prepared for both of those today, but I would like to just cover immensity this morning, even if that means the lesson is a little bit shorter. So that is the focus of today's lesson, is divine immensity. Divine immensity. What is divine immensity. And I want you to remember from last semester, we talked about ways of knowing God and ways of speaking of God. And there were three ways that we discussed, one of which was the way of negation. where we consider any defect or imperfection or limitation in a creature, not necessarily a moral defect or something wrong in terms of holiness, but some imperfection of being, and we take whatever that limitation or imperfection is and we deny it to be in God. Anything imperfect in us, we say, that's not in God. And then we thereby, we better know God, we better know what He is by what He is not. Divine immensity is a negation. This is a denial. The negation here is negating any and all limitation of space. we are denying any limitation of space for God. We've already spoken about the infinity of God. If God is infinite, no limitation whatsoever, then divine immensity becomes one particular negation, that there is no limitation of space for the being of God. What this means, if there's no limitation of space for God, another way to put this is God without measure. That's what immensity actually means. You have a negation here. It's really an IN, but the N becomes an M in front of another M. So in, not, mens, measurement, being, immensity, not being measured. God's immensity is the denial of limitation of space for the being of God, or God without measure. If God's being is incapable of measurement, then that means that he is present everywhere because you can't measure a space and say he's not there, but neither is he included in any space in the sense of containment. He's not included or excluded from any place or any thing. You can't measure a space and say God's here but not there. And you can't measure space and say God's here and he's confined here. He's without measure. You just can't, you can't limit. You can't measure his being. And the word of God teaches this. They teach us that God is everywhere and yet contained nowhere. Let's write that down. He is everywhere. but contained nowhere. So where do we read this in the scriptures? Where do we find this in the word of God? That God is everywhere. You can't measure him out of something, but neither can you measure him in something, but contained nowhere. For example, Psalm 139, verse seven, that Psalm of David where he's contemplating the greatness of God and the greatness of God's creation, or rather the greatness of God in light of the greatness of creation. And one of the things he says in verse seven of Psalm 139 is, where shall I go from your spirit, or where shall I flee from your presence? And then he talks about heaven, earth, and under the earth. In the visible and invisible world, there's nowhere that David could possibly go. In all of creation, there's nowhere he can go and be separated from or, there's nowhere he can be that God is not. Where shall I flee from your presence? The clear rhetorical question is nowhere. I can't go to heaven or earth or under the earth and say God is not here. God is present everywhere. But we also find that he's contained nowhere. Solomon, when he dedicated the temple in 2 Chronicles 2 6, He said, but who is able to build God a house since heaven, even highest heaven, cannot contain him? So by building a temple for God, Solomon realizes we're not shutting up or limiting the presence of God in this temple. In Isaiah chapter 66 and verse one, God says, heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. What is the house that you would build for me? And what is the place of my rest? He's saying, if I fill heaven and earth, what's one small house on earth going to do for my presence? What is the place of my rest? Now you might think, but what about God's special presence? And we'll talk about that at the conclusion of the lesson because this is not denying that. We'll get to that. But for now, We're talking about God's immensity. God measure, without measure, being. Being without measure. God is everywhere. You can't measure him out of any place, but he's contained nowhere. You can't measure him within a place. So, there's a word that most of us would think of when we come to this concept, and we say that God is omnipresent, right? We speak of God's omnipresence. But omnipresence is true and right, but it's actually not the best or most complete word for communicating and describing God's immensity, because omnipresence is actually just one part of this doctrine. Omnipresence is God everywhere, and we affirm that. I'm not saying, don't think of God as omnipresent. No, absolutely, God is omnipresent. Where shall I go? His presence is not, to paraphrase David's words. But omnipresence is just the first half of divine immensity. You can't measure God out of anywhere. But divine immensity also says neither can you measure him in somewhere. You can't contain him anywhere. So divine immensity Well, let me start over. If you're reading our Confession of Faith and you think, hmm, this needs to be redone with God's omnipresence. The fact is, actually, a larger category has already been invoked, immensity, that includes omnipresence and is larger than omnipresence. It's immensity, and that's the classic term that has been used to describe God with relation to space. Is there any limitation of space for the being of God? No, he is without measure, therefore he is everywhere, and yet his being cannot be contained anywhere. There's nowhere you can go where he is not. He is omnipresent, but neither does that mean that he is contained in anything. Another, I'll read to you a quotation, but I'm really just gonna draw from it. It said, God is immensive, present everywhere. So he is immensive, present. This is, helping us to get the concepts. He is immensive, present everywhere. He is present everywhere without measure. And he is present everywhere repletive. He's present everywhere without being able to be measured, and yet he's repletive present. What does it mean when something is replete? It's filled, right? It's filled up. So God is everywhere but you can't measure him, but he fills all things and yet can't be measured. So we're not saying you can't measure God so he's nowhere. He's immense of present and repletive present. And yet, we shouldn't think of God's presence like the way that the air fills up the space between the earth and outer space. So God's being is sort of like this big, huge thing that fills everything, like the air in a balloon or something. No, because you can measure that. That would be more like pantheism. Think of all the things that are, and God fills them, and that's God. That would be pantheism. Then you'd be Pocahontas and singing to the wind and the moon and the rivers and all such things. That's a nice song. It's a nice concept. I love the wind and the river and moons and all that. Well, the moon. But that's what God made. That's not God. and I glorify God for what he made. So we do affirm that God is repletive present. He fills the earth with his presence, but not in a way that air fills a balloon or the sky fills our inner atmosphere, if that's the right way of thinking of it. Another term, these are just synonyms, is God's ubiquity. You ever hear something said to be ubiquitous? It's ubiquitous, that means it's everywhere. God's ubiquity is his being everywhere. Why is he everywhere? Because he's repletive present everywhere. And yet, ubiquity does not mean that he's contained everywhere because he's immensive present. So all of these terms are trying to express the negation of limitation of space in God, that God is immensive present everywhere and repletive present everywhere and yet contained nowhere. This could be a very short lesson. Let's go to God's special presence then. which really helps us to apply this to ourselves. This is applicable to ourselves in the sense that it helps us in times of temptation. to remember not just that God knows all things, but God is everywhere. I must resist temptation to be faithful to my God. God is everywhere. It's also an encouragement to us. Wherever I go, the Lord is with me. Wherever I go, it's not that, well, this is where someone else reigns, and God is not here, and I'm on my own. God is everywhere. His power extends to all things, and I can trust Him. He walks with me, he is indeed with me, but even more so it helps us when we consider his special presence, God's special presence. We know that the scriptures speak of God manifesting his glory in heaven as there was a visible brightness and glory between the cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle and the temple, that God created a visible manifestation of his presence there where his voice emanated from that glory cloud and spoke to Moses, that was a special presence of God. where only that was in the Holy of Holies. You could not experience that glory and that voice outside of the Holy of Holies. That special power and presence was not ubiquitous. It was in a particular place because God had ordained it so to be. He had manifested his presence and glory in a special way for the sake of his people in the Holy of Holies. and the scriptures also speak of the Holy of Holies as a copy of heaven, and that God manifests his special presence and glory in heaven also. Indeed, Jesus is said to sit at the right hand of the majesty on high. And so God's immensity does not deny his special presence in the Old Testament, in the tabernacle or temple, nor does it deny his special presence in heaven, nor does it deny his special presence in the church through the means of grace. A thing can be said to be present somewhere, either where it exercises power or experiences power. A thing can be said to be present where its power is exercised or where it is experiencing the power of another. In this case, we're talking about the top one. God is present in his church in a special way because he exercises his power in the means of grace of the church in a way that he does not outside of the church. God is present in a special way. We say he dwells in his ordinances because it is through them and in them that his power, that his grace flows to his people, is communicated to his people. Jesus said before he ascended that we are to teach the nations, baptize them, and instruct them to keep all the things that he commanded us. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. And he promises his special presence to be in the things that he has commanded us. in the things that he has instructed us to keep. That is where Jesus exercises his power. That is where Jesus is with his people, not in whatever and anything that they want to do, but in the things they do in obedience to him. Think about this, perhaps a strange concept, but it makes the argument. Paul says in the book of Galatians that those who are circumcised are obligated to keep the whole law. Now, awkward medical statistic, but in North America, that's a common medical practice. Are all these North American men obligated to keep the Law of Moses? No, why not? Because there's a difference between just doing that as a medical practice and the context of doing it as a covenantal commitment to God. So also, we can't think that just whatever we want to do means something and has God's power and blessing in it, but rather it is in the things he has commanded and instituted and ordained that we actually find God's presence and God's power. So when Jesus says, and I will be with you always, even to the end of the earth, it's not for you to do whatever you want to do, it's in the things that I have commanded you. And we read of the apostles in the book of Acts following Psalm 87 and verse seven says, the Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob. There's a special blessing for Jerusalem and the temple more than all the rest of the kingdom of Israel. Why is that? Because God's special presence and power was exercised in the temple in Jerusalem. And we don't have one physical temple for the church. Wherever the church assembles as the church, and does what Jesus has commanded, his power and his presence are present. That's a redundancy, but you get what I'm saying. In his ordinances, in the things that he has commanded. And this is why when someone says, you know, I'm just gonna go enjoy God at the beach on Sunday, that's not the same thing. as being in the Lord's house. Is God present at the beach? Absolutely. Does the beach and the nature that we witness at the beach, does it declare God's glory? 100%. So is there a blessing in being in nature and glorifying God for nature? Certainly. but is there a particular and special blessing that is exclusively found in the church where God's grace flows through his ordinances to his people? And since those ordinances and that people are not assembled at the beach, you cannot get that blessing at the beach. It's not there. There's a different kind of enjoying nature and glorifying God for it, but it's a different thing that you can enjoy anytime, anywhere, any day. But why is it that we ought to assemble ourselves and not forsake the assembly of ourselves? It is because the power of Christ comes to his people in the things that he has ordained, where he exercises his power. And so we can't use divine immensity as an argument for abandoning, not abandoning, but neglecting the church. because it doesn't work like that. There is a special presence and power of God that he ordains where it is and under what conditions and terms. And when we participate in that, we go with every assurance that his power and his presence are with us. The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob and his omnipresence or his ubiquity or his immensity do not cancel out his special presence. If anything, they highlight it. If God is present everywhere and we can glorify him in all nature wherever we are, then how much more special must it be that God has ordained particular places and ways in which we get to delight in him and enjoy him in special ways? that ought to be an encouragement to us to remember, if I absent myself from the assembly of the saints, if I absent myself from the church, I am depriving myself from the place and the means where the power of Jesus is exercised upon me to help me. to strengthen me, to teach me, to correct me, to encourage me, and so on and so forth. And I deprive myself of this when I remove myself from this. No house can contain God, and yet God is able and does to manifest his presence in special places for special purposes. And the church is where he dwells. As we've said before, Peter describes us as those living stones. And when the living stones assemble, a temple is constructed. And when that temple is constructed, the spirit dwells within that temple in a special way. We get to enjoy the presence and power of God and rejoice in him and worship him together. So I know that was a very short lesson, but I don't want to get into divine eternity because we don't have time for that in the rest of today. So I don't know if there's any questions. I don't usually do questions. I prefer to just take them personally afterwards, but we have a little bit of time. If someone wanted to ask a question, or you can come and talk to me afterwards. I just wanna make sure that this teaching is sufficiently clarified. Okay, you get it. Very good. Well, I really enjoy, when I learned more about divine immensity, I thought omnipresence and immensity are the same thing, more or less. Or at least I just wasn't even aware of the category of immensity for a time. And when I learned about divine immensity as a superior category to omnipresence, it was very encouraging to me, not only because I understood better, but just better being able to classify, okay, ubiquity versus immensity, not versus, but in distinction from immensity, does not, none of this cancels God's special presence at all, fits and works together and makes sense and it brings glory to God because, We are, what's the opposite of immense? We're very immense. We are very much measured. I am here and not there, and I can only be here or there, but not here and there, et cetera. And I am present either where I exercise my power or experience the power of others. So it highlights my limitations, my finitude. And that's okay, I'm okay with being a creature. This is just about magnifying and glorifying our great God with whom there's no limitation of space. And if you'll bear with me for a moment, it again just highlights the idiocy of idolatry. You made this idol, you put it in one spot, it can't even move. It's so measurable. It's so, we talked about this with divine invisibility of an idol is so visible, so comprehensible. An idol is also so measurable. You can literally measure it. It was made. And it stays in one place. And we are foolish for loving created things to that degree and worshiping them. May God deliver us from our own idolatry of the heart. So thank you for your attention. And that'll conclude our lesson. And please feel free to come and talk to me with your questions.