Our Transcendent God
One of the attributes of God which has encouraged me the most lately is His transcendence. The saved in Christ serve the God Who is above all things, separate in His holiness, but gloriously self-sufficient, self-existent, and infinitely beyond all creation in every aspect of His being.
Although the word “transcendent” is not found in the Bible, the idea is there. painted first of all by the truth that “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)
The God who created must be above, beyond, and separate from that which He created. A.W. Tozer describes this beautifully in his book, The Knowledge of the Holy:
“We must not think of God as highest in an ascending order of beings, staring with the single cell and going on up from the fish to the bird to the animal to man to angel to cherub to God. That would be to grant God eminence, even pre-eminence, but that is not enough; we must grant Him transcendence in the fullest meaning of that word. Forever God stands apart, in light unapproachable. He is as high above an archangel as above a caterpillar, for the gulf that separates the archangel from the caterpillar is finite, while the gulf between God and the archangel is infinite. The caterpillar and the archangel, though far removed from each other in the scale of created things, are nevertheless one in that they are alike created. They both belong in the category of that-which-is-not-God and are separated from God by infinitude itself.”
The verse that comes to my mind when I think about God’s transcendence is Isaiah 57:15
“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, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.”
This shows us a God who is lofty, holy, separate from sin, and yet condescending to welcome the humble and contrite into His presence. (We know from Hebrews 9 that this is accomplished through the blood of Christ which cleanses our sins, allowing us to enter into the presence of the Holy God.)
God transcends all things. He is beyond, outside, above His creation, even time itself. It can be easy for us to think of God and His working in and through His people only in terms of where we are, where we live and work and worship Him. But God transcends our understanding and our assumptions about Him as well. The work of God, as well as His worship, are not confined to our one little corner of the globe. Charles Spurgeon illustrates this beautifully. Speaking to his congregation one Sunday morning, he said:
“Today, in this house, thousands of voices shout His name, and when the sun of to-day shall set, it shall rise upon another land, where Christian hearts awakened, shall begin to praise as we have just concluded; and when to-morrow we shall enter upon the business of the week, we will praise Him when we rise, we will praise Him when we retire to rest, and we will solace ourselves with the sweet thought, that when the link of praise here is covered with darkness, another golden link is sparkling in the sunshine in the lands where the sun is rising when it sets upon us.”**
What an amazing thought! Our God never sleeps (He transcends our human limitations) and because of His design, there is always someone awake on the earth to worship and serve Him! Psalm 113 gives us a picture of this in its description of our transcendent God:
“From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the Lord’s name is to be praised. The Lord is high above all nations, and His glory above the heavens. Who is like unto the Lord our God, who dwelleth on high, Who humbleth Himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth!” vv.3-6
Dear Reader, you and I need never feel, as Elijah once did, that we are the only one left who is seeking God. He has people around the world, and as we end each day of love and service to Him, another believer is waking up to serve and love the Lord in a land you and I may never see.
Likewise, we need never feel that we are individually beneath His notice—well, in a sense, we are, but He takes notice of us anyway because He loves us.
And yet, I think it is healthy for us to have a sense of God’s grandness, His unfathomable infinitude. To neglect either God’s transcendence or His care for us as individuals would give us a skewed picture of who God is.
What is your need today? Is it to see a glimpse of God’s greatness, or to accept the truth that He who is above, beyond, and infinite chooses to care for you as an individual? Either way, the answer is the same: Open up the word of God and ask the Lord to help you grasp a truer knowledge of Himself!
“Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and His greatness is unsearchable”
Psalm 145:3
*Harper and Row, 1961. Page 76
**From the sermon, “Christ Glorified as the Builder of His Church” preached May 2, 1858