The Sense of Scripture: Studies in Interpretation . . .

PRACTICING THE PRESENCE OF GOD 

In this series we are in search of any principle of interpretation that will make the Scriptures more meaningful, and in this installment I suggest that one crucial principle is to use the Bible in practicing the presence of God.

Above all else the Bible is about God. While the Scriptures disclose to us something of the nature of God, such as His being the great "I Am" and the "Father of lights," it is more concerned to tell us what God does and has done. In the Bible God is always up to something. He is calling a prophet, forming a nation, raising up a king. The Bible is thus full of facts about God, and a fact is always something said or done. There are of course truths about God, such as God is ,but it is the facts that the Bible emphasizes, such In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The first is a truth, the second is a fact.

While "God is love" is a truth, it is a truth that expresses itself over and over in Scripture as a fact, for God never simply loves (period), as if it were a passive emotion or a state of mind. In loving God is always doing something or saying something, facts about God. The call of Moses is an example of this, as in Ex.3:7-10 where God speaks to Moses about the Hebrews in Egypt: (I) "I have seen the oppression of my people in Egypt," (2) "I have heard their cry," (3) "I know their sorrows," (4) "I have come down to deliver them," (5) "1 will send you to Pharaoh." Love in action, which is the way it always is in the Bible.

It is also true that the Bible never imposes something to be believed simply for the sake of believing it, which should sound the death knell to all doctrinaire religion. We are to believe so as to act. To simply believe the truth that Jesus is Lord is one thing, but to allow this to affect our lifestyle, to enthrone Jesus as Lord in our hearts, is something else. This is why Scripture urges "Consecrate Christ in your hearts as Lord" (1 Pet. 3:15) and not simply cognitively accept the proposition that he is Lord.

So it is with the God of the Bible. He does not simply love but he acts out the love in "wondrous deeds." An important way to practice the presence of God, or to enjoy His fellowship more and more, is to absorb those "wondrous deeds" into our thinking and allow them to influence our lives.

Some of the great saints in the history of the church, such as Brother Lawrence and Frank Laubach, have pointed out numerous ways to practice the presence of God, and they are all important. Brother Lawrence in a book with that tide says that we practice God's presence by trusting ourselves to Him and through "one true act of renunciation." Laubach tells how we can imagine God taking our hand and leading us where we go, using His other hand to open the doors as we move along together. They both stress prayer, meditation, and even imagination.

While all this has its place, my point herein is that God draws nigh to us in the "wondrous deeds" of the Bible as we integrate them into our very being. There is a sense in which God "lives and moves" in the very being of every person (Acts 17:28), but this is especially the case with those who draw nigh unto Him in the study of the Bible. I am also saying that this is an important way to understand the Scriptures: study and interpret them in terms of what they say about God and what God says to us.

This means that we can practice the presence of God in our lives by recalling the wondrous things He has said through His apostles and prophets, such as: "My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways My ways, says the Lord, For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts" (Is. 55:8-9). We have cause time and again every day to recall this great truth, especially when we are inclined to force God into our narrow sectarian mould. His ways are not our ways, nor His thoughts our thoughts! When we discipline our minds in this way we are practicing God's presence.

How meaningful it must have been to Joseph to be able to say to his brothers who had done him great harm: "You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good" (Gen. 50:20). As we ponder the wondrous providence that brought Joseph to Egypt at just the right time, even when long years of imprisonment were involved, we can see in Joseph's own words that God was working for good while others were working for evil. It helps us to see what God also said through Paul in this regard: "We know that to those that love God, who are called according to his plan, everything that happens fits into a pattern for good" (Rom. 8:28, Phillips). Life is such that we are involved in the drama of good and evil every day of our lives, and when we draw upon such truths as these, making them our own in our own tight places, we are practicing God's presence.

One simple but profound truth, such as "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35), which is printed in red in my Bible, can change one's life once it is allowed to "enlighten the eyes," which the word of God does. How often in our selfish ways might we recall that truth, It is more blessed to give!, allowing it to control our thinking? When we do that we can be sure that God is there.

Sometimes it is a crucial moment in Biblical history that God speaks in such a way that it is readily applicable to all people in every situation. Those burning words in 1 Samuel 16:7 is a case in point: "The Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks upon the heart." This is not a rebuke to human kind for judging by appearance, for that is the only way we can judge. It is a warning about judging at all. Since we cannot look beyond what appears on the surface and see into a person's heart like God can, we would do well to leave the judging to God. Or when we suppose we must judge, we must recognize our limitation and judge without being judgmental, for we can never be sure what is in a person's heart.

And what a glorious truth it is that "God looks upon the heart"! In our fumbling ways we may be wrong about a lot of things, and because of this incur the censure of our peers, even at church, but if in our hearts we love God and seek to please Him, God sees this when others may not. We never know but what a drunk in a gutter is closer to the heart of God than the Sunday School superintendent.

So, I am saying that we should interpret Scripture with a God-consciousness. It was the case with our Lord, who himself was not willing to be called good, insisting that "No one is good but God" (Mk. 10:18), and he was always pointing not to himself but to God. Jesus must have been perfect in his practice of the presence of God in his life, so much so that he is described as being "in the bosom of the Father" (Jn. 1:18). That same passage describes our Lord as God's exegete or interpreter. His mission was to disclose the likeness of God.

And Jesus used Scripture to direct his hearers to God, such as in Mt. 9:13: "Go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice."' On more than one occasion he referred to this passage in Hosea. In reading the Old Testament Jesus found the mercy of God, and when he was asked to name the greatest commandment of all he again pointed to God: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the fff5t commandment" (Mk. 12:30).

This means that Scripture might be judged by what it reveals to us of the character of God or by the way God speaks to us through it. Since the book of Esther does not even mention God, and because of its intrigue, bloodshed and cruelty, it will not pass the test as well as little Habakkuk, which lifts us to new heights with "The Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before him" and "I will work a work in your days which you will not believe, though it were told you." And that little book of Habakkuk gives us one of the greatest passages in the Bible. After describing the reality of hard times, such as no fruit on the trees, no food in the fields, and no herd in the stalls, Hab. 3:18 says, "Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation."

A good way to approach any portion of Scripture is to ask, what does it tell me about God? Once you understand what a book says about God, the chances are you are getting with it. It would prove useful to make a list of the things you find out about God in your study of a portion of Scripture. It is noteworthy that Luther found the grace of God in the Psalms before he found it in Romans.

Try your hand at it. Go through the Psalms with one intent: what do they tell me about God? There are of course the mountain peaks, such as Ps. 51:17: "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit' A broken and contrite heart- These, 0 God, you will not despise." Once you walk with God in Psalms 23,46,51,84,90, 100, 102, 107, 116, 119, 121, and 139, to name but a few, you may, like Luther, have your own reformation going. Psa. 147 was one of Luther's favorites ("God counts the number of the stars; He calls them all by name"). 

Not least of all we practice the presence of God by praising Him, and here the Scriptures are of abundant help. Again it is Jesus who leads the way, teaching his disciples to pray by praising: "Our Father, who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name! ," which means that God is to be praised for all that He is. It is interesting that the Psalms teach us to praise God by telling ourselves to praise Him! As in Ps. 103: 

Bless the lord, 0 my soul;
     And all that is within me, bless Ills holy name!
Bless the lord, 0 my soul,
     And forget not all His benefits. 

The Psalms are full of praise to God. They not only urge us to praise God, but over and over again, hundreds of times, the Psalms themselves praise God. My soul exults in Ps. 63:3: "Thy mercy is better than life, therefore, my lips shall praise thee." Then there is Ps. 95:6: "Oh, come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker." By filling our hearts and minds with the praises of God in Psalms and by allowing them to flow forth from our lips we are practicing the presence of God in a beautiful way. 

Some portions of Scripture give us both facts about God, what He says and does, and praises of God as well. The book of Romans is remarkable in this regard. No part of Scripture tells us more about God, His grace and His purposes, and yet the apostle who wrote it sometimes seems to lose himself in praising God, as in Rom. 11:33: "Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past tracing out!" And Paul then concludes with, "For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen!" Can we not practice God's presence by praising God in these very words from the apostle Paul? 

So, in a book rich with truths and facts about God and his purposes, one that lays bare the grace of God, there is praise. These take us to the heart of practicing God's presence in our lives. The better we understand God's purposes and the more we know about Him, the more inclined we are to praise Him. We are to hide His word in our hearts and consecrate them in our minds, for when His word is with us He is with us. 

Above all else is the living Word of God, Jesus Christ himself. When we invite him into our hearts as Lord and feast upon his example and teaching, we are practicing the presence of God. When he is with us God is with us; when we walk with him we walk with God. And when we worship him we worship God. If Paul would describe God as dwelling in unapproachable light, as he does in I Tim. 6:16, he would describe Jesus Christ as providing us access to that light, as he does in Rom. 5:2.

"Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!" (2 Cor. 9:l5) —the Editor.