Exalted and Near: How God’s Attributes Speak to Our Pain
Anne was brokenhearted. Infertility had marked her journey, and it had been years since the approval for adoption. Still with empty arms, she was reeling. Memories of sexual abuse as a child and significant church-hurt along the way added to her pain. She wept and wondered, “Who is God? Is he really good? Is God who he says that he is for his children?” I wept with her in the face of such suffering, such raw emotion and honest questions. Sitting before me was a broken heart and words seemed to fail. However, as time progressed in relationship, the truths of God’s transcendence and immanence became precious. Highly exalted and near, God met Anne in her pain, giving her hope and comfort. What do God’s transcendence and immanence tell us about God, and how do they help a broken heart like Anne’s?
The personal God has revealed himself to us as exalted and near. “For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite’” (Is. 57:15). This passage provides clear communication from the Lord that he is both transcendent and also immanent. In his transcendence, he is high and lifted up, inhabiting eternity and yet outside of time. His name is Holy; he dwells in a high and holy place. At the dedication of the temple, Solomon prayed, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!” (1 Kings 8:27). God is exalted above the heavens, great in power, glory, majesty and dominion, as head over all (1 Chron. 29:11). In his transcendence, he is not like his creatures. He is wholly other.[1] His transcendence is best understood by his incommunicable attributes, namely his infinitude, immutability, eternality, omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience.[2] But we are often tempted to think that God is just like us (Ps. 50:21). How does the exalted God bring comfort to our pain?
God’s transcendence brings great comfort to the brokenhearted. In time, the brokenhearted can be gently reminded that nothing is impossible for God. He is so much greater than the earthly problems we face. Even when life is disorienting, the lowly one can be reminded that “...as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Is. 55:9). Calvin says that the creature is to “reverence his secret judgments.”[3] As God’s creatures, we do not always understand what God is doing in our lives, but we can trust his heart. The fact that God is all together unlike his creatures can be a great source of comfort as well. Especially when the brokenhearted experience hurt from others, it is a balm to know that God is nothing like those who wound. When hurt comes from earthly shepherds, family, fellow believers, or unbelievers, it is especially important for the suffering one to know that God is wholly different, all together unlike those who wound. Furthermore, God never changes. Though circumstances of life are constantly in flux, God’s people can cling to a transcendent God who never changes. We are finite in our knowledge and power. He is the infinite one. While God is transcendent, exalted in the heavens and altogether unlike us, it is a great comfort to also know that he is immanent.
What is God’s immanence? Isaiah 57 speaks of God’s immanence as his nearness, that he is with the contrite in heart and lowly in spirit. Throughout the Scriptures, God tells his people, “Do not fear,” and often it is followed by “for I am with you” (Is. 41:10). “He is near to the brokenhearted and saves all those who are crushed in spirit” (Ps. 34:18). What a wonderful comfort to those who walk this side of glory! God is not just a transcendent God, high and lifted up. He is also near. “He is an ever-present help in trouble...” (Ps. 46:1). He is with his people in their pain. God’s nearness reminds the brokenhearted that they are not alone. There is a God who sees and knows their suffering. He is with them.
God doesn’t just speak of being near to his people, but he demonstrated his nearness in the incarnation of Jesus. Exalted in the heavens, the God-man entered time and space; he came to dwell with his people. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn. 1:14). He is “Emmanuel, God with us” (Matt. 1:23). Not only did he don human flesh, living a perfect life for us, but Christ died for our sins and rose triumphantly on the third day. Christ gave his Spirit as the Helper, the Comforter of his people. The Holy Spirit indwells God’s people, giving them help, comfort, strength, courage, and hope. God’s immanence is trinitarian – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – eternally united in the mission to be with his people. The greatest comfort for the broken heart is a God who says “I am with you.”
The triune God is eternally transcendent and immanent. These truths speak to our pain, even to Anne in all her afflictions. All of God’s attributes are “...the sum total of all his perfections, the One whom no greater, higher or better can exist.”[4] Though incredibly painful, God is greater than the circumstances that Anne faces, having a higher purpose than she could possibly understand. When Anne begins to understand that the infinite, transcendent One is nothing like those who wound, this brings a little more courage to her heart, the ability to trust God in her suffering, and a measure of hope that extends beyond this life. While gazing into God’s majesty, Anne is also comforted by the Lord’s immanence, that he is a God who is near, one who is with her in all of her afflictions. Jesus’s incarnation is the demonstration of God’s nearness, as well as the Holy Spirit’s ministry of comforting and keeping. The triune God in his grand redemptive purposes will never leave Anne, and he will never forsake her. What comfort God’s greatness and nearness are for the brokenhearted!
If you are burdened by life’s trials and struggling to trust God who is exalted and near, please reach out to Burke Care. We would love to walk with you and point you to the One who is for you in all of your pain.
[1] Gerald Bray, The Doctrine of God, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998), p. 58.
[2] Dr. Sinclair Ferguson, Doctrine of God, course lecture 34, (Glenside, PA: Westminster Theological Seminary).
[3] John Calvin, Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, vol. 1, (Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press, 1960), p. 211.
[4] Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol 2, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), p. 182.