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<\/a><\/p>\nBEN: One of the more rich concepts you deal with in this book is God\u2019s immanence or personal presence with various individuals and groups of persons. This is something different from the more nebulous notion of God\u2019s omnipresence, not least because it is linked specifically to God\u2019s free choices\u2014 for example, he chooses to appear to that scoundrel Jacob who is on the run, at the bottom of a heavenly staircase. What does the loaded phrase \u2018I will be with you\u2019 (Immanuel) really denote and in what sense is the notion kicked up a notch when it is predicated of and by
\nJesus both in the incarnation, and after he is raised from the dead? Does this phrase necessarily connote the idea that God will always protect a person he is \u2018with\u2019 from\u2026. shall we say, the pandemic we are suffering now? If not what is the real sense of the phrase \u2018God be with you\u2019?<\/p>\n
RICHARD: I know a church newsletter that regularly accompanies its section on prayer with the slogan: \u201cGod is everywhere. So pray anywhere.\u201d It is not exactly untrue, but it would be better to say that God has promised to attend to the prayers of his people in the name of Jesus. God, after all, can \u201cclose his ears\u201d to prayer. The most important thing about God\u2019s presence is that God makes himself present in many different ways to different people in different contexts. His presence is not a uniform, static feature of the world, but his personal action in meeting us and being with us. A full study of the expression \u201cGod is with\u201d so-and-so in the Bible, attending to what that concretely means in different cases, would be worthwhile. You are right that climax of its meaning is the incarnation, Jesus as Immanuel. \u201cGod with us\u201d does often suggest protection and blessing (God protected Jacob and prospered his activity), but in the New Testament certainly physical protection is not guaranteed. I guess the kind of safety in God\u2019s love that we do have is expressed, for example, in Jude 24.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BEN: One of the more rich concepts you deal with in this book is God\u2019s immanence or personal presence with various individuals and groups of persons. This is something different from the more nebulous notion of God\u2019s omnipresence, not least because it is linked specifically to God\u2019s free choices\u2014 for example, he chooses to appear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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