The prophet Isaiah wrote, “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple,” (Isaiah 6:1). The Psalms declare, “But You, O Lord, are on high forever” (Psalm 92:8), “For You are the Lord Most High over all the earth; You are exalted far above all gods” (Psalm 97:9), and “The Lord is high above all nations; His glory is above the heavens” (Psalm 113:4). Solomon wrote to us in Ecclesiastes 5:2, “God is in heaven and you are on earth.” This week, in our study of the attributes: God is transcendent.
The word transcendent is not commonly used today; you probably didn’t use it recently in conversation and you may not know its meaning. Today, I fear many Christians do not understand how this word applies to God, and therefore, what it means for our faith. According to the New American Oxford Dictionary, to be transcendent means to go or be “beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience.” Here is how this applies to God: He is preeminent, supreme, and superior to man in every way. The totality of God is far more and far greater than mere human existence; God is not confined by or to human limitations. Yet, this does not mean that He is inaccessible to us it simply means that He is not like us.
You may ask,“Okay, but what does that mean for my faith?” It means everything! Transcendency, is what makes the Gospel and the God-man, Jesus Christ, so incredibly amazing. Jesus Christ, eternal God, humbled Himself and became like us, taking on flesh (Philippians 2:7-8, Colossians 1:19, Colossians 2:9) in every aspect: hunger (Mark 11:12), exhaustion (John 4:6), thirst (John 4:7), emotion (John 11:33), and temptation (Matthew 4:1), yet He did not sin (Hebrews 4:15). The fact that Jesus lived fully as man, faced all that we face, and yet did not sin, is an incredible demonstration of God’s transcendence.
Realizing how much we are unlike God could cause us to despair—and it should! “How can I, a sinner, approach such a holy and righteous God?” A. W. Tozer writes in The Knowledge of the Holy, “We console ourselves with the knowledge that it is God Himself who puts it in our hearts to seek Him.” The redemptive plan and actions of a transcendent God leaves human logic utterly and completely undone. All glory be to Christ!
Go Deeper:
Pray. Ask for the Lord’s help in seeing how high and exalted He truly is.
Read Psalm 113 and look for things that mark God’s transcendence.
Grace & Peace,
John
(You can reach Pastor John at jwhite@thevillagemi.com)