When the world is in chaos or we face difficulty or tragedy, it can feel like God is watching us—as Bette Midler famously sang—“from a distance.” Sometimes our Christian songs may give the same impression, proclaiming that God “was and is and evermore shall be” as he stands high above the world’s troubles.
But that distant deity is the God of Deism, not the God who reveals himself in Scripture. The Bible gives us a better song to sing. For while Scripture certainly proclaims God’s matchless majesty and transcendent glory (e.g., Deut. 4:39; Jer. 10:10; Isa. 40:28; Acts 17:24; 1 Tim. 1:17), it above all tells the story of God coming to dwell with his people.
God Present in the Garden
The coming of God is a major biblical-theological theme. The Bible’s opening chapters show us that God’s plan, from the beginning, has always been to live with his people. At creation, “the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (Gen. 1:2), and in the garden of Eden, God was palpably present, breathing life into Adam’s nostrils (2:7) and “walking in the garden in the cool of day” (3:8).
Although this language of God hovering, breathing, and walking is analogical (for God doesn’t have wings, lungs, or legs), it powerfully communicates the Lord’s personal “presence” (v. 8). The God who created the universe, and who fills all things, was specially present there and then in the garden.
God Came at Sinai and Promises to Come Again
When our first parents fell into sin, God sent them out of the garden and “away from the presence of the LORD” (3:23; 4:16). But he never gave up on his plan to live with his people in his good world. The Lord “appeared” to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (17:1; 26:2; 35:9). He came down to Moses at the burning bush (Ex. 3:8). He came down to the people on Mount Sinai (19:11, 18, 20), when the signs of fire, cloud, and storm showed the place “where God was” and where he had “come to . . . bless” his people (20:21, 24).
This was no mere temporary visit, for the Lord came down to instruct Moses to build the tabernacle “that [God] may dwell in their midst” (25:8). And so, first in the wilderness and then in the land, “the glory of the LORD filled” the tabernacle and the temple (40:34; see 1 Kings 8:10). John Calvin observes that while this doesn’t mean God’s “infinite and incomprehensible essence” was “shut up or confined” within the temple (see 1 Kings 8:27; Acts 17:24), it does reveal that God was specially “present there by his power and grace.”
When Israel fell into sin, God sent them out of the promised land and “cast them out of his sight” (2 Kings 17:18, 20). But he never gave up on his plan to live with his people in his good world. The writings and the prophets, therefore, promise a day when the Lord will come again.
The writings and the prophets promise a day when the Lord will come again.
The psalms declare the joyful good news that the Lord who “reigns” will “come” to judge the earth (Pss. 96:2, 10–13; 98:7–9). Isaiah announces the “good news” that the God who “reigns” will also “come” with “might” and “return” to his people (Isa. 40:9–10; 52:7–8). Ezekiel sees “the glory of the LORD” coming and entering and filling the end-time temple to “dwell in the midst” of his people forever (Ezek. 43:2–7). Zechariah proclaims that, at the end, “the LORD my God will come” and reign as “king over all the earth” (Zech. 14:5, 9).
Once again, this language of God coming, dwelling, entering, and filling is analogical, for God, who fills all things, doesn’t leave one place to arrive at another. Still, it communicates God’s promise to be palpably present again with his people.
God Comes in Jesus and by His Spirit
In Jesus’s life and ministry, God began in a new way to fulfill his promise to come and live with his people. For Jesus is God himself, the eternal “Word” and “only Son from the Father,” who “became flesh and dwelt among us,” revealing God’s “glory,” “grace,” and “truth” (John 1:1–2, 14, 18). He is “Immanuel,” which means “God with us” (Matt. 1:23).
This first coming of God in Jesus was hidden and humble. He “came” to “serve” and to suffer and to “give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45; see Isa. 53:10–12). Still, it was God who came in Christ. It was God who was with us there and then in the cradle at Bethlehem, on the dusty streets of Galilee, in the garden of Gethsemane, and on the cross at Golgotha—God, in the person of his Son, specially present in power and grace, working to set us free from sin and death.
In pouring out his Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, God further fulfilled his promise to be present. The believers on that day “were all filled with the Holy Spirit,” and Peter announced God’s promise that anyone who repents and is baptized in the name of Jesus Christ “will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:4, 33, 38). Even now, “God’s Spirit dwells in” the church (1 Cor. 3:16–17) and “within” individual believers (6:19). This, too, is God with us.
Jesus promises anyone who loves him and keeps his Word that God the Father and Jesus the Son “will come to him and make [their] home with him” (John 14:23). Just as God was specially present there and then in Christ, so he’s specially present here and now, within us and among us in his church.
God’s Final Coming
The God who comes hasn’t yet finished coming to his people. Jesus promises that on the great final day, he’ll come from heaven in “power” and “glory” (Mark 13:26; Matt. 24:30; Luke 21:27). Jesus’s return will not only be the second coming of the human Messiah but the final coming of God himself (e.g., Mark 8:38; 1 Thess. 3:13 with Zech. 14:5; or Acts 17:31 with Pss. 96:13; 98:9).
Although his first coming was hidden and humble, God’s final coming will be open and manifest, powerful and glorious, as he comes to finally establish his kingdom over all creation (Matt. 24:27, 30; Acts 1:11; 1 Thess. 4:16–17; Rev. 1:7). This is why the writer to the Hebrews speaks of Jesus simply as “the coming one” (Heb. 10:37) and why God declares himself, in Revelation, as the one “who is and who was and who is to come” (Rev. 4:8, emphasis added; see 1:8). The good news isn’t merely that God “was and is and evermore shall be” but that God—our God—will come to his people.
Although God’s first coming was hidden and humble, his final coming will be open and manifest, powerful and glorious, as he comes to finally establish his kingdom over all creation.
God isn’t watching us from a distance. He isn’t standing aloof, waiting for us to work our way up to him. God has come to us already in Jesus. He dwells with us even now by his Spirit. And in the end, the one true and living God will come to dwell with his people fully, and finally, and forever (21:3).
When the world is in chaos or we face difficulty or tragedy, this is the promise we need. The whole story of the Bible leads us to the promise we find on the last page—“Surely I am coming soon”—and so calls us to respond with the Bible’s final prayer—“Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (22:20).
The Gospel Coalition