Immanence & Transcendence in Church Culture

What is God’s Immanence? Not to be confused with imminence or eminence, God’s immanence is His nearness to His creation. It is in contrast to His transcendence, which is His high majesty above and beyond this world. Both are good qualities about God. We can even see these qualities manifested in the various churches that we have attended. Churches like the Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, and Presbyterian and some others tend to emphasize God’s transcendence through their messages, prayers, songs, architecture, and artwork. God’s power and greatness can sometimes be tangibly felt within such an atmosphere. It’s a refreshing sense of reverence for God and humble worship that is worthy of His great majesty. In His transcendence, God desires to be revered and honored as He is our Creator, and thus, the Father and King of us all.

In many modern churches today, much of this reverence seems to be lacking. There is little respect for God’s holiness and moral perfection. This even became a problem for the Corinthian church, who entered into the Lord’s presence however they pleased, treating communion as something unholy, like a meal to eat and binge drink off of (1 Cor 11:23-34). Likewise, Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu did not revere God either or respect His instructions and they offered strange fire to the Lord, unacceptable worship which they connivingly thought would be a good idea (Lev 10:1-3). But it turned out to be a bad idea and God burned them up for it. Then the Lord said, “I will be treated as holy, and before all the people I will be honored.” God said to the priests who despised His name, “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. Then if I am a father, where is My honor? And if I am a master, where is My respect?” (Mal 1:6). Solomon had this to say about God’s transcendence, “Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. For God is in heaven and you are on the earth; therefore let your words be few” (Ecc 5:2). Do you remember the story of Herod, how he died? People were praising him to be a god and he did not reject the praises and so God sent an angel to strike him down immediately “because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and died” (Acts 12:23). Many people in our day act however cavalier they want and have no fear of God before their eyes. They misinterpret God’s patience and lack of action against evil as acceptance or approval of their evil deeds. Or, they simply do not think about God’s majesty and take the grace of God for granted, like criminals released prison; and they go back to their evil practices without much restraint or resistant thoughts about it. But we would do well to honor His name, give Him the praise that is due to His name, and obey His commands. After all, He is the One who is in heaven and we are the ones who are on earth. We’re not the ones in charge here. We are not worthy to worship ourselves or free to do however we please. We don’t make the rules—He does.

It is a shame that many modern churches lack this respect with some of their emotional and bodily movement excess, making the church look more like a circus than a sanctuary. Though they supposedly have the Spirit of self-control, they choose not to exercise it and they are out of control. Paul instructs the church, “But all things must be done properly and in an orderly manner […] for God is not a God of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints” (1 Cor 14:33, 40). Though situations like that of emotional excess may be more of a minority. However, for the majority, many churches have an attitude and thought process that is me-focused rather than God-focused.

Unfortunately, many Christians do not worship God with a pure heart but they go to church to worship themselves, their own feelings, and their own preferences. They complain when anything isn’t according to their own liking like their favorite song wasn’t sung or they just didn’t get that emotional buzz that they were looking for. Even the preachers are in on it. Rather than feeding the sheep, they entertain the goats. Most of the sermon time is spent as their own soapbox to talk about themselves, their own little quirks, favorite foods, and funny little jokes. Hardly if any Bible verses are read or interpreted so that the pulpit becomes a platform for phycological self-help and man-made methods to try and overcome spiritual darkness. The shepherds are lazy, hired-hands, too busy with feeding themselves and living a comfortable life that they do not put in the discipline to understand the Word of God and preach the Word of God. The hungry and starving sheep become worldlings because of the negligence of the shepherds. But simply reading a passage of the Word of God would be an easy task and would be a much better diet than the empty words spoken by self-centered men. But their time will come for judgement from the hand of God.

Many modern church cultures out there are just a bunch of hype-men and hype-women. They’re not real. They’re not down to earth. They’re just putting on a show to get more people to attend, increase their growth, and give off the appearance of spiritual vitality. But emotionalism is not spirituality. You cannot hype up man’s psyche to get him into the spirit and so we might as well give up the effort to try. Many of us are tired of the façade. Though, sometimes the emotion is genuine; but we don’t always know.

Within this culture that lacks reverence and is seemingly unconcerned about glorifying God to be a light unto the world, people use their mouth however they please. Cussing? They’re not bothered by it. Filthy language and jokes? Not a problem. Christianity is all about you, after all, and how you benefit and how it makes your life better and feel better, right? I’m obviously being sarcastic here because that’s not what Christianity is about. Yes, the sacrifice of Jesus benefits us and we are so deeply thankful and grateful for that, but He purchased us so that we would no longer live for ourselves but for Him who died and rose again on our behalf (2 Cor 5:16). We are a kingdom of priests and ambassadors to God (1 Pet 2:9; 2 Cor 5:20). We are His inheritance to glorify His name (Ps 2:8; Mt 5:16). As A.W. Tozer has said, “The church’s power over the world springs out of her unlikeness to it, never from her integration into it.” Piety is necessary to show the world our faith, power, and life in the Spirit to glorify God and show people something real. God has called us to live a “holy” life. That means to be set apart from the worldliness of this present evil age even as the Israelites were a chosen people to be holy in the evil time that they lived to stand out from the world.

I would argue that all of these worldly church habits are the result of a very low view of God and His transcendence. They stem from a lack of truly knowing and loving God or being taught how to glorify God and live for Him. Many churches would benefit from having more Christ-centered, God-centered songs that magnify His name instead of this constant begging attitude for God to make us feel something or singing so introspectively about our own feelings. Would you still worship God if you never felt anything? Would you still love Him if He didn’t give you blessings and riches? Do we worship the gift or the giver? Would you exemplify the faithfulness of Job to not curse God’s name or depart from the faith when your whole life and everything around you falls apart? Don’t get me wrong, we can rightfully worship God and be thankful for His gifts. We would never love Him if He didn’t first love us (1 Jn 4:19). Our love for God will always be in some measure conditional. However, the love that God has given to us has also enabled us to not be self-centered and it might even be that our spiritual breakthrough would come when we abandon our self-centeredness. Seeking Christ and praising His name should take precedence and preeminence. Think about how God may feel about this. He wants your heart. He wants you to love Him. Maybe that’s what you need to do for your relationship with God to be healed. Will you return the faithfulness to God that He has shown to you?

Having said all these things, I may have convinced you to join one of the reverent, God-exalting churches if you are not already part of one. But stay tuned because I might just be about to convince you otherwise now; because such a God-honoring and God-glorifying culture is not everything it is cracked up to be either.

I just explained the benefits of a transcendent-focused church and the negatives of a church that lacks this view of God’s transcendence. But now I will begin to explain some arguments as to why that’s not the best church to attend.

First of all, let’s remember what God’s immanence is all about. It about Him being near—Him being with us. We find this attitude and feeling about God often expressed and exemplified in churches such as Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, and Non-denominational. I’m sure there are others but those are the main ones on my mind. It is refreshing to feel that God is close to us, deeply cares about us, and loves us. Many of the transcendent type churches lack that atmosphere. They focus so much on God’s majesty and infinite grandeur that it leaves little room for the nearness of God’s love. They sing about God’s glory, God’s power and sovereignty, God, high and lifted up in the heavens, seated on His majestic throne. Week after week, the same song about God reigning high upon His throne, ruling the world. But God isn’t just up there. He’s down here too. Now, I would agree that God is transcendent. I love His transcendence. I love to lift His name high. But when all the songs are so impersonal and transcendent, and these ancient hymns sung that are so disconnected from the common language of the people, and the church is singing more about God than to God as if God isn’t really there in their midst. So, they speak of Him in the third person. And, I don’t mean the Holy Ghost. I mean impersonal pronouns like, “he” and “him.” Rather than, “you.” As if, they don’t personally know God. Now, I might be exaggerating a little. I don’t condemn such third person songs. The real issue is where the emphasis is at—where the majority of the focus is on. Many such songs I feel are often so disconnected with the human spirit and the Holy Spirit. People don’t talk or pray how some of these songs are sung. Not to mention, some songs are so vocabulary and intellectually heavy that the mind is too busy thinking so that spirit cannot meditate on the truths of God in contemplative worship for some of these things to really sink down into the heart and soul or break the lies of the enemy. So, those are some disadvantages of those songs—they get us too much in the head and not enough in the heart. Many of those in the transcendent camp would criticize repetitive and non-theologically heavy songs but they have still much to learn both biblically and spiritually. But all of that is too much to explain here.

Here is my main contention with the transcendent church culture. They focus so much on God’s glory in terms of His power and control over the world and His high and lofty majesty. But did God’s sovereignty die for you?! Was the death of Jesus all about His transcendence?! Or was it about His immanence? Was it about His love that got Him to the cross? The center of Christianity is Christ. The reason we have salvation is because the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (Jn 1:14). He is Immanuel—God with us (Mt 1:23). He has promised to never leave us or forsake us (Dt 31:6-8; Mt 28:20). Nothing can separate us from the love of God that is within Christ Jesus our Lord (Ro 8:39). He is a very present help in time of trouble, is intimately acquainted with all our ways, and loves us how He loves the Father (Ps 46:1; 139; Jn 15:9).

And because of His sacrifice, we can “draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb 4:16). And Jesus has revealed to us that His heart is the same heart that the Father has for us. He has even adopted us as sons and sent the Spirit into our hearts whereby we cry out and pray to God, “Abba! Father!” (Ro 8:15; Gal 4:6; cf. Mt 6:9). Yet how many Catholics and Orthodox are uncomfortable praying to the Father and so they pray to other saints or Mary instead? And how many Protestants are uncomfortable praying to the Father because He feels to them more as the God of judgement and wrath and Jesus as the nice one? But both Jesus and the Father are One—and they are one in their love for us. This has been revealed to us through the Father loving us so much that He sent His only Son and the Son loving us so much that He died for us.

It is the Immanence of Jesus that saves us! It’s God’s incarnation that makes all of this possible! The Immanence of God is at the very heart of the gospel because without Jesus, we don’t have Christianity. We would still be living B.C. Before Christ. If He never came into this world, He would only be high on His throne and we would still be living in the Old Covenant. Many churches worship God as if they never entered into the New Covenant. They’re still singing and preaching the old way. They’re still glorying in the past. They haven’t come to deeply and intimately know God’s immanence which is His deep deep and personal love for them. They feel sacrilegious to use the words “intimate” and “love” and “God” in the same sentence. They’re repulsed by it. But how could a Jesus worshipping church emphasize God’s sovereignty more than God’s love? The love of Jesus is central to Christianity. But these churches make doctrine central. Knowledge central. Piety central. And all of God’s other attributes central. The intimate love of Jesus gets pushed to the background in preference to a culture wrapped around God’s transcendence.

All of these things I say out of love, to help us all see clearly and to help us move in the right direction. Some of it may be an exaggeration but it’s easier to see the point that way. The issue of contention here is not just the choice of songs but sermons as well and certain restraints put upon the musical production team and the spiritually and architecturally cold environment of the church. Some of these things do not matter to me as some may be inclined to think. I’m just trying to present the best argument for the immanence culture of the church and help the mind to see the merits of this other perspective. However, the problem we face is there is no perfect church. So then, where do we go from here? How can we reconcile the two perspectives? How can we come near to God while at the same time being reverent of God’s transcendence? That is certainly an excellent question for us all to ask and to re-adjust our church culture to be most honoring to God in the totality of who He is. All of us have a role to play but not all of us will be able to effect the changes we desire. So, we may be forced to choose which kind of church to attend. Of course, there are so many other factors besides God’s transcendence and immanence at stake and it would be unwise to make a church home based upon that aspect alone. But if I had to make a decision on that aspect alone, I would lean more towards the immanence culture, since Jesus and His love for us is central to the very gospel that we believe. We will just have to keep vigilant and guard our hearts to some of the pitfalls that this culture faces. However, contrary to some of the things I criticized, there are decent preachers within this culture who can be found that would make the decision worthwhile. I also find it to be the most spiritually healthy culture, even if the people aren’t that pious. It is ultimately the life of Christ thriving in us that is our health—not as much the outward things we do or don’t do. But for that life to be vivified to the utmost, faith in the love of God through Jesus Christ our Lord is absolutely necessary above all.