Transcendent and Imminent

Isaiah 56–58, 2 Thessalonians 2
Key Verse: Isaiah 57:15

A friend one day contrasted the music she prefers with the music style her teenage sons like. She used two words in particular to describe the difference. She prefers the music in which God is transcendent, while her sons like music in which God is imminent.

Her comment stuck in my mind. It was very insightful. Some do prefer music that describes God as high and lifted up, the One who reigns from above in heaven. Others gravitate to the songs that help them “feel the power.” God is described as working in them and through them. He is right there with them. That is the basic difference between transcendent and imminent—high and exalted compared to right here with us.

In reality God is both. Through Isaiah, God said, “I live in a high and holy place” (57:15). His next statement adds the fact that God is “‘with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit.’” God is both transcendent and imminent.

This affects our worship when we, as Isaiah describes in chapter 6, see the Lord high and exalted. This affects our daily living as we realize that God is right here with us and in us, working through us. Our view of God needs to be as large as all the universes He created and as specific as our street address. It is not a contradiction but a completion. He is transcendent and imminent.

How do you view God—as off in the distant, or right here right now? Thank God for His immensity and for His immediacy.