Steve Grant
Knowing God
The Transcendence & Immanence of God
Selected scriptures
17 November 2013

The transcendence of God has to do with His uniqueness. Reason being, He is Spirit, Self-Existent, Self-sufficient and Eternal. Therefore, the fitting response to God’s transcendence is that we must take great care in the way we describe Him, and in the way we worship Him. In other words, we shouldn’t merely take care of the way we talk about God; we must also take great care of the way in which we talk with Him.

The immanence of God pertains to His closeness to us and the fact that we can actually know Him, have a relationship with Him, and even depend on Him!

These two attributes of God make His character seem somewhat paradoxical; because while being inaccessibly transcendent He is also intimately immanent. In other words, while being absolutely unlike us and wholly above us, He is at the same time, near us and with us.

Thus our worship must be informed by both these characteristics of God. His immanence should not make us forget that He is transcendent. Neither should His transcendence make us forget that He is immanent.