Opening Reflection: When we shrink God down to fit our categories, what other doctrines begin to crumble? The tragic reality of Finis Dake’s teaching on divine omnipresence is not merely that it misunderstands one attribute of God—it is that this single error creates a devastating domino effect that topples fundamental Christian doctrines one after another. Like pulling a single thread that unravels an entire tapestry, Dake’s insistence that God has a physical body and must travel from place to place ultimately destroys the coherent biblical picture of who God is and how He relates to His creation.
Consider for a moment the implications of Dake’s teaching. In his book God’s Plan for Man, Dake writes: “God is omni-present but not omni-body, that is, His presence can be felt by moral agents who are everywhere, but His body cannot be seen by them every place at the same time. God has a body and goes from place to place like anybody else” (Dake, God’s Plan for Man, 61). This statement, which might seem like a minor theological quirk at first glance, actually represents a complete reimagining of the nature of God—one that stands in direct opposition to two thousand years of orthodox Christian teaching and, more importantly, to the clear testimony of Scripture itself.
The prophet Jeremiah asks a penetrating question that strikes at the heart of this issue: “‘Am I a God near at hand,’ says the LORD, ‘And not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places, So I shall not see him?’ says the LORD; ‘Do I not fill heaven and earth?’ says the LORD” (Jeremiah 23:23-24, NKJV). This passage doesn’t describe a God who merely has His presence “felt” while His body resides elsewhere, as Dake suggests. Instead, it presents a God who literally fills heaven and earth—a God whose very being transcends spatial limitations while remaining intimately present with His creation.
The consequences of rejecting this biblical truth are far more severe than many realize. When we limit God’s omnipresence, we don’t simply adjust one doctrine—we fundamentally alter our entire understanding of God’s nature and His relationship with creation. This chapter will systematically examine how Dake’s error regarding omnipresence creates a cascading series of theological problems that ultimately leave us with a god who bears little resemblance to the infinite, eternal, and unchangeable God revealed in Scripture.
1. Impact on God’s Other Attributes: The Unraveling of Divine Perfection
The attributes of God are not isolated characteristics that can be modified independently of one another. Rather, they form an interconnected whole, each attribute necessarily implying and supporting the others. This theological principle, known as the doctrine of divine simplicity, means that God’s attributes are not parts of God but are identical with His essence. When we compromise one attribute, we inevitably compromise them all.
Dake’s limitation of God’s omnipresence immediately creates problems for God’s omniscience. If God has a physical body that must travel from place to place, how can He simultaneously know everything that is happening everywhere? The psalmist declares, “The eyes of the LORD are in every place, Keeping watch on the evil and the good” (Proverbs 15:3, NKJV). This verse doesn’t suggest that God has developed an elaborate surveillance system or that He rapidly travels between locations to observe events. Instead, it affirms that God’s knowledge is immediate and direct, flowing from His omnipresent nature.
Dake himself acknowledges that his system limits God’s omniscience, stating that God is “Omniscient (all-knowing) as far as His nature, plan, and work are concerned. As to free moral agents, God learns certain things about them”1 and that “God sends messengers on innumerable duties to help Him carry on His rulership of all things.”2 This astonishing admission reveals that Dake’s God cannot know all things immediately but must rely on angels to report information to Him. This is a far cry from the biblical God whose understanding is infinite.
Dake elaborates on this stunning limitation of divine knowledge: “God sends messengers throughout the Earth who report to Him of all that they find in the Earth that goes on… God does not take care of every detail of His vast business in all the kingdoms of the universe. His agents help Him and they are found in every part of the universe on missions for God. Certain angels are responsible to God for carrying out His will in almost infinite detail concerning the billions of suns, moons, planets and all free moral agents on them.”12 This description reduces God to a CEO who must rely on reports from subordinates rather than the omniscient God of Scripture who knows all things immediately and perfectly.
The apostle Paul reinforces this connection between presence and knowledge when he writes, “And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13, NKJV). Notice the language here—nothing is “hidden from His sight.” This is only possible if God is actually present everywhere to observe all things directly. A God who must travel from place to place would necessarily have blind spots, moments when He is not present to observe what is happening in a particular location.
Warning: Dake’s teaching creates a god who must rely on secondary means of knowledge—perhaps reports from angels or some form of divine remote viewing. This is not the God of Scripture, who knows all things immediately and perfectly because He is present to all things by His very essence.
Furthermore, Dake’s error compromises God’s omnipotence. Scripture teaches that God upholds all things by the word of His power. The author of Hebrews tells us that Christ is “upholding all things by the word of His power” (Hebrews 1:3, NKJV), while Paul writes that “in Him all things consist” (Colossians 1:17, NKJV). These passages describe a God who is actively and continuously sustaining every atom of the universe at every moment. How could a God with a localized body accomplish this? Must He send out power remotely, like some sort of cosmic WiFi signal? The very idea reduces God’s immediate and intimate involvement with creation to a mechanical and distant operation.
The prophet Isaiah understood the connection between God’s presence and His power when he declared, “Indeed My hand has laid the foundation of the earth, And My right hand has stretched out the heavens; When I call to them, They stand up together” (Isaiah 48:13, NKJV). This poetic language doesn’t describe God reaching out with a physical hand to arrange the cosmos—it describes the immediate presence and power of God bringing forth and sustaining creation. A God who must travel cannot simultaneously uphold all things; at best, He could only maintain things remotely or through intermediaries, which Scripture nowhere suggests.
Perhaps most troubling is what Dake’s view does to God’s immutability—His unchangeable nature. James tells us that with God there is “no variation or shadow of turning” (James 1:17, NKJV). But a God who travels from place to place is constantly changing—changing location, changing perspective, changing in His relationship to spatial coordinates. The God of Dake’s theology is more like the gods of Greek mythology—powerful but limited beings who move through space and time rather than transcending them.
The interconnected nature of God’s attributes means that when we compromise omnipresence, we create a cascade of theological problems. We end up with a God who cannot truly know all things (limited omniscience), cannot truly do all things (limited omnipotence), and is subject to change (denial of immutability). This is not a minor adjustment to Christian theology—it is a fundamental redefinition of who God is.
2. Dake’s God Cannot Truly Be Sovereign: The Crisis of Divine Rule
Sovereignty—God’s absolute rule over all creation—stands at the heart of biblical theology. The Scripture declares, “The LORD has established His throne in heaven, And His kingdom rules over all” (Psalm 103:19, NKJV). But how can a God who must travel from place to place truly rule over all? Dake’s theology creates an impossible situation where God’s sovereignty becomes theoretical rather than actual.
Consider the practical implications of Dake’s view. If God has a body that exists in one location at a time, then He cannot simultaneously act in multiple places. When God is dealing with a situation in one galaxy, what happens to His governance of other galaxies? When He is answering prayers in America, who is attending to the needs of believers in Asia? Dake might respond that God travels very quickly, but this doesn’t solve the fundamental problem—a God who must travel cannot be simultaneously present to govern all things.
Dake makes this limitation explicit in his commentary on Ezekiel, declaring that “God also has many other means of travel and goes from one place to another bodily as all other beings in existence. He is omnipresent, but not omnibody.”3 The irony of this statement is palpable—Dake admits God travels “like all other beings” while trying to maintain that He is somehow still omnipresent. This is a logical contradiction that undermines any meaningful sense of divine sovereignty.
Dake’s description of God’s travel is even more astonishing when fully quoted: “God goes from place to place in a body just like anyone else… He wears clothes; eats; rests, not because he gets tired, but because he ceases activity or completes a work; dwells in a mansion and in a city located on a material planet called Heaven; sits on a throne; walks; rides upon cherubs, the wind, clouds, and chariots drawn by cherubims; and does do and can do anything that any other person can do bodily that is right and good.”13 This portrayal of God riding around on chariots pulled by cherubim is indistinguishable from pagan mythology and utterly incompatible with biblical sovereignty.
The book of Daniel provides a powerful picture of God’s sovereign rule: “He does according to His will in the army of heaven And among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain His hand Or say to Him, ‘What have You done?'” (Daniel 4:35, NKJV). This verse describes God’s simultaneous authority over both the heavenly realm and the earthly realm. He doesn’t alternate between governing heaven and earth—He rules both simultaneously because He is omnipresent to both.
Moreover, Scripture teaches that God’s sovereignty extends to the smallest details of creation. Jesus tells us, “Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered” (Matthew 10:29-30, NKJV). Think about the implications of this teaching. At any given moment, countless sparrows are living and dying around the world. Billions of people have hairs that need counting. How could a God with a localized body attend to all these details simultaneously?
Dake’s theology effectively reduces divine providence to a general oversight rather than the specific, detailed care that Scripture describes. His god might establish general laws and principles, but he cannot be intimately involved in every detail of creation because he cannot be present to every detail. This moves dangerously close to deism—the belief that God created the world but is not actively involved in its ongoing operation.
Application: The biblical doctrine of God’s omnipresent sovereignty provides incredible comfort to believers. We can trust that God is not only aware of our circumstances but is actually present and actively involved in every detail of our lives. The God who numbers our hairs and notes the sparrow’s fall is not observing from a distance—He is immediately present to every aspect of our existence.
The prophet Isaiah captures the comprehensive nature of God’s sovereign rule: “I am God, and there is none like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure'” (Isaiah 46:9-10, NKJV). How can God declare the end from the beginning if He is not present to all of time? How can He ensure that His counsel will stand if He must travel from place to place to enforce it? Dake’s limitation of God’s presence necessarily limits His sovereign control.
Furthermore, Scripture presents God’s sovereignty as immediate and personal, not remote and mechanical. The psalmist writes, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there” (Psalm 139:7-8, NKJV). This is not describing God’s ability to travel quickly to wherever the psalmist might go—it’s declaring that God is already present everywhere the psalmist could possibly be. God’s sovereignty is effective precisely because His presence is universal.
The Westminster Confession of Faith, representing centuries of careful theological reflection, states: “God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass” (WCF 3.1). This comprehensive sovereignty is only possible if God is immediately present to all events to ensure they unfold according to His decree. A traveling God could not maintain such comprehensive control.
3. The Problem of Divine Knowledge: How Can a Localized God Know All?
One of the most serious problems with Dake’s theology concerns divine knowledge. Scripture consistently presents God as having perfect, immediate, and comprehensive knowledge of all things. The psalmist declares, “Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite” (Psalm 147:5, NKJV). But how can a God with a localized body have infinite understanding?
Dake attempts to maintain that God is omniscient while denying that He is omnipresent in His being. In his commentary, he suggests that God can know things at a distance through His “felt presence” or through reports from angels. But this creates a fundamental problem: mediated knowledge is not the same as immediate knowledge. If God must rely on reports or remote observation, then His knowledge is dependent on something outside Himself, which contradicts the biblical teaching about God’s self-sufficiency and perfection.
Consider what Scripture actually says about God’s knowledge. The author of Hebrews writes, “And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13, NKJV). The language here is unambiguous—things are “naked and open” to God’s eyes, not filtered through intermediaries or observed from a distance. This immediate knowledge is only possible if God is actually present to observe all things directly.
The problem becomes even more acute when we consider God’s knowledge of human thoughts and intentions. The psalmist writes, “O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off” (Psalm 139:1-2, NKJV). How does God understand our thoughts? If He has a localized body, He cannot be immediately present to our minds. Must He use some form of divine telepathy? The biblical answer is much simpler: God knows our thoughts because He is immediately present to them.
Jeremiah reinforces this truth: “I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings” (Jeremiah 17:10, NKJV). God doesn’t just observe external actions—He searches hearts and tests minds. This intimate knowledge of human internality is only possible if God is actually present within us, not observing from a distance.
Critical Error: Dake’s theology requires God to learn information rather than simply knowing it. If God must travel to observe or must receive reports, then there are moments when He doesn’t know something until He arrives or until He is informed. This makes God’s knowledge contingent and temporal rather than eternal and necessary.
The implications for prophecy are particularly problematic. How can God declare “the end from the beginning” (Isaiah 46:10, NKJV) if He is not present to all of time? Prophecy requires perfect knowledge not just of the present but of the future. If God has a body that moves through time sequentially, as Dake suggests, then He cannot have immediate knowledge of future events. At best, He could have very good predictive abilities based on His knowledge of present conditions, but this is not the absolute foreknowledge that Scripture attributes to God.
Jesus demonstrated divine omniscience during His earthly ministry, even while His human nature was localized. He knew Nathanael before meeting him (John 1:48), knew the thoughts of the Pharisees (Matthew 9:4), and knew what was in man (John 2:25). This knowledge came from His divine nature, which remained omnipresent even while His human nature was localized. If the Father’s divine nature is also localized, as Dake suggests, then how could even the incarnate Christ have demonstrated such knowledge?
The connection between omnipresence and omniscience is not merely logical but biblical. First John tells us, “For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things” (1 John 3:20, NKJV). God’s knowledge of “all things” is presented as a comfort to believers—He knows our hearts better than we do. But this comfort evaporates if God’s knowledge is mediated or remote rather than immediate and intimate.
Moreover, Scripture presents God’s knowledge as the basis for His judgment. Paul writes, “Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts” (1 Corinthians 4:5, NKJV). How can God reveal the counsels of hearts if He has not been present to observe them? How can He bring to light hidden things if He has not been present where they were hidden?
Thomas Aquinas, recognizing this necessary connection, wrote: “God is in all things by His power, inasmuch as all things are subject to His power; He is by His presence in all things, as all things are bare and open to His eyes; He is in all things by His essence, inasmuch as He is present to all as the cause of their being” (Summa Theologica, I, Q.8, A.3). This threefold presence—by power, presence, and essence—ensures that God’s knowledge is perfect and immediate.
4. Creation and Sustenance Issues: The Problem of Divine Conservation
Scripture teaches not only that God created all things but that He continuously sustains them in existence. This doctrine, known as divine conservation, means that creation would cease to exist if God were to withdraw His sustaining presence. The author of Hebrews declares that Christ is “upholding all things by the word of His power” (Hebrews 1:3, NKJV), while Paul writes, “He is before all things, and in Him all things consist” (Colossians 1:17, NKJV).
These passages present a profound truth: creation’s continued existence depends on God’s immediate and continuous presence. The verb tenses used in these passages indicate ongoing action—Christ is continuously upholding, all things are continuously consisting in Him. This is not a past action with continuing effects but a present and ongoing activity of God.
But how can a God with a localized body uphold all things simultaneously? If God must travel from place to place, then He cannot be simultaneously present to sustain all of creation. Dake might argue that God can sustain things remotely, but this contradicts the biblical language which emphasizes immediacy and presence. Things consist “in Him,” not through some remote force He projects.
Job understood this intimate connection between God’s presence and creation’s existence: “If He should set His heart on it, If He should gather to Himself His Spirit and His breath, All flesh would perish together, And man would return to dust” (Job 34:14-15, NKJV). Notice that creation’s existence depends on God’s Spirit and breath remaining present to it. If God were to “gather to Himself” His Spirit—that is, if He were to become localized and withdraw His presence—all flesh would immediately perish.
The implications of Dake’s theology lead inexorably toward deism—the belief that God created the world but is not actively involved in its ongoing operation. If God has a localized body, then most of creation must operate independently of His immediate presence. Natural laws must function autonomously, matter must have inherent stability, and creation must have some capacity for self-existence. But this is precisely what Scripture denies.
Paul, preaching to the Athenian philosophers, declared, “For in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28, NKJV). This is not metaphorical language about God’s importance to our lives—it’s a statement about the metaphysical dependence of all creation on God’s immediate presence. We exist “in Him,” not apart from Him with occasional divine visits.
Key Insight: The biblical doctrine of creation ex nihilo (out of nothing) implies that creation has no inherent existence apart from God. Unlike human creators who work with pre-existing materials to create objects that can exist independently, God brought creation into being from nothing and must continuously sustain it in existence. This requires His immediate presence to all of creation at all times.
The psalmist celebrates God’s immediate involvement with all of creation: “These all wait for You, That You may give them their food in due season. What You give them they gather in; You open Your hand, they are filled with good. You hide Your face, they are troubled; You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. You send forth Your Spirit, they are created; And You renew the face of the earth” (Psalm 104:27-30, NKJV). This passage describes God’s immediate and continuous interaction with all creatures—not a remote management but an intimate presence that sustains all life.
Furthermore, Scripture teaches that God’s sustaining presence extends even to inanimate creation. Jesus tells us that God “makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45, NKJV). The sun doesn’t rise by its own power or by natural law alone—God makes it rise. Rain doesn’t fall merely according to meteorological principles—God sends it. This active, immediate involvement in natural phenomena requires God’s presence to these processes.
Nehemiah’s great prayer captures this truth beautifully: “You alone are the LORD; You have made heaven, The heaven of heavens, with all their host, The earth and everything on it, The seas and all that is in them, And You preserve them all” (Nehemiah 9:6, NKJV). God doesn’t just create and then leave creation to run on its own—He preserves it all. This preservation requires His immediate presence, not remote control.
The Reformed tradition has consistently affirmed this truth. The Westminster Confession states: “God the great Creator of all things does uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by His most wise and holy providence” (WCF 5.1). This comprehensive providence requires comprehensive presence. A God who must travel cannot simultaneously uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all things.
5. Prayer and Worship Problems: Can a Localized God Hear All?
Perhaps nowhere does Dake’s error create more practical problems than in the area of prayer and worship. Scripture presents prayer as immediate communication with God, available to all believers at all times. Jesus promised, “And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (John 14:13, NKJV). But how can a God with a localized body hear all prayers simultaneously?
Consider the mathematical impossibility of Dake’s position. At any given moment, millions of Christians around the world are praying. They are praying in different languages, about different concerns, with different levels of urgency. Some are praying silently, some aloud, some in groups, some alone. How can a God who exists in one location at a time possibly attend to all these prayers simultaneously?
Dake might respond that God can process information very quickly, but this doesn’t solve the fundamental problem. If God has a localized body, then He cannot be immediately present to hear all prayers as they are being offered. At best, prayers would need to be transmitted to Him somehow—but Scripture never suggests that our prayers need to travel to reach God. Instead, it presents God as immediately present to hear us.
The psalmist writes, “O You who hear prayer, To You all flesh will come” (Psalm 65:2, NKJV). God is characterized as the One who hears prayer—not the One who eventually receives and processes prayers, but the One who hears them. This hearing is immediate and personal. David could write, “Evening and morning and at noon I will pray, and cry aloud, And He shall hear my voice” (Psalm 55:17, NKJV), confident that God would hear him whenever he prayed.
Pastoral Concern: If Dake is correct and God has a localized body, then we can never be certain that God is actually hearing our prayers when we offer them. Perhaps He is attending to someone else’s prayers at that moment. Perhaps our prayers must wait in some sort of divine queue until God can get to them. This uncertainty undermines the confidence and intimacy that should characterize Christian prayer.
The problem extends to corporate worship as well. At any given moment on Sunday morning, thousands of congregations around the world are gathered for worship. They are singing praises, offering prayers, preaching the Word, and celebrating the sacraments. Scripture teaches that God is present in these gatherings in a special way. Jesus promised, “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20, NKJV).
But if God has a localized body, He cannot be simultaneously present in all these gatherings. He might quickly travel between them, but He cannot be genuinely present in all of them at once. This reduces the promise of Christ’s presence in worship to a metaphor or a feeling rather than a reality. It makes God’s presence in worship contingent and uncertain rather than promised and assured.
The book of Revelation gives us a glimpse of heavenly worship where “every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them” join together in praising God (Revelation 5:13, NKJV). How can God receive all this worship simultaneously if He has a localized body? The passage suggests that all creation worships God together, not in sequence as would be necessary if God had to travel to receive worship from different locations.
Furthermore, Scripture teaches that our worship ascends to God like incense. John writes in Revelation, “Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne” (Revelation 8:3, NKJV). The prayers of “all the saints” are offered together—not processed sequentially as would be necessary if God could only receive them one at a time.
The Old Testament provides additional evidence for God’s omnipresent reception of worship. Solomon, at the dedication of the temple, prayed, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built! Yet regard the prayer of Your servant and his supplication, O LORD my God, and listen to the cry and the prayer which Your servant is praying before You today: that Your eyes may be open toward this temple night and day” (1 Kings 8:27-29, NKJV).
Solomon recognized the apparent contradiction: God cannot be contained even by the highest heavens, yet He is asked to be particularly present to hear prayers offered toward the temple. The solution is not that God travels back and forth to the temple, but that He is omnipresent—fully present everywhere while also specially present in particular places for particular purposes.
The implications for personal devotion are equally troubling under Dake’s system. The psalmist could write, “My voice You shall hear in the morning, O LORD; In the morning I will direct it to You, And I will look up” (Psalm 5:3, NKJV). This confidence in being heard comes from the assurance of God’s presence. But if God has a localized body, then David could not be certain that God would be present to hear his morning prayers.
6. Christological Heresies: The Trinity in Crisis
Dake’s error regarding the Father’s omnipresence creates severe problems for our understanding of the Trinity and the person of Christ. If the Father has a physical body that is localized in space, what does this mean for the Son and the Spirit? And how do we understand the incarnation if divinity itself is already embodied?
Scripture teaches that the three persons of the Trinity share the same divine essence. The Athanasian Creed, reflecting biblical teaching, states: “We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.” This means that what is true of the divine nature must be true of all three persons. If the Father has a localized body, as Dake claims, then the Son and Spirit must also have localized bodies, since they share the same divine nature.
Dake explicitly teaches this tritheistic view in his discussion of the Trinity. He writes that “the separate persons in Elohim always retain their own personal body, soul, and spirit, yet they are one in perfect unity.”4 He further states that “All three go from place to place bodily as other beings in the universe do.”5 This means that according to Dake, the Father has one body, the Son has another body, and the Spirit has yet another body—making them three separate gods rather than one God in three persons.
Dake elaborates on this view extensively: “If the fact is revealed that there are three separate distinct beings in the Deity or Godhead, this would be sufficient to warrant the conclusion that each of them have separate bodies, souls, and spirits, like all other separate and distinct beings… If they are separate and distinct persons, then each one would have to have His own personality, spirit-body, soul, spirit, and His own individuality in every sense that it is understood and required of any other person in existence.”14 This is nothing less than a defense of tritheism—the belief in three gods rather than one God in three persons.
But this creates immediate biblical problems. Jesus, speaking of the Holy Spirit, said, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8, NKJV). The Spirit is compared to wind precisely because He is not localized or visible. He moves mysteriously and omnipresently, not as a localized being traveling from place to place.
Paul writes that “the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Corinthians 3:17, NKJV). The Spirit’s presence brings liberty wherever He is—and Scripture suggests He is present everywhere with believers. Paul asks, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16, NKJV). If millions of believers are simultaneously temples of the Holy Spirit, how can the Spirit have a localized body?
The problem becomes even more acute when we consider the incarnation. Orthodox Christianity teaches that in the incarnation, the eternal Son of God took on human nature while remaining fully divine. The divine nature remained omnipresent even while the human nature was localized. As the ancient saying goes, “The finite cannot contain the infinite.”
Theological Principle: The incarnation involved the Son taking on human nature, not the divine nature taking on a body. The divine nature already omnipresently fills all things and cannot be contained in a body. This is why the early church councils were so careful to distinguish between Christ’s two natures—His divine nature remained omnipresent even while His human nature was localized.
But if the Father already has a body, as Dake claims, then what exactly happened in the incarnation? Did the Son, who already had a divine body, take on a second human body? This leads to the absurdity of Christ having two bodies—His eternal divine body and His assumed human body. This is not the teaching of Scripture or orthodox Christianity.
Dake’s confusion on this point is evident in his statement that God is “a person who is Spirit, infinite, eternal, immutable, self-existent, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent” yet also “He is a Spirit Being with a body.”6 He wants to maintain God’s infinite attributes while simultaneously claiming God has a body—but these positions are mutually exclusive. A being with a body cannot be truly infinite or omnipresent.
Jesus Himself testified to His omnipresence even during His earthly ministry. He declared, “No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven” (John 3:13, NKJV). Even while speaking to Nicodemus on earth, Jesus claimed to be in heaven. This is only possible if His divine nature remained omnipresent while His human nature was localized.
Similarly, Jesus promised His disciples, “And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20, NKJV). This promise of perpetual presence is not a promise to visit frequently or to be available by prayer—it’s a promise of actual presence. Christ promises to be with all believers everywhere until the end of the age. This requires omnipresence, not rapid travel between locations.
The unity of the Trinity is also compromised by Dake’s teaching. Jesus said, “I and My Father are one” (John 10:30, NKJV). This unity is not merely moral or purposeful but ontological—they share the same divine essence. But if the Father has a localized body, and the Son has a different localized body, then they cannot share the same essence. They become two separate, limited beings rather than one God in three persons.
Furthermore, Scripture teaches that the persons of the Trinity indwell one another—a doctrine known as perichoresis or circumincession. Jesus said, “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?” (John 14:10, NKJV). This mutual indwelling is only possible if the persons are not limited by spatial location. Three beings with three separate bodies cannot mutually indwell one another in the way Scripture describes.
The apostle John’s vision of Christ in Revelation further complicates Dake’s view. He sees Christ as “One like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire” (Revelation 1:13-14, NKJV). This is clearly symbolic, apocalyptic imagery, not a literal physical description. If we take this literally, as Dake’s hermeneutic would require, then Christ’s body has literally changed from His earthly appearance. But this undermines the permanence of the incarnation.
The early church fathers were unanimous in their rejection of any form of divine corporeality. Origen wrote, “God therefore is not to be thought of as being either a body or as existing in a body, but as an uncompounded intellectual nature, admitting within Himself no addition of any kind” (De Principiis, 1.1.6). This wasn’t philosophical speculation but careful reflection on biblical teaching about God’s nature.
7. Eschatological Problems: The Future in Jeopardy
Dake’s limitation of God’s omnipresence creates significant problems for biblical eschatology—the doctrine of last things. Scripture’s teaching about Christ’s return, the final judgment, and the eternal state all presuppose God’s omnipresence. Without it, these doctrines become incoherent or impossible.
Consider first the second coming of Christ. Jesus taught, “For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be” (Matthew 24:27, NKJV). The comparison to lightning emphasizes the sudden, universal visibility of Christ’s return. Revelation adds, “Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him” (Revelation 1:7, NKJV).
How can every eye see Him if He has a localized body? The earth is a sphere—people on opposite sides cannot simultaneously see the same localized object. Some have suggested that television or internet technology will allow everyone to see Christ’s return, but this reduces a supernatural event to a media broadcast. The biblical language suggests something far more profound—a divine manifestation that transcends normal spatial limitations.
The problem becomes even more acute when we consider the final judgment. Paul writes, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5:10, NKJV). All humans who have ever lived must appear before Christ for judgment. If Christ has a localized body, this judgment would need to proceed sequentially, person by person, taking enormous amounts of time.
But Scripture presents the judgment as a decisive event, not an extended process. Jesus said, “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him” (Matthew 25:31-32, NKJV). All nations are gathered before Him simultaneously, not in sequence. This requires a transcendent presence that surpasses spatial limitations.
Theological Problem: Dake’s view effectively makes the final judgment impossible. Billions of humans have lived throughout history. If each must individually appear before a localized Christ for judgment, and if each case requires even minimal time for review, the judgment would take millennia to complete. This contradicts the biblical presentation of the judgment as a decisive eschatological event.
The eternal state presents additional problems. Revelation describes the New Jerusalem where “the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God” (Revelation 21:3, NKJV). God’s dwelling with humanity in the eternal state is presented as intimate and immediate. But if God has a localized body, He cannot simultaneously dwell with all the redeemed.
Furthermore, John writes of the New Jerusalem, “But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple” (Revelation 21:22, NKJV). God and the Lamb don’t dwell in a temple within the city—they are the temple. This suggests a presence that fills and transcends the entire city, not a localized presence in one part of it.
The river of life flowing from God’s throne (Revelation 22:1) and the tree of life whose leaves are for the healing of the nations (Revelation 22:2) suggest God’s life-giving presence flowing throughout the new creation. If God has a localized body, His life-giving power would be limited to His immediate vicinity rather than flowing throughout the renewed cosmos.
Paul’s teaching about the end adds another dimension: “When all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28, NKJV). God being “all in all” is the ultimate expression of omnipresence—God’s presence filling and pervading all of the renewed creation. This is impossible if God has a localized body that exists in one place at a time.
The cosmic scope of redemption also requires divine omnipresence. Paul writes that God will “gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him” (Ephesians 1:10, NKJV). The gathering of all things in heaven and earth requires a Christ who transcends spatial limitations. A localized Christ could not simultaneously unite heavenly and earthly realities.
The promise of resurrection presents yet another challenge. Paul teaches that Christ “will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself” (Philippians 3:21, NKJV). If billions of bodies need to be simultaneously transformed and resurrected, this requires omnipresent power, not localized action.
8. The Slippery Slope to Polytheism: Multiple Gods or No God?
Perhaps the most serious consequence of Dake’s theology is that it leads inexorably toward either polytheism (multiple gods) or atheism (no God at all). By limiting God to a physical body that must travel from place to place, Dake has reduced God to a being among beings rather than Being itself. This reduction has profound theological consequences that strike at the heart of biblical monotheism.
When we say God has a body that exists in space and time, we are saying that God is fundamentally the same kind of being we are, just with greater powers. He becomes what philosophers call a “univocal being”—existing in the same way creatures exist, just with enhanced capabilities. This is precisely the conception of deity found in pagan polytheism.
The gods of Greek and Roman mythology had bodies, lived in specific locations (Mount Olympus), traveled from place to place, and were limited by their physicality. They were powerful but not omnipotent, knowledgeable but not omniscient, present in one place but not omnipresent. They were, in essence, glorified humans with superhuman powers. Dake’s God bears an uncomfortable resemblance to these pagan deities.
Dake’s own descriptions of God make this parallel clear. He insists that “God can be like man in bodily form and still be as magnificent as we have always thought Him to be. He can have a spirit-substance body and still be like man in size and shape.”7 He further declares that “man in reality is simply a miniature of God in attributes and powers.”8 This reduces God to essentially an enhanced human being rather than the transcendent Creator.
Dake’s most revealing statement in this regard is: “Man was made a miniature of God in soul and spirit faculties and with bodily parts like those of God. The only difference between the faculties of God and those of man is that those of God are infinite and those of man are finite; one is unlimited, and the other is limited.”15 This astonishing claim makes God merely a quantitatively greater version of man rather than a qualitatively different being. It collapses the Creator-creature distinction that is essential to biblical theology.
Historical Parallel: The ancient Greek philosopher Xenophanes criticized the anthropomorphic gods of Greek religion, noting that humans create gods in their own image. He famously said that if horses had gods, they would look like horses. Dake’s error is essentially the same—he has created a God who is simply a bigger, more powerful version of a human being rather than a transcendent, infinite Being who exists in a fundamentally different way than creatures.
Moreover, if the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit each have their own localized bodies, as Dake’s logic requires, then we no longer have one God but three gods. They might work together harmoniously, but they would be three distinct, limited beings rather than one infinite God in three persons. This is not Trinitarianism but tritheism—a form of polytheism.
Dake explicitly affirms this tritheism in his extended discussion of the Trinity, where he states: “If the Godhead consists of three separate and distinct persons, as plainly stated in 1 John 5:7-8, then we are to believe that each person has a personal body, soul, and spirit, as is the case with each man.”9 He goes on to defend this position by arguing that just as each human person has their own body, so each divine person must have their own body. This completely misunderstands the nature of the Trinity and reduces it to three separate gods.
The comparison with Mormon theology is particularly instructive. Mormons teach that God the Father has a physical body of flesh and bones, that He was once a man who progressed to godhood, and that He exists in a specific location. They also teach that there are multiple gods, each ruling over their own worlds. Dake’s theology, while not identical to Mormonism, shares troubling similarities in its physicalization and limitation of God.
The Bible’s response to such ideas is unequivocal. Isaiah records God’s words: “Before Me there was no God formed, Nor shall there be after Me. I, even I, am the LORD, And besides Me there is no savior” (Isaiah 43:10-11, NKJV). God is not merely the greatest among many gods—He is the only God, existing in a fundamentally different way than all created beings.
The Shema, Israel’s foundational confession of faith, declares, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one!” (Deuteronomy 6:4, NKJV). This oneness is not merely numerical (one instead of many) but also speaks to God’s uniqueness and transcendence. He is one in a way that no creature can be one—simple, indivisible, and infinite.
Paul reinforces this absolute monotheism: “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5, NKJV). Notice that Paul distinguishes between the one God and the man Christ Jesus. While Christ is fully divine, His humanity is what allows Him to serve as mediator. If God the Father also had a body, this distinction would be meaningless.
The alternative to polytheism, given Dake’s limitations on God, might be practical atheism. If God is so limited that He cannot be omnipresent, omniscient, or truly sovereign, then is He really God at all? A being who must travel to act, who must investigate to know, who cannot be present to all of creation simultaneously—such a being might be powerful, but is He worthy of worship as God?
The philosopher Anselm defined God as “that than which nothing greater can be conceived.” But we can easily conceive of something greater than Dake’s God—a God who is truly omnipresent, who doesn’t need to travel, who can act everywhere simultaneously. If we can conceive of something greater than Dake’s God, then Dake’s God is not truly God.
This reductionism also opens the door to process theology and other heresies that deny God’s perfection and completeness. If God has a body that moves through space and time, then God is in process, changing, developing, perhaps even improving. But Scripture declares, “I am the LORD, I do not change” (Malachi 3:6, NKJV). A God who moves through space and time necessarily changes in His relations to spatial and temporal coordinates.
Key Points Summary
- Attribute Independence Destroyed: Limiting God’s omnipresence necessarily compromises His omniscience, omnipotence, immutability, and other essential attributes, creating a cascade of theological errors.
- Sovereignty Becomes Impossible: A God who must travel from place to place cannot simultaneously govern all creation, making true divine sovereignty and providence impossible.
- Knowledge Becomes Mediated: If God has a localized body, His knowledge must be mediated through observation or reports rather than being immediate and perfect, undermining biblical prophecy and divine foreknowledge.
- Creation Cannot Be Sustained: Scripture teaches that God continuously upholds all creation, which is impossible if He has a localized body that cannot be present to all things simultaneously.
- Prayer and Worship Are Undermined: A localized God cannot hear all prayers simultaneously or be present in all worship gatherings, destroying the immediacy and intimacy of communion with God.
- Trinity Doctrine Collapses: If the Father has a physical body, the Son and Spirit must too, leading to three gods rather than one God in three persons, and making the incarnation incoherent.
- Eschatology Becomes Impossible: Christ’s visible return to all, the simultaneous judgment of all humanity, and God being “all in all” in the eternal state all require omnipresence.
- Leads to Polytheism or Atheism: Reducing God to a being with a body makes Him one among many possible gods (polytheism) or so limited that He’s not truly God at all (practical atheism).
- Parallels Pagan and Cult Theology: Dake’s God resembles the limited deities of Greek mythology and shares troubling similarities with Mormon theology’s embodied God.
- Contradicts Biblical Monotheism: Scripture’s emphasis on God’s uniqueness, transcendence, and incomparability is destroyed when God is reduced to a localized, embodied being.
Common Questions
Q1: If God doesn’t have a body, why does the Bible speak of God’s hands, eyes, feet, and other body parts?
Answer: These are anthropomorphisms—literary devices that describe God in human terms to help us understand His actions and attributes. When the Bible speaks of God’s “mighty hand” delivering Israel from Egypt (Exodus 13:9), it’s communicating God’s power to act, not suggesting He has a physical hand. Jesus Himself told us that “God is Spirit” (John 4:24) and that “a spirit does not have flesh and bones” (Luke 24:39). The Bible uses phenomenological language (describing things as they appear) to communicate spiritual truths. Just as we still say “the sun rises” even though we know the earth rotates, Scripture uses human language to describe divine realities that transcend our full comprehension.
Q2: Doesn’t Dake’s view make God more personal and relatable?
Answer: Actually, it makes God less personal and less accessible. A God who must travel can only be in one place at a time, meaning He cannot be personally present with each believer simultaneously. The biblical God who is omnipresent can be intimately and personally present with every one of His children at every moment. David could write, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?” (Psalm 139:7) because God was always personally present with him. Dake’s God might be easier to imagine, but He would be infinitely less available for personal relationship. True comfort comes from knowing God is always with us, not from imagining Him as a bigger version of ourselves.
Q3: How can God be present in hell or in places of evil without being contaminated by sin?
Answer: God’s presence in a place doesn’t mean He participates in or is affected by what happens there. Light can shine in darkness without becoming dark. God is present in hell as the sustainer of existence and the executor of justice, not as a participant in evil. Habakkuk tells us God’s “eyes are too pure to behold evil, and cannot look on wickedness” (Habakkuk 1:13, ESV), meaning He doesn’t approve of or participate in evil, not that He is absent where evil occurs. His presence in all places is actually necessary for justice—evil cannot hide from Him. As Amos warns, “Though they dig into hell, From there My hand shall take them” (Amos 9:2, NKJV). God’s holy presence judges evil rather than being contaminated by it.
Q4: If God is omnipresent, why does the Bible speak of God “coming down” or people being “cast from His presence”?
Answer: Scripture distinguishes between God’s essential presence (His omnipresence by which He fills all things), His gracious presence (His special blessing and favor), and His manifest presence (His visible or sensible revelation). When Genesis says God “came down” to see Babel (Genesis 11:5), it’s describing God’s special judicial action, not suggesting He was previously absent. When sinners are “cast from His presence” (2 Thessalonians 1:9), they’re excluded from His favorable, gracious presence—the joy and blessing of communion with Him—not from His essential presence which sustains their very existence. These passages use phenomenological language to describe God’s special actions or relationships while maintaining His omnipresence.
Q5: Doesn’t limiting God’s omnipresence protect Him from being identified with creation (pantheism)?
Answer: No, proper biblical omnipresence actually prevents pantheism better than Dake’s view. Pantheism says God IS creation; biblical theism says God is present TO creation while remaining distinct from it. A craftsman can be present to his work without being identified with it. Dake’s limitation actually creates bigger problems—if God needs a body to exist, He becomes dependent on material reality rather than transcending it. The Westminster Confession captures the balance: God is “infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions, immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible.” This God can be omnipresent without being identified with creation because He transcends it entirely while remaining immediately present to sustain it.
Q6: How should we respond to those who have been influenced by Dake’s teaching on this issue?
Answer: With patience, grace, and careful biblical instruction. Many who follow Dake’s teaching are sincere believers who have been misled by his literalistic approach to Scripture. We should: (1) Affirm their desire to take Scripture seriously while showing them the importance of recognizing literary genres and devices; (2) Demonstrate from Scripture itself that God is spirit and omnipresent; (3) Show the logical and theological problems that result from limiting God’s presence; (4) Point them to the consistent testimony of orthodox Christianity throughout history; (5) Emphasize the practical benefits of biblical omnipresence for prayer, comfort, and assurance; (6) Pray for wisdom and gentleness in correction, remembering that “a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all” (2 Timothy 2:24, NKJV).
Q7: What resources can help someone understand the biblical doctrine of omnipresence correctly?
Answer: Several excellent resources can help: (1) Classic systematic theologies like those by Louis Berkhof, Charles Hodge, or Wayne Grudem provide thorough biblical explanations of God’s attributes; (2) Stephen Charnock’s “The Existence and Attributes of God” offers profound historical insight; (3) A.W. Tozer’s “The Knowledge of the Holy” presents these truths in accessible, devotional form; (4) J.I. Packer’s “Knowing God” combines theological precision with pastoral warmth; (5) The historic creeds and confessions (Westminster, London Baptist, Heidelberg) provide tested summaries of biblical teaching; (6) Careful study of key biblical passages like Psalm 139, Jeremiah 23:23-24, Acts 17:27-28, and 1 Kings 8:27 with sound commentaries. The key is approaching these resources with a humble, teachable spirit and a commitment to let Scripture rather than human speculation shape our understanding of God.
Contrasting With Finis Dake’s Beliefs
Throughout this chapter, we have seen how Dake’s teaching that God has a physical body and must travel from place to place creates catastrophic theological consequences. Let’s examine specific quotes from Dake’s writings to see how directly they contradict biblical teaching:
Dake claims: “God goes from place to place in a body and lives in one place at a time, Heaven. His presence is felt everywhere at once, but His body can be only in one place at one time, as any other being with a body” (God’s Plan for Man, 57).
Biblical Response: Solomon declares, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You” (1 Kings 8:27, NKJV). God cannot be contained in any location, including heaven. He doesn’t travel because He is already everywhere present.
Dake claims: “To say that God is omnipresent in body, soul, and spirit is to contradict many plain passages which prove He has a body with a definite shape and form” (Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, NT p. 280).
Biblical Response: Jesus explicitly stated, “God is Spirit” (John 4:24, NKJV), not that God has a spirit along with a body. The passages Dake references use anthropomorphic language to help us understand God’s actions, not to teach that God has a physical form.
Dake claims: “God and all beings in Heaven have bodies of flesh and bones” (God’s Plan for Man, 58).
Biblical Response: Paul explicitly teaches that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 15:50, NKJV). This directly contradicts Dake’s claim that heavenly beings have bodies of flesh.
Dake claims: “God is described as being like any other person as to having a body, soul, and spirit… He is a Spirit Being with a body… He has back parts; so must have front parts… He has a heart… hands and fingers… nostrils… mouth… lips and tongue… feet… eyes, eyelids, sight… voice… breath… ears… countenance… hair, head, face, arms… loins… bodily presence… and many other bodily parts as is required of Him to be a person with a body.”10
Biblical Response: This extensive list reveals Dake’s fundamental error. He takes every anthropomorphism in Scripture literally, failing to recognize that these are accommodations to human language. If we followed Dake’s literalistic approach consistently, we would also have to believe that God is a rock (Psalm 18:2), a fortress (Psalm 91:2), and that He has wings (Psalm 91:4). The Bible uses figurative language to describe God’s attributes and actions, not to teach that He has a physical body.
Dake’s most revealing statement: “God’s body is like that of a man, for man was created in His likeness and His image bodily… This entire description is one of the literal chariots of God on which He rides from place to place when He chooses… God also has many other means of travel and goes from one place to another bodily as all other beings in existence.”11
Biblical Response: This statement perfectly encapsulates Dake’s error. He has made God into a glorified human who needs transportation to get from place to place. This is indistinguishable from pagan mythology, where gods like Zeus traveled around in chariots. The God of Scripture doesn’t need chariots because He is already everywhere present—”Do I not fill heaven and earth?” says the LORD (Jeremiah 23:24, NKJV).
Dake’s Fundamental Error: Dake consistently commits the error of univocal predication—assuming that terms applied to God and creatures mean exactly the same thing. When Scripture speaks of God “seeing” or “hearing” or having “hands,” Dake assumes these must refer to physical organs just as they do for humans. This ignores the analogical nature of religious language and the Creator-creature distinction that runs throughout Scripture.
The consequences of Dake’s errors, as we have seen, include:
- Making God finite and limited like pagan deities
- Destroying the Trinity by making three separate bodily beings
- Undermining prayer by making God’s hearing uncertain
- Making providence impossible since God can’t be everywhere at once
- Contradicting clear biblical statements about God’s nature
- Following the same path as heretical groups like Mormons who teach God has a body
The church has consistently rejected such teaching throughout history because it fundamentally misunderstands who God is and reduces Him to a creature rather than the Creator.
Conclusion: The Catastrophic Consequences of a Limited God
As we reach the end of our examination of the theological consequences of Dake’s limited God, we must face the sobering reality of just how devastating this single error proves to be. What might appear to some as a minor disagreement about the nature of God’s presence actually strikes at the very heart of Christian theology, undermining essential doctrines and ultimately presenting us with a god who bears little resemblance to the God revealed in Scripture.
We have seen throughout this chapter that limiting God’s omnipresence creates an interconnected web of theological problems. Like dominoes falling in sequence, one error leads inevitably to another. If God has a body that must travel from place to place, then He cannot be truly omniscient, for He cannot immediately know all things. He cannot be truly omnipotent, for He cannot act everywhere simultaneously. He cannot be truly sovereign, for He cannot govern what He is not present to govern. He cannot be immutable, for movement through space requires change.
The practical implications for Christian life and worship are equally serious. Prayer becomes uncertain—is God present to hear me now, or is He attending to someone else? Worship loses its immediacy—is Christ really present where two or three are gathered, or is that merely a metaphor for His care from a distance? The comfort of God’s presence evaporates—am I truly never alone, or must I wait for God to arrive when I need Him?
Most seriously, Dake’s error undermines the gospel itself. If the Father already has a body, what was unique about the incarnation? If God is spatially limited, how can Christ be with all believers until the end of the age? If divine nature itself is corporeal, then the distinction between Creator and creature collapses, and we are left with either multiple gods (polytheism) or no true God at all (atheism).
The testimony of Scripture stands in united opposition to Dake’s teaching. From the psalmist’s declaration that he cannot flee from God’s presence (Psalm 139) to Paul’s affirmation that in God we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28), the Bible consistently presents God as immediately present to all creation while transcending it entirely. This is not philosophical speculation imposed on Scripture but the clear teaching of Scripture itself.
The testimony of the church throughout history likewise stands against Dake’s innovation. From the earliest fathers through the medieval theologians to the Reformers and beyond, orthodox Christianity has consistently affirmed that God is spirit, infinite, and omnipresent. The great creeds and confessions of the church speak with one voice in declaring God to be “without body, parts, or passions,” present everywhere while contained nowhere.
Why does this matter so much? Because our theology of God determines everything else in our Christian life. A.W. Tozer wisely wrote, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” If we think of God as a limited being with a body who must travel from place to place, we will relate to Him as we would to a powerful but limited creature rather than the infinite Creator. Our prayers will lack confidence, our worship will lack awe, our obedience will lack urgency, and our hope will lack certainty.
The God of Scripture—the true and living God—is infinitely greater than Dake’s limited deity. He is the God who fills heaven and earth, who is closer to us than our own breath, who knows our thoughts before we think them, who hears our prayers as we utter them, who is present in our worship wherever we gather, who upholds every atom of the universe at every moment, who will judge all humanity simultaneously, and who will be all in all in the age to come.
This is the God who is worthy of our worship, our trust, and our complete devotion. This is the God who can truly save us, for He is present to save wherever we are. This is the God who can truly sanctify us, for He is present to work in us wherever we go. This is the God who can truly comfort us, for He is present with us in every trial.
Let us therefore reject Dake’s diminished deity and return to the God of Scripture—the God who is spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. Let us worship Him who is truly omnipresent, not merely in feeling but in essence, not partially but perfectly, not sequentially but simultaneously, not remotely but immediately.
And let us be careful to guard this precious truth for future generations. In an age that increasingly seeks to humanize God and make Him more “relatable” by limiting Him to our categories, we must stand firm on the biblical revelation of God’s infinite perfections. We must teach our children that God is not a bigger version of us but is wholly other, transcendent, and infinite while also being immediately present and intimately concerned with our lives.
The errors we have examined in this chapter serve as a sober warning of what happens when we abandon biblical authority and orthodox theology in favor of novel interpretations and hyper-literal readings that ignore the nature of biblical language. May we learn from these errors and hold fast to the faith once delivered to the saints, proclaiming the true God who alone is worthy of glory and honor and praise forever.
In closing, let us remember the words of the apostle Paul, who, after contemplating the depths of God’s wisdom and knowledge, could only exclaim: “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the LORD? Or who has become His counselor? Or who has first given to Him and it shall be repaid to him? For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen” (Romans 11:33-36, NKJV).
This is our God—not limited, not localized, not corporeal, but infinite, omnipresent, and spiritual. He is not one among many beings but Being itself, the source and sustainer of all that exists. He is not far from any of us, for in Him we live and move and have our being. This is the God revealed in Scripture, confessed by the church, and worthy of our complete devotion. May we never exchange this glorious truth for the diminished deity of human imagination.
Bibliography
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica. Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. New York: Benziger Brothers, 1947.
Augustine. The City of God. Translated by Marcus Dods. New York: Modern Library, 1950.
Berkhof, Louis. Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996.
Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Edited by John T. McNeill. Translated by Ford Lewis Battles. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960.
Charnock, Stephen. The Existence and Attributes of God. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996.
Dake, Finis Jennings. Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible. Lawrenceville, GA: Dake Bible Sales, 1963.
Dake, Finis Jennings. God’s Plan for Man. Lawrenceville, GA: Dake Bible Sales, 1949.
Edwards, Jonathan. The Works of Jonathan Edwards. 2 vols. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1974.
Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994.
Hodge, Charles. Systematic Theology. 3 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952.
Origen. De Principiis. Translated by G. W. Butterworth. New York: Harper & Row, 1966.
Packer, J.I. Knowing God. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973.
Spurgeon, Charles H. The Treasury of David. 7 vols. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1966.
Tozer, A.W. The Knowledge of the Holy. New York: Harper & Row, 1961.
The Westminster Confession of Faith. Glasgow: Free Presbyterian Publications, 1994.
The London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1981.
The Athanasian Creed. In The Book of Concord. Edited by Theodore G. Tappert. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959.
Footnotes
1 Finis Jennings Dake, Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible (Lawrenceville, GA: Dake Bible Sales, 1963), 1035.
2 Ibid.
3 Finis Jennings Dake, Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible (Lawrenceville, GA: Dake Bible Sales, 1963), Ezekiel 1:26 note.
4 Finis Jennings Dake, Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible (Lawrenceville, GA: Dake Bible Sales, 1963), commentary on 1 John 5:7.
5 Ibid., commentary on “Omnipresent.”
6 Finis Jennings Dake, God’s Plan for Man (Lawrenceville, GA: Dake Bible Sales, 1949), 56.
7 Finis Jennings Dake, God’s Plan for Man (Lawrenceville, GA: Dake Bible Sales, 1949), 57.
8 Ibid.
9 Finis Jennings Dake, God’s Plan for Man (Lawrenceville, GA: Dake Bible Sales, 1949), 54.
10 Finis Jennings Dake, God’s Plan for Man (Lawrenceville, GA: Dake Bible Sales, 1949), 56-57.
11 Finis Jennings Dake, Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible (Lawrenceville, GA: Dake Bible Sales, 1963), Ezekiel 1:26 note.
12 Finis Jennings Dake, God’s Plan for Man (Lawrenceville, GA: Dake Bible Sales, 1949), 62.
13 Finis Jennings Dake, God’s Plan for Man (Lawrenceville, GA: Dake Bible Sales, 1949), 57.
14 Finis Jennings Dake, God’s Plan for Man (Lawrenceville, GA: Dake Bible Sales, 1949), 448.
15 Finis Jennings Dake, God’s Plan for Man (Lawrenceville, GA: Dake Bible Sales, 1949), 60.
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