Omnipresence a fear and a satisfaction.
Calvin says, "The word 'Spirit' is not put here simply for the power of God, as commonly in the Scriptures, but for his mind and understanding." Milton, as a young man, traveled much abroad. Years afterwards he thus expressed himself: "I again take God to witness that in all places where so many things are considered lawful, I lived sound and untouched from all profligacy and vice, having this thought perpetually with me—that though I might escape the eyes of men, I certainly could not the eyes of God."
I. OMNIPRESENCE A FEAR. This term is not here used in a sense that applies to the ungodly man. Indeed, such a man will in no way apprehend or encourage the idea of God's omnipresence; it has no practical reality to him. The omnipresence of God is a religious man's idea, and we have to think of its influence upon him. It fills him with a holy fear, which is a mingling of awe and reverence and anxiety. That presence brings the perpetual call to worship; it keeps before us the claims of obedience; and it shows us continually the model of righteousness. "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." It has been said that a "Christian should go nowhere if he cannot take God with him;" but that presence would make him afraid to go to many places where he does go; and it is a weakness of Christian life that the holy fear of the sense of God's presence is not more worthily realized. The fear to offend or grieve is a holy force working for righteousness.
II. OMNIPRESENCE A SATISFACTION. When we really love a person, and are quite sure of their response to our love, we want to be always with them. Separation is pain; presence is rest and satisfaction. And it is in the fullest sense thus with God. "We love him because he first loved us." And since there is this responsive love, we cannot be happy away from him; and we are permitted to think that he cannot be happy away from us. And so the psalmist says, "I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever, to behold the beauty of the Lord." And the Lord Jesus satisfies the longing of his people with his promise, "Lo, I am with you all the days."—R.T.
The mystery of being is with God.
The expression translated, "hast covered me," really is, "thou weavest me," as boughs are woven into a hedge. The "reins" may denote the sensational and emotional part of the human being. It is not possible to deal with the detailed expressions of this psalm in a public ministry. Reticence in regard to the human origin and birth, and in regard to the inner mysteries of bodily life, is characteristic of our times. Eastern people are still accustomed to talk freely of such matters; and conversation was much less delicate at the time our Bible was translated. It must suffice for us to set before our minds the great truth concerning God which is thus illustrated.
I. THE DESIGN OF A HUMAN BEING IS THE THOUGHT OF GOD, Here we may be met by the doctrine of evolution, which teaches that the bodily organization of man is a development out of some lower forms of life. But this in no way affects our position. It does not say that man is an accident—made without any design; it only explains to us what the design was; it unfolds for us the particular method in which the Divine design was out-wrought and accomplished. Because God's design took ages to complete, it did not cease to be God's design. God thought a man. But a man is much more than a body. Man is not the fulfillment of God's design until God has got him into his image, breathed into him the breath of life, and even requickened him with a spiritual life. But what a thought that design of God was! It embraced all the complicated and delicate organs of man's frame, all the subtle relations of body and mind, and all the varying response which body and mind must ever make to surrounding circumstances. A man designs a house or a machine, and his work is within limits that can be grasped. God designs a man, and the complications are beyond us; we can only wonder and adore.
I[. THE WORKING OUT OF HIS DESIGN IS IN THE HANDS OF GOD. A man may give his design into the hands of a fellow man, and entrust him with the duty of working it out. God can never trust his design to anybody; for there is nobody who could understand or grasp it. He must work it out himself. And to us the great glory of the complex story of humanity is this—humanity is God's thought and God's purpose, and that thought and purpose God himself is working out.—R.T.
What a man can be and do God knows.
The latter clause of Psalms 139:15 has been well rendered, "When I was wrought with a needle in the depths of the earth." There is an evidence of allusion to the sacerdotal robes, and the undescribable texture of the human system is compared to the exquisite needlework of the high priest's garments. Every man is a bundle of possibilities; but no man has precisely the same possibilities as any other man. Each man can be what nobody else can be; each man can do what nobody else can do. This does not mean that any man can transcend the sphere and limitations of man, only that there is a very wide variety within the limitations. There are, indeed, general powers and faculties, and general elements of character and disposition, so that men can be classified; bat within the classes there is what may be called an infinite individuality—remarkable varieties of ability, and even more remarkable combinations of ability and disposition and sphere. Nothing oppresses so much as to think what we should do if it were laid on us to find their right places for every man and every woman.
I. GOD KNOWS EVERY MAN'S INDIVIDUALITY. Science may trace that individuality to heredity, to the bodily and mental condition of parents, to food and atmospheres, or anything else; it remains the fact that the estimate of the individuality is possible only with God. Man must have the actual story of another man's life and experience ere he can discern his individuality. God alone can know it anticipatively from the beginning. A man's individuality is not shown in any one thing; it is the stamp on the life, and the life must be lived before it can be seen. God knows the end from the beginning, because he knows what man essentially is. Of Christ it is said, "He knew what was in man."
II. GOD CAN PRESIDE OVER THE ADJUSTMENT OF MAN'S PLACE AND WORK TO HIS INDIVIDUALITY. Oftentimes the surprise of life is the place in which God puts men, and the work he gives them to do. Men always err when they force themselves to do what they think they would like to do. We are only on safe lines when we do what God gives us to do. He knows us; he knows all places, all work, all circumstances; so he can fit things and people together, and make both work together for good. "My times are in thy hands."—R.T.