jenwat3 wrote:Canuckster1127 wrote:jenwat3 wrote:Yes, we are agreed that God is omnipresent. But notice that even Jesus could not do anything without the power of God, or the Holy Spirit that God gave Him. If God didn't use the Spirit, then Jesus could not have done what He set out to do. If the Holy Spirit, or God, as you seem to see it, were everywhere, then Jesus wouldn't have needed God to give it to Him.
Jesus, however is another matter. Phillipians 2:5-11 speaks of Jesus "emptying" himself of things that were His to have as God, in order that he would become as were we, or human. This is usually referred to theologically as the hypostatic union and is the idea that Jesus was both 100% man and 100% God, yet another mystery.
We're speaking of the Holy Spirit however and respectfully I don't see how your answer addresses the passage we've agreed to start with.
What do you think Psalm 139 means in terms of omnipresence? Is the Holy Spirit omnipresent?
No, actually I don't. My interpretation of this verse is that David (or the writer of psalms) had the Holy Spirit dwelling within him. So therefore the question "Where can I go from your Spirit?" Since the Spirit was within him, he couldn't go anywhere without it. The answer to the second part "where can I flee from Your presence?" Here he is talking about God Himself, His presence. God is omnipresent, so naturally David could not flee from him. One question I have for you, if God and the Holy Spirit were "one" then how is it possible to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, and not be forgiven, but you can blaspheme against God and be forgiven?
I think it is a stretch to take 2 phrases within one passage, even the same sentence and attribute a different sense of location. Hebrew parallelism is a form of poetry, which is used in this verse and a characteristic of it is that it repeats the same concept for reinforcement in most instances and this instance is consistent with that repeating or reinforcement, not contrast which is what I believe you are reading into it.
Are you starting with the passage itself and allowing it to speak to you on its own or are you beginning with the assumption and doing what you need to make the passage fit or not challenge your established belief?
You'll recall I mentioned that the Trinity is a mystery? God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one, yet there are 3 unique persons with specific roles. A role of the Holy Spirit is to convict a person of sin and draw them toward God the Father through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Son. Resisting this work of the Holy Spirit means a person doesn't accept the gift. It is that that amounts to blaspheming and it is what we do with Christ that determines our eternity, right?
Your question begs another one. If the Holy Spirit is not a person or God how can blaspheming an inanimate object of force be blasphemy? It would appear to me that your position would lead to more difficult questions, don't you think?
Dogmatism is the comfortable intellectual framework of self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is more decadent than the worst sexual sin. ~ Dan Allender