“Do not I fill heaven and earth?” The prophet Jeremiah recorded this powerful rhetorical question as a declaration of God’s universal omnipresence from the mouth of Jehovah Himself. In the context of this statement, the Lord was rebuking the false prophets among His people that dared to think that they could hide from Him. God announced that He had seen what these false prophets were doing: “they commit adultery, and walk in lies; they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, . . . they are all of them unto me as Sodom and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah” (Jeremiah 23:14).

In spite of their blatant sins, the false prophets dared to think that the God of Israel was too far away to care about intervening in judgment! Like many evildoers in our world today, they had lulled themselves into a false sense of security, believing that God was distant, aloof, and indulgent.

Not so! God professed, “Am I a God at hand, saith the LORD, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD” (Jeremiah 23:23–24).

The false gods of the pagan nations around Israel were local, petty gods—gods that could not see, hear, taste, or smell. These false gods had a limited following among a few superstitious people who were foolish enough to give them obeisance. Some of these false gods included the following:

• Ra, god of the Egyptians
• Baal, god of the Phoenicians
• Dagon, god of the Philistines
• Moloch, god of the Ammonites
• Chemosh, god of the Moabites
• Bel, god of the Babylonians
• Zeus, god of the Greeks
• Jupiter, god of the Romans, and
• Thor, god of the Vikings.

But the God of the Bible is the God Who fills heaven and earth! He is omnipresent; His dominion is a universal dominion. “Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him” (Psalm 72:11). His dominion is from sea to sea. He alone is the living God Who sees all, hears all, knows all, and searches all.

There is no place in all the universe where sinful man can hide from God’s presence because He and He alone fills heaven and earth. Unlike the gods of pagan nations, the Lord Jehovah is everywhere. He is King over all people, whether or not they recognize His sovereignty. And yet God invites His people everywhere to know Him and obey His revealed will that is found in His Word, the Bible.

Let’s consider what it means for God to fill heaven and earth with His presence.

The God of the Bible fills heaven and earth without mixture.

God is not “mixed with” heaven and earth. He “fills,” as in wholly occupies and possesses, heaven and earth! This is not a statement of pantheism, where a bit of the divine is infused in created animals, plants, birds, and trees. Some in our modern world falsely say, “Well, God is in everything. I feel Him in the woods. I sense Him on the lake. I talk to Him at the ocean.” This is not the same as Biblical omnipresence. God is present everywhere, but He is not mixed with His creation as if He were melded or amalgamated into it. Rather, He is distinct and separate from it. Just as the light of the sun fills the air but it is not mixed with the air, so God fills all the universe without mixture.

The God of the Bible fills heaven and earth without division.

God is not “divided between” earth and heaven. He is not partly in earth and part of Him is present in heaven. No! He is immense, infinite, and without division. He is indivisible, entire, and not made up of parts; He is a whole being, and He is Spirit. He fills the sum of heaven and all of earth without division.

The God of the Bible fills heaven and earth without multiplication.

Just as God cannot be divided, so He cannot be multiplied. The infinite cannot become any greater than He already is. He is not less than Himself nor is He more than Himself. When God states that He fills heaven and earth, He needs no multiplication table to do so. He is, was, and ever shall be everywhere at once without any multiplication of His power or of His essence.

The God of the Bible fills heaven and earth without diffusion.

One of the properties of gold is that it can be beaten very thin so that a relatively small lump of gold can cover a vast amount of surface area, such as the golden Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. God’s omnipresence is unlike gold in that He does not need to “stretch Himself thin” in order to fill heaven and earth. He does not fill heaven and earth like a fragrance may fill a room, which gets fainter and fainter the further you move from its source. No, the God of the Bible is just as fully present here as He is there or anywhere. He fills heaven and earth with no diffusion.

We can apply these truths regarding God’s omnipresence to our own daily lives by recognizing that we are always living in His presence. Every word we speak is spoken in His throne room. Every thought we think is manifest before Him. Every deed we do is done in the full awareness of His presence.

Recognizing His omnipresence can be both a warning and an encouragement, depending upon how we live. May God give us the grace every day to walk and live in the light of His ever-present countenance, knowing that He fills heaven and earth and is always present wherever we are.