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== Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament <ref name="term_56962" /> ==
<p> In the apostolic writings the following Greek words lie behind our English term ‘presence,’ ἀπέναντι, ἔμπροσθεν, ἐνώπιον, κατενώπιον (prepositions = ‘in the presence of,’ and frequently rendered ‘before’); παρουσία and πρόσωπον (nouns). There is no need to dwell on such common expressions as the ‘presence’ of [[Pilate]] (&nbsp;Acts 3:13) or of the [[Council]] (5:41), or even on St. Paul’s mention of his presence (or absence) in the letters to [[Philippi]] (&nbsp;Philippians 2:12), Corinth, and Thessalonica. The question of the Apostle’s ‘bodily presence’ being ‘insignificant’ (&nbsp;2 Corinthians 10:1-10) is discussed elsewhere (see Paul). There remain those passages which speak of the presence of the angels and of the Lamb (&nbsp;Revelation 14:10), and the presence of God. From this source come ‘times of refreshing’ (&nbsp;Acts 3:19) for the repentant, but also of ‘destruction’ for the disobedient (&nbsp;2 Thessalonians 1:9, in reference to the Second [[Advent]] or Parousia; cf. &nbsp;1 Thessalonians 2:19). No man, however wise or strong, may boast in the presence of God (&nbsp;1 Corinthians 1:29); in that presence Christ appears on our behalf (&nbsp;Hebrews 9:24); and there ‘before the presence of his glory’ we ourselves may hope to stand (&nbsp;Judges 1:24). There is matter for reflexion in all these statements, but it is better to leave this somewhat artificial and mechanical schedule of references in order to discuss the general idea of the presence of God as it is found in the writings of the [[Apostolic]] Age. </p> <p> 1. In some of the passages cited above there is unquestionably a reminiscence of the sense of sanctity with which the royal presence was invested in ancient times. The OT is full of references to this fact. We have it literally in such passages as &nbsp;Genesis 41:46 (‘the presence of Pharaoh’), &nbsp;Exodus 10:11; Exodus 10 :&nbsp;1 Samuel 19:7, &nbsp;2 Samuel 24:4, &nbsp;1 Kings 1:28; &nbsp;1 Kings 12:2, &nbsp;2 Chronicles 9:23, &nbsp;Nehemiah 2:1, &nbsp;Esther 1:10; &nbsp;Esther 8:13. [[Generally]] speaking, these references to the kingly presence carry the suggestion of favour, graciousness, assent, or benediction. When a ruler turned his countenance towards a suppliant or courtier, it meant that his desire was granted, or that he was a persona grata in the court (cf. &nbsp;Esther 8:15); when it was turned away, it foreboded refusal, the loss of favour, or serious disgrace (cf. &nbsp;1 Kings 12:2). The same association of ideas governs the usage of such phrases as ‘the presence of the Lord’ (&nbsp;Genesis 3:8, &nbsp;Job 1:12; &nbsp;Job 2:7; &nbsp;Job 23:15, &nbsp;Psalms 16:11; &nbsp;Psalms 97:5; &nbsp;Psalms 140:13, etc.). Those hidden in the [[Divine]] presence are safe from harm (&nbsp;Psalms 31:20; &nbsp;Psalms 91:1); to be driven from God’s presence is to be outcast indeed (&nbsp;Psalms 51:11); it is even to perish utterly (&nbsp;Psalms 68:2). The minds of the NT writers were saturated with [[Hebrew]] notions, and their usage of language corresponds with this fact. Thus the ‘presence of Pilate’ (&nbsp;Acts 3:13) means his seat of authority (cf. &nbsp;Acts 5:41); the ‘presence of the Lord’ is the source of all spiritual blessing (&nbsp;Acts 3:19), of Divine authority (&nbsp;Luke 1:19), and of eternal felicity (&nbsp;Judges 1:24); while the opposite is suggested in &nbsp;Revelation 14:10. God’s presence, in a word, saves or damns those who are exposed to its searching radiance, according to their spiritual relation to Him. </p> <p> 2. It is, however, the positive suggestions of the phrase that require exposition. The presence of God (or of Christ who brought ‘life and incorruption to light through the gospel,’ &nbsp;2 Timothy 1:10) means in apostolic literature all that is implied in the revelation of His nature, and the instrumentalities of His grace. In the OT that presence was largely mediated through nature and [[Providence]] (cf. Job and the Psalms passim); in the NT this aspect has largely faded into the background, probably as a result of the Deistic attitude of later Judaism, which substituted cultus or worship (especially in the form of a mass of liturgical and ceremonial acts and processes) as the chief medium of the approach of man to God, or of God to man. God Himself became remote, His very name was avoided. Belief in a present Deity, glad faith in a God who manifests Himself in actual experience is found only in such exalted experiences as the Maccabaean struggle. Men tried to bridge the chasm by angels, especially natural guardian angels, and by such quasi-personalities, quasi-abstractions as the Wisdom, the Word, [[Shekinah]] of Glory, the Spirit of God. But all such efforts were far from successful. What differentiated the heightened spiritual consciousness of the primitive Church was its assurance that in Jesus Christ God had come near to man in a new and living way. This fact is expressed with matchless felicity in St. John’s words ‘(we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth’ (&nbsp;2 Timothy 1:14), and in St. Paul’s ‘God’ hath ‘shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ (&nbsp;2 Corinthians 4:6). The same idea is given in &nbsp;Hebrews 1:1-3, ‘God … hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son, … being the effulgence of his glory, and the very image of his substance.’ To His immediate disciples the physical person of Christ was evidently full of attractiveness and power, because of the spiritual radiance that shone from His presence; they afterwards dwelt lovingly in thought on the expression of His face, on His looks and gestures, which must have been eloquent of His inner disposition, thoughts, and purposes; and they afterwards found a deep mystical significance in these things as they brooded on His words and dealings with them. It was the [[Resurrection]] life of Jesus that provided the interpretative light in which all His earthly life was transfigured in the memory of His immediate circle of friends, and which brought home the real meaning of His dealings with them in the days of His flesh. </p> <p> 3. This personal objective nearness of God in the ‘presence’ of Christ as mirrored in the Gospels, becomes in the [[Epistles]] a subjective nearness in the souls of believers. Christ dwells in their hearts by faith (&nbsp;Ephesians 3:17); they ‘have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; through whom also we have had our access by faith into this grace wherein we stand’; they ‘rejoice in hope of the glory of God’ (a synonym for His radiant favouring presence, &nbsp;Romans 5:1-2), and Christ who is the ‘image and glory of God’ (&nbsp;1 Corinthians 11:7) becomes at last in them ‘the hope of glory,’ i.e. of a blessed immortality (&nbsp;Colossians 1:27). This indwelling presence of God in human hearts is not the mere ‘inner light’ of which the mystics speak, but that light made opulent with all the spiritual content for which Christ stands. It is a Life within the life, a Self within the self, a Divine presence enriching and irradiating the recesses of the soul with its high benefit and power. St. Paul is perpetually conscious of this new element in his life which, when he first had it, made him ‘a new creature,’ and which made ‘all things new’ to him (&nbsp;2 Corinthians 5:17 [καινός = ‘fresh,’ ‘bright,’ ‘glittering’]). Whether he speaks of the believer being in Christ (&nbsp;Colossians 1:2), or of Christ being in him (&nbsp;Colossians 1:27), or of being together with Christ (&nbsp;Ephesians 2:5; &nbsp;Ephesians 2:12), he is referring to the same supreme experience in its various aspects. This personal fellowship of the [[Risen]] Lord around and within him becomes at last a permeative and enfolding presence in virtue of which he becomes identified with Him ‘in inmost nearness,’ as when he says, ‘I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me’ (&nbsp;Galatians 2:20). The mystical sense of oneness with Christ is the highest and most distinctive experience of the [[Christian]] life. It is seen in its purity only in the very finest saints, such as Origen, Athanasius, Augustine, Abelard, Tauler, Luther, Wesley; but all true believers know it more or less in proportion to their spiritual sensitiveness, and to their faithfulness in cultivating the ‘practice of the presence of God’ in their hearts. This experience has naturally found abundant expression in our hymns, e.g. in Eliza Scudder’s </p> <p> ‘Thou Life within my life, than self more near, </p> <p> Thou veiled [[Presence]] infinitely clear, </p> <p> From all illusive shows of sense I flee, </p> <p> To find my centre and my rest, in Thee’ </p> <p> (Worship Song, line 158 ff.). </p> <p> 4. Rich and glowing as such experiences are, they are by no means exclusively mediated through isolation. The NT, indeed, enforces and illustrates the truth that the presence of God is often most vividly apprehended when a community of disciples, whether they be few or many, meet in His name for fellowship, praise, and edification. There are collective experiences to which the recluse is a stranger, and the monk, whether he live in a cell or walk the fields instead of joining with those who assemble themselves together, shuts himself off from some of the highest possibilities. The early Christian churches, though comprising many who were but ‘babes in Christ’ and were far from maturity in ethical and spiritual matters, were happy in the united exercise of their gifts and in the reality of the Divine presence which characterized their meetings for worship. In marked contrast to the OT nothing is said in the NT of church buildings, hardly anything about the conduct of worship, and there is a striking absence of regulations regarding rites and ceremonies. But the real thing is there-the presence of God, without which the most magnificent architecture, the most elaborate ritual are a vain show. We remember how St. Paul would have the [[Corinthian]] [[Christians]] worship in such a fashion that if the man in the street chanced to drop in to one of their services he should be ‘reproved by all … judged by all,’ so that the secrets of his heart should be made manifest, ‘and so he will fall down on his face and worship God, declaring that God is among [or in] you indeed’ (&nbsp;1 Corinthians 14:24 f.) Such an event is indeed connected by the [[Apostle]] with ‘prophecy,’ or, as we should call it, preaching, but it is not only, perhaps not mainly, the sermon that thus overwhelmingly convinces the outsider of the presence of God in a people. Nor is it the observance of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, although therein, whatever be their varying conceptions of its mode and form, disciples of Christ frequently discern the [[Real]] Presence more fully than in any other act of worship or experience of everyday life. There is the sense of prayer and of fraternal union, the atmosphere of devotion and of brotherly love. These, added to a preaching of the Word of God which is alive and powerful, piercing and exposing, cleansing and comforting, are the signs and tokens of the presence of God in a community, and are visible not only to those within but to those without the circle. </p> <p> 5. Finally, there is in the NT consciousness a strong and eager forelooking to a higher experience still. The experience of believers on earth, while strengthened and uplifted by a sense of the presence of the [[Saviour]] through His spirit in the heart, and by the operation of His saving grace, yet lacks the precision and definiteness of a real personal presence. It is better than the objective fellowship of Jesus with His disciples which was limited by the disabilities of the flesh, for as He was then with them, He is now in them (&nbsp;John 14:16); but it is not the perfect communion for which the soul craves in its highest moods. The [[Parousia]] or Second Coming of the Lord shaped itself to the imagination of primitive believers as a quasi-physical appearance of the Lord in glory and great power ‘in the clouds’ and with a retinue of ‘holy angels’ (&nbsp;1 Thessalonians 4:17; cf. &nbsp;Revelation 1:7 ‘He cometh with the clouds; and every eye shall see him’; also &nbsp;Matthew 16:27 f.). In the later writings of St. Paul this cruder anticipation is spiritualized. He speaks of death as a door into the nearer presence of Christ (&nbsp;Philippians 1:23 ‘to be with Christ; for it is very far better’); he is ‘willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord’ (&nbsp;2 Corinthians 5:8); and he warns his readers that all must ‘be made manifest before the judgement-seat of Christ’ to give an account of their earthly life (&nbsp;2 Corinthians 5:10). In St. John this process of spiritualization is carried still further. There is no mention of any spectacular or objective Parousia. The ‘Comforter’ is promised as Christ’s representative presence with His disciples after His departure to the Father (&nbsp;John 14:16), while He remains with the Father, and makes preparation for the time when His followers will rejoin Him, that where He is there they may be also (&nbsp;John 14:1-3). It may be said that while the hope of the Second Coming of Christ in the earlier sense has never died out of the Christian Church, the normal Christian attitude throughout the ages has been rather that mirrored in St. John than that suggested in &nbsp;1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 or &nbsp;1 Corinthians 15:51 f. [[Believers]] hold firmly that while they have fellowship with Christ in the flesh, this is but a dim foretaste of the perfect fellowship that awaits the redeemed with their Saviour in the eternal world. We know nothing of the details of the life beyond the grave; it is enough to know that there Christ reigns even more surely and triumphantly than here, and that where He is there will be blessedness and fullness of life (&nbsp;John 10:10), and a ‘joy unspeakable and full of glory’ (&nbsp;1 Peter 1:8). </p> <p> ‘To heaven’s high city I direct my journey, </p> <p> Whose spangled suburbs entertain mine eye; </p> <p> Mine eye, by contemplation’s great attorney, </p> <p> Transcends the crystal pavement of the sky. </p> <p> But what is heaven, great God, compared to Thee? </p> <p> Without [[Thy]] presence, heaven’s no heaven to me. </p> <p> Without Thy presence, earth gives no reflection; </p> <p> Without Thy presence, sea affords no treasure; </p> <p> Without Thy presence, air’s a rank infection; </p> <p> Without Thy presence, heaven itself no pleasure. </p> <p> If not possessed, if not enjoyed in Thee, </p> <p> What’s earth, or sea, or air, or heaven to me?’ </p> <p> (Francis Quarles, Divine Emblems, 1635). </p> <p> A. J. Grieve. </p>
       
== Vine's Expository Dictionary of NT Words <ref name="term_78678" /> ==
<div> '''A — 1: '''''Πρόσωπον''''' ''' (Strong'S #4383 — Noun Neuter — prosopon — pros'-o-pon ) </div> <p> see [[Face]] , No. 1 (also [[Appearance]] No. 2). </p> <div> '''A — 2: '''''Παρουσία''''' ''' (Strong'S #3952 — Noun [[Feminine]] — parousia — par-oo-see'-ah ) </div> <p> see [[Coming]] (Noun), No. 3. </p> <div> '''B — 1: '''''Ἔμπροσθεν''''' ''' (Strong'S #1715 — Adverb — emprosthen — em'-pros-then ) </div> <p> see [[Before]] , A, No. 4. </p> <div> '''B — 2: '''''Ἐνώπιον''''' ''' (Strong'S #1799 — Preposition — enopion — en-o'-pee-on ) </div> <p> is translated "in the presence of" in &nbsp;Luke 1:19; &nbsp;13:26; &nbsp;14:10; &nbsp;15:10; &nbsp;John 20:30; &nbsp;Revelation 14:10 (twice); in &nbsp; 1—Corinthians 1:29 AV, "in His presence" (RV, "before God"): see Before , A, No. 9. </p> <div> '''B — 3: '''''Κατενώπιον''''' ''' (Strong'S #2714 — Adverb — katenopion — kat-en-o'-pee-on ) </div> <p> kata, "down," and No. 2, "in the very presence of," is translated "before the presence of" in &nbsp;Jude 1:24 . See Before , A, No. 10. </p> <div> '''B — 4: '''''Ἀπέναντι''''' ''' (Strong'S #561 — Preposition — apenanti — ap-en'-an-tee ) </div> <p> "over against, opposite to," is translated "in the presence of" in &nbsp;Acts 3:16 . See Before , A, No. 7. </p>
       
== King James Dictionary <ref name="term_62251" /> ==
<p> PRES'ENCE, n. s as z. L. proesentia proe, before, and esse, to be. The existence of a person or thing in a certain place opposed to absence. This event happened during the king's presence at the theater. In examining the patient, the presence of fever was not observed. The presence of God is not limited to any place. </p> 1. A being in company near or before the face of another. We were gratified with the presence of a person so much respected. 2. [[Approach]] face to face or nearness of a great personage. <p> Men that very presence fear, </p> <p> Which once they knew authority did bear. </p> 3. State of being in view sight. An accident happened in the presence of the court. 4. By way of distinction, state of being in view of a superior. <p> I know not by what pow'r I am made bold, </p> <p> In such a presence here to plead my thoughts. </p> 5. A number assembled before a great person. <p> Odmar, of all this presence does contain, </p> <p> Give her your wreath whom you esteem most fair. </p> 6. Port mien air personal appearance demeanor. <p> [[Virtue]] is best in a body that is comely, and that has rather dignity of presence, than beauty of aspect. </p> <p> A graceful presence bespeaks acceptance. </p> 7. The apartment in which a prince shows himself to his court. <p> An't please your grace, the two great cardinals. </p> <p> [[Wait]] in the presence. </p> 8. The person of a superior. <p> Presence of mind, a calm, collected state of the mind with its faculties at command undisturbed state of the thoughts, which enables a person to speak or act without disorder or embarrassment in unexpected difficulties. </p> <p> Errors, not to be recalled, do find </p> <p> Their best redress from presence of the mind. </p>
       
== Webster's Dictionary <ref name="term_160693" /> ==
<p> '''(1):''' ''' (''' n.) Port, mien; air; personal appearence. </p> <p> '''(2):''' ''' (''' n.) The state of being present, or of being within sight or call, or at hand; - opposed to absence. </p> <p> '''(3):''' ''' (''' n.) The place in which one is present; the part of space within one's ken, call, influence, etc.; neighborhood without the intervention of anything that forbids intercourse. </p> <p> '''(4):''' ''' (''' n.) The whole of the personal qualities of an individual; person; personality; especially, the person of a superior, as a sovereign. </p> <p> '''(5):''' ''' (''' n.) An assembly, especially of person of rank or nobility; noble company. </p> <p> '''(6):''' ''' (''' n.) Specifically, neighborhood to the person of one of superior of exalted rank; also, presence chamber. </p>
       
== International Standard Bible Encyclopedia <ref name="term_7402" /> ==
<p> ''''' prez´ens ''''' : In the Old [[Testament]] nearly always the rendition of פּנים , <i> ''''' pānı̄m ''''' </i> , "face" (&nbsp; [[Genesis]] 3:8; &nbsp;Exodus 33:14 f; &nbsp; Psalm 95:2; &nbsp;Isaiah 63:9 , etc.); occasionally of עין , <i> ''''' ‛ayin ''''' </i> , "eye" (&nbsp;Genesis 23:11; &nbsp;Deuteronomy 25:9; &nbsp;Jeremiah 28:1 , &nbsp;Jeremiah 28:11 , etc.); and in &nbsp;1 Kings 8:22; &nbsp;Proverbs 14:7 , "the presence of" represents the preposition נגד , <i> ''''' neghedh ''''' </i> , "before"; compare also [[Aramaic]] קדם , <i> ''''' ḳodham ''''' </i> , in &nbsp;Daniel 2:27 the King James Version (the Revised Version (British and American) "before"). In Greek, "presence" has an exact equivalent in παρουσία , <i> ''''' parousı́a ''''' </i> , but this word is rendered "presence" only in &nbsp;2 Corinthians 10:10; &nbsp;Philippians 2:12; the Revised Version (British and American); &nbsp;Philippians 1:26 (the King James Version "coming"). [[Elsewhere]] <i> ''''' parousia ''''' </i> is rendered "coming," but always with "presence" in the margin. [[Otherwise]] in the New Testament "presence" represents no particular word but is introduced where it seems to suit the context (compare e.g. &nbsp;Acts 3:13 the King James Version and &nbsp; Acts 3:19 ). See Parousia . </p>
       
== Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature <ref name="term_56684" /> ==
<p> means, in canonical law, the uninterrupted personal residence of every regularly prebended ecclesiastic at the seat of his office; a duty emphatically imposed on him by the laws of the Church. It means also the personal attendance at the common choral prayer, to which the laws of the Church obligate all members of a monastic community, as well as the canons and choir-vicars of the cathedral and collegiate congregations. </p>
       
==References ==
<references>


Presence <ref name="term_56967" />
<ref name="term_56962"> [https://bibleportal.com/dictionary/hastings-dictionary-of-the-new-testament/presence Presence from Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament]</ref>
<p> <b> [[Presence.]] </b> —The ordinary word in the [[Gospels]] for ‘before’ (= in the presence of) is ἔμπροσθεν. Lk. also uses ἐνώπιον, which, with the exception of &nbsp;John 20:30, is not in the vocabulary of the other three Evangelists. He nearly always uses it of the presence of God. Other prepositions employed are ἐπί, (ἀπ ἐναντι, and ἐναντίον).— <b> 1. </b> The value of a religion is the pledge it can give of the presence of God. In the heathen lands round [[Israel]] the [[Divine]] Being was localized in sacred places with the aid of idols. But the religion of [[Jehovah]] was rid of such a tendency through the work of the prophets, with the result that, when all other religions in the Roman [[Empire]] were vulgarized and eviscerated of power, [[Judaism]] remained like a [[Samson]] with locks unshorn, with a God who could keep His own secret, and with a faith still pregnant with possibility. True, the Divine presence had been manifested, according to the [[Ot,]] in cloudy pillar and burning bush, had, indeed, been localized in the ark of the covenant. But steadily the conception of God had been clarified from material associations, and the way in which this was done may be gathered from Jeremiah 7. So thoroughly did the moral view of God prevail, that ‘the Law became God’s real presence in Israel’ (Schultz, <i> [[Ot]] Theol </i> . i. p. 354). The ‘angel of Jehovah,’ so frequently mentioned in the [[Ot,]] was simply ‘the messenger’ (מַלִאָךְ), so did all intermediaries dwindle in the blaze of the only God. But with this transcendence came aloofness. On the one hand, the Law became a very barrier between God and His people. Even those who followed hard after it, like Saul of [[Tarsus]] and the rich young ruler, thirsted only the more for the living God (&nbsp;Mark 10:17, cf. &nbsp;Romans 7:9-13, &nbsp;Galatians 3:21-23). On the other hand, Greek modes of thought, already affected by Oriental dualism, represented fully in Philo, but also anticipated in Palestinian theology (cf. Schürer, ii. iii. § 33), bridged the seeming gulf by theosophical and [[Gnostic]] speculations. At the very moment when Judaism had its opportunity, it failed to give that abiding pledge of the presence of God which should satisfy heart, mind, and conscience. Even the religions of [[Mithras]] and Isis, impure though the latter was, had a vogue in the Empire because they did something to meet the need which arose between the barren speculations and brutal superstitions of the age. </p> <p> <b> 2. </b> At this psychological moment came Jesus with His gospel as a challenge to the world of the presence of God. St. John himself expresses this thought no more decidedly, though much more fully, than St. Mark, even though in &nbsp;Mark 1:1 υἱὸς θεοῦ is a secondary reading. The common testimony of the [[Apostolic]] circle may be summed up in &nbsp;Hebrews 1:2 ‘God … hath in these last days spoken unto us in his Son.’ But nowhere is the thought that Jesus Christ was the presence of God set forth with such sublime effect as in the [[Prologue]] to John’s Gospel: ‘We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (&nbsp;Hebrews 1:14). No need was there now of an impersonal Word or impersonated Wisdom, as between God and us (&nbsp;Philippians 2:9, &nbsp;Colossians 2:8-19); or of sacrifices and ceremonies, as between us and God (&nbsp;Hebrews 9:14, &nbsp;Galatians 2:21); for the entire gulf between God the holy and us the sinful has been bridged in Jesus Christ our Lord (&nbsp;2 Corinthians 5:19, &nbsp;Ephesians 2:4-7). Thus through Christ our access to the Father is immediate (&nbsp;Romans 5:2) by one Spirit (&nbsp;Ephesians 2:18). ‘There were to be no more finite mediators between God and man; no temple of Jerusalem, where alone men must worship; no necessity for interposing angels to interpret between the Divine and the human. Man was himself to be brought into immediate contact with God, and was to experience the deep conviction that heaven and earth had met together’ (Matheson, <i> [[Growth]] of Spirit of [[Christianity]] </i> , i. 78). This faith that through Christ a man is always in the presence of God as a child in his father’s house was based on (1) the testimony, and (2) the teaching of Jesus. </p> <p> (1) By the <i> testimony of Jesus </i> is meant the unconscious impress of His Personality. It is evident, to use with all respect a familiar phrase, that Jesus <i> had </i> a presence. The people marvelled because He spoke with authority, although an unlettered man (&nbsp;Matthew 7:28-29, &nbsp;Mark 6:2). His eyes were as a flame of fire (&nbsp;Mark 3:5, &nbsp;Luke 22:61). In the awe of His presence the Temple-courts were cleared, and the tempest calmed (&nbsp;Mark 11:15; &nbsp;Mark 6:51); so that His disciples cried, ‘What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’ (&nbsp;Mark 4:41). He drew the children to Him, and cast out demons, and said, ‘If [[I]] by the finger of God cast out devils, then is the kingdom of God come upon you’ (&nbsp;Luke 11:20). These impressions upon His contemporaries simply correspond with His own self-consciousness. He gave up the workshop at [[Nazareth]] for the theatre of the world, because He knew Himself as God’s beloved Son (&nbsp;Luke 3:22; &nbsp;Luke 4:1; &nbsp;Luke 4:14). His first address in the synagogue is not recorded, because it was all in one word, [[‘I]] am here’ (&nbsp;Luke 4:21). It was enough for the disciples that they should be with Him (&nbsp;Mark 3:14). It was the last folly of the [[Galilaean]] cities (&nbsp;Matthew 11:20 ff.) that they did not believe Him for the works’ sake; and of Jerusalem, that it knew not the day of its visitation (&nbsp;Matthew 23:37, &nbsp;Luke 19:41 ff.). There was only one legacy He had to leave, and that alone worth leaving, His spiritual presence (&nbsp;Matthew 28:20, &nbsp;Luke 24:49), which was the true [[Shekinah]] (&nbsp;Matthew 18:20, cf. ‘Ubi sedent duo qui legem traetant, Shekina cum illis est,’ <i> Pirke Aboth </i> , 3 (Schultz, ii. 67)). The difference in this respect between St. John and the Synoptists is that whereas with them the testimony of Jesus to Himself is mostly unconscious, with him it is altogether self-conscious. St. John never fails to lay stress on the autonomy of Jesus (Moffatt in <i> Expos </i> . vi. iii. [1901] 469), so that, even psychologically speaking, He is not of the world, though in it. </p> <p> (2) Thus in Jn. the testimony of Christ is merged in <i> His teaching </i> . He speaks of His own presence as living water, heavenly bread, light and life to a needy world (&nbsp;John 4:14; &nbsp;John 6:48; &nbsp;John 8:12; &nbsp;John 11:25). To keep His word is to keep in the presence of God as He Himself does (&nbsp;John 14:23, &nbsp;John 15:10). And that presence is an inward abiding which nothing outward can disturb (&nbsp;John 16:22; &nbsp;John 16:33). All His words in the Synoptics similarly illustrate that— </p> <p> ‘To turn aside from Him is hell, </p> <p> To walk with Him is heaven.’ </p> <p> Only with them His Person is, as it were, so transparent that they present God <i> through </i> Jesus rather than <i> in </i> Him, and we are left to draw the [[Christian]] inference that He Himself is the <i> focus </i> of the Father’s presence. It is the essential nearness of God that gives all significance to the [[Beatitudes]] (&nbsp;Matthew 5:8-9), to the teaching on prayer (&nbsp;Matthew 6:8; &nbsp;Matthew 6:8), to the interpretation of worship (&nbsp;Mark 7:8, cf. &nbsp;John 4:23), to the illustrations from nature (&nbsp;Matthew 10:29), to the exhortations against anxiety (&nbsp;Luke 12:30-32), towards watchfulness (&nbsp;Luke 12:35-36), against covetousness (&nbsp;Luke 12:20-21), towards compassion (&nbsp;Matthew 10:40-42). The sphere in which all the teaching moves, which makes it simple and intimate to the heart, and transcendent in its appeal and its authority, is the presence of God the Father, the truth that— </p> <p> ‘Spirit with spirit can meet, [[Closer]] is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.’ </p> <p> But the immanence of God reaches a further stage in the gospel of Christ. Not only does Jesus bring God close into His world, as if οὐρανός meant the atmosphere one breathes rather than the firmament above (cf. τὰ πετεινὰ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, &nbsp;Matthew 6:26 etc.), but, according to Jesus, God is immanent in the human nature that makes room for Him. This is expressed in terms of ( <i> a </i> ) relationship (&nbsp;Mark 3:35, &nbsp;Matthew 5:16; &nbsp;Matthew 5:44, &nbsp;John 1:12), ( <i> b </i> ) identification (&nbsp;Matthew 10:40; &nbsp;Matthew 25:40), ( <i> c </i> ) indwelling (&nbsp;John 14:16-17). This last is called the doctrine of the [[Holy]] Ghost. In order to give His own outlook to all disciples, Jesus promised His other self, the [[Paraclete]] or Comforter, in whose company and through whose intercession we live on the plane of sons, not only being in the Father’s presence, but He being present in us. Although this doctrine is fully allowed for by the Synoptists (&nbsp;Matthew 10:20, &nbsp;Luke 24:49), it is the special contribution of St. John. ‘Jesus answered, If a man love me, he will keep my word: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him’ (&nbsp;John 14:23). From different points of view it may be said that Jesus <i> enjoyed </i> the presence of God, that He <i> was </i> that presence, and that He <i> gave </i> it. This threefold presence is really the basis of the doctrine of the Trinity. </p> <p> <b> 3. </b> What then are we to gather from all this but that, according to Christianity, Christ as God incarnate is the pledge that God is present, not only Creator-like in the universe, but Father-like in the believing heart and the consecrated life? That is really the meaning of His exhibition of God in human life, and the impartation of His own Spirit. And our safeguard against the errors of [[Pantheism]] and of all such systems as tend to merge the Divine in the human instead of moulding the human by the Divine, is to be found in one small but significant phrase, ‘ἐν Χριστῷ.’ The Christian consciousness must always testify with a modern thinker [[(W.]] [[S.]] Palmer, <i> An Agnostic’s [[Progress]] </i> ): ‘When [[I]] lifted up my eyes to God, [[I]] found God not only looking through my eyes but looking <i> into </i> them.’ It is among a people redeemed from their sins and consecrated to service that God will tabernacle (σκηνώσει) as an abiding presence ( <i> Shekinah </i> , fr. שָׁכַן ‘abide’). And when the brotherhood is perfected, there will be no need of a [[Temple]] (&nbsp;Revelation 21:3; &nbsp;Revelation 21:22-27). The revelation of God immanent in a redeemed humanity is the ideal towards which Christianity points (Ephesians 1-3, &nbsp;Colossians 1:9-20, cf. &nbsp;2 Peter 3:13, &nbsp;John 17:20-23), and to which it is slowly moving, but only by outgrowing many misconceptions and leaving them behind. See, further, Schultz, <i> [[Ot]] Theol </i> . i. 353 f., ii. 7–11; artt. ‘Ark of the Covenant,’ ‘Shekinah’ in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible; Beyschlag, <i> [[Nt]] Theol. </i> i. 95 ff.; Wendt, <i> Teaching of Jesus </i> , § 3, ch. 2; Westcott on John 14-17). </p> <p> <b> 4. </b> Christian history has been a long series of endeavours to realize the full meaning of the Divine presence. First it was caught into [[Jewish]] preconceptions, and projected into the doctrine of the Parousia. This had its effect on the inmost circle of Christian writers with the exception of St. John, and on most of the early [[Fathers]] except for the school of Alexandria. With all its inspiration of hope, it must have tended to obscure the truth that God is present through the working of His Spirit in the individual and in society, in the unfolding of truth and the employments of love. </p> <p> Under the influence of Greek thought in the [[Gentile]] world, the Divine presence has been treated as a metaphysical substance, and at last identified with the elements of the Lord’s Supper (see Art. ii.), after consecration. This sacerdotal view was virtually accepted by the time of Cyprian, who wrote ( <i> Ep. </i> lxiii. 17): ‘The passion of the Lord is the sacrifice we offer.’ The doctrine of [[Transubstantiation]] became the keystone of the ecclesiastical edifice, and was maintained as a theory, by means of the prevalent philosophy of Realism, whose greatest exponent was [[Thomas]] Aquinas. As far as English thought is concerned, it crumbled under the dialectic of John Wyclif (Lechler, <i> Life of Wycliffe </i> , p. 351), and by the discovery made by simple men, during the next two centuries, of the spiritual presence mediated through the [[Nt]] in their own experience. </p> <p> The Docetic views of Christ’s Person, however, which throughout the Middle Ages invested Him with apocalyptic splendours at the cost of all human sympathies, called for still other means of allaying the hunger of the religious imagination. ‘The remedy was found in the reverence of the image, in the substitution of the symbol for reality. Gradually that Church, which had tried to centre its affections on an absent Lord, found that its affections must be rekindled by the mediation of some earthly form. It had dismissed from its thoughts the idea of a spiritual presence; it must regain that presence through the intervention of material agencies. It must find it in the water of Baptism, in the bread and wine of Communion, in the act of ordination, in the relies of saints, in the tombs of the martyrs, in the heart of monasteries, and in the walls of consecrated cathedrals. It must see it in the figure of a visible cross, in the monuments raised to a celestial hierarchy, in the observance of festivals in memory of the sainted dead,’ above all in apotheosis of the [[Virgin]] Mother (Matheson, <i> op. cit. </i> i. 322). In the meantime, as applied to the working of the Holy Spirit, the doctrine of the presence stamped infallibility upon the Councils, and finally upon the Pope. While with [[J.]] [[H.]] Newman it signified the validity of ecclesiastical development throughout the centuries, ‘being the germination, growth, and perfection of some living or apparent truth in the minds of men during a sufficient period’ ( <i> Development of [[Doctrine]] </i> , p. 37). </p> <p> But while the popular religion found the presence in the images and relies, and ecclesiastical speculations discovered it in the Conciliar assemblies and the [[Sacrament]] of the Supper, there was a parallel movement known as Mysticism, which found the real presence in the soul. To the French mystics, greatest of whom was St. [[Bernard]] of the 12th century, the presence of God was the obverse side of their own absence from the world. The Germans Eckhart and Tauler, the Dutch Thomas à Kempis, and others took up the theme, and wove it into a kind of new Stoicism, by way of purification, illumination, and union. ‘They taught (following Thomas Aquinas) that the soul can even here upon earth so receive God within itself as to enjoy in the fullest sense the vision of His being, and dwell in heaven itself’ (Harnack, <i> Outlines of the Hist. of [[Dogma]] </i> , p. 440). This ‘practice of the presence of God’ (Brother Lawrence) was the religious side of the preparation for Luther and his gospel for the people. He taught that Christianity was not a matter of consent to doctrine, as with the scholastics; or a method of losing oneself in the eternal, as with the mystics; but realizing the Divine presence as found through faith in Christ in ‘the freedom of a Christian man.’ Luther, commenting in his pointed way on &nbsp;Galatians 2:16, says: ‘Faith is, if [[I]] may use the expression, creative of Divinity, not, of course, in the substance of God, but in ourselves.’ And again: ‘When we truly say that He is Christ, we mean that He was given for us, without any works of ours, has won for us the Spirit of God, and has made us children of God … so that we might become lords of all things in heaven and earth—that is faith’ (Erl. ed. 13, 251; Herrmann, <i> [[Communion]] with God </i> , p. 125). The primary authority of the inward witness thus established by Luther has been most fully apprehended for practical purposes by [[George]] Fox and his followers. [[A]] bright example was John Woolman (b. 1720), who, in taking his stand against prevailing customs sanctioned by the Church, records in his diary (ch. 4): ‘The fear of the Lord so covered me at times that my way was made easier than [[I]] expected.’ And this independent standpoint, for the sake of humanity, has found poetical expression in Lowell, Whittier, and, in a fashion, Whitman. John Wesley, too, coming from his earlier devotion to [[Mysticism]] to his doctrine of assurance, repeated the experience of Luther, and, by means of an evangelical theology, helped men to see that humanity is the proper organ of the Divine presence. This has been the inspiration of modern reformers and philanthropists, but the full bearings of this truth have not yet been realized by the churches. [[A]] new vindication of the soul’s authority in matters of faith has been undertaken by [[A.]] Ritschl and his disciples-Harnack, Herrmann, and the rest. With them the Divine Man Jesus, separated from every ceremony, doctrine, or dream, vouches for the inward presence of God to the soul that believes. By their theory of value-judgments they throw the whole proof of the presence of God upon the faculties of the soul. </p> <p> Literature.—Harnack, <i> Hist. of Dogma </i> , or <i> Outlines </i> ; Matheson, <i> Growth of the Spirit of Christianity </i> ; Fairbairn, <i> Christ in Mod. Theol. </i> , bk. i.; Herrmann, <i> Communion with God; [[Imitation]] of Christ; John Woolman’s Journal </i> ; [[J.]] [[Campbell]] Whittier, <i> Poems </i> ; Stopford Brooke, <i> Christ in Mod. Life </i> ; Watson, <i> [[Inspiration]] of our Faith </i> , 274; Moore, <i> From [[Advent]] to Advent </i> , 63, 98; [[D.]] Young, <i> [[Crimson]] Book </i> , 237; Phillips Brooks, <i> [[Mystery]] of [[Iniquity]] </i> , 277. </p> <p> [[A.]] Norman Rowland. </p>
       
 
<ref name="term_78678"> [https://bibleportal.com/dictionary/vine-s-expository-dictionary-of-nt-words/presence Presence from Vine's Expository Dictionary of NT Words]</ref>
== References ==
       
<references>
<ref name="term_62251"> [https://bibleportal.com/dictionary/king-james-dictionary/presence Presence from King James Dictionary]</ref>
<ref name="term_56967"> [https://bibleportal.com/dictionary/hastings-dictionary-of-the-new-testament/presence+(2) Presence from Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament]</ref>
       
<ref name="term_160693"> [https://bibleportal.com/dictionary/webster-s-dictionary/presence Presence from Webster's Dictionary]</ref>
       
<ref name="term_7402"> [https://bibleportal.com/encyclopedia/international-standard-bible-encyclopedia/presence Presence from International Standard Bible Encyclopedia]</ref>
       
<ref name="term_56684"> [https://bibleportal.com/encyclopedia/cyclopedia-of-biblical-theological-and-ecclesiastical-literature/presence Presence from Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature]</ref>
       
</references>
</references>

Latest revision as of 13:56, 14 October 2021

Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament [1]

In the apostolic writings the following Greek words lie behind our English term ‘presence,’ ἀπέναντι, ἔμπροσθεν, ἐνώπιον, κατενώπιον (prepositions = ‘in the presence of,’ and frequently rendered ‘before’); παρουσία and πρόσωπον (nouns). There is no need to dwell on such common expressions as the ‘presence’ of Pilate ( Acts 3:13) or of the Council (5:41), or even on St. Paul’s mention of his presence (or absence) in the letters to Philippi ( Philippians 2:12), Corinth, and Thessalonica. The question of the Apostle’s ‘bodily presence’ being ‘insignificant’ ( 2 Corinthians 10:1-10) is discussed elsewhere (see Paul). There remain those passages which speak of the presence of the angels and of the Lamb ( Revelation 14:10), and the presence of God. From this source come ‘times of refreshing’ ( Acts 3:19) for the repentant, but also of ‘destruction’ for the disobedient ( 2 Thessalonians 1:9, in reference to the Second Advent or Parousia; cf.  1 Thessalonians 2:19). No man, however wise or strong, may boast in the presence of God ( 1 Corinthians 1:29); in that presence Christ appears on our behalf ( Hebrews 9:24); and there ‘before the presence of his glory’ we ourselves may hope to stand ( Judges 1:24). There is matter for reflexion in all these statements, but it is better to leave this somewhat artificial and mechanical schedule of references in order to discuss the general idea of the presence of God as it is found in the writings of the Apostolic Age.

1. In some of the passages cited above there is unquestionably a reminiscence of the sense of sanctity with which the royal presence was invested in ancient times. The OT is full of references to this fact. We have it literally in such passages as  Genesis 41:46 (‘the presence of Pharaoh’),  Exodus 10:11; Exodus 10 : 1 Samuel 19:7,  2 Samuel 24:4,  1 Kings 1:28;  1 Kings 12:2,  2 Chronicles 9:23,  Nehemiah 2:1,  Esther 1:10;  Esther 8:13. Generally speaking, these references to the kingly presence carry the suggestion of favour, graciousness, assent, or benediction. When a ruler turned his countenance towards a suppliant or courtier, it meant that his desire was granted, or that he was a persona grata in the court (cf.  Esther 8:15); when it was turned away, it foreboded refusal, the loss of favour, or serious disgrace (cf.  1 Kings 12:2). The same association of ideas governs the usage of such phrases as ‘the presence of the Lord’ ( Genesis 3:8,  Job 1:12;  Job 2:7;  Job 23:15,  Psalms 16:11;  Psalms 97:5;  Psalms 140:13, etc.). Those hidden in the Divine presence are safe from harm ( Psalms 31:20;  Psalms 91:1); to be driven from God’s presence is to be outcast indeed ( Psalms 51:11); it is even to perish utterly ( Psalms 68:2). The minds of the NT writers were saturated with Hebrew notions, and their usage of language corresponds with this fact. Thus the ‘presence of Pilate’ ( Acts 3:13) means his seat of authority (cf.  Acts 5:41); the ‘presence of the Lord’ is the source of all spiritual blessing ( Acts 3:19), of Divine authority ( Luke 1:19), and of eternal felicity ( Judges 1:24); while the opposite is suggested in  Revelation 14:10. God’s presence, in a word, saves or damns those who are exposed to its searching radiance, according to their spiritual relation to Him.

2. It is, however, the positive suggestions of the phrase that require exposition. The presence of God (or of Christ who brought ‘life and incorruption to light through the gospel,’  2 Timothy 1:10) means in apostolic literature all that is implied in the revelation of His nature, and the instrumentalities of His grace. In the OT that presence was largely mediated through nature and Providence (cf. Job and the Psalms passim); in the NT this aspect has largely faded into the background, probably as a result of the Deistic attitude of later Judaism, which substituted cultus or worship (especially in the form of a mass of liturgical and ceremonial acts and processes) as the chief medium of the approach of man to God, or of God to man. God Himself became remote, His very name was avoided. Belief in a present Deity, glad faith in a God who manifests Himself in actual experience is found only in such exalted experiences as the Maccabaean struggle. Men tried to bridge the chasm by angels, especially natural guardian angels, and by such quasi-personalities, quasi-abstractions as the Wisdom, the Word, Shekinah of Glory, the Spirit of God. But all such efforts were far from successful. What differentiated the heightened spiritual consciousness of the primitive Church was its assurance that in Jesus Christ God had come near to man in a new and living way. This fact is expressed with matchless felicity in St. John’s words ‘(we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth’ ( 2 Timothy 1:14), and in St. Paul’s ‘God’ hath ‘shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ ( 2 Corinthians 4:6). The same idea is given in  Hebrews 1:1-3, ‘God … hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son, … being the effulgence of his glory, and the very image of his substance.’ To His immediate disciples the physical person of Christ was evidently full of attractiveness and power, because of the spiritual radiance that shone from His presence; they afterwards dwelt lovingly in thought on the expression of His face, on His looks and gestures, which must have been eloquent of His inner disposition, thoughts, and purposes; and they afterwards found a deep mystical significance in these things as they brooded on His words and dealings with them. It was the Resurrection life of Jesus that provided the interpretative light in which all His earthly life was transfigured in the memory of His immediate circle of friends, and which brought home the real meaning of His dealings with them in the days of His flesh.

3. This personal objective nearness of God in the ‘presence’ of Christ as mirrored in the Gospels, becomes in the Epistles a subjective nearness in the souls of believers. Christ dwells in their hearts by faith ( Ephesians 3:17); they ‘have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; through whom also we have had our access by faith into this grace wherein we stand’; they ‘rejoice in hope of the glory of God’ (a synonym for His radiant favouring presence,  Romans 5:1-2), and Christ who is the ‘image and glory of God’ ( 1 Corinthians 11:7) becomes at last in them ‘the hope of glory,’ i.e. of a blessed immortality ( Colossians 1:27). This indwelling presence of God in human hearts is not the mere ‘inner light’ of which the mystics speak, but that light made opulent with all the spiritual content for which Christ stands. It is a Life within the life, a Self within the self, a Divine presence enriching and irradiating the recesses of the soul with its high benefit and power. St. Paul is perpetually conscious of this new element in his life which, when he first had it, made him ‘a new creature,’ and which made ‘all things new’ to him ( 2 Corinthians 5:17 [καινός = ‘fresh,’ ‘bright,’ ‘glittering’]). Whether he speaks of the believer being in Christ ( Colossians 1:2), or of Christ being in him ( Colossians 1:27), or of being together with Christ ( Ephesians 2:5;  Ephesians 2:12), he is referring to the same supreme experience in its various aspects. This personal fellowship of the Risen Lord around and within him becomes at last a permeative and enfolding presence in virtue of which he becomes identified with Him ‘in inmost nearness,’ as when he says, ‘I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me’ ( Galatians 2:20). The mystical sense of oneness with Christ is the highest and most distinctive experience of the Christian life. It is seen in its purity only in the very finest saints, such as Origen, Athanasius, Augustine, Abelard, Tauler, Luther, Wesley; but all true believers know it more or less in proportion to their spiritual sensitiveness, and to their faithfulness in cultivating the ‘practice of the presence of God’ in their hearts. This experience has naturally found abundant expression in our hymns, e.g. in Eliza Scudder’s

‘Thou Life within my life, than self more near,

Thou veiled Presence infinitely clear,

From all illusive shows of sense I flee,

To find my centre and my rest, in Thee’

(Worship Song, line 158 ff.).

4. Rich and glowing as such experiences are, they are by no means exclusively mediated through isolation. The NT, indeed, enforces and illustrates the truth that the presence of God is often most vividly apprehended when a community of disciples, whether they be few or many, meet in His name for fellowship, praise, and edification. There are collective experiences to which the recluse is a stranger, and the monk, whether he live in a cell or walk the fields instead of joining with those who assemble themselves together, shuts himself off from some of the highest possibilities. The early Christian churches, though comprising many who were but ‘babes in Christ’ and were far from maturity in ethical and spiritual matters, were happy in the united exercise of their gifts and in the reality of the Divine presence which characterized their meetings for worship. In marked contrast to the OT nothing is said in the NT of church buildings, hardly anything about the conduct of worship, and there is a striking absence of regulations regarding rites and ceremonies. But the real thing is there-the presence of God, without which the most magnificent architecture, the most elaborate ritual are a vain show. We remember how St. Paul would have the Corinthian Christians worship in such a fashion that if the man in the street chanced to drop in to one of their services he should be ‘reproved by all … judged by all,’ so that the secrets of his heart should be made manifest, ‘and so he will fall down on his face and worship God, declaring that God is among [or in] you indeed’ ( 1 Corinthians 14:24 f.) Such an event is indeed connected by the Apostle with ‘prophecy,’ or, as we should call it, preaching, but it is not only, perhaps not mainly, the sermon that thus overwhelmingly convinces the outsider of the presence of God in a people. Nor is it the observance of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, although therein, whatever be their varying conceptions of its mode and form, disciples of Christ frequently discern the Real Presence more fully than in any other act of worship or experience of everyday life. There is the sense of prayer and of fraternal union, the atmosphere of devotion and of brotherly love. These, added to a preaching of the Word of God which is alive and powerful, piercing and exposing, cleansing and comforting, are the signs and tokens of the presence of God in a community, and are visible not only to those within but to those without the circle.

5. Finally, there is in the NT consciousness a strong and eager forelooking to a higher experience still. The experience of believers on earth, while strengthened and uplifted by a sense of the presence of the Saviour through His spirit in the heart, and by the operation of His saving grace, yet lacks the precision and definiteness of a real personal presence. It is better than the objective fellowship of Jesus with His disciples which was limited by the disabilities of the flesh, for as He was then with them, He is now in them ( John 14:16); but it is not the perfect communion for which the soul craves in its highest moods. The Parousia or Second Coming of the Lord shaped itself to the imagination of primitive believers as a quasi-physical appearance of the Lord in glory and great power ‘in the clouds’ and with a retinue of ‘holy angels’ ( 1 Thessalonians 4:17; cf.  Revelation 1:7 ‘He cometh with the clouds; and every eye shall see him’; also  Matthew 16:27 f.). In the later writings of St. Paul this cruder anticipation is spiritualized. He speaks of death as a door into the nearer presence of Christ ( Philippians 1:23 ‘to be with Christ; for it is very far better’); he is ‘willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord’ ( 2 Corinthians 5:8); and he warns his readers that all must ‘be made manifest before the judgement-seat of Christ’ to give an account of their earthly life ( 2 Corinthians 5:10). In St. John this process of spiritualization is carried still further. There is no mention of any spectacular or objective Parousia. The ‘Comforter’ is promised as Christ’s representative presence with His disciples after His departure to the Father ( John 14:16), while He remains with the Father, and makes preparation for the time when His followers will rejoin Him, that where He is there they may be also ( John 14:1-3). It may be said that while the hope of the Second Coming of Christ in the earlier sense has never died out of the Christian Church, the normal Christian attitude throughout the ages has been rather that mirrored in St. John than that suggested in  1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 or  1 Corinthians 15:51 f. Believers hold firmly that while they have fellowship with Christ in the flesh, this is but a dim foretaste of the perfect fellowship that awaits the redeemed with their Saviour in the eternal world. We know nothing of the details of the life beyond the grave; it is enough to know that there Christ reigns even more surely and triumphantly than here, and that where He is there will be blessedness and fullness of life ( John 10:10), and a ‘joy unspeakable and full of glory’ ( 1 Peter 1:8).

‘To heaven’s high city I direct my journey,

Whose spangled suburbs entertain mine eye;

Mine eye, by contemplation’s great attorney,

Transcends the crystal pavement of the sky.

But what is heaven, great God, compared to Thee?

Without Thy presence, heaven’s no heaven to me.

Without Thy presence, earth gives no reflection;

Without Thy presence, sea affords no treasure;

Without Thy presence, air’s a rank infection;

Without Thy presence, heaven itself no pleasure.

If not possessed, if not enjoyed in Thee,

What’s earth, or sea, or air, or heaven to me?’

(Francis Quarles, Divine Emblems, 1635).

A. J. Grieve.

Vine's Expository Dictionary of NT Words [2]

A — 1: Πρόσωπον (Strong'S #4383 — Noun Neuter — prosopon — pros'-o-pon )

see Face , No. 1 (also Appearance No. 2).

A — 2: Παρουσία (Strong'S #3952 — Noun Feminine — parousia — par-oo-see'-ah )

see Coming (Noun), No. 3.

B — 1: Ἔμπροσθεν (Strong'S #1715 — Adverb — emprosthen — em'-pros-then )

see Before , A, No. 4.

B — 2: Ἐνώπιον (Strong'S #1799 — Preposition — enopion — en-o'-pee-on )

is translated "in the presence of" in  Luke 1:19;  13:26;  14:10;  15:10;  John 20:30;  Revelation 14:10 (twice); in   1—Corinthians 1:29 AV, "in His presence" (RV, "before God"): see Before , A, No. 9.

B — 3: Κατενώπιον (Strong'S #2714 — Adverb — katenopion — kat-en-o'-pee-on )

kata, "down," and No. 2, "in the very presence of," is translated "before the presence of" in  Jude 1:24 . See Before , A, No. 10.

B — 4: Ἀπέναντι (Strong'S #561 — Preposition — apenanti — ap-en'-an-tee )

"over against, opposite to," is translated "in the presence of" in  Acts 3:16 . See Before , A, No. 7.

King James Dictionary [3]

PRES'ENCE, n. s as z. L. proesentia proe, before, and esse, to be. The existence of a person or thing in a certain place opposed to absence. This event happened during the king's presence at the theater. In examining the patient, the presence of fever was not observed. The presence of God is not limited to any place.

1. A being in company near or before the face of another. We were gratified with the presence of a person so much respected. 2. Approach face to face or nearness of a great personage.

Men that very presence fear,

Which once they knew authority did bear.

3. State of being in view sight. An accident happened in the presence of the court. 4. By way of distinction, state of being in view of a superior.

I know not by what pow'r I am made bold,

In such a presence here to plead my thoughts.

5. A number assembled before a great person.

Odmar, of all this presence does contain,

Give her your wreath whom you esteem most fair.

6. Port mien air personal appearance demeanor.

Virtue is best in a body that is comely, and that has rather dignity of presence, than beauty of aspect.

A graceful presence bespeaks acceptance.

7. The apartment in which a prince shows himself to his court.

An't please your grace, the two great cardinals.

Wait in the presence.

8. The person of a superior.

Presence of mind, a calm, collected state of the mind with its faculties at command undisturbed state of the thoughts, which enables a person to speak or act without disorder or embarrassment in unexpected difficulties.

Errors, not to be recalled, do find

Their best redress from presence of the mind.

Webster's Dictionary [4]

(1): ( n.) Port, mien; air; personal appearence.

(2): ( n.) The state of being present, or of being within sight or call, or at hand; - opposed to absence.

(3): ( n.) The place in which one is present; the part of space within one's ken, call, influence, etc.; neighborhood without the intervention of anything that forbids intercourse.

(4): ( n.) The whole of the personal qualities of an individual; person; personality; especially, the person of a superior, as a sovereign.

(5): ( n.) An assembly, especially of person of rank or nobility; noble company.

(6): ( n.) Specifically, neighborhood to the person of one of superior of exalted rank; also, presence chamber.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia [5]

prez´ens  : In the Old Testament nearly always the rendition of פּנים , pānı̄m , "face" (  Genesis 3:8;  Exodus 33:14 f;   Psalm 95:2;  Isaiah 63:9 , etc.); occasionally of עין , ‛ayin , "eye" ( Genesis 23:11;  Deuteronomy 25:9;  Jeremiah 28:1 ,  Jeremiah 28:11 , etc.); and in  1 Kings 8:22;  Proverbs 14:7 , "the presence of" represents the preposition נגד , neghedh , "before"; compare also Aramaic קדם , ḳodham , in  Daniel 2:27 the King James Version (the Revised Version (British and American) "before"). In Greek, "presence" has an exact equivalent in παρουσία , parousı́a , but this word is rendered "presence" only in  2 Corinthians 10:10;  Philippians 2:12; the Revised Version (British and American);  Philippians 1:26 (the King James Version "coming"). Elsewhere parousia is rendered "coming," but always with "presence" in the margin. Otherwise in the New Testament "presence" represents no particular word but is introduced where it seems to suit the context (compare e.g.  Acts 3:13 the King James Version and   Acts 3:19 ). See Parousia .

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature [6]

means, in canonical law, the uninterrupted personal residence of every regularly prebended ecclesiastic at the seat of his office; a duty emphatically imposed on him by the laws of the Church. It means also the personal attendance at the common choral prayer, to which the laws of the Church obligate all members of a monastic community, as well as the canons and choir-vicars of the cathedral and collegiate congregations.

References

  1. ↑ Presence from Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
  2. ↑ Presence from Vine's Expository Dictionary of NT Words
  3. ↑ Presence from King James Dictionary
  4. ↑ Presence from Webster's Dictionary
  5. ↑ Presence from International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
  6. ↑ Presence from Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
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