God is Closer Than You Think

February 15, 2025 by M. Stephanie Zeller

“Faith is an inward operation of that divine power that dwells in the contrite heart and can lay hold of the things not seen. Faith is a divine act; Faith is God in the soul.” (Smith Wigglesworth on Faith, p. 130, Whitaker House 1998)

Smith Wigglesworth was a British evangelist who was influential in the early history of the Pentecostal movement. The above quote comes from one of his sermons as compiled by Whitaker House publishers. The notion of God in our soul is a striking concept—a penetrating word—for it conveys how close God is to us. Smith Wigglesworth had a strikingly intimate relationship with God, a relationship that all should aspire to attain. Although he was not a classical theologian, his teachings often captured revelatory truths.

Textbook theology speaks of God as residing in our spirit, rather than in our soul, and that would be accurate. When we are born again, God sends His spirit (the Holy Spirit) to live in our spirit. As we then walk out our lives, the Holy Spirit interacts with our soul so that our soul can be conformed to the very image of God. As our faith grows stronger and we yield more and more to the leading of the Holy Spirit, God’s nature becomes our nature. We resemble God in our nature and that would be expressed in our souls. Smith Wigglesworth may not have been schooled in textbook theology, but he has hit upon a very important concept. God is as close to us and as accessible to us as our very own soul.

Scripture teaches us that we are spirit beings, we have a soul and we live in a body. “Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thessalonians 5:23, ESV)

Of the three aspects of our human existence, our spirit man is the key that unlocks our identity, but we do not know him very well. Our spirit is the part of us that relates to God.

We are more familiar with our body and our soul. As for the body, we can see it with our eyes and feel it with our touch. With modern day imaging, we can even see the inside of us and diagram our inward parts. No one could delude us into doubting the existence of our bodies. Likewise, we are well aware of the existence of our soul for it includes our mind, our will and our emotions. We are convinced that we think and are aware that we have desires and feel emotions.

Because we have an awareness of these various aspects of our body and soul, we may be tempted to think of the body and soul as all that we are. Each of us, however, is much more than a body with a soul. There is another dimensional part of us that we call the spirit. We know from Scripture that the Holy Spirit (the third person of the Triune Godhead) came to dwell in our spirit when we first believed in our hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead and made covenant in our hearts to live for Him. This was to fulfill the promise of Jesus to His followers: “and I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. You know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.” (John 14:16-17, ESV)

During the time period encompassed by the Old Testament, there was an acknowledged separation between God and mankind. Even for God’s chosen people (the Jewish nation), God could only be approached in reverence and only by persons designated and commissioned for this privilege. Violations of protocol resulted in death. To assist His people in their desire for God to dwell with them, God gave Moses the plan and protocol for the tabernacle.

The tabernacle was divided into three main parts: an outer court, the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. The Levite priests were authorized to minister in the Holy Place, which contained the seven-branched candlestick, the table of showbread and the altar of incense. However, only the High Priest was allowed to enter the Most Holy Place and then only once a year and not without the sacrificial blood of goats and bulls, which the High Priest offered for himself and for the people’s sins committed in ignorance. (Hebrews 9:7, NKJV) The Most Holy Place is where the ark of the covenant was kept and this piece of furniture represented God’s covenant with His people and His presence with them. Significantly, the entrance to the Most Holy Place was protected by a heavy curtain that separated it from the Holy Place. Early Jewish tradition stated that the Temple veil was as thick as a man’s hand. In the days of King Solomon, the Tabernacle was replaced by a Temple. However, the division between the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place was continued.

All of this changed with the crucifixion of Jesus. In bearing the punishment for the sins of all men for all time, Jesus cleared the way for mankind to be reconciled to God. When Jesus proclaimed, ‘it is finished’ (John 19:30, ESV), the total victory had been won. “At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split.” (Matthew 27:51, NIV)

For the believer, God is no longer far removed from us. The temple curtain that represented the separation between God and mankind has been torn asunder by God Himself. God is now accessible to every believer. Moreover, as our faith grows, we are empowered to yield our soul to the Holy Spirit within us, until someday we shall be like Him. When our yielding is complete, the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit identified in Galatians 5:22 (love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control) will fully reside in our soul. Even now, as we are learning to yield on a day-by-day basis, we are being changed from glory to glory. "And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit." (2 Corinthians 3:18, ESV)

_____________

Where scripture translations neglect to capitalize pronoun references to God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit, we have taken the liberty to do so.