Conventional Christian wisdom says that God will not allow sin in His presence. People repeat this so often it is accepted by Bible students as a biblical fact. The following quote is representative of this idea:
“Because GOD hates sin and GOD is righteous, just and holy, His nature disallows Himself from coexisting with sin in His presence. For this reason, GOD must keep Himself separated from sin.”1
Is this true? Does the Bible really say that God does not allow Himself to be in the presence of sin? As a matter of fact, the Bible does not say this. It is a demonstrably false teaching, but where does this notion come from?
Trickle down theology
We hear the idea that God will not allow sin in His presence from the pulpit, Bible class teachers, TV, radio, and the Internet. This myth trickles down to us as if it were fact and we perpetuate it endlessly. On the surface this teaching sounds reasonable. After all, it is true that God hates sin and He repeatedly instructed His people in both the Old and New Testaments to turn away from sin.
In addition, there are a few Bible passages which appear to support the idea that God will not allow sin in His presence if they are given only a superficial reading. These are Genesis 3:24, Psalm 5:4, and Habakkuk 1:13. What are these passages really teaching?
God expelled Adam and Eve from the garden
He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. (Gen. 3:24 ESV)
Some may look at this passage and say, “See there, God couldn’t allow these sinners to remain in His presence, so He expelled them.” Let’s look a bit closer. What reason does the Bible give for their expulsion? Verse 24 above explains that it was to prevent them from having access to the tree of life. Verses 22-23 make this abundantly clear.
22 Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” 23 therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. (Gen. 3:22–23 ESV)
This passage is not about God preserving His holiness by banishing sinners from His immediate whereabouts. It was about denying Adam and Eve access to the tree of life. What a disaster it would be for humans to live forever in a perpetual state of sin! Barring access to the tree of life meant that humans would grow old and die. Eternal life was still a possibility, but humans could no longer obtain immortality by eating from the tree of life.
“No evil dwells with You”
If there was a verse in the Bible teaching that God will not allow sinful beings in His presence it would surely be Psalm 5:4:
For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you. (Psa. 5:4 ESV)
When David wrote this psalm, was he teaching that God will not allow sin in his presence? No, this isn’t what David was saying at all. In context, David was seeking relief from his enemies. In Psalm 5:3 David wrote of presenting his case to God and then expectantly waiting for God’s answer. He is confident that God will respond favorably to him because He is “not a God who delights in wickedness.”
“The psalmist here refers to a well-known and well-understood characteristic of the Divine Being, that he was holy and pure, and that he could not have any pleasure in furthering the designs of wicked men. This is said with reference to his enemies, who were thus wicked; and the idea is that God would not, and could not, consistently with his nature, further their designs.
Neither shall evil dwell with thee – The same idea is here expressed in another form. If God should show favor to the wicked, it would seem as if he admitted them to his habitation, as we do our friends and those in whom we delight. But as God would not do this, the psalmist feels that it was proper for him to call upon Him to deliver him from wicked people.”2
Who does God refuse to partner with?
The key question is, what does David mean by “dwell?” The Hebrew word is gur (גּוּר) and is often translated as sojourn or live. In this psalm, does “dwell” refer to being in close physical proximity? The word certainly can mean physical proximity:
but each woman shall ask of her neighbor, and any woman who lives [gur] in her house, for silver and gold jewelry, and for clothing. You shall put them on your sons and on your daughters. So you shall plunder the Egyptians.” (Ex. 3:22 ESV)
Most words have a range of meanings (both in English and Hebrew). We use the word dwell in multiple senses – dwell in a home, dwell in sadness, dwell upon a thought, etc. The context we use a word in helps us know which particular meaning the speaker or writer meant to convey.
The implication in this psalm is that God doesn’t partner with evil. He doesn’t confederate with the wicked. Therefore, David has the confidence to pray to God to deliver him from his enemies because David knew that God doesn’t side with evil.
Psalm 15 gives us the flip side of Psalm 5:4 by describing the kind of people God will partner with:
1 O LORD, who shall sojourn [gur] in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill? 2 He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart; 3 who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend; (Psa. 15:1–3 ESV)
David wasn’t saying God refuses to be in close proximity to wicked beings. He was communicating that God will not side with the wicked.
God cannot look at sin?
Some read the first portion of Habakkuk 1:13 and jump to the conclusion that if God cannot even look upon wrongdoing, then certainly He wouldn’t allow it in His presence.
You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, (Hab. 1:13a ESV)
Before drawing such a conclusion, one really should read the rest of the verse:
You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he? (Hab. 1:13 ESV)
The prophet states that God’s eyes are too holy to look at evil, but in the very next breath says that God does it anyway! It would seem that the prophet was perplexed (like most of us) by the inequities of life. Why is it often the case that the righteous suffer and the wicked flourish? The prophet is complaining to God about perceived injustices.
The cure is worse than the disease?
The context of the passage concerns God using a very evil nation (Babylon) to punish wicked Israel who Habakkuk considers to be righteous in comparison.
“The theological problem facing Habakkuk is how a holy God, one who is pure in all things and completely separate from sin, can tolerate wrong and treachery as practised by the Babylonian instruments of his punishment. While the sinful in Israel are wicked, in comparison they are eclipsed by the even greater perversity of Babylon. Beside Babylon, sinful Israel can be called righteous, here a relative rather than an absolute term. They are so far removed from the standards expected of God that the prophet can only express wonder that he can even look at them.3
The prophet is by no means saying that God doesn’t allow sin in His presence. He is trying to sort out his emotions and make sense of the circumstances.
God will not allow sin in His presence – prooftexting?
Proof texting is applying a verse in a way that the author never intended. To lift a verse out of its context and try to make it mean something it was never intended to mean is mishandling the words of God. Sometimes people proof text deliberately, and other times we do it unintentionally.
Neither the passages above, nor any other passage in the Bible, supports the idea that God is unwilling or unable to be in the presence of sinners. In the next post we’ll see that the Bible teaches exactly the opposite.
References
- https://chasingalion.com/god-will-not-dwell-with-sin.
- Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834].
- David W. Baker, Habakkuk, ed. D. A Carson et al., New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition. Accordance electronic ed. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 842.