1. While God is in everything in creation, He dwells in the just
by grace. Scripture quite noticeably uses the word _dwelling_ when
it wishes to express the particular way in which God is present in
the souls of the just. He is in all things; in the just He dwells.
The same word actually is applied to the presence of God in the
souls of those in grace as is used when speaking of God's presence
in the Temple. But here again it is necessary to say that God's
dwelling in the Temple never implied He was not elsewhere, but did
imply that somehow His presence in the Temple was quite different
from the way in which He was present elsewhere. Just then the same
kind of difference between the presence of God in all created
nature and His presence in the souls of the just is intended by
the careful use in Scripture of the word dwelling, viz., that God
has, over and above His ordinary presence in every single created
thing, a further and especial presence in the hearts of those in
friendship with Him by grace, and this new presence is a fuller
and richer presence whereby God's excellencies and perfections are
more openly displayed.
2. Another way in which the same idea is pressed home in the New
Testament is by the word _sent_ or _given_. Frequently, in the
last discourse of Our Lord on the night before He suffered, He
spoke to the Apostles of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the
Comforter who was to be sent or given. Now, ordinarily, by using
the expression, "sending some one," we imply that now the person
sent is where he was not before, that he has passed from here to
there. Obviously Our Lord cannot really mean that only after His
crucifixion and ascension would the Holy Ghost be found in the
hearts of the Apostles, for we have already insisted that in every
creature there must be, by virtue of its very creation, the Holy
Spirit at the heart of it. Hence the only possible meaning is that
the Holy Spirit will descend upon the Apostles and become present
within them after some new fashion in which He was not before.
"Because you are His children God has sent into your hearts the
spirit of His Son whereby you cry Abba: Father" (Gal. 4.6). From
the beginning the Holy Ghost had been within them; now His
presence there is new and productive of new effects.
3. By God's indwelling, then, effected by grace, the Holy Spirit
now is present in the soul differently from the way in which He is
present by creation. By creation He is wholly everywhere, yet more
in the higher forms than in the lower, for He is able to express
more of Himself in them. Among these highest forms of visible
creation, namely, man, there are again degrees of His presence, so
that even among men He is more in one than in another. This
gradation is in proportion to their grace. The more holy and
sanctified they become, the more does the Holy Spirit dwell in
them, the more fully is He sent, the more completely given, while
the Book of Wisdom says expressly that God does not dwell in
sinners. As soon as I am in a state of grace the Holy Ghost dwells
in me in this new and wonderful way, takes up His presence in me
in this new fashion. It is precisely, then, by our faith and hope
and love that this is effected, so that the individual soul under
God's own movement does help on this union of God and man. In all
the rest of creation God is present by His action; in the souls of
the just it is true to say that He is present by theirs.