Can we ever be separated from God?
Have you ever heard someone say something like, “Sin separates you from God.”? This is not some new religious doctrine, by any means. For thousands of years, various theological beliefs systems have insisted on this idea that our sins have caused us to be separated from God.
You can trace this all the way back to the story of Adam and Eve when they were cast out of the Garden of Eden. And this theme that sin separates us from God is repeated throughout the Old Testament.
Do your sins separate you from God?
The prophet Isaiah, who saw deep into the all-mightiness and sovereignty of God, sums it up this way,
Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. Isaiah 59: 1, 2 NIV
Well, if God won’t listen to us because we have sinned, this is very, very bad news for all of us because we’ve all sinned in one way or another. (See Romans 3:23)
This idea that God will not hear a sinner is repeated in the New Testament in a way that gives an insight into what the religious views were at that time.
Jesus had healed a man who was born blind. When the Pharisees found out they brought him in for questioning, because they wanted to find any way they could to discredit Jesus.
The Pharisees were trying to convince the man that Jesus was a sinner, since he healed on the Sabbath day.
In his efforts to prove that Jesus must be a prophet, instead of a sinner, the man said to the Pharisees,
“We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but he is ready to hear those who worship him and do his will. Ever since the world began, no one has been able to open the eyes of someone born blind. If this man were not from God, he couldn’t have done it.” John 9:31-33 NLT
I just love this man’s simple logic and the way he talks back to the Pharisees, don’t you? He is not intimidated at all.
Pharisees taught we are separated from God
Let’s take a little closer look at verse 31 . “We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners.” That’s what the man believed. Why? Because that’s what he had been taught by the religious educational systems of the day.
Basically, it was the doctrine of the Pharisees. They thought that by obeying all the details of the hundreds of Jewish laws, they were not sinning. So God must hear their prayers, but not the prayers of others.
Again, I point out, if God doesn’t hear sinners, we are all in trouble.
Now to be fair, there are lots of places in the Bible which talk about how, at times anyway, the children of Israel sinned but turned from their disobedience and God heard their prayers.
Does God hear sinners?
So there are many times when God does hear the sinner.
My point here is that, even though the idea that sin separates us from God is voiced in the Bible, it’s not the final word on the subject.
The prophet Jeremiah gives us a glimpse into what I’m talking about here. He records God saying,
Am I a God who is only close at hand?” says the LORD.
“No, I am far away at the same time.
Can anyone hide from me in a secret place?
Am I not everywhere in all the heavens and earth?”
says the LORD. Jeremiah 23:23, 24 NLT
The real answer to any question comes in getting a better sense of God’s true nature. That’s what Jeremiah is giving us here. Think about the profound truth God reveals about His nature here: God is everywhere.
Let that sink in for a minute.
The problem is that the human mind really cannot accurately conceive of what it means for God to be everywhere. It has to be a revelation from God.
If God is actually everywhere, and some people like to use that big fancy word, omnipresent, then there is no place you can go, physically, geographically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually where God is not present.
In Psalm 139, King David, who committed some pretty serious sins but still felt God’s presence, wrote
Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?”
If I ascend into heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in hell, [Sheol] behold, You are there.
If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there Your hand shall lead me,
And Your right hand shall hold me. Psalm 139:7-10 NKJV
You cannot escape God
There is no way you can get away from God. God is everywhere. God’s right hand is holding you every moment of every day.
There is no way you can ever be separated from this everywhere-ness of God.
When we have the mindset that our sins separate us from God, then we will definitely feel separated from God when we sin.
But God is just as close to us when we sin as when we don’t, because…God. Is. Everywhere.
I just want to repeat this: You may feel like you’re separated from God when you sin. that’s what Isaiah is talking about in the quote above. But you are not actually separated from God. He is right there, ready and willing to help and heal you.
The more we understand the true nature of God as everywhere, the more we will realize we can never be separated from God.
And by the way, when you have sinned and feel separated from God, it doesn’t mean God hasn’t heard your prayers. God hears all prayers. But He doesn’t always answer them the way we want Him to. And so we may think He isn’t listening.
Can other people’s sins separate us from God?
What about when you feel you’re separated from God because of someone else’s sins?
Maybe someone has cheated you, lied to you, slandered you, injured you, or whatever it might be. Maybe it’s someone you know, a stranger, or maybe it’s someone in the past.
I mentioned earlier Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The amazing thing is that some churches teach that the original sin of Adam and Eve is what separates us from God, even before we’ve committed a single sin of our own.
But God completely debunks this false belief system or doctrine of original sin in the book of Ezekiel. God says,
“Why do you quote this proverb concerning the land of Israel: ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, but their children’s mouths pucker at the taste’? As surely as I live, says the Sovereign LORD, you will not quote this proverb anymore in Israel. … The child will not be punished for the parent’s sins, and the parent will not be punished for the child’s sins.” Ezekiel 18:2, 3, 20 NLT
People believed they were suffering for the sins of their parents, all the way back to Adam and Eve. And so they came up with this proverb. But God said this proverb was not true. In effect, the people were blaming their bad fortune on the sins of others and not taking full responsibility for their own sins.
But unfortunately, just because God tells us to do something, doesn’t mean we will accept, understand, or obey it. Today, people still believe they are suffering at God’s hand because of the sins of others.
But someone else’s sins never have, never can, and never will separate you from God.
It doesn’t mean we won’t have challenges or make mistakes. But these things cannot separate us from God.
This is not a recommendation to keep sinning, by the way. It’s an encouragement that, even if you are caught up in doing things you shouldn’t, God is present with you, listening to you heart, and able and willing to help you.
Paul says we live in God
Paul brings out this point that we can never be separated from God when he is talking to the Athenians at the Areopagus. He reasons with and tries to persuade these men who believe in many gods, to consider a completely different concept of God, specifically monotheism. He even quotes classical writings they would be familiar with.
You can read the whole story in Acts 17:16-34
Here’s what he said, quoting the Cretan philosopher Epimenides,
‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ Acts 17:28 NIV
That is a powerful concept, that we live in God, that our being, our very existence in in God. Paul is talking about a relationship with God that cannot be severed.
And as the Psalm says, even if you make your bed in hell, in Sheol, God’s hand is still there holding you.
Popular theology is sometimes wrong
This goes against a lot of popular theology. Many churches insist that you can be separated from God, that you have always been separated from God because of Adam’s sin, and that only through Jesus Christ will you be brought back to God.
Well, I certainly believe Jesus establishes our relationship with God. But it’s a relationship that has always been there. He just revealed it and helped us understand it.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could just ask Jesus what he thinks about all this and set the record straight?
Well actually, we can do the next best thing. Let’s see what he’s already said on the subject.
Jesus gives an amazing insight into our inseparable relationship with God in a prayer before his crucifixion.
Jesus’s prayer of oneness with God
He’s praying for his immediate disciples:
Holy Father, keep them safe in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are one. John 17:11 NET (New English Translation)
Jesus wanted his disciples to experience the same oneness with the Father he did.
Jesus had declared earlier in his ministry, “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30 NIV)
Those who opposed Jesus thought he was claiming to be God. But Jesus was talking about his inseparable relationship, his oneness, with the Father.
We are one with God
Now let’s come back to Jesus’s prayer for his disciples before the crucifixion. Jesus enlarges the scope of his prayer for his disciples to be aware of their oneness with God in John 17:11, which we just talked about.
Now Jesus includes everyone in this inseparable relationship, or oneness, with God, who will ever believe in him .
I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me. John 17:20-23 NLT
Jesus’s prayer reveals a great truth: that we are one with the Father just as Christ is. In this oneness, we can no more be separated from God than Jesus can.
Was Jesus ever separated from God?
But wouldn’t you know it, some theological doctrines claim that Jesus can be separated from God. When he was on the cross, having taken on all the sins of the world, God abandoned him because God was just too holy to look at all that sin.
That notion comes from the words Jesus uttered from the cross,
And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”). Mark 15:34 NIV
For all practical purposes, it looked like God had totally forsaken Jesus. But actually Jesus was quoting the first line of Psalm 22. When you read that whole Psalm, you’ll see it describes the crucifixion scene pretty graphically.
Jesus was fulfilling the prophecies in this Psalm and was telling people to go read it so they’d understand what was going on.
Psalm 22, as a whole, is not a lament of defeat, but gratitude for victory. Of course God had not forsaken or abandoned Jesus. God was with him every moment. They could never be separated.
This is true for you and me as well. Even though it may feel like you are separated from God at times, God is still with you. God is everywhere and nothing you or anyone else does can possibly separate you from Him.
Paul says we can never be separated from God
Paul brings this out so beautifully in Romans, chapter 8.
He starts out talking about the fact we can’t be separated from the love of Christ. But what is Christ’s love? Isn’t it the manifestation of God’s presence in our lives?
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:35, 37-39 ESV
Nothing can separate you from God, ever.
My prayer for you
I’ve been praying lately along these lines and have become more aware of my oneness with God than I ever have been before.
So, I’m going to take my prayer and extend it to you. Please let it sink way down deep into your heart.
Nothing can separate you from God. Nothing can separate you from God’s love, God’s goodness, grace, and mercy. You are one with God, with God’s love, goodness, grace, and mercy.
Nothing can separate you from God’s intelligence, wisdom, truth, and life itself. You are one with divine intelligence, wisdom, truth, and life. You never lack these qualities.
Nothing can separate you from God’s strength, wholeness, and safety. You are one with God’s strength, wholeness, and safety.
Nothing can separate you from God’s joy and peace. You are one with them.
God is your Source and Creator. You are one with your Source and can never be separated from it.
Nothing ever has, ever can, or ever will separate you from God.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and podcaster. He conducts Bible workshops online and in person. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by embracing the mindset of Christ in daily life. Contact him here.
Bible References:
Isaiah 59: 1, 2 NIV
1 Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear.
2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.
Romans 3:23 NLT
23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.
John 9:31-33 NLT
31 We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but he is ready to hear those who worship him and do his will.
32 Ever since the world began, no one has been able to open the eyes of someone born blind.
33 If this man were not from God, he couldn’t have done it.”
Jeremiah 23:23, 24 NLT
23 Am I a God who is only close at hand?” says the LORD.
“No, I am far away at the same time.
24 Can anyone hide from me in a secret place?
Am I not everywhere in all the heavens and earth?”
says the LORD.
Psalm 139:7-10 NKJV
7 Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?”
8 If I ascend into heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in hell, [Sheol] behold, You are there.
9 If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 Even there Your hand shall lead me,
And Your right hand shall hold me.
Ezekiel 18:2, 3, 20 NLT
2 “Why do you quote this proverb concerning the land of Israel: ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, but their children’s mouths pucker at the taste’?
3 As surely as I live, says the Sovereign LORD, you will not quote this proverb anymore in Israel. 20 The child will not be punished for the parent’s sins, and the parent will not be punished for the child’s sins.
Acts 17:28 NIV
28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’
John 17: 11 NET (New English Translation)
11 Holy Father, keep them safe in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are one.
John 10:30 NIV
30 I and the Father are one.
John 17:20-23 NLT
20 “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message.
20 I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.
22 “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one.
23 I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.
Mark 15:34 NIV
34 And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).
Psalm 22:1 NIV
1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Romans 8:35, 37-39 ESV
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,
39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
