“Thin places”

[Speustais]

Every so often I hear a preacher refer to “thin places”, asserting that there are physical, geographical places in which God’s presence is more easily felt / seen / etc. It’s usually poorly defined and articulated, but that’s the gist of it. Sometimes Genesis 28.16 is used as a support text.
Has anyone any thoughts on this?
Thanks everyone.

 

[Pomopu]

God doesn't any longer invest geographical points in time and space with special magic dust, special sacred dust, as it were.

With the coming of Christ, every space for the Christian is a thin space. He lives in our hearts. We are united to him. There is no place we go to get closer. I can climb to heaven itself, and be as far as Christ as ever. Imagine I"m Judas: even were I to grab Jesus and hug him, he is as far to me as the east is from the west.

Thus Jonah in the whale sings a song and prayer to God

Thus Jesus on the cross is still crying out to God

Other religions need a doctrine of "thin space" because they don't have God living in them by the Holy Spirit, and demons seem somehow to interact with places in this way. Thus the Catholic emphasis on the sacred Cathedral. Because they don't have the Living Word, they substitute coming to God by faith by walking to a place.

John Calvin locked the doors to the church in Geneva for this reason.

 

[lynnie]

Huh. Is he charismatic? I've heard it the opposite way so many times. Places where demons live and portals that open up to the demonic realm ( like CERN) and Satan's dwelling place on earth, etc. Lands like Persia where great evil heavenly princes rule.

I've been in services ( going back a great many years) where you could feel the presence of the Lord and His holiness and glory. Not often, but afterwards everyone was in awe and some said they wanted to lie on the floor, it was like a weight. Iain Murray talks about walking to church where Lloyd Jones was preaching and you could sense the holy spirit anointing of God before you ever went inside. But nobody ever attributed it to a place, only to the gathered saints worshipping in spirit and truth.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

The old covenant with its Tabernacle, and later its Land and its Temple, had its special places of memorial. It also had more than its share of false sites and illegitimate resorts, many denominated as "high places." The Tabernacle/Temple site was the sole place to which the people were summoned for pilgrimage.

Jacob was somewhat amazed (and encouraged) to find the LORD went with him from his father's tents in his exile journey. At the moment when his courage surely was about to waver, the LORD made a special appearance to him and gave him promises. Jacob, for his part, vowed to remember the LORD again in the same place when he returned in safety--a purpose he eventually fulfilled, Gen.35:7. But it was not to take some advantage of that spot, as if it was better an altar be built there than earlier in Schechem, Gen.33:20, or where he returned to his father's pastureland and altar (cf. Gen.26:25; 35:27). It was not a pilgrimage that took him past Bethel again, but the difficult journey (for pregnant Rachel) forced on him.

Jn.4:21, "Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father." Let go the idolatrous passion for "holy places/spaces."

 

[Pomopu]

The old covenant with its Tabernacle, and later its Land and its Temple, had its special places of memorial. It also had more than its share of false sites and illegitimate resorts, many denominated as "high places." The Tabernacle/Temple site was the sole place to which the people were summoned for pilgrimage.

Jacob was somewhat amazed (and encouraged) to find the LORD went with him from his father's tents in his exile journey. At the moment when his courage surely was about to waver, the LORD made a special appearance to him and gave him promises. Jacob, for his part, vowed to remember the LORD again in the same place when he returned in safety--a purpose he eventually fulfilled, Gen.35:7. But it was not to take some advantage of that spot, as if it was better an altar be built there than earlier in Schechem, Gen.33:20, or where he returned to his father's pastureland and altar (cf. Gen.26:25; 35:27). It was not a pilgrimage that took him past Bethel again, but the difficult journey (for pregnant Rachel) forced on him.

Jn.4:21, "Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father." Let go the idolatrous passion for "holy places/spaces."

Well put, I like the Biblical data

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Huh. Is he charismatic? I've heard it the opposite way so many times. Places where demons live and portals that open up to the demonic realm ( like CERN) and Satan's dwelling place on earth, etc. Lands like Persia where great evil heavenly princes rule.

I've been in services ( going back a great many years) where you could feel the presence of the Lord and His holiness and glory. Not often, but afterwards everyone was in awe and some said they wanted to lie on the floor, it was like a weight. Iain Murray talks about walking to church where Lloyd Jones was preaching and you could sense the holy spirit anointing of God before you ever went inside. But nobody ever attributed it to a place, only to the gathered saints worshipping in spirit and truth.

The writer to Hebrews describes NT worship as an entrance to heaven itself, "22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, 23 to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, 24 to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel." Heb.12:22-24

In other words, we are going to heaven in the Spirit when we worship on the Lord's Day (Rev.1:10), whether we "feel" it so or not so much, this or that Sunday. It is so, by the will and mercy of God. We are then "standing within thy gates, O Jerusalem" Ps.122:2, that Jerusalem which is above. There is a "thinning of the veil" between this world and the next, for we are in the company of angels and perfected saints, receiving a foretaste of heaven. It is never closer to us than in the word and sacrament ministry of Christ to his people, as we practically reach out and touch him. He invites us in, and we eat and drink with him in his kingdom.