If God cannot be in the presence of sin, how can Satan have access to heaven?

divine omnipresence

də-ˈvīn  äm-ni-ˈpre-zən (t)s

Someone once asked me, “If God cannot be in the presence of sin, why does Satan can have access to heaven? The idea is that Satan enters into heaven to accuse the righteous in the books of Job (Job 1:11, 2:5) and Zechariah (Zech. 3:1-5). The problem comes when reading about final glory in the Book of Revelation, wherein there is a picture of the New Jerusalem coming down as a bride adorned for her husband, and John the Revelator says, “nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life” (Rev. 21:27). How can this be?

Some might parse out the semantics in Job and Zechariah in such a way to contend that “the Satan” in these Old Testament prophets is someone other than the Devil. So the problem is simply a case of mistaken identity. I’m not bought and sold on that one.

So how it is that Satan can accuse the brethren in the presence of a holy and righteous God? Here’s the deal. God is omnipresent, which means he is everywhere presence. The Psalmist says,

Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.
If I take the wings of the dawn,
If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,
Even there Your hand will lead me,
And Your right hand will lay hold of me
(Psa.139:7-10).

The world is fallen in sin but this never means the presence of God is absent from the fallen world. God is present in the universe. Whether one is a saint or sinner, God is still present. Right now there are all kinds of evils taking place but God is never absent from the picture. The activities of angels, demons, and even Satan are still done within the presence of God. The inspired author of Hebrews declares: “And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do” (Heb. 4:13). When we speak of sinners being separated from a right relationship with God, we never mean to communicate their in the wrong physical location; rather, what we mean is that sin separates people from a right relationship with God. Those condemned to hell are really in the absence of the loving relationship with God for which they were created. None of this is to say that God is equal to the creation, but that there is nowhere in creation that is off limits to God’s presence.

Satan as the adversary can still communicate vile accusations against the saints to God, and the imagery of the heavenly courtroom is befitting. The intent is never to communicate there exist an actual physical room where the King of the Universe holds divine counsel with angels. God, angels, demons, and Satan are non-corporeal beings, and it would be incorrect to speak of them as material beings that take up physical space. The imagery of the divine courtroom still helps finite people understand the way the infinite God interacts within the creation. He is sovereign over all things, and that His rule over the universe is just.

The Devil does his monkey business in the presence of a holy and righteous God. Yet, Satan’s power is very limited, and he was already defeated through Christ’s atoning work and resurrection (John 12:31; 16:11; Heb. 2:14; 2 John 3:8). Even in the Book of Job the Devil is constrained to only act within the parameters God gives, and God is the one who is the sovereign of the universe. Yet, in the same breath, one must say that the Christians is always to be wary of Satan’s power and deceptiveness (2 Cor. 2:11, 11:14; 1 Peter 5:8) and be prepared to engage in spiritual warfare (Eph. 6:10-18).

~ WGN