God Entering His Temples

 •  11 min. read  •  grade level: 8
 
God entering His temples is a solemn, holy subject which our hearts would reverence while we trace it for a little through Scripture.
Scripture abounds with evidences of the intimacy which God has sought with the works of His hands. He has always been making a habitation for Himself, in some form or another, among His creatures.
At the beginning, as Creator, He formed His works so that He Himself might rest in them. He saw everything which He had made, that it was very good, and all furnished Him with a desired habitation. The Sabbath at the end of creation-work tells us this. Whatever measure of happiness was provided for man in the arrangements of creation (and that measure was indeed complete), still the Lord God was to have a place in the garden. He walked there in the cool of the day, seeking the presence of Adam.
Thus it was at the first when the earth was in virgin purity. It is quickly changed, but this purpose of God does not change.
The creation denies the Lord God a rest or a habitation by reason of sin that defiled. He must arise and depart. It could not be His rest, for it was polluted. We therefore at once see Him as a stranger in the world His hands had made. This was not His place of rest. He visits His elect that are in it, but He does not make it a home in the days of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He communicates with them in marked, personal intimacy, but He seeks no place on the earth. Still, God has a dwelling place here in counsel and in prospect.
The Second Habitation
The seed of Abraham is redeemed from Egypt and brought into the wilderness. Egypt was as the world, the polluted creation; the wilderness was as a spot outside of it and there in the midst of His people again He finds for Himself a "holy habitation" (Ex. 15:1313Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation. (Exodus 15:13)). The tabernacle is reared to be His dwelling and He enters it.
But how did He enter it? He had of old, with evident delight, taken His creation. But now, the earth being defiled with a wilderness around Him and before Him and under Him, how does He take His place and enter His dwelling in the midst of His people? With equal delight as at the beginning, He enters the tabernacle reared in the wilderness of Sinai with His whole heart and His whole soul. The cloud abides on the outside or top of it, and the glory goes within but goes there with an expression of earnest, delighted satisfaction. Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle (Ex. 40:3535And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. (Exodus 40:35)). God, as it were, would have the whole of it for Himself-at least for a season-as at creation. He enjoyed the work of His hands, and hallowed the seventh day and rested, before He shared His rest and His enjoyment with Adam.
This is full of blessing. It is an expression of the early desire of God to find a place among His creatures. If pollution separates Him from the earth in its common, general condition, it cannot separate Him from this purpose of His heart. He will purify a people that He may still dwell among His creatures. He will give them His Sabbaths, sanctify them as He did the seventh day and dwell in the midst of them as in the Garden of Eden.
The Third Habitation
There can be no happier thought than this that the Lord God purposes to be near to His creatures. It is a thought, as we shall find from this meditation, which the heart should always enjoy. As we travel through the Scriptures, we take it up at the beginning, we carry it along with us on our journey and find it full and fresh at the end. It accompanies us all the way, and is to be realized forever.
The children of Israel have to change their condition. They cease to be a traveling people and become a settled people. They leave the tents of the desert for the cities and villages of the land. The glory, accordingly, has to go from the tabernacle to the temple. There may be all these changes in circumstances, but there is no change in affection, no abatement in the fervency and desire of the Lord of Israel towards His people.
A great interval also took place and fresh provocations were given. As soon as the ark, the witness of the divine presence, had entered the land, the sword of Joshua began the work of conquest to prepare "a mountain" or a kingdom for the Lord. But Israel was untrue to Jehovah, and all through the times of the Judges and of Saul there is confusion and defilement and the restlessness of iniquity. The sword of David has, therefore, after so long a time, to finish what the sword of Joshua had begun until at length there is rest—n o evil or enemy occurring—and the peaceful throne of Solomon, the throne of the Lord is set in the land and over the people. Then the temple is built and the ark leaves the tabernacle of the wilderness (or tent that David had prepared for it which in principle is the same thing) for the house of the kingdom.
This long delay of many centuries during which the Lord of Israel was kept out of His rest, and that through the faithlessness of His people, does not change things. The glory enters the temple exactly as it had before entered the tabernacle. The priests cannot stand in the temple just as Moses had been unable to stand in the tabernacle because the glory had again so filled the house of God. (See 2 Chron. 5.) This was the Lord again seating Himself in the midst of His people, or entering His habitation there as with His whole heart and His whole soul.
The Fourth Dwelling-Place
After this He still goes on and we still trace the same mind in Him. The fullness of time arrives and God is to be manifest in the flesh. This great mystery speaks for itself in Luke 1 and 2. But what fervor is there seen in those who wait for it! What joy there is in heaven among the angels and what joy on earth in the vessels filled by the Spirit! The fields of Bethlehem witness this; Elizabeth, Mary, Zacharias, the shepherds, Simeon, and Anna also are witnesses. God assuming manhood, manifesting Himself in flesh, entering the temple of the human body, are in its generation like the glory entering the tabernacle or the temple. The Holy Spirit Himself, the angels that are in God's presence on high, and the elect that are visited and quickened by Him here below, are all made to tell of the divine joy of that moment.
It is no exile from the higher regions that we see in the glorious, eternal Son of the Father, made of a woman, and taking flesh and blood. Unspeakable riches of grace indeed it is, but Luke 1 and 2 forbid us to say that it is an exile that is then entering a foreign land, or the place of banishment. There is no finer glow of joy expressed in the whole of Scripture than in these chapters which usher in and reveal and celebrate the Incarnation. If ever the Lord God entered His temple with desire and joy, it is then. But this, as we have seen, He has always done.
This is certainly wondrous and precious beyond all thought. But is there still more? Is this same story, full of blessedness as it is, able to go further?
The Fifth Habitation
The house is then finished, as the heavens and earth of old were on the sixth day. The vacant, forfeited apostleship is filled and the day of Pentecost has fully come. The glory again enters. The Holy Spirit comes into His temple now, as the Son in the day of Luke 2 had come into His. The temples are different, but the joy in which God enters them is the same.
The living house of God is raised and completed in Jerusalem, is filled with the Spirit, and like cloven tongues of fire He sits upon each of the assembled saints. This is a new form, but it is as when the cloud covered the house and the glory entered it in the times of Ex. 40 and 2 Chron. 5.
But how is this entrance made? Like "a rushing mighty wind" the Holy Spirit comes, and this style of covering, this expression of it speaks of the delight and fullness with which it is done. The full glory is there. The Spirit Himself, in His proper personality, enters in fullness and power. The fruit of this is shown all around as we saw in the day of the Incarnation. The wonderful works of God are rehearsed at once by the baptized body. They are glad and praise God. They are delivered from themselves, both dwelling together and sharing with one another all they have. Moreover, they give witness with great power to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace is upon them all.
Surely if the Son entered His tabernacle of flesh, the temple of His body in divine fullness and glory, so did the Spirit now enter and fill His house in like affection. Intense personality is here again witnessed and God is again near. He finds His habitation here in the midst of us with His whole heart and His whole soul as we see in Jer. 32:4141Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole soul. (Jeremiah 32:41). The dispensation may change; the tabernacle may have to give place to the temple, or one temple to yield to another-the temple of a human body may be prepared for the Son, the temple of living stones for the Spirit, but the fervor and intimacy with which God or the glory enters each of those in its day, is alike throughout.
The Sixth Habitation
There is one other form which this same mystery is to take, but it takes it in the same manner as from the beginning.
In Rev. 21, the millennial (or eternal) city, descends in full form and solemnity. It is a finished thing, perfect in all its beauty before it appears in sight. It has been built in heaven. The marriage of the Lamb was celebrated there, and there the bride had made herself ready. She is now seen in all her costliness and perfection, the habitation of the glory as once the tabernacle of the wilderness, and then the temple of the kingdom had been. It is the habitation of God through the glory, as once the Church on earth had been the habitation of God through the Spirit (Eph. 2:2222In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:22)).
This city is now seen as "a bride adorned for her husband" a figure which needs no comment to tell its deep meaning. A great voice accompanies it in its descent and the voice cries, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God.”
As the cloud of old filled the courts when the glory entered the tabernacle and the temple, as the angels rehearsed the joy of heaven when the Son entered the flesh and blood of humanity making it His temple, as the Holy Spirit entered His living temple with like witness of His presence in its fullness, so now the millennial, eternal dwelling place of God in the midst of men is shown as with kindred witness of the divine delight and of the rapture of heaven.
At the beginning, the Lord God had rested in His creation and walked with man. Now, at the end, He rests in His own accomplished redemption, and pitches His tabernacle in the midst of men again.
Surely all this tells us of the delight which He takes in the works of His hands, in His presence with His creatures and in His nearness to them.
J.G. Bellett