Our Earthly House of the Tabernacle.”

From: Miscellaneous Papers

By: Edward Denny

• 2 min. read • grade level: 9

2 Cor. 5:1¹For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (2 Corinthians 5:1)2CO 5:1¹For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (2 Corinthians 5:1)

THAT which Paul says of the "outward man," and the "inward man," in 2 Cor. 4:16¹⁶For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. (2 Corinthians 4:16), and also the expression, "The house of the Lord, namely, the house of the tabernacle," in 1 Chron. 9:23²³So they and their children had the oversight of the gates of the house of the Lord, namely, the house of the tabernacle, by wards. (1 Chronicles 9:23), signifying the temple, helps us to understand what the apostle means by "the earthly house of this (or the—του) tabernacle" in 2 Cor. 5:1¹For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (2 Corinthians 5:1)

The temple, as a whole, was "the house of the tabernacle; that is, it contained within it the tabernacle, or holy of holies, wherein God more especially dwelt, the place of the Shechinah, or glory. So of the body, or the "outward man," it is the "earthly house of the tabernacle," the house of the soul, of the "inward man," which is the tabernacle in which God dwells in us. Observe as to 2 Cor. 5, the tabernacle in the first verse is the soul: the tabernacle in the fourth verse is the body. God more especially dwells in the former; we dwell in the latter. Thus every saint is in his own person a tabernacle enclosing a tabernacle, in each of which God dwells. That He dwells in the one, even the soul, we have already seen; that lie dwells in the other, namely the body, we learn from 1 Corinthians 6:19¹⁹What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? (1 Corinthians 6:19), as it is written, " Know ye not that your "body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, "which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" Then again we have BOTH, namely that which is outward, and that which is inward, in 2 Cor. 4

6, 7: " For God, who commanded the light to shine "out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in “the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure "in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power “may be of God, and not, of us." Observe, here the "earthen vessel" corresponds with the "earthly house;" in the passage before us—the "heart" with the "tabernacle," as we have seen in the same passage, the especial abode of the Shechinah, or divine glory within us.

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