In the progress of scripture, we see the blessed God adopting and entering the house, which the faith and service of His saints raise for Him, in a very striking way indeed. It is heartily He does this; or, in His own language, “assuredly with His whole heart and His whole soul.” 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).
We begin to mark this in the wilderness, in the day of Exod. 40. The camp of Israel, in the obedience of faith, had fashioned and furnished the tabernacle. Moses had sealed their work that all had been done according to God. As we read, “Moses did look upon all the work and behold they had done it, as the Lord had commanded; even so had they done it; and Moses blessed them.” And then, the glory filled this curtained house so fully that none other for a time, not even Moses himself, could find place in it.
The same is seen when the house of hewn-stone and cedar was raised in the times of the kingdom by Solomon, in the day of 2 Chron. 5 The glory enters this house of stone, as once it had entered the tent of curtains — was now with Israel in the land as once it had been with Israel in the wilderness. There was no expression of reluctance or indisposedness, altogether the contrary. The God of heaven, whose dominions are only measured by the creation in its limitless length and breadth, enters His house among the children of men, in the midst of the earth’s ruins, in a style which speaks this language, “Here will I dwell, for I have a delight therein.”
It is edifying to see this willing and ready, as well as gracious, intimacy with us on the part of the blessed God. But we have other witnesses of the same in the New Testament.
When the temple, the living temple is raised, as we see in Acts 2, the glory again enters — and in its ancient style; for this style is, (like the Lord of glory Himself) “the same yesterday, today, and forever.” The Holy Ghost enters the assembly of the saints, the living New Testament Temple, with a “sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind,” while cloven tongues, like as of fire, sat upon each of them. This was as the cloud covering the tent, and the glory filling the Tabernacle, in Exod. 40, and this was surely witnessing with what a full heart the Lord was again occupying Himself of the place, which faith had prepared for Him.
This surely is so. The delight and heartiness with which this was done is as simply impressed on the inspired page, as the deed itself.
And again, in Rev. 21 The tabernacle of God is to be with men. God is about to dwell with them — not simply to visit them now and again, as in patriarchal days, at the tent of Abraham, at Mamre, or to shut the door of the ark upon Noah; nor simply to pitch His tent among them, as in the days of the wilderness: but to dwell with them, and take up His abode with them, and to have His home there. And mark again, that this is done, as the like had ever been done, in full earnestness and desire of His heart, a great voice from heaven exultingly announces the fact, and tells out the large and precious fruit that is to follow. Rev. 21:2-42And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, 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. 4And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. (Revelation 21:2‑4).
This is one very happy sight to have of the house of God, one very sweet chapter to read in the story of that house— the manner of the Lord’s adoption of it, and entrance into it. But we will still look at this great object somewhat further; for it is indeed a great sight to see to. God’s house bespeaks Himself. It is the witness of what He is, for He there records His name. See Deut. 12; 14, &c.
It is, therefore, faith which discovers His house, wherever it may be, for it is faith, and faith only, which knows Him. And if He be not known, His house cannot be discovered.
After this manner, in early patriarchal days, Jacob discovered God’s house. He was at that moment the representative of a generation that had destroyed themselves — a sinner. He was a ruined man — at least for the present — and this condition was the fruit of his own iniquity, the end of the way he had taken. Instead of remaining at home, and in his father’s house, the heir of the land, the birthright, and the blessing, he was then an exile, and was soon ίο be a drudge; then wandering, as it were, penniless, without friend or fellow, and soon to be as a hireling, at the mercy of an injurious master. But the God of grace had appeared to him. Heaven’s hand had just been wide opened to him, and the hosts of heaven had pledged him all providential care, let his wanderings and captivities be as wild and as hard as they may. And to crown all this revelation of grace in behalf of this self-ruined sinner, the voice of the Lord had just assured him of final restoration and all its attendant blessings.
Now this was God. This was a full and rich witness of what God is. This was grace abounding over the judgment which man, the sinner, had incurred. This was the gospel, and the gospel is a revelation of God. This, therefore, again, I say, was God.
Jacob discovers all this. He reads that mystic spot, and reads it rightly. “This is none other but the house of God,” he says. God was revealed then, and faith, as it always does, understood the revelation. In the eyes of faith, the desert place called Luz had become Bethel. However barren and wild it may have been in itself it was God’s house, for there God had just recorded His name.
It is beautiful to see faith thus in clear-sightedness making discoveries of God, though much of human infirmity may at the same time be besetting the heart, as was the case with Jacob then, and faith still acts and speaks in him. He calls this house of God, “the gate of heaven.” The simplicity and decision of this is something very fine. For it is indeed thus. If we are in God’s house, though in the midst of man’s ruins, if we have received the record of His name published in a world of sinners, a revolted, rebel world, we are standing at the gate of heaven. Once in the kingdom of the dear Son, we are on the borders of the inheritance of the saints in light. (Col. 1) “Whom he justified, them He also glorified.” (Rom. 8) And so here in the faith of the patriarch. Jacob, having discovered that he was in God’s house, knew that He was standing at the gate of heaven. He was that moment “meet” for glory, since he had known grace. God was thus pledging salvation to him, pardon and peace, and this was enough to assure him, that he was to be at home with Him in His own heaven forever.
Long after these patriarchal days of Jacob, we find the same. I mean in David and in the days of the kingdom of Israel.
Sin had again abounded, but grace had again much more abounded. David, like Jacob, had destroyed himself, but God had visited him with salvation. The Jebusite’s threshing-floor now witnessed this, as once the desert, and stony Luz had witnessed it. (See 1 Chron. 21) God had published His house again—and it is the same house. Time had not changed it — “The same yesterday, today, and forever.” God was revealed then, as He had ever been, and still is; and David did not hesitate. “This is the house of the Lord God,” says he, in the spirit of the patriarch. Each of those had had the same revelations of God, and faith dealt with that revelation in the same confidence, though centuries and centuries had rolled between them.
This is simple and blessed. And it is happy further to sec, with what a jealous, careful, undivided heart David cleaves to the spot. He was afraid to leave it — a good word for us all. Other places had their claims and their fascinations. The high place at Gibeon was the place of the tabernacle and its altar, and the tent which David himself had prepared on Mount Zion was then the dwelling of the Ark. But where God had frankly answered in grace the conditions of a self-ruined sinner, where the sword of judgment had just been sheathed, and the sacrifice had just been accepted by fire from heaven, there David must stay. God had gone on, in the revelation of Himself, as to “the place that is called Calvary,” to Mount Moriah where He had provided Himself a Lamb; and David or faith must go on with Him. Faith must, keep pace with revelation. The light had shone before; but if it had now reached its noon-day fullness, David must not walk as in the earlier twilight. “This is the house of the Lord God,” says he, “and this the altar of burnt offering for Israel.” At the threshing-floor of Ornan he must raise his Ebenezer. The priests of the tabernacle may say, they know no such place; but God had known it, and faith must own it.
And let me just add, it is to be thus with us. We have discovered the house of God. for God has revealed Himself. He has recorded His name, and that forever, in the Jebusite’s floor, on Mount Moriah, which is “the place that is called Calvary” — for there He shines as the just God and yet the Savior, the God of peace, who provided a Lamb for His own altar there, and accepted the sacrifice again, rending the veil, and seating the Purger of sins, in the highest heavens. Faith sits at the table in the house of God when His salvation is celebrated, and says again, as with the patriarch, and with the King of Israel, “This is the house of God, this is the gate of heaven, this is the altar of burnt offering.” There faith, at this hour, shows forth the death of the Lamb of God, and shows it forth as with a burnt-offering of praise; and shows it forth “until He come,” consciously standing at the gate of heaven, or upon the borders and confines of glory. 1 Cor. 11