House of God

Here the Apostle is writing that we might know how to behave ourselves in the house of God in the Lord's absence. God has brought us to Himself as members of the body of Christ, to take our place in the house of God—the habitation of God by the Spirit—in which the saints are builded together (Eph. 2). God has a habitation on the earth, and the Lord's portion is His people. We have the privileges of the house on the one hand, and we are subject to the discipline of the house of God on the other. God by His Spirit dwells in the house of God. The Apostle explains it further in this blessed way: the house of God is the Church—the assembly of the living God. We approach to the living God.
No longer will dead formality meet His heart and His thoughts. The assembly, of which we form part through grace if we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and have been sealed by the Holy Spirit, is the house of God. We are brought into that unity, which composes the assembly of the living God.
It is as true today as it was then that where two or three are gathered in the name of the Lord Jesus, they are taking their place as part of "the assembly of the living God." It may be a feeble expression of it, perhaps, but in its complete unity it comprises all the saints on earth who by the Spirit of the living God believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is a living Person who desires to engage our affections with Himself, in order that we might in our turn present Him in His loveliness to our Father. That is worship.