02.01. THE DWELLING PLACE OF GOD WITH MAN
THE DWELLING PLACE OF GOD WITH MAN “AND the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel... let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them.
According to all that I shew thee, after the pattern of the Tabernacle.” (Exodus 25:1-2; Exodus 25:9) In this you have a revelation of divine grace and divine order.
Grace, that God should consent to dwell among men. Order, that nothing should be done in HIS name, neither by guess, nor will, nor plan of man, but according to His pattern, His will and plan.
He created the first man that He might dwell in him.
Man failed, he sinned, and God’s creation rest was broken up. The purpose of God is unchangeable.
It was necessary that sooner or later there should be a man in whom He could dwell, a man who should be His manifestation, His visibility and incarnation, This Tabernacle now ordered of God to be set up in the wilderness, and whose plan of construction was given in minute detail to Moses, was intended to be, not merely the official dwelling place of God in Israel, but a symbol, a picture and a prophecy of the man in whom God should become incarnate, the man who should be His final and eternal dwelling place. That man exists today as the antitypical fulfillment of God’s purpose. The Apostle John testifies concerning Him.
He says:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (God was the Word). The same was in the beginning with God. (That is, He. was coeval with God) “All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.” This person called the Word of God, the Almighty maker of heaven and earth, came into the world and “was made flesh.”
Such is the statement of John:
“The Word was made flesh.” The verb and tense form, “was made,” is literally “became,” and carries the thought, not of passivity, but activity.
He became flesh by His own action. This definition of the verb form is corroborated in Hebrews 2:14.
There it is written:
“Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same. In becoming flesh He is represented as the sole and responsible actor; He is not the object of some extraneous action that .makes Him to become flesh, He is Himself the actor who so definitely and personally acts that He becomes flesh. This construction is emphasized in Hebrews 2:16 :
“He took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.” (That is, human nature) The Greek verb rendered, “took on him,” is, epilambano, and signifies, “To lay hold of,” “to assume.” The verb is the indicative present, the voice the middle or reflexive. The statement therefore should read:
“He assumes not the nature of angels, but the seed (the nature) of Abraham, He, Himself, assumes.” From this unequivocal Scripture we learn that He who was the eternal Word of God, personally, actively and in individual responsibility assumed for Himself a human nature of flesh and blood. As the assumption of flesh and blood by such an one as the eternal God is incarnation, then God the Word became incarnate by His own will and absolutely by His own creative act.
Since He created and assumed this nature by His own act, that act excludes any producing act or agency less than His own; it excludes any act on the part of man; it necessarily excludes the act of any human father. As He was in respect to His human nature born out of a woman; as the act was entirely the act of God and therefore there could have been no human father, He was logically and necessarily virgin-born, His birth was a Virgin Birth. This is the indisputable testimony of both John and Paul. And this in face of the teaching of would––be wise men (wise above that which is written) that neither John nor Paul says anything about a virgin birth.
John testifies further concerning this incarnation. He not only says the Creator of the universe became flesh and blood, but that He, “Dwelt among us.” The word, “dwelt,” is, literally, “tabernacled.” Therefore we should read:
“The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.”
Here again in language which leaves no excuse for uncertainty we learn that the human nature created and assumed by the Word of God was His Tabernacle, His dwelling place among men.
Thus the purpose of God was achieved.
He found His dwelling place and rest in man.
John goes still further and gives a revelation of His essential identity.
He says:
“We beheld his glory as the only begotten of the Father.”
Thus the Word of God was the Son of God. As a son partakes of the essence of a father, and as the father of the Word was God, then the Word was not only Son of God, but God the Son. As whatever God is essentially today (that is, whatever He is in His being) He always has been, to say He is a Father today, is to say He always has been a Father. Since He has always been the Father, He has always had a Son, and that Son in the nature of the case has eternally been the Son. Since the Father never had a beginning as the Father, the Son never had a beginning, He was coeval with the Father; as it is written: “the same was in the beginning with God.” As a son is begotten of a father and neither God the Father nor God the Son had a beginning, the Son was eternally begotten of the Father. Since He was the only One who ever was or could be eternally begotten, then it is true He was (in this sense) the only begotten of the Father. The Apostle John testifies this only begotten Son of the Father whose glory he beheld as such was––Jesus Christ.
John the Baptist so announced Him.
He baptized Him in the river Jordan, and after he had baptized Him, pointed Him out to some of His own disciples and said:
“I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God.” Nathanael when he met Him confessed Him and said:
“Rabbi, thou art the Son of God.”
Here, therefore, is the amazing, but undeniable fact:
He whom we know as our Lord Jesus Christ is none other than that Son of God and God the Son who created the universe; that creative Word who in Genesis 1:26, breaks the silence of Godhead, saying, “Let us make man in our image;” and in Genesis Second is seen to be the Lord God––Yaveh Elohim, the declared Creator of the earth and the heavens and recorded spokesman of Godhead. By the same omnipotence with which He created all things (so that without Him there was not one thing made that was made) He created for Himself a sinless, perfect human nature, took it into union with His infinite person and personally dwelt in it as His Tabernacle––His dwelling place among men.
Concerning this indwelling of His humanity Paul says:
“In him dwelleth all the fulness of the godhead bodily.” By “fulness “is meant, not merely the majesty and might of God, but that which alone constitutes the fulness of the Godhead––nothing less than the personalities of the Godhead.
He is therefore the absolute, concrete of the Tri-unity of, Godhead.
He Himself says the person of the Father dwelt in Him. When Philip said to Him: “Shew us the Father,”
He answered and said:
“He that hath seen me hath seen the Father the Father dwelleth in me.” (Not some characteristics of the Father, but the Father Himself) Speaking of the Holy Spirit in relation to Him, John the Baptist says:
“God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him.” He had the measurelessness of the Spirit, and the measurelessness of the Spirit is the Spirit Himself.
Concerning His own personalism as a Son in relation to the Father, John says:
“No man hath seen God (that is, God the Father) at any time (neither will He ever be seen apart from the Son) the only begotten Son (in some readings it is begotten God) which is in the bosom of the Father, he only hath declared him.”
Literally, “hath told him out.” That is, He has spoken Him out, worded Him forth; in short, He is the• Word of the otherwise eternal silence of God. With profoundest reverence, therefore, I would say (never for a moment with the slightest intent, suggesting or hinting at any modification, mixture or change of the divine persons of the Godhead) I would say all there is of God (all there is of the one essential being of the Godhead) is in Jesus Christ, and apart from Jesus Christ there is no God.
Such a phrase as, “God out of Christ,” is untenable and intellectually impossible.
Beyond all “controversy” He was,
“God manifest in the flesh.” (1 Timothy 3:16) “The image of the invisible God.” (Colossians 1:16) “The express image of his person.” (Hebrews 1:3) “Our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ.” (Titus 2:13) The “Over All God.” (Romans 9:5) And now with outburst of joy and adoration John the “Beloved” disciple who leaned upon His breast and heard the throb beat of His heart says of Him in terms that swing wide as eternity:
“Jesus Christ––this is the true God and eternal life.” (1 John 5:20) Wonderful beyond words is the PERSON of Him whom we style as our Lord Jesus Christ.
He is––
“The man Christ Jesus.”
He in whom the fulness of the Being of God now dwells and abidingly rests not only because of the perfection of His humanity, but, also, because of the redemption He achieved by offering that humanity in sacrificial death making an atonement for sin, demonstrating the inexorableness of divine righteousness, satisfying all its claims, justifying God in all his ways and thereby opening up a legal channel through which the love of God might flow righteously and in saving value to all who by faith should offer up His crucified Son as a sacrifice for sin and claim Him as a personal substitute under the judgment due them. In Him the rest of God is not creation rest, it is redemption rest. The conscience of God is at rest because of His law justified, His grace proclaimed and His love revealed.
Here, indeed, is “the true tabernacle which God pitched, and not man.” (Hebrews 8:1)
Study the Tabernacle in the wilderness with surrendered faith and you will find in every detail of its inspired construction a revelation of the Infinite Person, the Finished Work and the Resplendent Glory of our soon coming Lord.