Part 1: Creation | Part 2: Covenant | Part 3: Marriage
Has God given up on his people? Has he divorced them with no hope of reconciliation?
In the account so far, we have reason to think otherwise.
At the dedication of the Temple, Solomon had prayed,
Now therefore arise, O Lord God, into thy resting place, thou, and the ark of thy strength: let thy priests, O Lord God, be clothed with salvation, and let thy saints rejoice in goodness (2Ch 6.41).
Solomon, who will be worshiping idols in his old age (1K 11.4-8), invites God to reside in the house he has built in Israel’s capital city. Will God refuse the invitation because of how he knows Israel will behave?
Perhaps surprisingly, no.
Now when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the Lord filled the house. 2 And the priests could not enter into the house of the Lord, because the glory of the Lord had filled the Lord’s house. 3 And when all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down, and the glory of the Lord upon the house, they bowed themselves with their faces to the ground upon the pavement, and worshipped, and praised the Lord, saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever (2Ch 7.1-3).
God wants to dwell in the midst of his people, in spite of everything.
Four centuries later, when some of the Babylonian exiles return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple, God promises to make this Second Temple, admittedly an inferior one (Hag 2.3), even greater than Solomon’s (Hag 2.4-9).
We’ll get to how he does that in a little bit.
And a prophet, Micah, in the midst of lambasting Israel for their sin, writes,
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good;
And what doth the Lord require of thee,
But to do justly, and to love mercy,
And to walk humbly with thy God? (Mic 6.8).
God wants, he really wants, to dwell with his people.
By his providence, the Protestant canon of the Old Testament ends with the word curse (Mal 4.6)—and it is a threat.
But as I noted last time, there’s a page to turn.
Let’s turn it now.
The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham (Mt 1.1).
That first chapter of Matthew demonstrates that Jesus is indeed the son of David (Mt 1.6) and of Abraham (Mt 1.2), and then it demonstrates even more: that this Jesus is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy (Is 7.14) of one to be born of a virgin (Mt 1.18), one who would be “Immanuel” (Mt 1.23)—and Matthew kindly assists his Greek- and English-speaking readers by translating that Hebrew word: “which being interpreted is, God with us.”
God has been silent for 400 years, since Malachi’s “curse.” But now he speaks, and his words reverberate through the halls of history with an assurance: God still wants to dwell with his people.
He is so committed to this intimacy that he himself, in the person of God the Son, takes on human flesh and becomes one of us.
One of Jesus’ closest earthly disciples put it this way:
The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth (Jn 1.14).
He walks among us.
As a baby, he is presented to the Lord in the Temple—a renovated Temple, yes, but still the Temple that Haggai’s people had built.
He will teach and heal in that Temple, in Solomon’s porch, and he will clear the neighboring plaza of moneychangers and profiteers.
He experiences deprivation—hunger, thirst, sorrow, and physical, emotional, and spiritual pain.
He is in all points tempted just as we are, but without sin.
And one Friday afternoon, as he delivers his spirit to God from a cross, the veil of that Temple will be torn in two, from the top to the bottom, opening the way for all to see that the Holiest Place is empty of a physical Ark, but access to God is open as it had never been before.
God with us.
He lives here with us for 30 or 35 years, and then he ascends back to heaven and takes his seat at the Father’s right hand.
Is that it? Less than 4 decades? Or will he dwell with us forever?
Next time.
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