Where God Dwells

Jesus is the Greater Tabernacle in whom the presence and glory of God reside permanently for Christ’s followers to behold – John 1:14.

The Gospel of John presents Jesus as the place where the glory of God dwells. He is the True and Greater Tabernacle. The worship of men desired by the God who created all things is not limited to dedicated buildings, particular nations, or geographic locations. From now on, we experience the majesty and nature of God in and through Jesus of Nazareth:

• “The hour is coming, when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. <…> But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For such does the Father seek to be his worshippers. God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth” – (John 4:21-24).

• “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in them who are perishing, in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. Seeing it is God who said, Light will radiate out of darkness, who has radiated in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” – (2 Corinthians 4:3-6).

• “And the Word became flesh, and tabernacles among us. And we beheld his glory, the glory as of an only begotten from a Father, full of grace and truth” – (John 1:14).

[Jesus - Photo by Ernesto Leon (Peru) on Unsplash]

The declaration that the ‘Logos’ or Word became flesh echoes the incident at Mount Sinai when God inscribed His ten “words” on the stone tablets that would be housed in the Tabernacle, “the Tent of Witness.” The Word of God now tabernacles among us in the Son of God.

The Greek verb translated as “tabernacled” in the Gospel of John is ‘skénoō’ (Strong’s Concordance - #G4637), meaning “to tabernacle; to pitch a tent.” It is related to the noun ‘skéné’ or “tent,” the same Greek noun used for “tabernacle” in the Greek Septuagint version of the Book of Exodus.

Thus, God “dwells” among His people in His Son, Jesus Christ. Yahweh commanded Israel to “construct a sanctuary for me that I may dwell among them.” What the Ancient Tent prefigured has become reality in Jesus Christ, the “Word made flesh” - (Exodus 25:8-9, 33:7-11).

FULL AND LASTING ACCESS

The presence of God was manifested before the Ancient Tabernacle in the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night. Just as God revealed His presence thusly among the people of Israel, so He now makes His habitation among His New Covenant people in and through Jesus of Nazareth - (Exodus 40:34-35, Numbers 9:15-23).

This same Jesus is “full of grace and truth.” This statement continues the imagery from the story of Exodus. Moses asked Yahweh to show him “His glory.” However, no man could “see His face and live.” Therefore, God placed him in “the cleft of a rock” as He passed by, permitting Moses only to see His “back” for the briefest of moments as He descended in the cloud and passed before him, proclaiming:

• “Yahweh, Yahweh, a God of compassion and grace, slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness and faithfulness” - (Exodus 33:17-23, 34:1-6).

And so, the undiluted glory and nature of God are revealed in Jesus. Rather than momentarily glimpsed from a distance, we see the full glory of the Father in His Son and not just His “backside.” God manifests His glory, grace, and truth forevermore through His Son, and nowhere else:

• “Jesus said to him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me! If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you know him and have seen him” – (John 14:6-7).

• “And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might be preeminent. For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in him should all the fulness dwell” – (Colossians 1:18-19).

• “Who, being an eradiated brightness of his glory and an exact impress of his very being, also bearing up all things by the utterance of his power, purification of sins having achieved, he sat down on the right hand of the majesty in high places, by so much becoming superior to the angels, by as much as, going beyond them, he has inherited a more distinguished name” – (Hebrews 1:3-4).

No longer is God’s presence restricted to man-made structures or only specific locations on the Earth. His presence is as real in Beijing or Paris as it ever was in Jerusalem. Jesus is the substance and fulfilment of everything that the original Tabernacle and the later Jerusalem Temple foreshadowed.

The glory and nature of God reflected in Jesus Christ is full, visible, and available for all men to see, both now and forevermore. This Greater Tabernacle will never be upgraded or replaced.

[PDF Copy]

SEE ALSO:

• The Tent Erected by God - (Jesus intercedes for his people in the Real Tabernacle - the Sanctuary not made with human hands - that God pitched)

• The Holy Sanctuary - (The New Testament applies Tabernacle language and imagery from the Hebrew Bible to the Body of Christ, the Habitation of God’s Holy Spirit)

• The House of God - (Jesus is the true and only way of access to the Father, the Greater Tabernacle, and the House of God – John 1:47-50)

• Où Dieu Habite - (Jésus est le Véritable Tabernacle dans lequel la présence et la gloire de Dieu résident en permanence pour que les disciples du Christ puissent les voir-Jean 1:14)