Dwelling-Place for the Lord

Notes

1. The Lord invited His people to build Him a sanctuary. In so doing He expressed a desire to dwell among them. He has cherished this desire and expressed it in different ways from the beginning. By creating man and visiting him, He showed a desire for his companionship. When man departed so far from Him that his thoughts were only evil, God was grieved, but still showed His desire to dwell with him by preparing an ark for saving all who would enter it. Ex. 25:8 again reveals the same desire, also Matt. 1:23; John 1:14. It is again expressed in strong language in the Saviour's prayer to His Father. John 17:24. It is also expressed by promise in John 14:3 and in 1 Thess. 4:16, 17. He will be satisfied when the New Jerusalem comes down from heaven, and the Father and Son come to dwell with us eternally. Rev. 21:2, 3. "I will dwell in them and walk in them" had also reference to God's dwelling in the sanctuary. See Ex. 29:43, 45; Lev. 26:11, 12. The Spirit of God quotes it as referring to the temple of our body, thus showing that the sanctuary was but an object lesson of the real dwelling-place of God.

2. God is not satisfied with heaven and earth as His dwelling-place, for His own hands made these; but He asks us to build Him an house and place of rest, and says He will look for it in the contrite heart. Isa. 57:15.

3. Moses was exhorted to "look" that he make all things after the pattern (Ex. 25:40), and he was careful to do so (Ex. 39:43). So in order for us to build after the Pattern, we must study the Pattern, look "unto Jesus." "By beholding, we become changed."