The Habitation of God

Jesus is the real sanctuary foreshadowed by the tabernacle, and he is the High Priest “forever” who serves in it on our behalf.

Jesus is the Sanctuary of God foreshadowed in the religious structures and worship rituals of Ancient Israel, the place where God’s presence and glory reside and are manifested for all men to see. He is also the one and only High Priest who mediates between Heaven and Earth for his people in “the True Tabernacle pitched by the Lord.”

The lowly man from Nazareth is the sanctuary where God now dwells. He is the Temple “made without hands” that was destroyed by evil men but restored in all its intended splendor when God raised Jesus from the dead – (John 2:19 – “Destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up”).

[Mount Ararat - Photo by Daniel Born (Prague) on Unsplash]

With Christ’s Death and Resurrection, questions about the proper location of the Temple or the conduct of its rituals become irrelevant. Holy ground is found wherever the Son of Man stands, and we worship God in the spirit:

• “The hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. <…> The hour is coming and now is when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth” - (John 4:21-24).

The fullness of God dwells in Christ, the habitation of God. Moreover, Jewish and Gentile believers are “circumcised with the circumcision made without hands,” the “circumcision in flesh” is now neither here nor there. Once restricted to the outer courts of the Jerusalem Temple, women, Gentiles, and believing Jews all have full access to the presence and knowledge of God through His Son.

• “Seeing it is God who said, Light will shine out of darkness, who shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” – (2 Corinthians 4:6).

• “For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in him should all the fullness dwell, and through him to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross; through him, I say, whether things upon the earth, or things in the heavens. And you, being in time past alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil works, yet now he has reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and without blemish and unreproveable before him” – (Colossians 1:19-22).

Returning to the old structures of the Levitical priesthood and rituals would be foolhardy and amount to regression to the time of shadows and bondage - (Ephesians 2:11-22, Colossians 2:9-17).

• “At that time, not knowing God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are no gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how do you turn again to the weak and beggarly elementary spirits to which you desire to be enslaved again? You narrowly observe days, and months, and seasons, and years. I am afraid of you, lest by any means I have bestowed labour upon you in vain” – (Galatians 4:8-11).

No longer are we subject to the calendrical cycles, dietary restrictions, repeated animal sacrifices, and holy spaces of the old order. Such practices were “shadows of the coming things” that have come to fruition in Jesus Christ.

God never intended for Israel to achieve perfection through the Levitical rituals and sacrifices; otherwise, He would not have promised a greater High Priest, a “better sacrifice,” and “the New Covenant.” Moreover, a change of priesthood also means a “change of law.” The Levitical system was powerless to perfect anyone; therefore, Jesus became the “guarantor of a better covenant,” appointed to a better and “untransferable priesthood” based on his endless resurrection life - (Hebrews 7:11-28).

SUPERIOR PRIEST AND COVENANT

The old covenant was “not faultless.” It was incapable of achieving the “purification of sins,” and the arrival of the New Covenant has rendered the old one “obsolete” - (Hebrews 1:1-3, 8:1-13, Jeremiah 31:31-33).

• “But Christ, having become a high priest of the good things to come, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, nor yet through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, entered in once for all into the holy place, having obtained everlasting redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling them that have been defiled, sanctify unto the cleanness of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the everlasting Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” - (Hebrews 9:11-14).

Jesus is the supremely superior High Priest, the mediator who entered the “greater and more perfect Tabernacle - not made with hands,” the Tent that was “pitched by God.” In this tent, Jesus ministers for us in the very presence of God. He is the Messiah in whom “the Glory of God tabernacles” - (John 1:4-14, Luke 1:78-79, 2:32, Acts 26:23, Hebrews 9:11-24).

The mission given to Israel to be a light to the nations has now fallen to Jesus and his disciples. He came to the “circumcision to confirm the promises made to the fathers.” This included the promise that “the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy.”

As Isaiah prophesied, Jesus is “the root of Jesse risen to reign over the Gentiles,” and he now reigns over the nations as “the Ruler of the Kings of the Earth.” His realm extends far beyond Jerusalem and the territory of Palestine, and he is the Lord and Saviour of us all - (Romans 15:8-9, Revelation 1:4-6).

When Stephen testified before the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, he reminded the priestly authorities that “the Most High does not dwell in places made by hand.” The Temple building and the Tabernacle were man-made structures – Shadows and types of the true habitation of God’s Spirit, namely, the prototypes, as it were, of Jesus Christ and his “Body, the Assembly of the saints” – (Acts 7:48).

• “So then, you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, being built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief corner stone, in whom each several building, fitly framed together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit” – (Ephesians 2:19-22).

• “If you have tasted that the Lord is gracious, to whom coming, a living stone, rejected indeed of men, but with God elect, precious; you also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” – (1 Peter 2:3-5).

With Christ’s victory over sin and death, the time of shadows has come to an end. He is the ‘telos’, the “goal” of the Mosaic Legislation, including the tabernacle, priesthood, and repeated animal sacrifices of the Book of Leviticus - (Romans 10:4).

Jesus is our “priest forever” who serves on our behalf in the Real Sanctuary. In his Death and Resurrection, the structures of the old regime have reached their intended conclusion.

• “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having a great priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart in fullness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and having our body washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope that it does not waver, for he is faithful who promised” - (Hebrews 10:19-23).

The New Testament does not abandon the promises of an ideal Temple and pure worship described in the Hebrew Bible, but it interprets them in consideration of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus. The promises of God are fulfilled in and by him. As long as we remain in Christ, we are the Habitation of God, and he is our mediator and representative in the very presence of God – (2 Corinthians 1:20).

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SEE ALSO:

• The Tabernacle of God - (Ever since the Word became flesh, God’s Glory has been manifested in Jesus of Nazareth, and all who believe in him behold God’s splendor)

• The Tent Pitched by God - (Jesus intercedes without ceasing for his people in the true heavenly Tabernacle, one not made with human hands)

• Our Great High Priest - (Jesus is the High Priest of the Heavenly Sanctuary, “made without hands” foreshadowed by the Tabernacle in the wilderness)

• L'Habitation de Dieu - (Jésus est le véritable sanctuaire préfiguré par le tabernacle, et il est le Souverain Sacrificateur “pour toujours " qui y sert en notre nom)