When Solomon was dedicating the newly-built Temple - he asked this question in the midst of his prayer: "But will God really dwell on earth with men?" He goes on to explain that even the highest heavens cannot contain God - so how can we expect Him to be contained in a Temple...
It's a great question - that can be answered in two ways: the Omnipresence of God and the Incarnation of Jesus.
Omnipresence means that God is everywhere at all times. There is nothing that can contain him. While he has a form (or more specifically - while he can take a form), he is not limited by time or space as we are. This is not to be confused with the Eastern religious belief that God is in everything - but simply that God cannot be contained in anything - especially considering that he made everything we know.
The Incarnation is a theological term meaning that Jesus came down from Heaven and chose to live among us in the form of a human. I often say that Jesus is 100% God and 100% human - even though I don't fully understand how - that's what I believe (based on the Bible and centuries of Christian thought).
So to answer Solomon's question: Yes - God will choose to live among us! He has - he still is - and in the end - he will permanently make his dwelling place here - in the New Jerusalem - on the newly re-created earth. Praise be to God!
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Perhaps the most wonderful blessing given to NT saints (besides that of salvation) is that NT saints no longer have need of tabernacles, nor temples, nor even priestly orders wherein God’s presence may be revealed and/or through which we must approach Him. Christ’s death on the cross changed all of that.
Whereas Moses built a tabernacle and Solomon built a temple within which God could establish His presence among His people, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 3:16 that because of Christ’s death on the cross those who believe become God’s temple: “Know [you] not that [you] are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God [dwells] in you?” And again in 1 Corinthians 6:19, “...know [you] not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which [you] have of God, and [you] are not your own? For [you] are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” And, just in case we’ve missed the point, Paul tells us again in 2 Corinthians 6:16. “For [you] are the temple of the living God.”
The writer of Exodus tells us in 40:34 that when the tabernacle had been completed “the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.” And when Solomon dedicated the temple we are told in 1 Kings 8:11, “for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord.” And again in 2 Chronicles 7:1, "...and the glory of the Lord filled the house.” Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:13-14 that not only are believers indwelled with the Holy Spirit at conversion but, we are “sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession...” It can therefore be said, I believe, that each born again Christian has been “filled” with the “glory of the Lord” just as surely as were the tabernacle and the temple.
And Solomon’s prayer of dedication for the temple he built is, in part, I believe, a prayer that is meant for and applies equally as well to every believer who has become a temple for the living God (2 Chronicles 6:19-20): “Have respect therefore to the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplication, O Lord my God, to hearken unto the cry and the prayer which thy servant [prays] before thee: that thine eyes may be open upon this house day and night, upon the place whereof thou hast said that thou [would] put they name there...hear thou from thy dwelling place, even from heaven, and when thou [hears] forgive.”
Having been sanctified and set apart from the world as one of His children, and sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, we can pray that His eyes are upon us day and night because it is upon each born again Christian that He has put His holy name. So. Does God live among us? Even more so. He lives within us!!!
Rob - thanks for your comments here. I absolutely agree that God lives within each believer - thanks for all the scriptures to back that up.
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