The House Of God

by ARCHIBALD, J.W. | Category: Names That Need To Be Known | Sept 2006

We begin with the words of the great and wise King Solomon, ‘But will God indeed dwell with mankind on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain You; how much less this house which I have built’ (2 Chr.6:18). It is indeed one of the most exciting truths revealed in the Scriptures: that God desires to have a dwelling place among His people on the earth.

The tent in the wilderness

We find this desire expressed to Moses at Sinai in the words, ‘Let them construct a sanctuary for Me, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I am going to show you, as the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furniture, just so you shall construct it’ (Ex.25:8,9). Here, like Solomon, we may well wonder at the grace and humility of God in this intention. He had mightily delivered the Israel people from the tyranny of Egypt, to make them His people, give them His laws, teach them how to serve Him and take them to the promised land. But it was also His purpose to dwell in the midst of their encampment in the wilderness. The Almighty who fills all heaven with His glory was to make His earthly dwelling place a tent that His people were to construct for Him!

At Mount Sinai the people of Israel became God’s kingdom and nation when they pledged their obedience to His law and were sprinkled with the blood of the covenant that God made with them (Ex.24:7,8). As part of this arrangement God gave them the pattern of how they were to serve Him collectively, centred on His sanctuary. Thus the people of Israel became uniquely God’s possession among all the peoples of the earth.

In all of this it is important to recognize that they were not free to serve God in a manner of their own choice. God gave them detailed instructions about how they were to please Him. They were not given liberty to design the structure or choose the fabric and furnishings of His house. This is made clear in the words of God to Moses (see Heb.8:5).

The temple in Jerusalem

Some five centuries later, David the king of Israel, a man after God’s heart, had a deep and lifelong interest in God’s dwelling place. When God had established him in his kingdom, he said to Nathan the prophet, ‘See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells within tent curtains’ (2 Sam.7:2). Although David was not permitted by God to build the temple, God’s house had a very special place in his heart and writings. God showed him the place where it was to be built and gave him the plans for the building and its furnishing and the order of service within it. "All this," said David, ‘"the LORD made me understand in writing by His hand upon me, all the details of this pattern"‘ (1 Chr.28:19).

When King Solomon built the House of God in Mount Moriah at Jerusalem according to the pattern given to his father David, God placed His Name upon it, according to His word through Moses, ‘But you shall seek the LORD at the place which the LORD your God will choose from all your tribes, to establish His name there for His dwelling, and there you shall come’ (Deut.12:5).

The House of God in New Testament times

The Old Covenant applied to an earthly nation, Israel, who served God in an earthly sanctuary. God’s House then was a tent and later a building. As we read the New Testament, and particularly the letter to Hebrews, we learn that, under the New Covenant, God is served by a gathered people of heavenly citizenship who serve, not with earthly ritual in an earthly sanctuary, but have access to the sanctuary of God in heaven, under the High Priesthood of Christ. Under these circumstances, where and what is the practical expression of God’s continuing desire to have a dwelling place on the earth? To answer this we turn first to:

1 Corinthians 3:16,17 ‘Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are’.

The pronouns ‘you’ in these verses are plural in the original and so we understand that the persons in the Church of God in Corinth, to whom this letter is addressed (1:2), are the fabric of the temple or dwelling place of God. The absence of the definite article ‘the’ in the expression translated a temple of God indicates that the Church of God in Corinth was not the entire dwelling place of God on earth, but it would be wrong to assume that the Corinth church was one temple of God and that every other church of God was a separate temple of God. In the Scriptures the temple or house of God is never referred to in the plural. So we understand that God has one dwelling place on the earth at any time. The literal translation of this expression would be ‘you are temple of God’. We can also conclude from these verses that the temple or house of God is not the same thing as the church which is Christ’s Body (Eph.1:22,23) of which every believer in Christ is a member, because that Church is indestructible (Mat.16:18).

1 Timothy 3:15 ‘I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.’

From this we learn that a high standard of behaviour is required of those who are in the house (or household) of God. In cases of serious sin, 1 Corinthians 5 deals with the necessity of putting such offenders out of the church and therefore out of the House of God. Here again the difference from the church the Body is evident since no-one can ever lose his/her place in that church. The expression ‘the living God’ calls to mind the taunts of Elijah to the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, as they vainly and frantically besought Baal’s response to their offerings. But a dead god is one that we could serve in any way we please without any scruples. The living God is not so, and it is His will that must prevail in His house and it is His commands that must be obeyed by those of His household. Here the title the church of the living God is applied to the aggregate of all the churches of God on earth at the time.

1 Peter 2:3-5 ‘if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house ... to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.’

1 Peter chapters 1 and 2 confirm and add precision to the ideas derived from the scriptures examined earlier. In chapter 1 Peter tells us a lot about the people to whom he is writing. They were believers in God (v.21), who had been redeemed with the precious blood of Christ (v.18,19), born again of the imperishable seed of the Word of God (v.23). This is why he calls them living stones in 2:5. But he also speaks of them obeying Jesus Christ and being sprinkled with His blood (1:2). The sprinkling of blood here has the same significance as it had for Israel in Exodus 24:8. This sprinkling of the blood of Christ identifies the addressees of Peter’s letter as the people of God under the New Covenant in recognition of their obedience to the teaching of Christ their Lord. It certainly means that they were baptised in water, for that is identified as the first pledge of obedience for disciples of Christ (Mat.28:19,20), and that they were added to a church of God, for that is a step associated with and immediately following baptism in the teaching of the Lord (Acts 2:41). This addition, Peter describes in 2:4,5 as coming to the Lord as to a living stone and acknowledging His Lordship by being built up as a spiritual house for God. We note that the imagery of stones being built together to form a house certainly implies a close and ordered relationship between the stones deriving from the design of the building.

From these scriptures then, we conclude that God’s dwelling place on earth in New Testament times, consists of believers in Christ who, acknowledging His Lordship, are placed in a conditional relationship with fellow disciples in churches of God. These churches in fellowship together form one community which God recognizes as His House. It is also clear that this conditional unity of disciples and churches is not the same thing as the Church the Body of Christ, which of course consists of all believers in Christ, whether or not they are in any visible fellowship with one another on earth.

The importance of exact adherence to the divine pattern

We have seen the emphasis placed on following the divinely given pattern of God’s House in the experience of Moses and David and have referenced the reiteration of the principle in the explanation of New Covenant service in the letter to the Hebrews (8:5). Men must always approach and serve God in His specified way and not according to their own ideas. Failure to recognize this has been a besetting problem in the entire history of mankind’s attempts to please God, and is the reason for the multitude of practices and forms of worship in the many Christian denominations today, sadly evincing a widespread departure from the simple order set out in the teaching and practice of the Lord and His apostles. In all this well-meaning diversity of collective (and often devoted) Christian service it is sobering to reflect on the Lord’s word, ‘Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice’ (1 Sam.15:22). The pattern of God’s House under the New Covenant is the God-given constitution, teaching and practices of the people (living stones built together) who are its fabric. It must be implemented accurately and fully if God is to feel at home in such a dwelling place.

Love for God’s House

David said, ‘O LORD, I love the habitation of Your house’ (Ps.26:8). The revelation that God had a place on earth in which He would dwell with His people was more precious to David than anything else. How much greater is the interest and the pleasure in this subject of our blessed Master Himself, who is Son over God’s House (Heb.3:6). Of Him it is written: ‘Zeal for Your house will consume me’ (John 2:17). When we understand that the whole Being of the Son of God is eaten up with desire for God’s House, how could we be indifferent to it or regard it as a truth of lesser importance or beauty? Of course, anything of special value to the Lord will be relentlessly attacked by Satan who tries to obscure its significance in the minds of God’s children, but the matter of collective worship and service in the right way, is important, and God’s House is a vital subject. The Lord does have a pattern for that House and its service, and happy are those who find it and follow it (Ps.84:4).

ARCHIBALD, J.W. | Sept 2006
Names That Need To Be Known