In our contemplation of the great eternal
purpose of God to dwell with men, we have utterly been taking account of what is
called in the prophecy of Ezekiel "The Law of the House," or what the Psalmist
refers to when he says, "Holiness becometh thy house, O Lord, for ever." We
have seen the introduction of the house of God with Jacob and noted that from
that introduction in Genesis 28, to his return to Bethel in chapter 35, there
had taken place twenty years of discipline in order to make him a fit subject
for Bethel, the house of God. In this latter chapter where the Lord commands him
to arise and go up to Bethel and dwell there, we have seen that he had
come to realise that the house of God demands the putting away of everything not
in accordance with the absolute holiness and the undivided rights of God; so
that he instantly commanded his household to put away the foreign gods that were
among them. Those represented idolatry, and idolatry is purely and simply
worship according to man's thoughts and not according to God's truth. Thus we
see that a relationship to the house of God must be upon God's basis and
not man's thoughts.
God never brings His house down to us, we have
to be brought up to it. Very often there elapses a long period between our
introduction to the truth of the house of God, and our coming to dwell
experimentally and with understanding in it. During that period, as with Jacob,
the flesh has to be crippled, a new and spiritual name, which implies a
spiritual nature, has to be received. We note that on his way to the house of
God it says that a man met him and wrestled with him; angels had met him
on the way, but it was a man that wrestled with him. If we rightly
understand the significance of this, it is God in Christ, a man wholly governed
by the Spirit who challenges man in the flesh and proves how weak he is at best
in the strength of the flesh, and how necessary it is for that flesh to be
broken and its strength withered, and how that man until his name, which is his
nature, is changed, cannot dwell at Bethel. We can never be in the house of God
to abide, in the flesh. This can only be as we are in the Spirit. "They that are
after the flesh cannot please God."
At the time of our new birth we receive
everything in germ. The fulness of God's purpose is all there in truth from the
beginning, but it is often not until years afterward that we come to realise
what was contained in the germ. So many there are who think that such
revelations as the house of God, are extra or different truths from the truth of
salvation, but in reality this is that which God had in view from the very
beginning, and herein is the necessity for going on unto full growth, or
completeness.
Jacob also teaches us that there is a peril of,
even after receiving the Spirit, reverting to carnal methods or earthly
connections. This is seen in the period between Genesis 32 and 35. The New
Testament is not without examples of this, but it is always fraught with the
most perilous elements.
When Jacob eventually reaches Bethel he builds
an altar and pours out a drink offering to speak of that which is unto God's
pleasure and satisfaction. He has now come to delight himself in the Lord and
this as the outcome of the Lord's taking pleasure in him though unworthy he had
been. By this drink offering he is declaring himself wholly for the Lord. In
chapter 28, while Jacob received a revelation of the house of God, he was really
ahead of his spiritual state; now in chapter 35 he has come abreast of the
revelation and it is no longer a strenuous obligation, it is a matter of
spiritual delight and satisfaction. He has moved from the place where his own
interests were mainly in view, to the place where God's
interests are supreme. It is the difference between having light and having
life.
Second Phase: The House as a
Heavenly Revelation
We now pass to a further development of the
great truth of the house of God. The scripture is now in the book of Exodus,
chapters 32, 33 and 40. That which is supremely before us here is not so much
the condition of those who are associated with the house of God, as it is the
necessity for things being constituted wholly according to the mind of God, as
under His most particular direction. Glancing back for a moment to Exodus
chapter 15 it is important and interesting to note that in the song of Moses and
Miriam on the resurrection side of the Red Sea, with the power of Egypt broken,
and the enemy overwhelmed in judgment, the object of Israel's deliverance is
brought into view thus - "Thou wilt bring them in and plant them in the mountain
of thine inheritance, in the place, O Jehovah, which thou hast made for thee to
dwell in, the Sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have
established" (verse 17). Thus we see that the house of God is the ultimate
object for which the people of God are delivered out of the authority of
darkness. So the individual and corporate dwelling place of the Lord is linked
with salvation as its very purpose. When we come to chapter 25, we find that the
Lord takes the initiative in this matter, saying "Let them make me a Sanctuary,"
and in this connection, the whole pattern to the most remote detail is produced
by His own mind; man's wisdom or judgment have no place whatever in it. That is
a thought which it would be well to carry right through into our present-day
conception of the Church, the house of God.
It seems clear that there was a lapse of time
between the giving of the instructions and the actual carrying of them out. In
that period we have the events of chapters 32 and 33 in which there is the lapse
on the part of the people and the making of the golden calf by Aaron. Here
idolatry is introduced once more and, as we have seen, it is not a matter of
departure from Jehovah altogether, but the constituting of the worship of God
according to man's own ideas. It is bringing God down to a level which is not
worthy of Him and which is more the creature than the Creator. Let us remember
that this is the nature of idolatry; not that a Supreme God is ruled out but
that He is reduced to the ideas of man.
The House of God and the
Judgment of Sin
This led to a very severe course with the
people on the part of Moses as we see in the narrative; judgment and destruction
followed and Moses took and placed outside of the camp the Tent of meeting;
evidently not the one referred to in chapter 32, but a temporary one, and
it would seem quite clear that he had spiritual understanding as to the meaning
of the dwelling place of God, namely, that it is a place altogether separate
from sin and darkness and idolatry and has its being upon the very basis of the
judgment of sin.
It is a thing of which to take notice, that
wherever we have the house of God coming into view, we also always have the
forces of evil coming out. It is here in Exodus, the adversary breaks in amongst
God's people with idolatry to capture the worship of God for himself, and to
frustrate the completing of that habitation of God. It is most clearly seen when
we come to the letter to the Ephesians, where the main subject is "the Church
which is His Body" and as against this the Principalities and Powers are seen to
be in active operation. One of his most successful methods of destroying the
true House of God, is that of constituting worship according to man's thoughts
instead of according to God's revelation, and the bringing in of the house of
God in the book of Exodus as we have noted, particularly relates to things being
made according to the pattern as shown in the Mount. To deal with this false
thing which has broken in, there needs to be that spiritual priestly energy as
displayed by Moses and the sons of Levi in taking the sword, judging this
idolatry without regard for sentiment or natural relationship. "The sword of the
Spirit which is the Word of God" is "quick and powerful, and sharper than any
two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit,
joints and marrow" (Hebrews 4:12).
We further note that when on the basis of this
complete judgment of sin the Tent of meeting was pitched outside of the camp
where worship had been constituted according to man's thoughts, then the Lord
talked with Moses face to face as a man speaketh unto his friend. Thus
fellowship, communion, revelation are bound up with complete separation from all
that is of man, even though it be religious. When we come to the New Testament
and to the place where the Church comes actually into being, we find a company
spiritually separated from the religious order of the day, as it were outside
the camp, and there the Lord manifested His presence, constituted them the first
members of His spiritual house, and gathered to them a company of the saved who
had come under the power of the sword, the Word, piercing, cutting, and leading
to repentance. It is in this sense that the Church is the Ecclesia or "called
out" company, partaking of the nature of Him Who was "Holy, harmless and
separate from sinners." Thus it is that the "true habitation of God through the
Spirit," "The Church which is His Body," "The House of God" is that which comes
to be known by the Believer, not along the line of historic conception, or
traditional acceptance, or even doctrinal presentation, but by revelation to the
heart by the Holy Spirit. It is essentially a heavenly thing; a spiritual thing.
The Apostle Paul had to be caught up into the
third heaven to be shown the true nature of the Church, and when seeking to
speak of that revelation to saints here on earth, he realised the necessity and
prayed earnestly for them that they might be given "a spirit of wisdom and
revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of their hearts being enlightened."
The dimensions which he goes on to mention "the breadth and length and height
and depth" are the dimensions of that ultimate dwelling-place of God when the
new Jerusalem comes down from God out of heaven and it is said "the tabernacle
of God is with men." This is Christ in His fulness as corporately manifested; in
other words, the Church of the living God. Our need today is for a fresh
revelation of what the house of God is according to God's mind and not according
to man's construction. We have said that in that which is of God, man's judgment
and wisdom have no place, everything is by the Holy Spirit.