God With Us
A question many ask is this; “Is God with me?” For the orthodox Christian, the theological answer is simple. “God is omnipresent, so yes, he is with you.” But orthodox claims aside, is that commonly what we experience? Do we always know that God is with us or do we from time to time find ourselves intimidated by circumstance in the world around us? If that happens (and I know it does in my life), this would suggest at times we struggle to hold on to the reality of God always being present with us.
Several years ago, I was learning my first few Hebrew words. I remember starting to put a few together. I learned “eem” is “with”. Next, “anu” is a pronoun for “us” that attaches to words. In this way “eemanu” means “with us”. Then I realized when you add “El” to the mix, one of the words for God, you get “eem-anu-el” or “God with us”. I learned that Immanuel means “God with us” and was excited by this new discovery. In reality, I had known that Immanuel means “God with us” for some time. Every Christmas we hear the words in Matthew that tell us “they will call him Immanuel which means ‘God with us.’” (Matthew 1:23). I “learned” what is actually a common understanding to many.
Even though you could say I didn’t truly learn anything new, I did understand something already known, but in a different way. The reality of experiencing “God with me” in that moment did not change. What did change was an increased anticipation of that experience, simply by understanding an expression on another level.
There is a hunger in the heart of God’s people to know and experience that he is with them. We see this in the life of Moses. He was to lead God’s people but indicated that without knowing that God was with them he saw the task as overwhelming (Ex 33:12-15). In essence Moses tells God, “If you don’t come with me, I’m not going”. As Jesus followers, we live in a world that often does life with a very different set of values. We too, often have the experience “if you aren’t with me I don’t want to do this”.
The purpose of what follows is to look at an expression of God’s intention for us to know his presence is with us, that hides in plain sight. Perhaps “in plain sight” is misleading. The information is in plain sight, but the understanding of the information is obscured by thousands of years, embedded in layers of “cultural rock”. Fortunately, there are people who devote careers to getting under the layers of debris and making sure the information is not lost. We get the benefit of their work. One such source of that is Jon Levinson and his book Creation and the Persistence of Evil. Much of what follows is informed by his work.
The expression that we will eventually be looking at has to do with temples. In order to do the cultural translation, we first need to look at what a temple is. Simply put, a temple is a place where heaven and earth intersect. Heaven is not a place at a certain latitude, longitude and altitude, but rather it is the dwelling place of the divine. Earth is the place humans inhabit. In this way a temple is defined as the place where divine space (heaven), and human space (earth), intersect or overlap. When Israel, at the Lord’s instruction, builds a temple, they are constructing a meeting place. This is where humans and God will be in the same place at the same time. This is where heaven and earth have come together. This is a temple, a heaven and earth story.
What might not be noticed is that the temple harkens back to God’s plan from the beginning. In order to illustrate this, we will start with Solomon’s temple and work our way back to the beginning. This won’t be exhaustive review, but looking at some elements that are common and signal some important messages.
In King David’s lifetime he collected the materials to build a temple for God. But, it is during the reign of his son Solomon that the building project takes place. Here are a few details that are included in the account of the building and dedication of the temple. It took seven years to build it (1 Kings 6:37-38). The Ark was brought to the temple upon completion and was dedicated in the seventh month. This was during the Feast of “Tabernacles” which itself was a seven day celebration (1 Kings 8:1-2), however, on this occasion they celebrated “before the LORD our God for seven days and seven days more...”(1 Kings 8:65). During the dedication, Solomon prays and his prayer is divided made up of seven petitions (1 Kings 8:31-32, 33-34, 35-37a, 37b-40, 41-43, 44-45, 46-53). While not every detail in the account has something to do with a number seven it is a noticeable feature.
From Solomon’s Temple we move further back in time to the portable temple, constructed in the wilderness, after the Exodus from Egypt, called the Tabernacle. The instructions for building this desert dwelling comes in seven speeches from Yahweh. Seven times we see a section of instructions that starts with “The Lord said to Moses”. (Ex 25:1, 30:11, 30:17, 30:22, 30:34, 31:1, 31:12). The seventh speech is all about observing the sabbath (31:12-17). There is more to explore in the Tabernacle, but we will come back to this.
The next temple I want to explore is the one that might not be recognized without connecting some of the cultural dots. As noted above, temples are all about heaven and earth. When we open to the beginning of Genesis we read “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Creation as it turns out is a “heaven and earth” story, a temple story. This also comes in a seven-part construction (seven days). Similar to the seventh Yahweh speech for the wilderness tabernacle, the seventh day also expresses the significance of Sabbath.
As we move through the creation account, we come to the place where humans are going to be made. Creation of humans is placed comes at a specific place within the account. If you were building a temple to the god Zeus, once you had everything in place, you would need to make the image or the idol so you know about the god you are to worship in that temple. The cosmos sized temple in Genesis is no different. When God is nearing completion of creation, he says “let us make humanity in our image”. Instead of a statue of himself, God makes living breathing animated “idols”. He makes us. Human beings are his image bearers so that the world can see a pointer to the God of creation, the one worthy of worship. This is why no image of God is to be made. He has already placed his image in the heaven and earth size temple, you and me.
One may ask at this point if there are more parallels or not. There are. Before the first reported acts of creation, it is stated that the Spirit of God, the ruah elohim, is hovering above the waters. This phrase does not appear again until the construction of the wilderness tabernacle. The second time the specific phrase, ruah elohim appears is when the world of the wilderness tabernacle is going to be built (Exodus 31). We are told that Bezalel, the craftsman, has been filled with the ruah elohim (spirit of God) so that he can be the artisan that would create the tabernacle. This is a signal that a “new world” is about to be created, but created in miniature. This world is a microcosmos. The tabernacle mini-world will retell the heaven and earth story, complete with God’s intention for these two realms to overlap so that God would have his dwelling with humanity.
Several years ago, I was learning my first few Hebrew words. I remember starting to put a few together. I learned “eem” is “with”. Next, “anu” is a pronoun for “us” that attaches to words. In this way “eemanu” means “with us”. Then I realized when you add “El” to the mix, one of the words for God, you get “eem-anu-el” or “God with us”. I learned that Immanuel means “God with us” and was excited by this new discovery. In reality, I had known that Immanuel means “God with us” for some time. Every Christmas we hear the words in Matthew that tell us “they will call him Immanuel which means ‘God with us.’” (Matthew 1:23). I “learned” what is actually a common understanding to many.
Even though you could say I didn’t truly learn anything new, I did understand something already known, but in a different way. The reality of experiencing “God with me” in that moment did not change. What did change was an increased anticipation of that experience, simply by understanding an expression on another level.
There is a hunger in the heart of God’s people to know and experience that he is with them. We see this in the life of Moses. He was to lead God’s people but indicated that without knowing that God was with them he saw the task as overwhelming (Ex 33:12-15). In essence Moses tells God, “If you don’t come with me, I’m not going”. As Jesus followers, we live in a world that often does life with a very different set of values. We too, often have the experience “if you aren’t with me I don’t want to do this”.
The purpose of what follows is to look at an expression of God’s intention for us to know his presence is with us, that hides in plain sight. Perhaps “in plain sight” is misleading. The information is in plain sight, but the understanding of the information is obscured by thousands of years, embedded in layers of “cultural rock”. Fortunately, there are people who devote careers to getting under the layers of debris and making sure the information is not lost. We get the benefit of their work. One such source of that is Jon Levinson and his book Creation and the Persistence of Evil. Much of what follows is informed by his work.
The expression that we will eventually be looking at has to do with temples. In order to do the cultural translation, we first need to look at what a temple is. Simply put, a temple is a place where heaven and earth intersect. Heaven is not a place at a certain latitude, longitude and altitude, but rather it is the dwelling place of the divine. Earth is the place humans inhabit. In this way a temple is defined as the place where divine space (heaven), and human space (earth), intersect or overlap. When Israel, at the Lord’s instruction, builds a temple, they are constructing a meeting place. This is where humans and God will be in the same place at the same time. This is where heaven and earth have come together. This is a temple, a heaven and earth story.
What might not be noticed is that the temple harkens back to God’s plan from the beginning. In order to illustrate this, we will start with Solomon’s temple and work our way back to the beginning. This won’t be exhaustive review, but looking at some elements that are common and signal some important messages.
In King David’s lifetime he collected the materials to build a temple for God. But, it is during the reign of his son Solomon that the building project takes place. Here are a few details that are included in the account of the building and dedication of the temple. It took seven years to build it (1 Kings 6:37-38). The Ark was brought to the temple upon completion and was dedicated in the seventh month. This was during the Feast of “Tabernacles” which itself was a seven day celebration (1 Kings 8:1-2), however, on this occasion they celebrated “before the LORD our God for seven days and seven days more...”(1 Kings 8:65). During the dedication, Solomon prays and his prayer is divided made up of seven petitions (1 Kings 8:31-32, 33-34, 35-37a, 37b-40, 41-43, 44-45, 46-53). While not every detail in the account has something to do with a number seven it is a noticeable feature.
From Solomon’s Temple we move further back in time to the portable temple, constructed in the wilderness, after the Exodus from Egypt, called the Tabernacle. The instructions for building this desert dwelling comes in seven speeches from Yahweh. Seven times we see a section of instructions that starts with “The Lord said to Moses”. (Ex 25:1, 30:11, 30:17, 30:22, 30:34, 31:1, 31:12). The seventh speech is all about observing the sabbath (31:12-17). There is more to explore in the Tabernacle, but we will come back to this.
The next temple I want to explore is the one that might not be recognized without connecting some of the cultural dots. As noted above, temples are all about heaven and earth. When we open to the beginning of Genesis we read “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Creation as it turns out is a “heaven and earth” story, a temple story. This also comes in a seven-part construction (seven days). Similar to the seventh Yahweh speech for the wilderness tabernacle, the seventh day also expresses the significance of Sabbath.
As we move through the creation account, we come to the place where humans are going to be made. Creation of humans is placed comes at a specific place within the account. If you were building a temple to the god Zeus, once you had everything in place, you would need to make the image or the idol so you know about the god you are to worship in that temple. The cosmos sized temple in Genesis is no different. When God is nearing completion of creation, he says “let us make humanity in our image”. Instead of a statue of himself, God makes living breathing animated “idols”. He makes us. Human beings are his image bearers so that the world can see a pointer to the God of creation, the one worthy of worship. This is why no image of God is to be made. He has already placed his image in the heaven and earth size temple, you and me.
One may ask at this point if there are more parallels or not. There are. Before the first reported acts of creation, it is stated that the Spirit of God, the ruah elohim, is hovering above the waters. This phrase does not appear again until the construction of the wilderness tabernacle. The second time the specific phrase, ruah elohim appears is when the world of the wilderness tabernacle is going to be built (Exodus 31). We are told that Bezalel, the craftsman, has been filled with the ruah elohim (spirit of God) so that he can be the artisan that would create the tabernacle. This is a signal that a “new world” is about to be created, but created in miniature. This world is a microcosmos. The tabernacle mini-world will retell the heaven and earth story, complete with God’s intention for these two realms to overlap so that God would have his dwelling with humanity.
The plan from the beginning of creation was that God would live with humans in a perpetual experience of Immanuel “God with us”. Humans however chose their own way and found themselves in exile from that experience. The creation of the tabernacle carries the message that God is going to re-establish his presence with humanity. He has chosen one small “hot spot” of his presence with the intention that his chosen people would mediate his presence (the role of a priest in a temple, or in this case a priestly nation), to every nation and family of the earth. Israel was the priest nation that was to be the vehicle restoring the reality of “God with us” to all of creation by starting with mini-creation, the tabernacle.
In all of this, the tabernacle (eventually the temple) and creation are realities that interpret one another. The recognition of creation being a temple is not just about a one to one correspondence between two accounts. Instead, the different elements are present at numerous places within ancient culture. While a number of these are visible as shared cultural elements with Israel and her neighbors of the time, I’ll continue to focus on different witnesses within scripture.
In Exodus 31:3 we see that Bezalel is filled with wisdom (Hokma), knowledge (da’at) and understanding (tebuna). If we turn to Proverbs 3:19 we find that “By wisdom (Hokma) the LORD laid the earth’s foundations, by understanding (tebuna) he set the heavens in place; by his knowledge (da’at) the watery depths were divided. Instead of a one to one connection between Exodus and Genesis, we see common cultural elements that show up in different places.
Many have worked to explain the connections between the different elements that were constructed and placed in the tabernacle and specific elements in creation. My intention is not to try and recount every possible connection. There are indeed a number of connections, but not everyone agrees on the significance at every point. I’m choosing not to focus on these specific details, but on the broader picture.
At this point, someone may raise the issue that this is all in the Old Testament and in the New Testament the need for a temple is done away with. After all, Paul tells the people in Athens “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands”. End of discussion, right? If we thought that, we would miss how the different New Testament writers engage the old understanding of the temple in new way.
Paul uses temple both in explicit and implicit expressions. First, the clear examples are where Paul talks about believers individually being God’s temple (1 Cor 3:16, 6:19-20). While this may look like a new idea, he is making explicit a truth that is implicit in the creation account. When God creates human (Hebrew adam), he takes dirt (adamah) and forms man and breathes in the nostrils is breath of life. Humans then are the stuff of earth (dirt) mixed with the stuff of heaven (spirit/breath of God). In this way, we as human beings are a mix of heaven and earth. We are all temples. Paul, who continually lives out of the scriptural narrative, is making explicit a truth that goes back to creation.
Besides Paul’s explicit use, he also makes strong allusions to the temple. The first example to look at is in the fifth chapter of Ephesians. From verse 15 through 18 we see Paul listing contrasting ways to live. These include “filled with the spirit” versus drunk, wise versus unwise
In all of this, the tabernacle (eventually the temple) and creation are realities that interpret one another. The recognition of creation being a temple is not just about a one to one correspondence between two accounts. Instead, the different elements are present at numerous places within ancient culture. While a number of these are visible as shared cultural elements with Israel and her neighbors of the time, I’ll continue to focus on different witnesses within scripture.
In Exodus 31:3 we see that Bezalel is filled with wisdom (Hokma), knowledge (da’at) and understanding (tebuna). If we turn to Proverbs 3:19 we find that “By wisdom (Hokma) the LORD laid the earth’s foundations, by understanding (tebuna) he set the heavens in place; by his knowledge (da’at) the watery depths were divided. Instead of a one to one connection between Exodus and Genesis, we see common cultural elements that show up in different places.
Many have worked to explain the connections between the different elements that were constructed and placed in the tabernacle and specific elements in creation. My intention is not to try and recount every possible connection. There are indeed a number of connections, but not everyone agrees on the significance at every point. I’m choosing not to focus on these specific details, but on the broader picture.
At this point, someone may raise the issue that this is all in the Old Testament and in the New Testament the need for a temple is done away with. After all, Paul tells the people in Athens “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands”. End of discussion, right? If we thought that, we would miss how the different New Testament writers engage the old understanding of the temple in new way.
Paul uses temple both in explicit and implicit expressions. First, the clear examples are where Paul talks about believers individually being God’s temple (1 Cor 3:16, 6:19-20). While this may look like a new idea, he is making explicit a truth that is implicit in the creation account. When God creates human (Hebrew adam), he takes dirt (adamah) and forms man and breathes in the nostrils is breath of life. Humans then are the stuff of earth (dirt) mixed with the stuff of heaven (spirit/breath of God). In this way, we as human beings are a mix of heaven and earth. We are all temples. Paul, who continually lives out of the scriptural narrative, is making explicit a truth that goes back to creation.
Besides Paul’s explicit use, he also makes strong allusions to the temple. The first example to look at is in the fifth chapter of Ephesians. From verse 15 through 18 we see Paul listing contrasting ways to live. These include “filled with the spirit” versus drunk, wise versus unwise
and with understanding versus foolish. It’s possible that Paul is picking good things at random, but it’s more likely that he is echoing what we looked at earlier in Exodus 31. Bezalel was filled with the spirit so that he could build the world of the tabernacle with wisdom, knowledge and understanding. If this is indeed what’s in Paul’s mind as writes, he imagines Jesus followers as building the world (or new creation) around them by the same spirit. With wisdom and understanding, we are his image bearers who can be described as his co-creators.
I once had an OT professor who made the comment in passing that “Paul was a theologian of new creation”. Because he was teaching an Old Testament class, he never explained himself. Perhaps this is one expression of that, where Paul describes Jesus followers as engaging new creation propelled by the Spirit of God to restore the heaven and earth reality.
While there are other examples from Paul, we will move on to another author. The next one to look at is John and his Gospel. The first chapter opens invoking the creation story by starting his Gospel with “In the beginning...”. As the chapter progresses to tell the Jesus story, John claims that “the word became flesh and dwelt among us”. The word translated “dwelt” (skeynah-oh) could be more literally translated as “tabernacled” among us. The verse goes on to say “and we beheld his Glory”. By using “tabernacle” and “glory” it becomes clear that John is showing how Jesus is the tabernacling presence of God from Exodus 34. After the instructions to build the tabernacle (and the interlude of Israel’s rebellion), Moses had asked to see God. The response was that God would allow his glory to pass by for Moses to see. After God’s glory passed for Moses and Moses saw, he said “if I have found favor in your eyes, then let the Lord go with us.” In John’s Gospel, we see that Jesus is the return of God’s visible tabernacling presence. Wherever Jesus goes, he is the heaven and earth intersection.
One could wonder if these are “one off” examples; limited expressions that shouldn’t be pushed too far. The idiom of temple is just far too pervasive in the New Testament. In the paragraph above I suggested John is putting Jesus forth as the heaven and earth meeting place. Going back to Paul, he has a fairly explicit way of saying the same. In Romans 3:25, he describes Jesus as the “hilasterion”. This passage has sparked some debate on the best way to translate this Greek word. In the tabernacle, the Greek version of the Old Testament describes the lid of the Ark with the cherubim and throne as the hilasterion. This is where the blood was sprinkled on the day of Atonement when the high priest would come in to the most holy place. Many translations creatively use “mercy seat” as a good visual description of the scene that Paul is alluding to. Going a step further than translation on a word level, is the conceptual. On this level, Jesus is being described as the place in the tabernacle where God and humanity would meet.
As a side note, there are those who suggest that the appropriate translation of hilasterion is “propitiation”, an offering which satisfies God’s wrath. In my view the problem with this translation is that it’s working outside of the biblical story and would be more at home as a description in, for example, the Trojan Horse account. The wooden equine gift is given under the pretense of an offering that signals the end of dispute and war between two sides. While Paul was likely aware or even well versed in the Greek literature, it’s much more plausible that he is engaging the biblical narrative. After all, that is what he does throughout the book of Romans. It’s unlikely that he departs from the biblical narrative to a Classical Greek framework and then comes right back to continue telling how Jesus is the fulfillment of the Israel story.
Perhaps an apology is in order for the digression back into Paul, but the point is that temple/tabernacle is often the framework or mindset of the New Testament authors are
I once had an OT professor who made the comment in passing that “Paul was a theologian of new creation”. Because he was teaching an Old Testament class, he never explained himself. Perhaps this is one expression of that, where Paul describes Jesus followers as engaging new creation propelled by the Spirit of God to restore the heaven and earth reality.
While there are other examples from Paul, we will move on to another author. The next one to look at is John and his Gospel. The first chapter opens invoking the creation story by starting his Gospel with “In the beginning...”. As the chapter progresses to tell the Jesus story, John claims that “the word became flesh and dwelt among us”. The word translated “dwelt” (skeynah-oh) could be more literally translated as “tabernacled” among us. The verse goes on to say “and we beheld his Glory”. By using “tabernacle” and “glory” it becomes clear that John is showing how Jesus is the tabernacling presence of God from Exodus 34. After the instructions to build the tabernacle (and the interlude of Israel’s rebellion), Moses had asked to see God. The response was that God would allow his glory to pass by for Moses to see. After God’s glory passed for Moses and Moses saw, he said “if I have found favor in your eyes, then let the Lord go with us.” In John’s Gospel, we see that Jesus is the return of God’s visible tabernacling presence. Wherever Jesus goes, he is the heaven and earth intersection.
One could wonder if these are “one off” examples; limited expressions that shouldn’t be pushed too far. The idiom of temple is just far too pervasive in the New Testament. In the paragraph above I suggested John is putting Jesus forth as the heaven and earth meeting place. Going back to Paul, he has a fairly explicit way of saying the same. In Romans 3:25, he describes Jesus as the “hilasterion”. This passage has sparked some debate on the best way to translate this Greek word. In the tabernacle, the Greek version of the Old Testament describes the lid of the Ark with the cherubim and throne as the hilasterion. This is where the blood was sprinkled on the day of Atonement when the high priest would come in to the most holy place. Many translations creatively use “mercy seat” as a good visual description of the scene that Paul is alluding to. Going a step further than translation on a word level, is the conceptual. On this level, Jesus is being described as the place in the tabernacle where God and humanity would meet.
As a side note, there are those who suggest that the appropriate translation of hilasterion is “propitiation”, an offering which satisfies God’s wrath. In my view the problem with this translation is that it’s working outside of the biblical story and would be more at home as a description in, for example, the Trojan Horse account. The wooden equine gift is given under the pretense of an offering that signals the end of dispute and war between two sides. While Paul was likely aware or even well versed in the Greek literature, it’s much more plausible that he is engaging the biblical narrative. After all, that is what he does throughout the book of Romans. It’s unlikely that he departs from the biblical narrative to a Classical Greek framework and then comes right back to continue telling how Jesus is the fulfillment of the Israel story.
Perhaps an apology is in order for the digression back into Paul, but the point is that temple/tabernacle is often the framework or mindset of the New Testament authors are
working from. We could look at more examples in the New Testament and find more of the same (for starters, Hebrews, which we haven’t touched, has a significant use of temple which would need its own complete treatment - see Hebrews 8-11).
Instead of tracing through every place in the New Testament where temple imagery is invoked, I will finish by looking at what John reports seeing in Revelation 21. “I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.” (21:22) This both embraces and relatives the temple imagery. In one sense new creation is a new temple and in another, the reality that temple pointed to makes the temple idiom obsolete. God’s dwelling will forever be with humans. No longer is a temple needed, because the reality that the temple pointed to (God’s dwelling with humans), will forever be realized.
So, what’s the point? Does this mean that we should have an elevated treatment of temples or venerate buildings? The answer would be both yes and no. In terms of answering “no”, one goal here is to recognize an expression that is rooted in ancient culture. Even Israel had the challenge of turning what was given as an expression into her own “lucky charm”. The prophet Jeremiah had delivered a message of warning as a corrective to this kind of thinking saying, “Do not trust in deceptive words and say, ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!’” (Jer 7:4-5). The passage goes on to talk about how the people are living life in opposition to the order God created, oppressing one another, etc. The message of the prophet, in other words, says the temple is not what saves you, rather it’s a life that is transformed by the God whose presence is signaled by the temple. In this way, no, we should not venerate temples.
In terms of the why I would also answer “yes”, it wouldn’t be about tents or buildings, but recognizing what God has made sacred (holy or special) by his presence. As mentioned earlier our bodies are one of the places made as a dwelling place for the Most High. If we live in light of God being present in our midst, we will live differently. This is not just true in terms of what behaviors we might limit or omit, but positively it might mean we have a reason to be courageous - even in the midst of some very dark places.
On a much grander scale, the heaven and earth sized temple, called creation, also signals God’s presence. As we look at these temples, we can say along with Paul that it is not temples, created by human hands, that God dwells in, but still temples. There is a progression found in scripture where the starting place is the communication of God’s presence, but it’s not the final word. The creation sized temple signals “God lives here”, but another metaphor says we will all go from “message” to “experience”. “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.” (Hab 2:14). The word translated as knowledge (da’at) often has a much more experiential connotation then just ascent to a mental proposition. So, the temple may teach God is present, but “waters covering the seas” communicates that a day is coming when all creation will be saturated with the experience of knowing God. Jeremiah says it as “No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD.” (Jer 31:34)
As we all journey through life, we continue to get to go from believing to experiential knowledge. When Jacob was on the run after defrauding his brother Esau, he had a dream where he saw angels ascending and descending from the Lord above. In the dream God spoke and promised him the world. At the moment Jacob had not much more than the clothes on his
Instead of tracing through every place in the New Testament where temple imagery is invoked, I will finish by looking at what John reports seeing in Revelation 21. “I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.” (21:22) This both embraces and relatives the temple imagery. In one sense new creation is a new temple and in another, the reality that temple pointed to makes the temple idiom obsolete. God’s dwelling will forever be with humans. No longer is a temple needed, because the reality that the temple pointed to (God’s dwelling with humans), will forever be realized.
So, what’s the point? Does this mean that we should have an elevated treatment of temples or venerate buildings? The answer would be both yes and no. In terms of answering “no”, one goal here is to recognize an expression that is rooted in ancient culture. Even Israel had the challenge of turning what was given as an expression into her own “lucky charm”. The prophet Jeremiah had delivered a message of warning as a corrective to this kind of thinking saying, “Do not trust in deceptive words and say, ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!’” (Jer 7:4-5). The passage goes on to talk about how the people are living life in opposition to the order God created, oppressing one another, etc. The message of the prophet, in other words, says the temple is not what saves you, rather it’s a life that is transformed by the God whose presence is signaled by the temple. In this way, no, we should not venerate temples.
In terms of the why I would also answer “yes”, it wouldn’t be about tents or buildings, but recognizing what God has made sacred (holy or special) by his presence. As mentioned earlier our bodies are one of the places made as a dwelling place for the Most High. If we live in light of God being present in our midst, we will live differently. This is not just true in terms of what behaviors we might limit or omit, but positively it might mean we have a reason to be courageous - even in the midst of some very dark places.
On a much grander scale, the heaven and earth sized temple, called creation, also signals God’s presence. As we look at these temples, we can say along with Paul that it is not temples, created by human hands, that God dwells in, but still temples. There is a progression found in scripture where the starting place is the communication of God’s presence, but it’s not the final word. The creation sized temple signals “God lives here”, but another metaphor says we will all go from “message” to “experience”. “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.” (Hab 2:14). The word translated as knowledge (da’at) often has a much more experiential connotation then just ascent to a mental proposition. So, the temple may teach God is present, but “waters covering the seas” communicates that a day is coming when all creation will be saturated with the experience of knowing God. Jeremiah says it as “No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD.” (Jer 31:34)
As we all journey through life, we continue to get to go from believing to experiential knowledge. When Jacob was on the run after defrauding his brother Esau, he had a dream where he saw angels ascending and descending from the Lord above. In the dream God spoke and promised him the world. At the moment Jacob had not much more than the clothes on his
back and a stone pillow. When he awoke he said “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” (Gen 28:16) He went on to call the place “The House of God” and “The Gate of Heaven”. Jacob’s experience of God was not yet complete, but he in his physical journey, he was also metaphorically traveling to a greater knowledge (experience) of God.
Jacob’s story has a way of prompting our own self-reflection. What journey am I on? What fears do I have? What experiential knowledge of God’s goodness am I aware of? How would I engage differently if had a greater confidence that God was with me?
Even Jacob made a conditional vow stating “If God is with me...” (28:20). It’s one of the questions our hearts’ want a confident answer for. The message of temple throughout scripture perhaps is not the answer, but rather the invitation to discover the answer. It’s as if all the stories of old are saying “God is with you, but if you want the experiential knowledge of that, come on the journey”.
Jacob’s story has a way of prompting our own self-reflection. What journey am I on? What fears do I have? What experiential knowledge of God’s goodness am I aware of? How would I engage differently if had a greater confidence that God was with me?
Even Jacob made a conditional vow stating “If God is with me...” (28:20). It’s one of the questions our hearts’ want a confident answer for. The message of temple throughout scripture perhaps is not the answer, but rather the invitation to discover the answer. It’s as if all the stories of old are saying “God is with you, but if you want the experiential knowledge of that, come on the journey”.
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