If indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you

The Dwelling Place of God in Practical Perspective

Last week we went in-depth on the teaching of the whole Bible on the dwelling place of God. We ended by demonstrating how, through the history of redemption, God was showing His people what His dwelling was supposed to be, and at the culmination of God’s saving story, Christ came into the world to be the true and better dwelling place of God, to be the true and better temple.

But the great practical reality is that the full and final dwelling place of God is His church, both individual and collectively.

So this week we want to consider, in the same terms that we developed last week, what it means that the church is the dwelling place of God, and how we must live in light of that.

The dwelling place of God must be physical.

We saw last week that the dwelling place of God must be physical. The Lord saw fit all the way back in Exodus 15, through 1 Kings 6, to John 1, that the dwelling place of God must be physical, in the sense that it must be able to be experienced by the senses. God’s dwelling place must be able to be seen, heard, touched, even tasted.

God goes to great lengths in Exodus 25-29 to describe to Moses exactly what the tabernacle must look like. For God and for Moses, the dwelling place of God was not merely an idea. It was a 5-senses experience.

Imagine with me for a moment: you are approaching the Tabernacle to worship. You see the bright colors described in Exodus 26:1

Exodus 26:1 NASB95

“Moreover you shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twisted linen and blue and purple and scarlet material; you shall make them with cherubim, the work of a skillful workman.

You see the wooden structural elements of Exodus 26:15

Exodus 26:15 NASB95

“Then you shall make the boards for the tabernacle of acacia wood, standing upright.

You smell the spices, a pleasant fragrance, combined with the burning of flesh. You hear the sound of shofar horns blowing, and the songs of the priests. You touch the woolen coat of the sacrificial lamb as you present it to the priest. You taste of the meal that you are called to enjoy after the worship ceremony has completed.

The dwelling place of God had a uniquely physical element to it. And we see the pattern repeated in the record of Solomon’s temple. Great care is taken by the author of 1 Kings to paint a vivid picture in our minds of the dwelling place of God.

And again, Christ, the true and better dwelling place of God, is described by the disciple whom he loved in 1 John 1:1-3 as follows:

1 John 1:1–3 NASB95

What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life— and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us— what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.

So it stands to reason that there must be a physical, experiential reality to the New Covenant dwelling place of God - the church.

I want to discuss this physical, experiential reality along three lines:

The importance of a location

The dwelling place of God was centered around a physical location, one that you can travel to. This location was made to specific standards to reflect God’s order, beauty, and glory. So then, the New Covenant dwelling place of God must also be a place of order, beauty, and glory.

On the corporate level then, I believe God ordains that His New Covenant dwelling place have a physical reality to it. This is the church building. Many people will tell you that since the New Covenant dwelling place of God is predominantly spiritual, that the building doesn’t matter. So you see a lot of churches meeting in houses or schools or what have you. Now I’m not trying to condemn those churches, and chances are they are meeting there due to financial constraints or other pressing reasons, so I won’t cast judgement on them. But what I will say is this: an ordered, beautiful, glorious location is something that all Christians should strive for.

RC Sproul often spoke of the importance of the order, glory, and beauty of the church building. Then in 1997 he put his money where his mouth was, and commissioned a church plant complete with a brand new building, the design of which he consulted on and authorized. Upon it’s completion, it became the physical location of St. Andrew’s Chapel in Sanford, Florida, and it still stands today. RC was intent on fulfilling this physical aspect of the dwelling place of God, and doing so in a way that reflected the order, beauty, and glory of God. The ceilings are high and vaulted, the construction materials are of a high quality, the colors are beautiful, natural, and muted. As you walk in, you can’t help but lower your voice as you behold the order, the beauty, and the glory.

I believe St. Andrew’s Chapel is a great example of a church building that is designed in keeping with the principle that the dwelling place of God should be a place of order, of beauty, and of glory.

But I also believe that this is important on an individual level. We will get to this more in-depth in a moment, but the Christian should be a person whose physical appearance is marked by order, beauty, and glory. Now I don’t mean that you need to drop thousands of dollars on designer suits and gowns to come to church. But I do mean that as a Christian, in your every day life, but especially when you come to the house of God, you ought to take care how you present yourself. God’s dwelling place should be ordered and beautiful and glorious, not intending to draw attention to itself, but to the God whose Spirit dwells within.

The importance of visibility

God’s dwelling place was visible throughout Scripture. The temple and tabernacle were centrally located and could be seen from all around.

So also God’s New Covenant dwelling place must be visible.

On a corporate level, the church simply cannot sit in the shadows. On a purely practical level, where your church building is located is important. We are on a main thoroughfare here on Fallbrook. You can’t miss our building when you drive past. That’s a good thing. We are called to be a shining city on a hill, not bushel-basket dwellers. On perhaps a more abstract level, the church must be involved in the goings-on of it’s community. Isolationist churches cannot rightly call themselves God’s dwelling place. God desires to be seen, and by that seeing to be glorified, and if isolated from those who would see him and glorify him, no glory is brought to him at all.

On an individual level also, the Christian is to be visible. I would propose to you this morning that the coworker of every Christian on the planet ought to know that their Christian coworker is in fact a Christian. Your Christianity ought to be visible to the outside world. Your family needs to see you as a Christian. The cashier in Walmart needs to see you as a Christian. The person who cut you off on the 101 needs to see you as a Christian. If you claim to be God’s New Covenant dwelling place, the world ought to know that, and know it to the degree that, even as they did in the days of Solomon, they come from all around just to observe because of the order, beauty, and glory of the dwelling place.

Now I am not saying that the goal of the Christian should be to make a spectacle of themselves, but rather that they place themselves strategically to reflect God most clearly to the watching world.

The importance of presence

The Old Testament speaks regularly of the gathering of the people together at the dwelling place of God. Jesus’ life and ministry was full of occasions where the people gathered to Him. For us then, we need to see and understand and practice the importance of togetherness. God’s physical dwelling place, as we have said, is something that is designed for our experience. There is something unique about being present where God is present. Jesus himself said that He abides, that He is present, when a group is gathered in His name. This can’t happen over livestream. This can’t happen over Zoom. This can’t happen on Judah Smith’s Churchome app. This only happens here. At the place of God’s dwelling. With the places of God’s dwelling.

I urge you simply this morning: be here. Be here whenever there is an opportunity to be here. It is your calling as God’s dwelling place.

The dwelling place of God must be personal.

Now, the building, and the visible, experiential things are important. But the truth of the matter is as both Stephen and Isaiah said:

Acts 7:48–49 NASB95

“However, the Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands; as the prophet says: ‘Heaven is My throne, And earth is the footstool of My feet; What kind of house will you build for Me?’ says the Lord, ‘Or what place is there for My repose?

Beyond just a physical location, though it is important and serves a divine purpose, to quote the loud voice from the throne in Revelation 21:3

Revelation 21:3 NASB95

And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them,

Thus the dwelling place of God must be personal, it must be people-oriented. it must be people-focused.

I want to hone in on this personal dynamic along two lines, vertical and horizontal, and in order to do that I am going to call upon the masterful articulation of the Westminster Assembly. This comes from chapter 26, Of the Communion of the Saints. As God’s New Covenant dwelling place, there is a personal, vertical reality to our existence. Listen to the way it is described by the Assembly:

The Westminster Confession of Faith: Edinburgh Edition Chapter XXVI. Of Communion of Saints

ALL saints that are united to Jesus Christ their head by his Spirit, and by faith, have fellowship with him in his graces, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory.

Because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we are united to Christ, and we share in all his benefits. As the hymn says, Jesus and all in Him is mine.

But there’s also a personal, horizontal aspect to the indwelling of the Spirit. The Assembly continues:

The Westminster Confession of Faith: Edinburgh Edition Chapter XXVI. Of Communion of Saints

And being united to one another in love, they have communion in each other’s gifts and graces; and are obliged to the performance of such duties, public and private, as do conduce to their mutual good, both in the inward and outward man.

So if indeed the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit dwells within us, we are called to a personal relationship, a personal reality, both vertically with Christ and horizontally with the church.

So real talk questions: how’s your relationship with God? Is the communication good? Is there love and joy and peace in that relationship? How about with your brothers and sisters? How’s the communication there? Love, joy, peace between you and the person you’re sitting next to? Our goal as the dwelling place of God, having the Spirit within us, is personal relationships with God and with men.

God dwells among his people relationally and personally.

The dwelling place of God must be glorious.

Now I want to key off on a reality that we touched on in our first point regarding the physical and experiential nature of the dwelling place of God.

We saw that the temple of Solomon was beautiful, well-appointed, and excellent in all things, bringing glory to God. The first and best of the nation of Israel was put into the Temple, making it glorious as it sought to magnify the glory of the One who was to dwell there.

Therefore, God’s dwelling place today must also reflect His glory, and it does through beauty, through excellence, through the giving of our first and best, through the intentional devotion of one’s whole life to the glory of God.

John Owen speaks to this in his work on the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, where he likens the New Covenant Temple, the church, to the Temple of Solomon, specifically in the way it was constructed. We saw last week that it was built with these massive pieces of stone, and strong cedars, and olive wood, and gold. Owen, with the precision of a surgeon, in looking at 1 Corinthians 3, observes that Paul implies a connection between the sound and solid construction of the Solomonic Temple and the sound and solid construction of the New Covenant Temple. Let’s look at 1 Corinthians 3:12-17

1 Corinthians 3:12–17 NASB95

Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. 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 implied connection is that if the Solomonic Temple were built with sound and solid materials, so also the New Covenant Temple must be built with sound and solid materials. For Solomon it was quarried stone, cedar, olive wood, and gold. For us, according to John Owen, it must be sound and solid doctrines and practices.

The glory of Solomon’s temple, even before God’s presence descended on it, was in it’s construction. These materials, as we saw last week, were meaningful and magnificent in and of themselves.

So also then, the glory of the New Covenant Temple must be in it’s construction of sound and solid doctrines and practices.

The question that presses us in light of that is this: have we built a New Covenant Temple with gold and silver doctrines, practices like precious stones? As a church, are we committed to sound doctrine? Are we committed to historic orthodoxy? Are we committed to the faith once for all delivered to the saints? As a church, are we committed to faithful Christian practice? To Biblical ethics and morality?

Or have we followed fanciful doctrines invented by men? Are we unable to clearly define and articulate the doctrines upon which our church stands or falls? Do we walk with our toes on the line between good and evil? Between wise and unwise?

If our New Covenant Temple is to be like the Temple of Solomon, a worthy dwelling place for God, it must be built in soundness, in a way that is worthy of the glory of God.

But we must also remember that not only is our church collectively the New Covenant Temple but even our very selves are each individually New Covenant Temples. So the same questions apply to you? Are you devoted to a sound and solid understanding of God’s Word and of the historic doctrines of the Christian church? Are you committed to a Biblical worldview, to a Biblical code of ethics and morality? I encourage you to think carefully today about these questions.

For you specifically this morning, are you committed to providing God with the first and best of all you have, doing everything you do with excellence and beauty, so that you might glorify God with your whole life? So that his dwelling place might reflect his glory?

The dwelling place of God must be holy.

The Apostle Peter and the great prophet Moses speak in unison: 1 Peter 1:16

1 Peter 1:16 (NASB95)

“You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

If the Spirit of Holiness is to dwell within us, we must be holy. Holy God, holy dwelling.

Now we need to make something clear. There are fundamentally three perspectives on Christian holiness, all Biblica, all necessary for us to understand. The first is positional holiness. This is the work of Christ, applying His obedience to us, so that as we appear before God in His courtroom, He sees us as holy. This is a monergistic act, a work done by a single party, and that party is God Himself. Listen to what the great Princeton theologian Charles Hodge says, using the word sanctification as a synonym for holiness.

Systematic Theology Ephesians 4:22–24

It follows from this view of the subject that sanctification is not only, as before proved, a supernatural work, but also that it does not consist exclusively in a series of a new kind of acts. It is the making the tree good, in order that the fruit may be good. It involves an essential change of character. As regeneration is not an act of the subject of the work, but in the language of the Bible a new birth, a new creation, a quickening or communicating a new life, and in the language of the old Latin Church, the infusion of new habits of grace; so sanctification in its essential nature is not holy acts, but such a change in the state of the soul, that sinful acts become more infrequent, and holy acts more and more habitual and controlling. This view alone is consistent with the Scriptural representations, and with the account given in the Bible of the way in which this radical change of character is carried on and consummated.

That’s positional holiness. The third perspective is what we call perfect holiness. This takes place at the end of all things, when all evil is abolished, we receive our resurrected bodies, and we walk in the new heavens and new earth, side by side, hand in hand with God as children with a father. That’s the perfect holiness of God’s dwelling.

But I want to lock in today, as we consider the practical side of this indwelling of the Spirit, the concept of practical holiness, the second perspective of Christian holiness.

Listen again to John Owen:

Works of John Owen: Volume 11 Chapter 8: The Indwelling of the Spirit

The saints are exhorted with all diligence to keep themselves a fit habitation for him, that they may not be unclean and defiled lodgings for the Spirit of purity and holiness. This is, and this is to be, their daily labour and endeavour, that vain thoughts, unruly passions, corrupt lusts, may not take up any room in their bosom; that they put not such unwelcome and unsavoury inmates upon the Spirit of grace; that sin may not dwell where God dwells. On this ground they may plead with their own souls, and say, “Hath the Lord chosen my poor heart for his habitation? Hath he said, ‘I delight in it, and there will I dwell for ever?’ Hath he forsaken that goodly and stately material temple whereunto he gave his especial presence of old, to take up his abode in a far more eminent way in a poor sinful soul? Doth that Holy Spirit which dwells in Jesus Christ, who was ‘holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners,’ who ‘did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth,’ dwell also in me, that am in and of myself wholly corrupted and defiled? And shall I be so foolish, so unthankful, as willingly to defile the habitation which he hath chosen? Shall I suffer vain thoughts, foolish lusts, distempered affections, worldly aims, to put in themselves upon him there? He is a Spirit of grace; can he bear a graceless corruption to be cherished in his dwelling? He is a Spirit of holiness; and shall I harbour in his lodging a frame of worldliness? He is a Spirit of joy and consolation; and shall I fill my bosom with foolish fears and devouring cares? Would not this be a grief unto him? would it not provoke the eyes of his glory? Can he bear it, that when he is with me, before his face, in his presence, I should spend my time in giving entertainment to his enemies? He is the High and the Holy One who dwells in eternity, and he hath chosen to inhabit with me also; surely I should be more brutish than any man should I be careless of his habitation. And should not this fill my soul with a holy scorn and indignation against sin? Shall I debase my soul unto any vile lust, which hath this exceeding honour, to be a habitation for the Spirit of God?”

Listen to Owen’s inner dialogue. Do you have that dialogue with yourself daily? These questions ought to pierce our hearts. Have we made ourselves a holy dwelling for the Holy Spirit, or are we forcing the Spirit of Holiness and a spirit of worldliness to become bedfellows? The Spirit of God dwells in us, and therefore not only now can we walk in holiness, we must walk in holiness.

The dwelling place of God must be eternal and permanent.

What a hope. Christ lives forever and therefore all who rise like he rose will live forever. God’s church is eternal. The members of God’s church are eternal. We live forever because the spirit of the eternal God lives within us.

The hope of the Christian is the hope of John 11:25-26. Listen to the words of Jesus:

John 11:25–26 NASB95

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

and again, John 3:16:

John 3:16 NASB95

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

God’s New Covenant temple, His New Covenant dwelling place, is an eternal dwelling place. Because Christ lives forever, we live forever. Because God dwells in Christ forever, He also dwells in us forever. His eternality becomes our eternality, sealed for us forever by the indwelling of the Spirit.

And that sets the stage for next week, when we will consider the sealing of the Holy Spirit, or how the Spirit confirms the work of Christ in us and to us, when we consider the last part of Romans 8:9

Romans 8:9 NASB95

However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.

I hope you’ll join us next week.