God Himself Shall Be With Them
God’s presence among His people is a theme throughout the Bible. The religion of the Old Testament, the coming of the Messiah, the outpouring of the Spirit, and the hope of Christ’s return all presuppose that God desires to be present with His people. Apart from this reality, neither the sacrificial system nor the gospel is necessary. God would justly judge all who have sinned, cast them out of His presence, and continue in satisfied self-existence for all eternity. However, the God of the Bible does desire to be among the people He has created in His image.
After Adam and Eve sin in Genesis 3, they hear the sound of God “walking the garden in the cool of the day” (Gen 3:8). In this verse, they hide themselves when they hear God approaching, but, while the text does not say that God visited with them often, one can infer that God’s first post-creation encounter with His people in whom He delighted was not after they rebelled. Further, the later development of this theme strengthens the idea that God would have fellowshipped with Adam and Eve before they were corrupted and hindered by sin.
With Abraham, for example, one of the stated purposes of the Covenant God made with him was “to be God to you and your offspring after you” (Gen 17:7). While the majority of humanity had rejected God as their God, He was saving a people for Himself through Abraham. In the Law, God reiterates this purpose in giving the sacrificial system and leading the people to construct the tabernacle (Ex. 29:45; Lev. 26:45). When the people dwelt in tents, the God among them dwelt in the tabernacle, and when God established them as a kingdom through David, David’s son built a permanent dwelling for God’s presence among them, the temple.
When the Israelites reject the Law and follow after other gods, God’s special presence among them is removed (Ez. 10), but God promises a later, better covenant through the prophets, and the ultimate purpose of the New Covenant is the same: “They shall be my people, and I will be their God” (Jer. 24:7; 31:33; Ez. 11:20; 37:23; Zec. 8:8; etc.). The Messiah to come, through whom this new covenant would be established, would be the ultimate and later fulfillment of Isaiah’s promised Immanuel or “God with us” (Isa. 7:14; Mat. 1:23). Therefore, even the promise of Messiah was to resolve the problem of God dwelling with His people who were sinful.
In the days of His flesh, God the Son “came to his own” (Jn 1:11) and “tabernacled among his people” (1:14) for a period of time. And with His ascension, departing for a time, Jesus sent another in His place, the Helper (παράκλητος), through whom God would fulfill other promises related to the New Covenant (Ez. 36:25-26). By the Holy Spirit, from Pentecost until the return of Christ, God not only is among His people, but He also lives within them (Jn 14:17). Through Him, the people of God become “members of Christ” (1 Cor. 6:15), and temples of the Holy Spirit (6:19). But even this glorious truth is but a foretaste of what is to come.
When Jesus returns, He will make all things new with finality (Rev. 21:5). In those days, the city will not need a temple. When sin—with all who cling to it—is destroyed, no gulf or chasm will lay between the God of heaven and those who bear His image and His name. And the nations will walk by the shining of His unveiled glory. And to fulfill all the purposes of the Abrahamic, Mosaic, and the New Covenant, “He will dwell with [His people], and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God” (21:3).
Taken from Jonathan Dulin’s Masters Thesis: “The Light of the World: Jesus in Creation, Redemption, and New Creation”