And herein lies the whole antithesis, that after the day of Pentecost God the Lord actually possesses such a spiritual habitation on earth. After the day of Pentecost the Church of Christ is “a habitation of God in the Spirit.” That Church of Christ is become His “spiritual temple”. The congregation of the Lord is a “spiritual house”, in which God “takes up His abode”. Altogether in keeping with what Jesus had said to His disciples, that He and the Father would come and make their abode with them.

So one stands over against the other. Before the day of Pentecost the Temple on Moriah is God’s habitation in symbol, as the place of which the Lord had said again and again: “Here is the place of my rest. Here will I dwell.” But after the day of Pentecost the Temple on Moriah has lost this excellent significance. The veil had already been torn and presently the whole Temple goes up in flames. But now there is on earth another temple, another habitation of God in the Spirit. And this sanctuary is not made of stone, and stands no longer on Mount Moriah, but is the congregation of the living God, the church of Christ in the earth.

Hence two Temples; first the stone Temple on Moriah, and, after this ended, the living Temple of God in the redeemed ones of the Lord; and the transition from that Temple of stone to that living habitation of God is formed by what took place on the day of Pentecost.

At the consecration of the Tabernacle and of the Temple there was one striking moment, when in a cloud of fire the presence of the Lord manifested itself in His sanctuary, so that they who saw it, felt: “A moment ago the presence of the Lord was not here, and now, with the coming in of this column of light, the Lord has gone into His sanctuary and has come down to the place of His rest.”

And parallel to this runs the event on the day of Pentecost. Here also the habitation was first prepared. The Word is become flesh. This Immanuel has united a company of believers to Himself. So the habitation of God stands ready. Now must the moment come, in which God the Lord takes possession of this His habitation, and enters into it, and this is the moment when the tongues of fire were seen and the sound in the heavens is heard. Then God came down, not in a column of fire at this time to His symbolic sanctuary, but in fire and sound of wind to His living temple—and so was the Holy Ghost poured out.

This had been foretold.

When David girded himself to build the Lord a temple of stone, he did this, however well intentioned, in an external sense, not understanding the leadings of God, and not perceiving that a temple of stone could never be the real habitation of Jehovah. Therefore he is hindered in his plan, and God turns it about, and says that He will build David an house, and that this should be the house, in which with His majesty He would for ever dwell. That house was David’s family, and from that family after the flesh descended the Christ, Who, Himself God, took our human nature as His temple; and therefore to the Jews, who called for their temple of stone, He said: “Break down this bodily temple, and I will build it up again in three days.” That living temple of His human nature the Jew would break down, but He would build it up; and the temple of stone, which the Jew had built, He would break down, so that no stone would be left upon the other.

So the Temple of stone has to pass away, and the living habitation of God had to come in its stead, and in that living habitation God would make His abode.

Now the question is, how you are to represent to yourself that living habitation of God, and in what sense the church is the temple of the Holy Ghost.

It is this, as all the Gospel tells you, not apart from the Christ. Rather of this abode of God Christ is the living corner-stone. He Who is Himself God, began by choosing our human nature as a tabernacle for Himself, and thus that human nature, which He took for His own person, He has chosen as an abode for His own Godhood. So you can really say, that already by Himself, taken independently of His congregation, Immanuel gives you to see an habitation of God. God is in Him.

Christ took upon Himself our human nature, not that He might robe Himself with the garment of our nature, but that through that human nature He might have fellowship with us. Therefore He did not take unto Himself a human person, but our nature, which is common to all men, and thus put Himself in relation and fellowship with our whole race.

Thence it is that through the wondrous faith and the wondrous regeneration that lies back of it, there are now all sorts of people united with Immanuel, and are so bound with Him into one whole, that they are as one planting with Him, members of one selfsame body, of which He is the Head; or if you will living stones set in the wall of the house of God, of which He is the chief cornerstone. So does Christ, Who already in His own person represents the habitation of God, take up into Himself a whole multitude of believers, incorporates them in Himself, and makes them fuse with Himself into one whole. And in this way there forms itself that broad, living house of God, that is formed from thousands and again thousands of persons, a multitude no one can number; and which all together are set in one as living stones and bound together by the cement of the blood of Golgotha, together to constitute that one, living, abiding habitation of God, in which as in His temple God shall for ever dwell.

Thus Body and Temple are not the same. We are members of the Body of Christ, because we have been incorporated in Him and with Him we have become one compact living whole, as one organism, that receives from Him as Head the motion and the direction of life. But with respect to God the Lord, we are not a body but an habitation, His Temple, to which He will quickly come, to make His abode in us. With Jesus we are bound together into one living organism; and this was possible, because He took our human nature. But before the Lord our God we can never be other than His habitation (Eph. 2:22), because however near God the Lord may make His approach to us, as God He remains for ever distinguished from us, even as you always remain distinct from the house in which you live.

It even can and must be said, that Jesus together with us form the house, the temple and the habitation, in which God makes His abode. He belongs to that house. That house without Him is unthinkable. He is its cornerstone. And therefore we read, that not merely the church, but Jesus Himself, had first to receive the Holy Ghost. Thus spake Peter (Acts 2:33): “He being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.”

And herewith agrees the fixed expression of the miracle of Pentecost. It is called the “outpouring of the Holy Ghost”. Of itself this can not be said of an house, a temple or a dwelling. In a house one moves in, in a temple one chooses the place of his rest, in a dwelling one makes his abode. But here it is called: “the outpouring of the Holy Ghost.” Yet let not this outpouring be misunderstood. There are two sorts of outpouring. One is an outpouring from above, over something, as the Preacher says: “If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth” (Eccl. 2:3); and here it is by no means meant in this way. The outpouring of the Holy Ghost does not mean to say, that like a great rain from above the Holy Ghost was poured out over or upon the disciples; that they caught or gathered this; and that therefore every time again such an outpouring must take place. He who interprets it like this, does not understand the significance of Pentecost day. No, outpouring here means, as water from a water-main empties itself into the pipes that lead into the houses; as blood pours itself out in us through our veins, if for one moment you could imagine your body as without blood. It is the Body of the Lord, that at first is yet without its spirit of life. But now Immanuel, Who is the Head of the Body, receives the Spirit from His Father; And as soon as this Spirit is in the Head, that Spirit is poured out from this Head into all the Body, through all arteries and veins. Altogether in the sense in which in Rom. 5:5 Paul says: “that the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts.” And as our fathers said: “that the Holy Spirit dwells in Him as the Head and in us as the members of His Body, so that thus we are bound by one Spirit as members of one Body.”

Now this Body of the Lord, into which the Holy Ghost has shed Himself abroad, through all the channels of the hidden system of veins, is by and in consequence of this outpouring, the habitation of God. For it is the Holy Ghost, Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son; and the Holy Spirit is the very Person in the Triune Being of God, Who in the spirit of man leads and directs. But always to be taken in this way, that for no single moment you can think this Holy Spirit separated from the Father or the Son; but rather consider well, how in that Holy Spirit the Father and the Son themselves come to you, and make their abode in your heart.

Yet even this you should not interpret all too personally and too individually of your own soul as something standing by itself alone. Your soul does not exist by itself, any more than a leaf on a tree exists by itself. There is no leaf but there is a tree to which that leaf belongs; to which tree again there are other leaves, which together with the one leaf form the foliage. And so it is here. There is no man, but there is a human race from which this man sprang, and even in this way, that from that same race a multitude of other men sprang, which with you form one race. So the race is one, and therefore it had one head in Adam. And because God created Adam after His image, therefore that man and so that human race is disposed, to be an habitation of God. And although sin broke that wonderful destiny, God did not therefore abandon it. His habitation must not be one man, neither a certain arbitrary collection of men, but His habitation was and should continue to be that human race, that trunk, that tree of humanity, wherein lay all kinds of human nature.

Hence it should not be taken, as though Jesus plucked a few leaves and blossoms from that tree; and from this is forming a whole, which He calls His church; that now that tree might wither and that trunk might presently be consigned to the lake of fire.

No, the case is just the opposite. What Jesus takes upon Himself is your human nature, and what He comes to save is your human race. What He saves is that trunk, that tree, that organism of our human existence. They therefore, who believe in Christ, remain on that tree, and he who does not believe, falls away from it and goes into the eternal pain. So is your race, your human nature, the pedigree of humanity brought into heaven, and what goes into hell are withered leaves and branches, which are torn off from the pedigree of your race. Therefore Christ comes in the place of Adam, as the new Head of your race. Thus the Body of the Lord is your human race itself, only purified, and after the shaking and tearing off of everything that does not cleave to Christ.

And that this might be made clear, the day of Pentecost simultaneously brings to nought the fact of the building of the tower of Babel.

There, on account of sin, our trunk was broken and split, and in the break of languages our unity destroyed. The one no longer understood the other.

But here on the day of Pentecost that broken unity is again restored. From thence it is that one speaks, and that all understand that one. The unity of all nations and tongues is found again. It became again, what it was in God’s creation,. and must forever remain: One body.

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