The bigger question weighing on many of our hearts is, does God still speak? And if so, then how?
Tabernacled. So it reads, “The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.”
During the captivity, Nehemiah is given special privileges by the Persian king to rebuild said temple. The scene depicted in Ezra has always stirred me — joy from those who never knew the former glory of the great temple, mixed with great sorrow from those who had endured the captivity from beginning to end.
The tabernacle was a physical representation of God’s holy presence. Wherever the cloud by day/fire by night would move while the wandering Israelites lived in the desert, they would follow. And they followed because it was in their best interest to be where God was. The temple was and is the sacred ground several people continue to battle for ownership; the place present-day Jewish people still aim to visit in their lifetime.
Jesus’ physical presence, God’s presence made flesh, was destroyed on the cross, and then he rose again 3 days later as promised. His proclamation of destroying the temple had nothing to do with a building. It had everything to do with his body, broken for us.
He tells us in reference to his return to the Father, “But in fact, it is best for you that I go away, because if I don’t, the Advocate won’t come. If I do go away, then I will send him to you.”
The ultimate goal of Jesus’ life and death and life again was so that we could have God’s presence inside of us. We now take the temple wherever we go.
This explains Paul’s language in his letter(s) to the Corinthians:
“Don’t you know your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?”
“For we are the temple of the living God. As God said, ‘I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be My people.’”
This is Old Testament language with a new meaning. The great mystery revealed of how God was planning to communicate with us all along, by entering into us so we may start thinking like Him and seeing like Him.
“‘Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.”
If you fear that God does not speak in this day and age, I can assure you He is speaking. Indeed, He speaks all the more loudly now, with everything from our spiritual past written for us, to the Holy Spirit inside of us to interpret the Scriptures as they were meant to be read. We, in some sense, have it easier than the pioneers of the faith who had to figure God out, piece by piece, as He was revealed.
A friend of mine was challenged to read the entire New Testament between Thanksgiving time until Christmas. As she began, she started to realize the connections between what she was reading, what she was hearing at church and conversations she was having with others. It was a type of revelation she had never experienced previously.
She recognized these connections were God’s way of revealing himself to her. The question was a matter of pursuit. When she did not read, she felt distant; when she did read, she could sense His voice every day.
He is that gentle nudge to do something right; that inner reminder to flee from sin. Both are a partial evidence of God working and speaking to us.