2 Chronicles 6:18
“But will God really dwell with mankind on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain You; how much less this house which I have built!”
This truly is a great question. How does a perfect, invisible, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent One dwell in any physical structure? Nothing can contain Him. He has no need of shelter or comfort. His essence is beyond the physical and beyond our finite understanding. He is without beginning or end, eternal. How do we who are trapped in time perceive an existence that is outside of time? Even the question seems to try to limit Him in some elementary way. The honest seeking soul is left perplexed and afraid.
When contemplating this question and its implications, the gospel becomes even more powerful, if not more mysterious. The One who in essence could not truly dwell in physical structures, as we understand it, has chosen to entrap Himself in a human body and exist among those whom He brought into existence. The Infinite among the finite. The eternal among the temporal. I do not think I am unfairly belaboring this point. The only eternal God, YHWH, chose to dwell among short-lived, filthy, stupid, ungrateful people. He chose to exist for a time in a human body in order to fulfill His ultimate purpose. Those who know Him and have followed Him typically take for granted this obvious miracle. Heaven and earth, all of the universe, cannot contain Him; yet, He condescended into a human body and offered Himself to His creation for their redemption. The mystery is deep. The power is profound. The promise is unmatched in all of time.
He has granted us, frail human worms, the opportunity to dwell with Him in eternity. I will not even speculate about what that looks like. The biblical writers even seem to struggle to create images of Heaven that do it justice. It is both frightening and wonderful. It is disarming and unnerving and amazing all at the same time. We long to dwell with Him as we hold onto the Truth of His dwelling among us.
He is the way, the truth and the life.
2 Chronicles 6:41-42
“Now then arise, LORD God, to Your resting place, You and the ark of Your might; let Your priests, LORD God, be clothed with salvation, and let Your godly ones rejoice in what is good.
“LORD God, do not turn away the face of Your anointed; remember Your faithfulness to Your servant David.”
Ventanas 