Introduction

Throughout Scripture, it is seen that God has been working to redeem a people for Himself. He has been active throughout the entirety of history, making covenants with a remnant of humanity, promising to be with them as their God. This is seen most pointedly in Revelation 21:1-4 where God declares from His throne, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God,” (Rev. 21:3 ESV). However, this motif is also seen consistently throughout the Old Testament, especially in the covenants God makes with His people. Ultimately, God’s dwelling has been fulfilled in Christ already, yet His people still await the full fulfillment of these promises. For these reasons, the dwelling of God with His people is one of the most significant goals of the entirety of redemptive history. 

The Final Fulfillment in John’s Apocalypse

Starting at the end of the long string of promises, the final fulfillment of God’s promise to dwell with His people is found in chapter twenty-one of the book of Revelation written by John the Apostle. This passage is positioned at the tail end of the last book of the New Testament. Directly before this chapter begins, John bears witness to the final defeat of Satan, the judgment of the dead, and Death and Hades thrown into the lake of fire. On the opposite end of this passage, the new Jerusalem and the river of life are described with Revelation concluding with Jesus Christ promising to return soon.

In this passage, Revelation 21:1-4, John sees a new heaven and a new earth with the new Jerusalem descending from heaven. Once this is seen, John hears God from His throne climatically declaring, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God,” (Rev. 21:3). God then declares the defeat of death and the eradication of mourning, crying, and pain, declaring that the old things have passed away. In just a few verses, the final state of the dwelling place of God is realized. 

The New Jerusalem

The concept of a new, perfected Jerusalem is not unique to Revelation 21 but finds mention in the prophet Isaiah wherein Yahweh says, “Put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city; for there shall no more come into you the uncircumcised and the unclean,” (Isa. 52:1) and that “the Lord has comforted his people; he has redeemed Jerusalem… and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God,” (Isa. 52:9-10). As Beale explains, here the main point is clear: Yahweh’s “people will no longer suffer from captivity but will be restored forever to God’s presence.”¹ 

What John sees as (1) a new heaven and a new earth and (2) a new Jerusalem may be the same reality described from two different perspectives, almost like an instant replay from a different angle. Regardless, the promised Jerusalem, the dwelling place of God, comes down from heaven to earth. The promises from the prophet Isaiah are fulfilled climatically and finally. As mentioned above, Satan and death are destroyed, and the new Jerusalem has descended; there is no undoing this. Just as God said to John, “It is done!” (Rev. 21:6). Here, the history-long promises of God are fulfilled.

The Voice from the Throne

As is a common pattern in Revelation, after John sees the new Jerusalem descend, He hears the voice of God providing an interpretation of what is happening. It should be noted that some commentators are unsure whether the voice comes from God or possibly the cherubim since the voice speaks in the third person about God.² However, considering verse five seems to indicate that the same speaker says “Behold, I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:5), it seems incredibly likely that it is God speaking. Regardless, the explanation found in verse three “captures in a nutshell the meaning of the entire book of Revelation.”³ When all is said and done, God declares that “the tabernacle of God is with men and that he shall dwell with them.”⁴

The word commonly translated as “dwell” in modern English translations is more accurately rendered as “tabernacle.” This Greek word, skēnē, is related to the Hebrew word Shekinah which was used to “denote the presence and glory of God.”⁵ The presence of God in His glory is literally descending onto the earth. God no longer dwells separated in the heavens or a ritualistic tabernacle, but the whole creation has become His tabernacle. This reality is what the Tabernacle and Temple in Israel were pointing to. As Beale says, Israel’s Tabernacle was always meant to ​​point toward a worldwide sanctuary where God’s presence would dwell in the cosmos.⁶ This event in Revelation 21:3 is exactly that. It would not be too far to say that along with Jesus’ death and resurrection, this event is one of the most climatic events in the Scripture and all of human history. 

John also receives a description of what living in this cosmic tabernacle will be like. First, it will be for all peoples, for the “divine presence is not limited by the physical boundaries of an Israelite temple.”⁷ Unlike the old Tabernacle, this new worldwide Tabernacle is not dependent on its inhabitants making continual, ritualistic sacrifices to be in the presence of God. Instead, because of their union in Christ, the people in the new Jerusalem are made of those from “every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages,” (Rev. 7:9). Everyone will know God, no matter where they may have come from. Secondly, it is a place without sin and death. As Mounce says, “Abolished forever are the debilitating effects of sin.”⁸ Both of these things are in direct fulfillment of the promised New Covenant in Jeremiah 31. Truly, this is a picture of all of God’s promises in complete fruition. 

Old Testament Promises

For the dwelling place of God to be one of the most important goals of redemptive history, it must be present in the Old Testament. Until this point, God’s dwelling place has only been considered in its ultimate form found in the last book of the Scriptures. It is now time to start at the beginning and show this theme throughout Israel’s history.

The Immanuel Principle

The theme of God’s dwelling is seen most pointedly in a pattern repeated throughout the Scriptures wherein God says “I will be your God, and you shall be my people,” (Jer. 7:23). This pattern is rich with covenantal and prophetic language. It appears most often in the Prophets, especially in Jeremiah and Ezekiel when talking about the New Covenant. Borrowing language from Rolf Rendtorff’s The Covenant Formula, Stephen G. Myers uses the “Immanuel Principle” to refer to this motif. As Myers says, 

In each of the individual, historical covenant administrations, the intended end of God’s covenantal work is stated in terms of the ‘the Immanuel Principle” – ‘I shall be your God and you shall be My people.’ With these words, God promises to be Immanuel (which means ‘God with us’) to His people.⁹ 

In this way, one will quickly take notice that this principle is what God has been working toward in His redemptive plan. 

From Abraham to David

Even before the Immanuel Principle is explicitly stated, it is seen throughout the first covenants God made with man. In the Abrahamic covenant, Yahweh told Abraham that He would “be God to you and to your offspring after you” and that He would give “the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God,” (Gen. 17:8-9). As with other instances of the Immanuel Principle, God’s promise to be with them as their God is seen clearly. Additionally, the mention of the land of Canaan points to the later promises to dwell with them, though this is not fully revealed yet. 

Further down the redemptive timeline, when promising deliverance to the people of Israel, Yahweh tells Moses, “I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God,” (Ex. 6:7). This is the first place in Scripture where the Immanuel Principle is stated explicitly. It must be recalled that God promised to deliver Israel from Egypt so they would enter the land promised to Abraham. God delivered Israel out of Egypt because He desired to dwell among them. Thus, the Immanuel Principle is the cause of one of the greatest redemptive events in history. After saving them, He implemented a law to make His people clean before Him so that they might enter into His presence and He may be their God. The whole Law of Moses worked toward the end of God’s dwelling among His people. 

However, Israel fails time and time again to keep the law God provided. Through times of judges and continuous periods of disobedience, God constantly provided ways for Israel to get back to His presence. Eventually, God made a covenant with King David wherein He told David that He would be a father to David’s descendant and his descendant would be to Him as a son (2 Sam. 7:14). Here again, we see a similar pattern to that of the Immanuel Principle but this time in the language of a father and son, which will ultimately be fulfilled in Christ. What is striking about this covenant is that Yahweh tells Nathan to tell David, “I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling” and that he desires a house (2 Sam. 7:5). However, as Lange points out, God starts with a hypothetical question implying that David will not be the one who will build this house¹⁰. Instead, this will be done by David’s son, Solomon, and ultimately in Christ. 

Regardless, Yahweh continues to say that He will “appoint a place for [His] people Israel” so that they may “dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more,” (2 Sam. 7:10). Again, it is seen that this covenant is directly tied to God’s will to dwell with His people. Though for centuries God dwelt among His people in a temporary Tabernacle without complaint, He desires a permanent dwelling for Himself and His people. God wants constant dwelling and through David and his offspring, He will accomplish it. The Davidic covenant is another step forward towards God’s final plan to permanently dwell with His people. 

The Prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel

The books written by the prophets are where the Immanuel Principle is most clearly seen in its entirety. This motif is extremely eschatological, with God using it almost always to refer either to the future state of His people or what His people could have experienced if they had obeyed Him. Jeremiah 7 recalls God’s distaste for how Israel treated His dwelling place at Shiloh, resulting in judgment from God. He then promises to do the same to the house built for Him in Jerusalem, saying that Israel did not listen to Him when He told them to “Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people,” (Jer. 7:23) after coming out of Egypt. He presents this same idea in chapter eleven, saying He told Israel to “listen to my voice, and do all that I command you. So shall you be my people, and I will be your God” (Jer. 11:4). Israel did not listen to God and thus God will bring judgment on the dwelling place they set up for Him. The Immanuel Principle is what they could have had for eternity but because of their rebellion, they receive judgment instead. 

However, by the grace of God, the prophecy does not end in judgment. God promises to restore His people in chapter twenty-four saying that He will “give them a heart to know that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people and I will be their God,” (Jer. 24:7). This is also prophesied later when God speaks of restoration to come to Israel and Judah, with a ruler coming from their midst, and that they “shall be my people, and I will be your God,” (Jer. 30:22). Israel failed in obeying Yahweh and should have lost any hope of the Immanuel Principle. But God, in His grace, promises to put in His people a new heart so that He may dwell with them once again. This is the theme of redemptive history: God saves His people from themselves so that they may dwell with Him. As Calvin says, Jeremiah 30:22 includes the “whole of true happiness” for “a happy life is complete in all its parts, when God promises to be a God to us and takes us as his people.”¹¹ What a glorious, undeserved redemption God gives in His continued desire to dwell with His people.

This theme is continued in Ezekiel as it is seen in chapters eleven, fourteen, thirty-six, and thirty-seven. Specifically in Ezekiel thirty-six, Yahweh promises to sprinkle clean water on them, give them a new heart, put His Spirit in them, and cause them to walk in His statues, all to the end that they will “dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God,” (Eze. 36:25-28). John B. Taylor explains that the heart and spirit “are not so much parts of a man’s make-up as aspects of his total personality.”¹² By replacing and renewing these, “the covenant relationship between God and Israel will be renewed.”¹³ This is descriptive of the New Covenant that Jesus accomplishes in the New Testament. Thus, one of the New Covenant’s main goals is the same as is described here: that God’s people may dwell in His land, be His people, and He be their God. The Immanuel Principle is seen to connect from covenant to covenant; from Abraham to the New Covenant. 

Jesus Christ and the True Dwelling of God

As it has just been seen, the Immanuel Principle is the goal of the New Covenant which was instituted by Jesus Christ. Thus, the dwelling of God with His people is one of the main goals of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. Jesus is literally Himself, in His incarnate body, the first fruits of the fulfillment of God’s permanent and personal dwelling with His people.

In Jesus’ incarnation, God literally dwelt among men. He had no need for a tabernacle or a temple but dwelt inside a human body. His people were able to see, touch, and interact with the invisible God. This fact alone is astonishing. However, Christ also becomes His people’s High Priest, “one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man,” (Heb. 8:1-2). As Longman says, the blood of the animal “represented the death of the sinner who identified with it” through a connection that is “purely symbolic.”¹⁴ However, in Romans 3:25 we learn that “Christ’s blood is the ultimate sacrifice that removes from us God’s anger for our sins. We are declared righteous because of our union with Christ.”¹⁵ In this way, Christ not only becomes the High Priest but also the pure sacrifice. While the blood of the animal was symbolic, the Blood of Christ is a real union. His work on the cross purchased justification that allows His people to dwell with God forever without the continual need to be made clean. 

However, God takes this even a step further by sending His Spirit into the hearts of His people at Pentecost, fulfilling the promises seen in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. In this way, God begins to dwell in His people. As Longman says, “The Holy Spirit’s presence with us means that we are constantly in the presence of God.”¹⁶ This is a giant leap toward the permanent dwelling of God among His people. Never has God dwelt among His people in such a personal, consistent, and continuous way. Most strikingly, however, because God dwells within His people as He did within the Tabernacle, Christians themselves have now become “corporately and individually temples.”¹⁷ As Dumbrell explains, the people of God have become the New Temple described by the Old Testament prophets!¹⁸

However, as seen before in Revelation 21, Christians do not live in total fulfillment of the promises of God to dwell with them. It must be remembered that God intends to dwell with His people in a new creation, in all of the cosmos, without any stain of sin and death. Sin and death still remain, therefore there are further fulfillment of the promises that Christians must await. To this end, before His ascension, Christ commanded His people to spread God’s presence on the earth. As Beale says, in the Great Commission, the same command is given as in the Old Testament to subdue and rule over the earth. However, now Christ’s presence will “enable them to fulfill ‘the great commission’ to rule over and fill the earth with God’s presence.”¹⁹ This is just one example of how the promise of God’s dwelling has been fulfilled already but not yet in whole. 

Conclusion

The dwelling of God with His people is truly one of the main strands that run throughout redemptive history. This is seen in its fullness in Revelation 21:1-4, wherein God establishes a cosmic, eternal, sinless dwelling with His people. However, the progressive nature of this fulfillment is seen throughout the Old Testament with God establishing covenants with His people to reach the end of His cosmic dwelling with them. In Christ and His Spirit, these promises are seen in their fullness yet Christians must await total fulfillment. Regardless, Christians must remember that one day soon God will dwell with them He will be their God, and they will be His people. 

Footnotes

1.  Gregory K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text, Nachdr., The New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2008), 1044. ↩︎
2.  Beale, The Book of Revelation, 1046. ↩︎
3.  J. Ramsey Michaels, Revelation (Downers Grove, IL: InnerVarsity Press, 2011), 235. ↩︎
4.  Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1992), 371. ↩︎
5.  Mounce, The Book of Revelation, 371. ↩︎
6.  Gregory K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God, New Studies in Biblical Theology 17 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 48. ↩︎
7.  Beale, The Book of Revelation, 1047. ↩︎
8.  Mounce, The Book of Revelation, 372. ↩︎
9.  Stephen G. Myers, God To Us: Covenant Theology in Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2021), 108. ↩︎
10.  John Peter Lange, The Books of Samuel, Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1976), 428. ↩︎
11.  John Calvin, Commentaries on the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah and the Lamentations, trans. John Owen, vol. IV (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1950), 48–49. ↩︎
12.  John B. Taylor, Ezekiel: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries v. 22 (Nottingham, UK ; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009), 226. ↩︎
13.  Taylor, Ezekiel, 226. ↩︎
14.  Tremper Longman, Immanuel in Our Place: Seeing Christ in Israel’s Worship, The Gospel According to the Old Testament (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2001), 105. ↩︎
15.  Longman, Immanuel in Our Place, 105. ↩︎
16.  Longman, Immanuel in Our Place, 69. ↩︎
17.  Longman, Immanuel in Our Place, 70–71. ↩︎
18.  William J. Dumbrell, The End of the Beginning: Revelation 21-22 and the Old Testament, The Moore Theological College lectures 1983 (Grand Rapids, MI: Lancer Books [u.a.], 1985), 71. ↩︎
19.  Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 169. ↩︎