Throughout the Bible from Genesis to Revelation we see that God’s goal ultimately is to obtain a dwelling place; what He is focused on today is building up His habitation. From Jacob’s dream in Genesis to Revelation 22 what God desires is to gain a dwelling place in man, a mutual habitation with man, where God is in man and man is in God.
In Genesis 28:10-22 Jacob saw a heavenly dream, the revelation of the house of God at Bethel, but we don’t have the actual building of the house of God.
Later in Exodus 3:2-6, God appeared to Moses from within the thornbush; God took the thornbush as His dwelling place. The book of Exodus focuses on and ends with the building up of the tabernacle, God’s dwelling place on earth among His people (see Exo. 40:34-38).
Eventually, the tabernacle was enlarged into the temple when the people of Israel entered into the good land and took possession of it. In the New Testament, the Lord Jesus came as the tabernacle of God with man (John 1:14) and the temple of God in man (John 2:19), and through His death and resurrection, He has been enlarged and reproduced into many believers who compose the church, the temple of God and the house of God (1 Cor. 3:16; 2 Tim. 3:15-16).
The church will consummate in the New Jerusalem, which will be both God’s tabernacle and God’s temple in eternity (see Rev. 21:3, 22). Hallelujah, God’s desire to obtain a dwelling place will eventually be fulfilled in the New Jerusalem where God dwells with man and man dwells in God!
Today we are in the process of being transformed, sanctified, conformed, and even glorified to be God’s dwelling place. God desires to have a dwelling place so much so that He would dwell even in a thornbush; He takes this thornbush through a process of sanctification, transformation, conformation, and glorification so that it is being enlarged as the tabernacle of God to be the corporate dwelling place of God.
God wants to dwell in man and have man dwell in God, and for this He became a man, went through human living for 33.5 years, died an all-inclusive all-terminating death, resurrected from the dead to become the life-giving Spirit, and ascended to the heavens to be enthroned as Lord of all. Now we are also passing through the process of regeneration, sanctification, renewing, transformation, conformation, and glorification to be part of God’s corporate dwelling place on earth.
God’s Ultimate Goal is to Obtain a Dwelling Place – His Habitation
What God desires to obtain is a dwelling place, a habitation; this is His ultimate goal. He revealed His heart’s desire to Jacob at Bethel, showing him that God wants a house where the heavens are joined to earth and God is mingled with man (see Gen. 28:10-22).
In Exodus 3 God appeared to Moses at the backside of the mountain from a burning bush; He was the God who took the thornbush as His dwelling place, and He impressed Moses with the fact that he was a thornbush having the God of resurrection burning within him, taking Moses as His dwelling place (see Exo. 3:2-6).
Later in Exodus God gave Moses the pattern of the tabernacle and the people of Israel erected the tabernacle for God to dwell in; God dwelt in the tabernacle, and God’s glory filled the tent of meeting (Exo. 40:3-8). The tabernacle with the Ark became the focal point of the history of the people of Israel, since it was there that God dwelt among man.
In the good land, the tabernacle was enlarged to be the temple of God, and God’s glory filled the temple.
In the New Testament God Himself became a man, and the Lord Jesus came as God’s tabernacle (John 1:14) and as God’s temple (John 2:19). Individually, the Lord Jesus was both the tabernacle of God and the temple of God, the dwelling place of God; in Him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
Today we as those regenerated by the Lord are the church as the temple of God (1 Cor. 3:16), and ultimately this temple will consummate in the New Jerusalem which will be both God’s tabernacle and God’s temple in eternity (Rev. 21:3, 22).
God’s dwelling place can be traced from the dream of Jacob in Genesis to the thornbush and the tabernacle in Exodus, then the temple in the good land, the Lord Jesus, the church, and eventually the New Jerusalem.
God’s ultimate goal is to obtain His dwelling place, and He will do it through the process of transformation: He first reveals His heart’s desire to man, then comes and redeems man to dwell in man as the fire dwelt in the thornbush, transforms man and sanctifies man to be enlarged as the tabernacle of God with man, builds man into God and God into man to work Himself into man to build up the church and consummate the New Jerusalem.
We are now in the process of being transformed and built up to be God’s dwelling place on earth.
The Thornbush is Gradually Sanctified and Transformed to Become God’s Dwelling Place
In the beginning of Exodus we see God dwelling in the thornbush and at the end God dwelling in the tabernacle. This is an illustration of transformation: gradually, the redeemed thornbush is being sanctified, transformed, conformed, and even glorified.
In the tabernacle, the walls were of acacia wood overlaid with gold, showing how humanity is overlaid with divinity. Our transformed humanity is being overlaid with the divine nature to be part of God’s dwelling place.
In the tabernacle there also were the linen embroidered with golden thread: an illustration of God’s economy to work Himself in the most wise and fine way into our being, working His divinity into our redeemed humanity to transform it, uplift it, and enrich it to make it suitable for His house.
On the one hand, we are conscious of the fact that we are a mere redeemed thornbush, and on the other hand, we realize that the Triune God dwells within us as the divine fire, the burning flame. The church is a corporate thornbush having the Triune God dwelling in it as the divine fire.
How can we become God’s dwelling place? It is through the process of transformation. How could Moses, a highly educated and trained Hebrew in the palace in Egypt, become useful in God’s hand for His building? It was through a long process of transformation.
God took Moses through a long process in the wilderness until he lost everything including his confidence in himself, and then God appeared to him and called him. Later, Moses went up to the mountain of God and was infused with God Himself; when he came down from the mountain, Moses was shining! This was definitely part of Moses being transformed by God from a thornbush into His dwelling place.
Today it is the same with us: the Triune God comes to dwell in us, and in many ways we are like a thornbush – yet we were redeemed by Him. God is so “desperate” to find a home that He is willing to dwell even in a thornbush, taking this thornbush through the process of transformation to become His corporate dwelling place.
Eventually, the thornbush becomes the tabernacle, where we see acacia wood overlaid with gold and fine linen embroidered with gold thread; both the acacia wood and the linen signify humanity, and the gold signifies divinity (see Exo. 25:10-11; 26:15, 29; 36:34; 37:1-2; 28:6; 39:3).
Hallelujah, our humanity is being embroidered and interwoven with God’s divinity, and God is working Himself into us in a fine and wise way through the process of transformation to make us His dwelling place!
In the church life we should care not for large numbers but for the genuine experience of transformation. As we are transformed by God by being under the divine burning, infusing, and dispensing, we are becoming dispositionally different from the worldly people, and we become men of God, God-men, men inwrought and overlaid with God. In our nature we are still a thornbush, but in God’s eyes we’re being transformed into His dwelling place.
Lord Jesus, grant us a genuine experience of transformation from being a thornbush into being Your corporate dwelling place. Lord, work Yourself into us and mingle Your divinity with our humanity until we are transformed and built into Your dwelling place. Lord, keep us under the divine burning, infusing, and dispensing so that we may have Your element wrought into our nature and become men of God! Gain Your corporate dwelling place by working Your divinity into our redeemed humanity to transform it, uplift it, and enrich it for Your dwelling place!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Minoru Chen’s sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Exodus, msg. 10, as quoted in, the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Exodus (1), week 4 / msg 4, The Corporate Thornbush.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Freed from self and Adam’s nature, / Lord, I would be built by Thee / With the saints into Thy temple, / Where Thy glory we shall see. / From peculiar traits deliver, / From my independent ways, / That a dwelling place for Thee, Lord, / We will be thru all our days. (Hymns #840)
# Only Christ, our Person, must remain; / From our aims, our goals we must refrain, / Till the church be only Christ Himself / Built up as the one new man, / Thus fulfilling God’s great plan of— / Mingling fully with the human race / To obtain a proper dwelling place, / ’Stablishing His kingdom’s rule and grace; / Over all the earth. (Hymns #1180)
# Thy Spirit will me saturate / Every part will God permeate, / Deliv’ring me from the old man, / With all saints building for His plan. (Hymns #501)
In the Lord’s recovery we do not care for a large number; we care for the genuine experience of transformation. I am happy that we are under the divine burning, the burning that transforms us and makes us dispositionally different from the worldly people. Because the element of God is being burned into our nature, we are becoming men of God. This is what it means to be a burning thornbush in an individual sense. According to our nature, we are still a thornbush, but according to God’s burning within us, we are transformed people. On the one hand, we are a thornbush; on the other hand, we are men of God. (Witness Lee, Life-study of Exodus, pp. 76-78)