'Christ, House of God'
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Christ Himself is the eternal House of God. God the Father finds His rest only in Christ, never in any human being apart from Christ.
No man has seen God at any time. Christ, who dwells eternally in God, has come to reveal the Father to us.
There were several occasions before the coming of Christ when God appeared to men. Some of those occasions are described in the Old Testament. In every instance it was Christ or the Angel of the Lord who appeared. No human being ever has seen God the Father (John 1:18).
Christ is the Divine Word of God, the Expression of all that God Is. When we see Christ we see the Father.
God is a Spirit, not a human being. God requires the shedding of innocent blood in order to appease His sense of violated justice. We understand by this that God is different from us.
Christ was born of a woman. Therefore we can establish a relationship with Him and make progress in coming to know Him. It is the good pleasure of Christ to reveal God to us.
God desires that the Incarnation, the Divine Expression be magnified so that every person on the earth may have access to Himself. Therefore God is multiplying Christ; for God will dwell only in Christ. Christ is the House of God.
God is magnifying and multiplying Christ by creating the Body of Christ. As Christ is being formed in the members of His Body, Christ is being magnified and multiplied and God in Him.
It is not Christ-likeness being formed in us that is so crucial to the purpose of God, it is that Christ is being formed in us. Christ is the true Vine. We are not additional vines, we are branches growing out from the one true Vine.
As Christ is being formed in the members of His Body He comes through the Spirit and dwells in those transformed members. As Christ comes and dwells in the members, God dwells in Christ in the members. He who has the Son has the Father also.
God in Christ in the members of the Body of Christ constitutes the Kingdom of God that John the Baptist announced, that Christ announced, that Paul taught, and that will be revealed to the world at the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ from Heaven with the saints and holy angels.
Christ in us is the mystery of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. Christ is the House of God, the eternal Temple of God.
When Christ is in us the House of God is in us. When we are in Christ and abiding in Him, we are in the Temple of God and abiding in it.
When we are abiding in Christ, and Christ in us, God’s plan for our life has been brought to completion and perfection. We have become a living stone in the eternal Temple of God.
It was necessary that Christ return to the Father so we may become places of abode in God’s house.
In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. (John 14:2)
"In my Father’s house."
The Father’s House is Christ and the Body of Christ. Several times in the fourteenth through the seventeenth chapters of the Gospel of John, Christ spoke of returning to the Father.
Christ did not speak of returning to Heaven as to a place, He spoke of returning to His Father as to a Person. Heaven is not the goal of the Christian pilgrimage, the Father Himself is our Goal. It makes a practical difference in our life whether we choose Heaven or choose God as our goal.
Christ declared that He was going to the Father:
. . . he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. (John 13:1)
. . . I go unto the Father: . . . . (John 14:28)
I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father. (John 16:28)
Notice:
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. (John 14:6)
"No man cometh unto the Father "!
The context of the "many mansions" is not Heaven, it is our abiding in Christ and He in us. We abide in Christ who abides in the Father who abides in Christ who abides in us. This is the Kingdom of God.
Christ is preparing a place for us in God.
Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. (Psalms 90:1)
Chapter 14 of John has to do with our becoming an abiding place in the Father’s house. Theme of this part of the Scripture is, "Abide in me, and I in you." The verb abide (John 15:4) is related to the Greek noun translated mansions, in John 14:2. Both words come from the same root.
Heaven is God’s throne . Nebuchadnezzar was instructed that "the heavens do rule" (Daniel 4:26).
The Scriptures do not refer to Heaven as the house of God. The eternal House, the Temple, of God is our Lord Jesus Christ.
For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. (Colossians 2:9)
Under the old covenant, God dwelled in the Tabernacle of the Congregation and then in Solomon’s Temple. Under the new covenant, God finds His resting place only in people.
God will dwell only in Christ. Christ was not formed in any individual until after His resurrection from the dead. Therefore God did not abide in any believer under the old covenant.
God abides in every member of the Body of Christ. This is one of the principal differences between the old covenant and the new covenant. This is the reason he who is least in the Kingdom of God is greater than any of the prophets of Israel (Luke 7:28).
The "mystery" of Christ in you was suggested briefly in the Old Testament:
Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest? (Isaiah 66:1)
Why does the God of Heaven need a house, a place of rest? Here is a mystery.
The Spirit of God asked the question again—this time through Stephen:
But Solomon built him an house. Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet, Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house will ye build me? saith the Lord: or what is the place of my rest? (Acts 7:47-49)
As we have stated, God will dwell only in the Lord Jesus Christ. When Christ has been formed in us and is abiding in us through the Spirit, we become a room in the Temple of God.
Notice that Christ is the eternal Temple of God:
Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. (John 14:10)
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