And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘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’.  (Revelation 21:3)

John the Apostle receives a vision: 

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. (ibid 21:1-2)

In this new earth, God will dwell with his people.  The word ‘dwell’ translates a Greek verb σκηνόω skénoó, which literally means to camp, to live in a tent and in some versions is ‘to tabernacle’, referencing the Holy Tent in which God dwelt with his people Israel in Sinai.

It is crucial to note two things, first that heaven is the abode of God and not humankind; therefore, the new and perfect dwelling place that both God and man can inhabit comes down from heaven.  Jesus says this:

 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. (John 3:13)

Secondly, that how in the history of humankind, God always comes to his people, not people to God.  That is, since the Fall:

In Eden, God did dwell with his creatures.

And (Adam and the woman) heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’  (Genesis 3:8-9)

The consequence of disobedience, death, was already known to Adam (ibid 2:17).  And while mortality meant Adam was not doomed to die directly, in order to continue existing in his new sinful state God required expulsion from the Garden, in other words, from the hallowed ground on which God Himself walked.  God cannot abide sin, for sin is to deny God; therefore, God cannot abide with sinful creatures.

Humanity now dwells elsewhere, sundered from God.  Despite this, God does not cease from communicating with Adam and his offspring – the first recorded conversation is with Cain regarding his sacrifice.

God continues to commune with selected men and women; he instructs Noah, visits Abraham’s tent, speaks from a burning a bush and on Sinai’s heights to Moses; but God goes further.  He decides to dwell with the race he established, Israel, while in their desert caravan.  He tells Moses He would have His own tent, the Tent of the Meeting or tabernacle:

‘Then let them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them. Make this tabernacle and all its furnishings exactly like the pattern I will show you…’ Exodus 25:8

The Hebrew verb that translates ‘to dwell’ is שָׁכַן shakan means ‘to abide’ or ‘to settle’.  It is also ‘to camp’, because for a nomad a tent is one’s dwelling place.

The Tabernacle was designed to be disassembled and re-erected, but wherever it was pitched becomes consecrated ground.  None can enter the Inner Sanctum that houses the Arc of the Covenant accept on one day of the year, the Day of Atonement, and then only by one man, the High Priest and that after extensive and elaborate purification (Leviticus 16).  Thus God resides with the twelve tribes of Israel in the desert, but He is no more accessible than He was upon the peak of Mount Sinai.

Some while after the Israelites have established themselves in the land promised them, it comes to their first King, David, that the Tabernacle is not a fitting dwelling place for the Lord Almighty:

I dwell in a house of cedar, but the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord is under a tent.  (1 Chronicles 17:1)

But God rebuffs David through Nathan:

‘Go and tell my servant David, “This is what the Lord says: you are not the one to build me a house to dwell in. I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought Israel up out of Egypt to this day. I have moved from one tent site to another, from one dwelling-place to another…’ (1 Chronicles 17:4-5)

The Temple is eventually built by David’s son, Solomon.  On completion of the building, Solomon offers a pray of dedication:

Now, O my God, let your eyes be open and your ears attentive to the prayer of this place.  And now arise, O Lord God, and go to your resting-place… (2 Chronicles 6:40-41)

God then occupies the Temple:

As soon as Solomon finished his prayer, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple.  And the priests could not enter the house of the Lord, because the glory of the Lord filled the Lord’s house.  (ibid 7:1-2)

This Temple is eventually destroyed at the bidding of God himself.  Ezra reflects in exile:

…because our fathers had angered the God of heaven, he gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this house (The Temple) and carried away the people to Babylonia.  (Ezra 5:12)

Ezra is to oversee a new Temple built on the ruined foundation of Solomon’s, but there is no record of God occupying it, instead God has put in train something unprecedented, through his promise to David:

I declare to you that the Lord will build a house for you:when your days are over and you go to be with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. I will never take my love away from him, as I took it away from your predecessor. I will set him over my house and my kingdom forever; his throne will be established forever. (1 Chronicles 17:10-14)

If this sounds like Solomon, it is not because Solomon’s rule came to an ignominious end, and his succession brought division of Israel and Judah.  The Davidic Covenant announces that God will his send anointed son, the Messiah; duly, some five hundred years after the rebuilding of the Second Temple under Cyrus the King of Persia, Jesus is born.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.  (John 1:14a)

The literal translation is this, ‘the Word became flesh, and did tabernacle among us’ (YLT) and the verb is once more skénoó.

This, the astonishing and utterly unmerited response of God to his rebellious creatures whom he made in his image, is to redeem them through sending his Son as Immanuel, ‘God with us’.

Hitherto, to tread the same ground as God required purification or sanctification like what was required of the High Priest to enter the Holy of Holies in the Temple, but God, by inhabiting the body of a man, would make a way for all to be sanctified; moreover, that vessel of God was also to be the offering:

we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.  (Hebrews 10:10)

Thus, while the Tent of the Meeting prefigured the Temple, both of these structures were pointing forward to Jesus as the Christ, the anointed one, (Hebrews 9) – not that it was clear to God’s prophets.

When Jesus clears the Temple courts of money-changers and market stalls, he is challenged to declare the authority that licenses his behaviour.  

The Jews said to him, ‘What sign do you show us for doing these things? 

Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

(John 2:18-19)

And the Apostle makes plain that Jesus’ answer was arcane both to him and the Jewish authorities at the time, as John offers this retrospective commentary:

…he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. (ibid 2:21-22)

But in his resurrection was a further mystery, that the curse of Adam would be lifted.  Henceforth, God would indwell common humanity, thought his Spirit. Here, when Paul challenges the Corinthian church to abstain from any pollution of that flesh…

…do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.  (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

Mortal death then is not the end, because spiritual death that come to Adam is undone:

That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ (John 3:6-7)

When Adam sinned he died spiritually and become a vessel of unrighteousness, even while his body endured.  Jesus was the first born of a New Creation in which his righteous spirit dwelt in the vessel of human flesh, which then became the Tabernacle or Temple.

This understanding of the mortal body being the temporary dwelling place of God’s Spirit is thus generally understood, here Peter speaks of his impending martyrdom:

Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle… (2 Peter 1:14a KJV)

But there is further mystery.  Moses and the prophets understood how humans must find sanctuary in God  Here from Moses:

Lord, you have been our dwelling-place

    throughout all generations.

Before the mountains were born

    or you brought forth the whole world,

    from everlasting to everlasting you are God.  (Psalm 90:1-2)

And again,

Look down from heaven, your holy dwelling-place, and bless your people Israel and the land you have given us as you promised on oath to our ancestors, a land flowing with milk and honey.’ (Deuteronomy 26:15)

For God to indwell flesh is a strange reversal, and inversion to the reality, one that God will make right.  Jesus makes this plain:

‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house (οἰκία oikia means house or dwelling place) has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.’  (John 14:1-4)

Through imputed righteousness the sinful are made sinless, so when Jesus returns in power and glory, he will establish common ground where sanctified humanity can dwell with God, within his Kingdom – here, in the New Jerusalem revealed to John:

And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.  (Revelation 21:22-23)

The streets of the eternal city are trodden by the divine and sinless feet both, as once the hallowed sward of Eden.

This then is the glorious mystery unfolded entire.  As Paul clarifies to the Ephesian church regarding the ascension:

In saying, ‘he ascended’, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.(Ephesians 4:9-10) 

God reaches down to his rebellious creatures, communes and dwells with humankind in its sinful state, and for Paul it is imperative we do not confuse this gracious act with the false notion that we are the centre of His universe.  

But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore, it says,

‘When he ascended on high, he led a host of captives,
    and he gave gifts to men.’  (ibid 4:7-8)

Pride instigated the original sin and lurks in every human heart.

If God acts to redeem humankind, it is for his good pleasure and purpose, it has naught to do with humanity.  For any to be given a second chance says nothing of humanity, and everything about God.  No man or woman has inherent worth, other than what God accredits us.  That the offspring of Adam can once more dwell with God is astounding and the cost, the blood and suffering of His Son, should drive all to their knees in a repentance of humility and gratitude.