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'He tabernacled among us. As the divine glory of old dwelt between the cherubim, so Jesus is among men the true Temple, wherein we see a truer glory than that radiant light which filled the closed chamber of the holy of holies.
In all three passages, then, we may see allusion to that early symbolical dwelling of God with man. 'The Word tabernacled among us'; so is the truth for earth and time.
The words of my text refer back to those of the fourteenth verse: 'The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. 'And of His fulness have all we received. The 'fulness' here seems to mean that of which the Incarnate Word was full, the 'grace and truth' which dwelt without measure in Him; the unlimited and absolute completeness and abundance of divine powers and glories which 'tabernacled' in Him.
To 'behold' will be the same as to share His glory, not only that which we beheld when He tabernacled among us, but that which He had in the pouring out on Him of God's love 'before the foundation of the world. Our dim eyes cannot follow the happy souls as they are lost in the blaze, but we know that they walk in light and are like Him, for they 'see Him as He is.
Let all the creation of God wonder at this wonderful condescending love of God, that appointed such a way; and of Christ, that was content to lout so low as to become this way to us, this new and living way; and that for this end he should have taken on flesh, and become Emmanuel, God with us, and tabernacled with us, that through this vail of his flesh, he might consecrate a way to us.
Night fell when the journey was half over, and as the lights of the sledge flashed from side to side into these lonely fastnesses of cold, how was it possible to believe that summer and joy had ever tabernacled here? He was received at the inn, as his driver had brought him with astonishment.
There was a peculiar fascination to the Lord Jesus in those solitudes, because of their connection with the Forerunner. Those desert solitudes had been black with crowds of men. Those hill-slopes had been covered with booths and tents, in which the mighty congregations tabernacled, whilst they waited on his words.
Such was the faith of Paul also who never saw Him in the flesh, or ever heard His voice while He tabernacled among men. If, however, the alleged supernatural facts in the Bible are true, including the gift of the Spirit who was to "glorify" Jesus, we can easily account for those convictions, but not otherwise.
Word Of The Day