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1 Corinthians 3:16:
16Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
In Jeremiah (14:8) it is said: "God turneth aside to tarry for a night." This is the figure that is borrowed from the wayfaring man who at sundown turns in to spend the night, and when in the early morning the sun stands again on the horizon, leaves the hospitable inn in order to pursue his way. Applied to the Holy One of Israel this means that the Prophets knew times and moments when they were conscious of an indwelling of the Spirit in their soul. But this was not permanent. It was transient, and, soon after, the God close by had become again a God afar off.
By the side of this experience of a God Who turns in to tarry for a night and then leaves the soul again, Jesus places His promise that on the day of Pentecost God the Holy Ghost shall come to the people of the Lord, and not go away again, but shall abide with them forever.
John expresses this strongly in his Gospel (7:39) when he says: "The Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified." Of course this cannot mean that the Holy Ghost did not yet exist, but signified that the Holy Ghost had not yet permanently taken up His abode in the Church, inasmuch as only after His Ascension, Jesus would send the Comforter from the Father to His Congregation.
And so it must be understood when the Apostles constantly speak of the Church as of a "Temple of God" and of a "Dwelling place of God in the Spirit." "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" (I Corinthians 3:16) by no means signifies only that the Holy Spirit enters into the heart of saints, but much more and much more strongly that He, having entered the heart of God's saints, abides there permanently, remains there, and never deserts again the heart that has once been enriched by His indwelling, but, according to the promise of Jesus, He remains with God's children for ever.
This points to a changed condition, to an entirely different dispensation of the Spirit.
What took place transiently under the old dispensation, what was a temporary descent into the heart of a few, is under the new dispensation an age upon age indwelling in the whole Church.
Under the Old Covenant, that which made separation was maintained. The only permanent dwelling was then the dwelling of God upon Zion. But under the New Covenant by the expiatory sacrifice of Golgotha the wall of separation has fallen down for good. What made separation has been brought to naught for ever. God has not merely come to His people, but He has come into His people. The temple of Mount Zion has ceased to exist, and in the place of it has come the Church of the living God. She is now the temple of God. God dwells in her.
Thus, humanity is divided.
On one side, the still unholy world, because of which the separation continues, and which has now no more temple on Zion. On the other side, the people of the Lord, that now live no more carnally, but only spiritually. And in that people, in that Congregation of the Lord, all separation has fallen away. It is now more closely related to heaven than to the world. It has become the permanent, the abiding, the never-ending dwelling-place of God in the Spirit.
Yet we should be cautious here.
It should not be taken, as though the Spirit of God reveals His operations alone in the saints of God.
He who says this would deny the omnipresence of God the Holy Ghost, and limit the sphere of His working.
The Holy Ghost is Himself God, and, therefore, there is nothing in the whole creation of God conceivable to which the working of this Spirit would not apply.
Not alone in everything that is human, but in every creature there is the working of the Holy Ghost, like as there is the working of the Son and of the Father. With any other representation the unity of the Threefold Divine Being would be lost.
In the creation itself the Omnipotence of God is evident; that is to say; the Omnipotence of the Father as well as the Omnipotence of the Son, and the Omnipotence of the Holy Ghost.
From the Father is the fullness of power, from the Son the fullness of thought, from the Holy Spirit the fullness of all energy.
There is no natural force, there is no organic working, there is no Divinity evident in the richness and in the beauty of nature, but the Holy Spirit glorifies Himself in it.
And if this is already so in the inanimate creation, it comes out far more strongly in the conscious creature. To think that in angels every talent and gift should operate apart from the Holy Ghost, is absurd.
The same applies to man. No general has ever excelled, no poet has ever been brilliant, no thinker has ever astonished the world, no artist has ever enriched us with his creations, but it was the Holy Spirit Who made the spark of genius glow in him.
So and not otherwise Scripture teaches.
Yea, it even comes to this, that no gift of the Spirit, no talent among men has ever turned itself against God, but that it was the Holy Ghost Who not only apportioned this gift and this talent, but also maintained it and caused it to work.
And this, therefore, is the dreadful judgment that shall be pronounced upon every man who has abused his talent in opposition to God, that once he shall himself be bound to experience what it is, with a gift of the Holy Ghost as a weapon, to have turned himself against God.
But something altogether different from these gifts is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the soul.
Entirely apart from our talents and gifts we have a personal life. This personal life enables us to company with the three Divine persons personally. Even as among men we company with one another, so that their self enters into conscious fellowship with our self to the extent that we undergo their influence, receive their love and give love in return, enter into their thought and let our thought enter into them, recognize their superiority, enter into covenant and relation with them, devote ourselves to them and make sacrifices for them—so it is given man to company, likewise, with the Holy One in personal intimacy, in secret fellowship, in holy communion.
And now the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us signifies that God not only allows Himself to be sought by us, but has come to us; by regenerating us He has enabled us to attain unto such a personal fellowship with Himself; and has not waited until we found Him, but has made His approach to us; not from without but from within. He has touched us, and in the deepest hiddenness of the life of our soul He has established the bond which, in the heart of our very being, in the deepest ground of our sensations, in the immediacy of our first perceptions and feelings, has made us taste His Presence.
This does not depend upon gifts and talents, for those who are most richly endowed with genius can be deprived of it, and the lowliest among the lowly can enjoy it to the full.
In our humanity itself God has imparted to us the disposition for this. Sin alone has disturbed this disposition. And what God works in regeneration is the restoration of this disposition.
Then this is capable of action again. Then this comes to itself again. Then man in the deepest parts of his soul is one again with God.
That is the work of the Comforter.
It is not yet the heavenly state which will be all pure enjoyment, when even the memory not only of our sin, but of our ever having been sinners shall for ever be removed from us and shall be cast into the depth of the sea.
Here we still feel that we undergo a Divine operation. The contrast between this glorious indwelling of the Holy Ghost, and the being born in sin, is constantly brought to mind by our ignorance and blindness and unworthiness.
With us the Holy Spirit still reacts every morning and every evening against our merely human manner of existence.
And therefore here on earth He is and remains our Comforter.
For this is the blessed comfort of a child of the dust, that while on one side he still sinks away continually in his misery, underneath it all and with it all he remains conscious of the blessed presence of the Holy Ghost.
That the Holy Spirit does not go away, that He does not let Himself be sent away, that He does not give us up, but continues to dwell with us, and to take us as we are—that is His infinite, that is His Divine Love.
That He not merely "turneth aside to tarry for a night," but that He abides with us forever—this on earth is our joyous bliss and the glorious richness of our Comfort.
* * * * * * *This devotional classic offers 110 meditations on a single thought from Psalm 73: "As for me, it is good to be near to God." The author states, "The fellowship of being near unto God must become reality ... it must permeate and give color to our feeling, our perceptions, our sensations, our thinking, our imagining, our willing, our acting, our speaking. It must not stand as a foreign factor in our life, but it must be the passion that breathes throughout our whole existence."
The meditations reflect the blending of spiritual vigor with doctrinal loyalty so consistently expressed in the life of Abraham Kuyper. These are devotions with true substance, avoiding the extremes about which Kuyper adds a word of caution: "Stress in creedal confession, without drinking from the Living Fountain, runs dry in barren orthodoxy, just as truly as spiritual emotion, without clearness in confessional standards, makes one sink in the bog of sickly mysticism."
Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) was a Dutch political leader and Calvinist theologian. Elected to parliament in 1874, he became Prime Minister in 1901 and served in that capacity until 1905. As a theologian, he revived a systematic, orthodox Calvinism. He founded the Free Reformed Church and the Free University of Amsterdam. His other works include Principles of Sacred Theology, Lectures on Calvinism, and The Work of the Holy Spirit
Further information about Abraham Kuyper's life can be seen in the translator's "Biographical Note"; further information about To Be Near Unto God can be Abraham Kuyper's "Preface" to that book.
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