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John 14:23:
23Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
The sublime note of joy with which the Apostolate went into the world focused itself in the confession: "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us."
The Gospel did not first come in Bethlehem. The Gospel was already proclaimed in Paradise. And it is a misappreciation of both Moses and the Prophets when you allow the Gospel of Grace only to have begun with the Apostolate.
The Israel of the Prophets already had the very same Gospel as we, and you need but turn to the writings of the New Testament Evangelists and Apostles to find yourself, again and again, referred back to the Old Testament to see the proof of the truth drawn from this ancient source, and to find accurately outlined, and, to us, often surprising indications that the whole treasure of the New Covenant had been deposited ages ago in the Old Covenant, though, at first, in germ form.
No, the difference and the antithesis between what lies back of Bethlehem and what came after it, hide altogether in something else.
Undoubtedly there is a definite and an absolute difference between the Gospel before and after the Manger mystery, but this difference does not lie in the larger or lesser riches of the Old Testament or the New Testament Gospel. No, the Old and the New Covenant differ in this one particular alone, that the Old Testament lacks the reality, and that the New Testament has it.
This was generally indicated by speaking of the dispensation of shadows and the dispensation of fulfillment; but this states it far too weakly. You can express the difference far more accurately by saying that in the Old Testament the Image has been shown, but that in the New Testament the reality itself has appeared in the Person of Christ.
That the law is given by Moses (John 1:17), is a statement which does not refer to the Ten Commandments. The law here is the name of the whole Old Testament taken as an instruction, a revelation, as a word of God that has gone out to Israel. This Word, this Revelation, this instruction which God gave in figure, begins with Moses to obtain form, but when Bethlehem sees the birth of the Holy Infant, then there comes something altogether different; then there comes not mere instruction and prophecy, but truth, and truth here means what we call: reality. Not the Image is the truth, not the shadow is the truth. Image and shadow are in themselves unreal, and the real comes only when in tangible reality He appears Whose Image has been seen from afar and whose Divine Shadow fell upon Israel.
This is why the Apostles put so much emphasis upon the fact that they have seen Jesus, that they have heard Him, that they have handled Him. The emphasis on this, that the Word now had received flesh, earthly reality. There was an emphasis no less upon the fact that Jesus had truly been foretold, that He had appeared and disappeared again, but that now He was come in full reality, and from Bethlehem to Golgotha had dwelt among us.
To dwell is really and continuously to tarry. Not only to come but also to stay. Not once in a while to turn in for the sake of passing the night, but by staying continuously to make one's presence known.
Now God dwells in heaven and His abode is in the light.
But though Scripture declares that God dwells on high, at once it adds that that same God looks low down upon the children of men on earth.
Heaven and earth are not intended to be apart, but to form a higher unity, so that the Lord our God simultaneously dwells both in heaven and on earth.
It began with this.
In Paradise dwelt God, and originally the fellowship of man with his God and of God with His creature was a very real and undisturbed communion.
The separation only came when by his sin man expelled God from this earth, drove Him out from His own creation, dismissed Him from fellowship with His own highest creature.
But God abandons not the work of His hand. Expelled by sin He comes back in seeking grace. "Adam, where art thou?" is the call with which God returns and claims His world again.
In the end, God regains His abode on this earth. Provisionally already in the cloud, column of fire and in the Tabernacle, but in the fullness of symbolism only upon Zion. "This is my habitation," said the Lord, "this is my rest, here will I dwell" (Psalm 132:14).
Zion over against Bashan indicates that God continues to be expelled from His own wide world, but that in Zion He has prepared for Himself a place of rest again, an oasis of grace, a habitation of His own.
This holy symbolical return of God to this world, this is what prophesies age upon age in advance the glorious Bethlehem. And when, finally, the fullness of time is come and the Babe is born in Bethlehem, then God no longer dwells symbolically in Zion, but in full reality in the Christ.
And that is why the Apostles proclaim so jubilantly that God is revealed in the Flesh, and in the Flesh (in reality revealed) has dwelt among us.
Hence, this is Bethlehem, the real and actual return of God to this earth, in order now to dwell continuously upon this earth with and among us.
Restoration of what was real in Paradise.
Now does this end with Golgotha, or if you please, with the Ascent into heaven?
By no means.
Rather the dwelling of God upon this earth becomes possible in the fullest sense only through Golgotha and the Ascension.
Between Bethlehem and Golgotha there was a real dwelling of God upon earth, but in an extremely limited sense. A dwelling limited to one people, and among that one people limited to the narrow circle of those who adhered to Jesus.
The need, on the other hand, was that God should dwell on earth among all people, in every part of the world, accessible age after age to every soul that feared Him.
And this full, this extended, unlimited, permanent, ever-continuous, and ever expanding dwelling of God among the children of men only became possible when Jesus was no longer seen, heard, handled among one people in a narrow circle, but was exalted and glorified upon the Throne of Grace, whence He could extend His working to every people and to every heart.
For this reason, Jesus repeats again and again in the ear of His disciples: "It is expedient for you that I go away;" but then also adds: "When I shall have gone away, I shall come again, and with the Father make my abode with you" (John 14:23).
Thus a threefold dwelling of God upon the earth.
First symbolically in Israel on Zion. After that in the reality of the flesh when Jesus walked about on the earth. And now, in the third place, the dwelling of God among us, and in us, in all parts of the earth. Our heart has become a dwelling-place of God in the Spirit. Our heart is the real Zion, and therefore our redeemed human heart is His temple wherein He dwells.
Sin expels God. In grace God resolves to return and to dwell again among us and in us; and therein lies all the mysticism of genuine Godly piety.
Piety does not begin with this. Rather it begins with the outward confession that it knows God alone as the One Who is above, and is always conscious of a fatal distance between itself and the Most High God.
But grace for grace gradually brings about a modification in this, and makes internal what began by being external.
To have the Spirit is to carry God Himself about in one's own heart, in one's own soul. And the new commandment of brotherly love is nothing else than the commandment that as you yourself carry God about in your own heart, you must discover this same God as dwelling also in the heart of the brother, and now to join heart to heart because it is one God that fills the heart of both.
But although this is so, most people dare not face it. Though God dwell in their heart, they constantly push God back into the corner of their heart, so that they feel at a distance, and for the greater part again withdraw that heart from God. And this is the sin of the saints.
But grace holds on. God does not let you go. From the corner of your heart into which you push Him back he comes forth continually to recover again a part of your heart, until at length you give up the fight, open your whole heart to Him, and now experience with joy that in Christ He really has taken up His abode with you.
And this now is the perennial Christmas Gospel.
Not a Christmas Gospel that remains standing by the manger, but such a one as passes from the manger over into your own heart.
First the jubilant note of the Apostolate: "The Word is become flesh and has dwelt among us."
And then the anthem of praise on the part of God's saints: "The Word is become flesh and has taken up His abode in mine own heart."
* * * * * * *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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