The Holy Spirit and His Gifts | Page 38

2 CORINTHIANS 6:16 (Amplified) 16 What agreement (can there be between) a temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God; even as God said, I will dwell in and with and among them and will walk in and with and among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Through the Holy Ghost, the third Person of the Godhead, God Himself indwells the believer through the new birth experience. No longer does God dwell in the earth-made Holy of Holies. Our bodies have become His temple. The Holy Spirit and His Gifts You see, in the Old Testament, under the Old Covenant, God's Presence was kept enclosed in the Holy of Holies. No one dared approach the Holy of Holies except the high priest, and he did so only with great precaution. If anyone else dared to intrude into the Holy of Holies, that person would fall dead. Also, it was necessary that every male in all of Israel present himself at least once a year at Jerusalem, because that was where God's Presence was in the Holy of Holies. And the high priest was designated by God to go into the Holy of Holies to offer sacrifices and to make atonement for the sins of the people. But on the Cross just before Jesus died, He said, "It is finished" (John 19:30). He was not referring to the New Covenant when He said, "It is finished." He was talking about the Old Covenant being finished. The New Covenant wasn't instituted and ratified until Jesus was raised from the dead ascended on High and entered into the heavenly Holy of Holies with His own blood (Heb. 1:3;10:12). Once Jesus obtained eternal redemption for us, as Hebrews declares, then and only then were the terms of the New Covenant consummated and ratified. Hanging on that rugged Cross on Golgotha's rugged brow, Jesus said, "It is finished." The Word tells us that at that moment the curtain that partitioned off the Holy of Holies in the Temple was rent in two from top to bottom (Matt. 27:51). Jewish historians tell us that curtain was forty feet wide, twenty feet high, and four inches thick. When Jesus Christ was crucified on the Cross of Calvary, God sent His messenger to rend that curtain in the Holy of Holies from top to bottom, signifying that the Old Covenant was finished and that God's Presence would no longer be kept shut up in the man-made Holy of Holies. Under the New Covenant, God would dwell in the believer (Jer. 31:33,34;Heb. 8:6-3;10:1-17). Notice that the curtain was not ripped from the bottom to the top as might happen if that curtain were ripped by some human agency. No, the curtain was ripped from top to bottom, indicating that it was not of human agency. When that happened, God's Presence which had been kept in the Holy of Holies, moved out of that earth-made Holy of Holies and God has never dwelt in an earth-made Holy of Holies since.