God's Old Covenant Presence Typological?

[TheThirdandReformedAdam]

So I am currently teaching some covenant theology, and I started upon the Davidic covenant. After reading a few different sources, I have found Sealed with an Oath by Paul R. Williamson to be very helpful. He states that in 2 Samuel 7, God refuses to allow David to construct a temple because God's promised rest for his people had not yet come to pass. Only when the people of Israel had entered the promised rest would God accept a permanent dwelling place. This got me thinking: is it fair to say that the way in which God dwells with His people in the Old covenant is typological (or maybe I should simply say, 'parallel') of the way He dwells with His people in the New covenant?
To explain, at the beginning of the Old covenant, God is dwelling with His people, but He does so in the mobile structure of a tent. Later in the Old covenant under Davidic administration, God dwells with His people in the permanency of the temple in Jerusalem. Can this rightly be paralleled with the New covenant, where, currently, God dwells within the son of Abraham (which seems to parallel the mobility of the tabernacle), and later, He dwells in the permanency of New Jerusalem (paralleling the temple in Jerusalem)? Both the Old covenant and New Covenant seem to express a pattern where, initially, God's dwelling is mobile and temporary, whereas it eventually becomes fixed.

 

[arapahoepark]

Yes it is certainly true. But it is still true believers in the Old Covenant were dwelt with the Holy Spirit as well unlike what NCT theologians would say.

 

[ralphmnj]

I believe I have heard Piper argue something like this indirectly in relation to Jesus' answer to the woman at the well in John 4.

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[Peairtach]

The Tabernacle is associated with the Church Militant moving through the wilderness of this world (corresponding to the Israelites in the wilderness) and taking possession of the world under Christ by the Great Commission (corresponding to the 400 years of conquest before David and Solomon "gave" Israel rest), while the Temple points to the attainment of that rest by Christ - see e.g. Psalm 24 - and the Church Triumphant. Of course it was only typological and therefore very partial and temporary rest, and what rest they had soon fell to pieces. Even in the NT the full rest remains for us in Heaven, which is why we still have the keeping of a Sabbath. See Hebrews 3-4 and PB discussions on it for the theology of "rest" as the central way in which Heaven is anticipated in Scripture.

God was very much present with His people during the period of the Tabernacle as well as the Temple. I don't know that you can say that He was less present with His people during the first period, it's just that during the Temple period His presence was manifested in a different yet appropriate way for that part of the history of God's people.

The best book that surveys biblical typology, if you wish to go into it in greater detail and yet get a broader view of it, too, is Patrick Fairbairn's excellent "The Typology of Scripture".

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[Contra_Mundum]

There is what I would call "forward momentum" in OT typology.

OT typology isn't static, but it's dynamic. The types are not isolated, but they cohere. The types are not all still-life; but if they transform, one may expect the facts of such change to be included in the typology and not merely incidental to it.

The progress from tent--> to a "permanent" (nothing earthly is, in fact, permanent in an eschatological sense) edifice is part of the typological lesson. Let's consider the difference between the dwelling of God with his people OT vs NT. The fundamental fact is this: We are not in heaven yet, even in the NT age before the Second Coming.

God with us is the penultimate position; the ideal position is to be where God is. If we are outside of God's people in the world, we should want to be included, because (relatively speaking) that's where God is: with them. If we are in the world, and God is with us in the Spirit, (never better experienced than in worship) we understand there is a still-better place for us to be, namely the dwellingplace of God.

The original Tabernacle was the emblem of God's dwelling in the midst of his people. But, after it is promised, Ex.25-30, take a look at Ex.33:7 (right after the golden-calf). God has Moses set up a pre-tabernacle inside? no, outside the camp. What's he saying? "I can't be among you LORD rejecting, Savior-rejecting people." Of course, that stance is reversed through Moses mediation (chs.33-34), and the erection of the Tabernacle at the heart of the camp is a beautiful event.

When the people get into the land (finally), still the Tabernacle is there in the land with them. What does this mean? Besides the fact that he still dwells in their midst, the fact that he continues to dwell in a tent is one of the signs that Canaan isn't really heaven; it's only a symbol for it. The solid Temple does not get erected until the proper, mediatorial throne is established. Saul is the picture of man's ruinous self-rule; David is the picture of man coming back under the reign of God. Man needs a mediatorial king in order for his to have permanent dwelling with God.

The Temple doesn't come into existence under David, but under the son of David. Why? Because it isn't David, but his greater Son (typified again, this time by Solomon) who will be the permanent Mediatorial king, the one the high-king David will himself call "Lord," Ps. 110:1. In that One-to-come, is the fulfillment of God-with-us, Emmanuel; and he promises "that where I am, there you also will be," i.e. he will bring us to him in his heavenly dwellingplace.

But we aren't there yet. The glory-trappings of the Tabernacle and Temple have dropped away. Now, our NT worship on earth is far less distracting; but with eyes of faith we see with even more clarity the heaven still hidden from our eye-orbs. But, as Calvin reminds us, true worship is in heaven; where we go by the Spirit, Heb.12:22. That veil is extraordinarily thin then and there; and never moreso than in the celebration of the Supper.

But in the OT, they were already being taught this. Their land was a type of heaven. Then their central shrine--at first moveable, then fixed in earthly Jerusalem/Zion--that was the "gate of heaven." From all over the country, they would make pilgrimage UP to Zion. Zion was "the highest of all the mountains" of the earth. How? Not by the measure of an altimeter; but because heaven and earth intersected there.

Now, there is no central shrine any more. Jesus predicted this in Jn.4:21-24. The whole earth is full of his glory, because the church is gone out to fill it. Everywhere the church is established and meets together for worship, there God draws them heavenward. The signs of his presence here in the earth are less physical, precisely because 1) this is the Spirit's age (though he was not absent from the previous age); and 2) because of the Permanent Mediator who has gone into the heavenly Temple, our focus is less on him remaining with us (though he surely does so, namely by his Spirit, Mt.28:20). More and more, our focus is on our going to be with him, and leaving this world behind.

But we aren't in heaven yet. Worship in this world is a foretaste of heaven. It was a foretaste of heaven for the OT saints also. They had concretized object lessons, many of them, a host of types and shadows all pointing to the reality. But the most solid-and-substantial things they had were IN FACT vaporous and insubstantial. The spiritual realities that we in Christ have been introduced to are not LESS substantial, but MORE; they cannot be shaken.


What I'm hoping to do with this post is to point to the heart of the matter. It is not as much about "how" God dwells with his people, OT vs. NT, in this transient vs. permanent idea. It was already stated that the Spirit was needful even in OT times for regeneration and sanctification; the difference OT vs. NT is the degree and expression of his power, which blessing is suited for the Messianic age which we now enjoy.

The lesson is that first he comes to us, in our transientness, in our pilgrimage, in order to give us rest. This is the basic principle of what the Sabbath was all about, pointing to creation's purpose for coming to and resting in God. He comes to us in order to bring us to his Promised Land. He initiates the relationship; we do not first build a temple; then have a vagabond god settle on it and on us. Man apart from God does not seek God. God's intent is to put us on the upward way, the way to heaven and to himself. The Tabernacle at first and the Temple later are both crutches. They fade away as they are fulfilled in Christ. But they always pointed to their fulfillment.

And still, our worship, our sabbathing (Heb.4:9) is our testimony that we are on our way to the permanent rest. It isn't the rest itself, but it is the foretaste of it. Our worship is still "transitory" when looked at with earthly eyes. But by more spiritual perception, it shows us that we are now much closer to our ultimate destination than before the installation of our Mediator.


I hope this is helpful.