GOD IN THE

PRESENT TENSE
DAVE BISH – BIBLE OVERVIEW
LEADERSHIP TRAINING (ADVANCED)
ASSIGNMENT ON BIBLICAL THEOLOGY

Some paint a picture of a distant god who might spiritually be with

us but who will finally dwell in heaven while we dwell on a peaceful
earth. Others say the physical is evil and so god is disinterested in
us. Still others suggest that if god did come near it would evidently
be to smite us and therefore he should be disbelieved.

The Bible tells a different story.

Before the beginning, the Son is present with his Father, given love
and glory1. They know and enjoy one another’s presence before
anything is made, before anything else they know us and give us
grace2. Against this backdrop God comes into the dark, empty and
formless world, announcing his presence with a word – ‘Light’3,
spreading beams of love into his world to divide the darkness, as
the rivers run down from the Mountain to water the surrounding
wilderness.

God takes man out of the dust4 and put him in his garden. The
Father and Son and Spirit were never alone, and so it is not good for
man to be alone5. He must have a bride, just as the Son will have a
bride to give himself up for. Together they are sent to fill the whole
of God’s good world6, to cultivate a global Eden, a temple7 in which
they will enjoy intimacy with one another and with God. God
involved, personally.
1
John 17:24, all references ESV.
2
2 Timothy 1:9
3
Genesis 1:3
4
Genesis 2:7
5
Genesis 2:18
6
Genesis 1:28
7
Genesis 2:15, I’m taking this from the language of work & keep being priestly, and with the assistance of GK Beale The Temple & The
Church’s Mission that Eden is a kind of temple, and a Type that recurs throughout Scripture.
They live together with God, without shame8, until the serpent leads
them astray from their pure devotion to Christ9, and they turn on
one another and hide from the face10 of the Word11 who walks in the
garden. They sought to be like God on their own terms instead of
receiving from him.12 Even as they hide he seeks them13, before
sending them away from his face back to the dust14, barring the
way to the mountain with the swords of angels15. Cain will be driven
further from the presence of God.16 God-estranged.

Seth and Enoch and Noah walk with God17 but as they spread the
world is filled with violence rather than the goodness and love of
God18. Noah’s family are gathered into a box19 to escape judgment
and everything begins again as they stand at the centre of a
formless and empty world20. God remembers his new humanity,
though Noah is soon shamed in his tent21 - and we wait for God to
do something deeper in his people.

As the world is repopulated men seem keener to dethrone God than

to know him22. The LORD appears to Abram23 sending him to look
for a city built by God24, where his offspring will live. While he waits
he meets with God as he builds altars. One night the Word comes to
him25, reminding him of promises, and walking between the divided
pieces of sacrifices. In fire and smoke26 Abram knows God.

8
Genesis 1:24-25
9
2 Cor 11:1-3
10
Genesis 3:8, presence – literally face.
11
Genesis 3:8, older versions have Word of the Lord instead of Sound of the Lord.
12
Genesis 3:5
13
Genesis 3:9
14
Genesis 3:24
15
Genesis 3:24
16
Genesis 4:16
17
Genesis 4:26, Genesis 5:22, Genesis 6:9
18
Genesis 6:11
19
Genesis 7:16
20
Genesis 8:1 which is similar to Genesis 1
21
Genesis 9:21
22
Genesis 11:1-8
23
Acts 7:2
24
Hebrews 11:10, and contrasts with Genesis 4 and 11 where cities are built by men
25
Genesis 15:1, 4,5.
26
Genesis 15:17, a picture of Exodus.
His family becomes a nation, exiled and enslaved, until God
remembers and returns to meet with them.27 Jesus saves this
people out of Egypt28 and brings them to his Father at the
mountain29. He speaks with his people30 to prepare them for his
Father to shows Moses the pattern for a tent31 where they will meet
with him. This tent looks like a garden32, with curtains embroidered
with angels33, all very evocative of Eden.

The leaders get a taste of meeting with God, eating a fellowship

meal with him34, while Moses sees Jesus face to face, talking to him
as with a friend35, he longs to see the Father and gets a glimpse of
his back. While it is impossible to see the Father and live36 yet it is
the loving and personal presence of God with his people that makes
them distinct37 from all other peoples. The Holy Spirit is among
them38. God in close proximity.

In the tent the LORD meets with his people, via priests, who will
repeatedly39 offer sacrifices and cautiously go into the presence of
God on behalf of the people40. They remain outside of the land, but
God meets them in the tent41. God at home with his people.

In the land, David their king has designs to build a temple in place
of the tent42. His son will do it, and God chooses to make his
dwelling there, though he is not confined to it43. God in relationship.
King Uzziah charges into the temple uninvited44. When Uzziah dies

27
Exodus 2:24
28
Jude 5, ESV, although some versions only say “the Lord saved”
29
Exodus 3:12, 4:23, 7:16, 8:1, 8:20, 9:1 and others. It is the Father who demands their release from slavery, while Jesus led them and the
Holy Spirit dwelt among them - Isaiah 63:11
30
Exodus 20:1
31
Exodus 25:9, 26:30, 27:8
32
1 Kings 6:29
33
Exodus 26:1
34
Exodus 24:9-10, they see something similar to Ezekiel in 1:26-28. The meal also seems to be a foretaste of Isaiah 25 which itself points
forward to the wedding supper in Revelation.
35
Exodus 33:11
36
Exodus 33:20
37
Exodus 33:16, they are also “holy” from the way they live, but God’s presence is the key distinctive
38
Isaiah 63:11
39
Hebrews 10:11
40
Exodus 28:21, 39:6-7. The priest carries Israel in with him.
41
Acts 7:44
42
1 Chronicles 17:4 and parallel in 2 Samuel 7:5
43
Acts 7:48, 17:24
44
2 Chronicles 26:16
the prophet Isaiah sees a vision of Jesus on the throne45, high and
lifted up46. Refusing to listen to those God sends to them. God
removes his presence from the temple47, and the model of heavenly
reality becomes an empty building. God-departed.

In exile God still meets with some of his people, appearing in

visions, with his people in their trials, but it’s all a shadow of what
they’d seen before. When the exile ends, a foreign king sends them
back to rebuild a temple which is never more than a shadow of
what came before48.

Will God ever dwell with his people again?

Then, at just the right time49, God comes to dwell again with his
people50. Not in a canvas tent or a stone temple but in a human
body and now people begin to see more than Moses ever saw, as
the One who had dwelt with his Father comes to walk our streets51.
He is called Jesus, and he is called God with us.52 Heaven is torn
open and we see that he lives in the present favour of his Father,
and is anointed with the Holy Spirit.53 This man calls himself the
true temple, the dwelling place of God, and promises that if he is
destroyed he will be rebuilt54 to intercede for his people by the
power of his indestructible life55.
As he prepares to face destruction on the cross he promises to
prepare a place for his people where they will live with his Father56.
Seeing Jesus they have seen the Father57. Jesus sends one like
himself who will not just live with them, but within them58 catching
them up into the Son’s own relationship with his loving Father59
where the will cry ‘Daddy’. God in people, people in God.
45
Isaiah 6:1, John 12:36-42, John tells us Isaiah saw “him” and it’s evident the “him” he means is Jesus.
46
‘High and lifted up’ Isaiah 6:1, 52:13, 57:13 , John 3:14, 12:32
47
Ezekiel 10, read and weep.
48
2 Chronicles 36:23 and Ezra 1:1
49
Galatians 4:4
50
John 1:14
51
John 1:18
52
Matthew 1:23, prophesied in Isaiah 7:14, 8:8, 10.
53
Mark 1:10-11, Luke 4:18 amongst other references.
54
John 2:19
55
Hebrews 7:16
56
John 14:3
57
John 14:7
58
John 14:16-17
59
Galatians 4:6 and Romans 8:15
The Son must die so his people can live through him, knowing
himself and his Father forever60. No love is like the Father’s love to
send his Son for us61 in the power of the Spirit. In the Son’s death
the Triune God becomes eternally favourable toward his people,
bearing the jealousy that should have burned against humanity and
lavishing great love upon us.

When Jesus dies the curtain of the temple is torn open and Jesus
enters the heavenly tabernacle to offer his once for all sacrifice of
himself, so all God’s people may come with confidence into his
presence62. He is raised from the dead. Before returning to his
Father, he breathes on his people and fills them with his Holy
Spirit63 sending them out as he was sent, in his Father’s love. They
will know God with them, when they’re persecuted64, as they go to
the ends of the earth, and to the end of the age, sent with God to
fill all nations with his love. God with us.

This loving people are built together into a new temple where the
Father makes his home on earth by the Spirit65. They are called the
church, a people who make their home in God and ‘God’s seed’
(Jesus) makes his home in them;66 as he fills everything with
himself67. The church is an ever present foretaste of a day when
God will come and dwell in a renewed creation where there will be
no temple, for God himself will be the temple68.

Once unable to see God they now gaze upon Christ with unveiled
faces, seeing the glory of God – that is his love - in the gospel69, as
the Spirit shines his light into their hearts and transforms them70.
They thirst for the day when they will see God face to face 71 in his

60
John 17:3, 1 John 4:9
61
1 John 3:1, 4:10,
62
Hebrews 8:1, 10:12-14, 10:19. And Mark’s account of Jesus’ death sees the ‘model’ temple curtain torn open. Mark 15:37-38 cf. Mark 1:10-
11.
63
John 20:22, and then at Pentecost the nations are gathered and the Spirit is poured out.
64
Luke 12:12
65
Ephesians 2:19-22
66
1 John 2:28, 3:9, Ephesians 3:17
67
Ephesians 1:22-23, 3:17
68
Revelation 21:22
69
2 Cor 3:18 and 4:4
70
2 Cor 4:6
71
1 Cor 13:12 though we have already seen him in the gospel, 1 John 3:6.
renewed world where they will not come to a mountain but to
Jesus72, though some still desert God73.

In the gospel God has come to us and will come to us, in his love he
is with us, and will be with us, and when we finally see him face to
face we will be truly be like him, participating in the loving
community of God.74 The renewed universe is a place where God
lives with a people who live to ‘taste and see that the Lord is
good’75.

72
Hebrews 12:22-24
73
Galatians 1:6
74
1 John 3:2
75
Psalm 38:8