God Lives in People
The truth of the divine indwelling is developed more fully in the epistles of Paul. “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? . . . For the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are” (1 Cor. 3:16-17). And again (1 Cor. 6:19), “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” Without question, the teaching of the New Testament is that the very God Himself inhabits the nature of His true children. How this can be I do not know, but neither do I know how my soul inhabits my body. Paul called this wonder of the indwelling God a rich mystery: “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). And if the doctrine involved a contradiction or even an impossibility we must still believe what the mouth of the Lord has spoken. “Yea, let God be true, but every man a liar” (Rom. 3:4). The spiritual riches lying buried in this truth are so vast that they are worth any care or effort we may give to their recovery. Yet we are not concerned primarily with the theology or metaphysics embodied here. We want to know the reality of it. What does the truth mean to us in practical outworking? What does it have for a serious-minded Christian compelled to live in a dark and godless world? As Paul would say, “Much every way” (3:2).
