The Penn's Grove record., 1910-02-04

ence with His people was made ply
sically evident by this visible pillar OF
cloud and fire in connection with the
tabernacle, and as those who followed
this cloud and got from it immediate
direction from God know themselves,
by this visible symbol, to be His cho-
sen people, so in these latter days,
when a new Jerusalem would descend
from God out Of a new heaven, there
would be given a new tabernacle or
God with men, in which He would in
a new and higher way tabernacle or
dwell with them, and they would be
His peoples, and He, God with them,
would be their God.
Thus the old returns in the new.
But it returns only as a type fulfilled,
as a symbol realized. Between the
old and the new there is the immeas-
urable difference between shadow and
substance, between type and fulfill
ment. With the Jews GAi's presence
in the tabernacle was only a typical
presence. His revelation of Himself
in the cloud was only a typical mani
festation, they were His chosen peo-
pie only in a typical sense, and He
was God with them, their God, only
III d LyplCd1 VI COCAIoblf way
And this brings US back to the
same primary truths respecting the
true life of man that the Divine Word
everywhere reflects. The true life OF
man is not a product of human pru-
dence or of human ideals of goodness
and human strivings after such good
ness in which there is little if any ref
erence to the Divine life. The true
life of man is simply and solely the
Divine life flowing into US and be-
coming active in US. This is the fun
damental truth revealed in the 1ncar-
nation, whereby God became taber-
nacled with men, and whereby as
Emmanuel" God with us, He became
our God. Thus in Jesus Christ this
prophecy became potentially fulfilled.
When God took upon Himself our ma
ture and glorified it He became tab
ernacled in every minutest capacity
and activity of that nature. In a
fuller sense than man has ever known
or ever can know did He then become
God with us. But the dim percep-
lions of this truth that the apostles
gained were soon o~bliterated, and in
the Christian Church in US real ense
has the GOD with men" become their
God. To some He became a type or
example of the possibilities of human
nature, to others He became an inf
mite victim to expiate the infinite sin
fulness of the race, but to none did
He become a bringing down of the
Divine life into such contact with fall
len human nature as a whole as
would restore that nature to its true
4-d1- o~l "a Tr,1a collation. n tho hi
vine life, and thus also into such con-
tact with our individual life as to
make the restoration of ~everyone's
life to its true order and to its true
relation to the Divine life an easy
task.
But in the now opened word this
is the truth that is everywhere pro-
claimed. What the Old Testament
prefigures the New Testament de-
clares fulfilled. To the Jews God
made manifest His presence and re-
vealed His will by physical signs, be-
cause they had no eyes to see His
spiritual presence, no ears to hear
His spiritual voice. But those to-day
who choose to be Gods chosen peo-
pie are able to see, in the light or
spiritual truth shining into their
opened spiritual intelligence, that
these Jewish signs are actually full
filled; to see in the Divine human life
of our Lord Jesus Christ the taber-
nacle of God with men; to see that.
by what the Lord did in His assumed
human nature, the Divine life is in
actual contact with every minutest
movement of our life; to see that in
every least issue between right and
wrong that comes before our thought
the Lord is really with us, to help US
and uphold us to the fullest extent
that is good for US, and that, by SIM
ply bringing all our thinking and feel
ing into harmony with this truth, all
the requirements of spiritual lifting
will be made easy and its burdens
light.
This simple truth, which makes
clear to us the relation of the Divine
life to our life, is the good tidings OF
great joy which the world is now be-
ginning to hear. 1t says to US: See
in the Lord Jesus Christ the taber-
nacle of God with men" And seeing
how He is the tabernacle of God with
men, we have only to open our minds
and hearts by the reputation OF evil
and falsfty and He will come in and
tabernacle in US; and we shall then
be in reality His people, and He,
God with u.s." will be God, for
His Divine human wisdom will then
become our wisdom, His Divine hu-
man love our love, and His Divine
human life our life.
And this truth is to come, not
merely to our spiritual vision as a
truth seen, but to our spiritual hear
ing as a truth heard, and heard as a
great voice out of the new heaven,
in that our affections as well as our
thought will be moved and quickened
by the limitless love that is revealed
in that supreme truth. For when we
spiritually hear this truth, we not
only see but also feel that God is our
Heavenly Father, yearning to make
us vertically His children by making
US consequently partakers of all the
joys and delights that spring from
that life. And no voice that ever
entered human ear can compare with
the fullness and sweetness of that
voice when it is heard. 1t is the voice
that saith: These things have l
spoken unto you that My JOY may be
in you, and that your joy may be
full"