Discipleship Begins with Beholding by Samuel Whitefield

Author:Samuel Whitefield
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: OneKing Publishing
Published: 2022-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

The Fire Is Back

When God first formed a corporate people, He came down in a fire in their midst.111 That fire was an expression of the presence of God in the midst of His people. When Solomon dedicated the temple, fire fell again, indicating the temple was the place of God’s presence among His people.112 Tragically, Israel went astray, and when Babylon destroyed the temple, Ezekiel saw the fire of God leave the city of Jerusalem.113

Many decades later, Jewish exiles returned to Jerusalem and rebuilt the temple as an act of obedience. They were right to do it, but the fire never fell in the second temple. The lack of fire was an indicator that temple was temporary—it was not a permanent dwelling place of God. When Jesus came, Israel was still waiting for the fire—the visible manifestation of God’s presence—to return and dwell in her midst.

Then, on the day of Pentecost, the fire suddenly returned.114

When fire fell on the day of Pentecost, it was a vivid, public statement: The temple is back. God dwells among His people again. The Spirit was poured out near the temple, but the fire fell on a corporate people rather than a building. God could now dwell fully among His people without the separation that existed in the tabernacle and temple.

When the fire fell, people suddenly began speaking the gospel in many gentile languages that they did not know. The temple was no longer a building; it was now a corporate community, and the different languages indicated it was going viral into the nations. (However, the message was first given to Israel and spoken by Jewish messengers, showing the “natural branches” remain a priority.115)

The tabernacle and the subsequent temple created a context for twelve tribes to be unified around the presence of God. This living temple is a context for all tribes of the earth to become unified around the presence of God, become a picture of “one new man,” and live as one people under one King.116 Like the twelve tribes of Israel, our “tribes” have distinctions, but we are unified into a single people through God’s presence in His worship sanctuary.

The New Testament concept of church was built around the idea that the temple has gone viral into the nations. The temple was no longer limited to Jerusalem, and Jesus’ people have a new commission: Go build temples everywhere among the Gentiles.117

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