We Will Make Our Abode

The Spirit of Messiah was within the prophets, and Jacob’s last words bear the marks of that Spirit’s teaching and remembering. If that is so, a reader may fairly ask what is different for those who believe now. Something did change when the Word became flesh. Scripture does not leave this vague, and what changed and what did not can be set side by side.

Jacob and Now

Set out this way, two things stand out: some of these show real change, and others show that nothing has changed at all.

The appearing and the price show change. Jacob met God in a form taken for a time, a man who wrestled with him through one night and then was gone. Believers now know the Son who took human nature for ever. Jacob waited for a salvation whose price had not yet been paid. Believers now look back on a price already paid, by the blood of the Lamb.

The name shows no change. Jacob called the One who redeemed him Ha-Goel, the One who redeems, and believers now call on the Lamb who purchased people for God by His blood (Revelation 5:9) by the same name: the goel of Leviticus, the kinsman who pays.

The Same One Within

The One within is the same. Peter spoke of the Spirit of Messiah within the prophets, and Paul uses the very same phrase of believers, and with it he draws a line: whoever does not have the Spirit of Messiah “does not belong to Him.”

Romans 8:9 But you are not in the sarx σάρξ sarx(flesh) but in the pneuma πνεῦμα pnyoo'-mah(spirit), if indeed the pneuma(spirit) of God dwells in you; but if anyone does not have the pneuma(spirit) of Messiah, this one does not belong to Him.

The Spirit of Messiah who was within the prophets is the Spirit of Messiah who dwells in everyone who belongs to Him. The Spirit has not changed; it is the same One.

Poured Out on All Flesh

The widening shows in how far the Spirit is given. In Jacob’s day the Spirit was at work within those whom God called for His purpose: the patriarchs, the prophets, men like Joseph in whom even Pharaoh could see the spirit of God. On the day of Pentecost, Peter stood up in Jerusalem and explained what had just happened by quoting the prophet Joel.

Acts 2:17 'And it shall be in the last days, God says, that I will pour out from My pneuma(spirit) on all sarx(flesh), and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.

“On all sarx(flesh).” What had been given to some was now poured out on all who believe, sons and daughters, young men and old men. What changed after the incarnation is that the abiding was nailed down as a promise and poured out on everyone who believes.

We Will Come and Stay

Yeshua made that promise on the night He was handed over.

John 14:23 Yeshua answered and said to him, "If anyone agapao ἀγαπάω ag-ap-ah'-o(loves) Me, he will keep My logos λόγος log'-os(word); and My Father will agapao(love) him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.

The last words of the verse are “make Our abode with him.” The Greek word for abode is mone (μονή), a place where one stays. It comes from the same root as meno μένω men'-o, the verb for remaining that runs through John 15 and 1 John 3. The word of God “abides forever,” Yeshua abides in His Father’s love, and those who keep His commandments will abide in His love; and now the Father and the Son say that They will come to the one who loves Yeshua and make Their mone with him.

The statement is not that God will appear for a moment and then go, as the man at the Jabbok appeared for one night and left Jacob limping at sunrise. It is that He will stay. The visit has become a dwelling.

The verse also joins the same things John 15:10 joined. “If anyone agapao(loves) Me, he will keep My logos(word).” Love, keeping and abiding stand together once more. The one who keeps the word of Yeshua is the one in whom the Father and the Son make Their dwelling.

Messiah in You

Paul calls this a mystery that has now been made known, and he names it in a single line.

Colossians 1:27 to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the nations, which is Messiah in you, the elpis ἐλπίς el-pece'(hope) of glory.

The mystery was made known “among the nations.” The same Messiah whose Spirit was within the prophets of Israel now dwells in people from every nation who believe, as the song of Revelation 5:9 said: people purchased from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

Two Lives in One Body

Paul describes what this indwelling looks like from the inside in his letter to the Galatians.

Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified together with Messiah; and it is no longer I who live, but Messiah lives in me; and the life which I now live in sarx(flesh) I live by faith in the Son of God, who agaped(loved) me and gave Himself up for me.

The tenses matter. Both verbs are in the present: Messiah lives in him, and “the life which I now live in sarx(flesh)” goes on as well. Paul does not say that Messiah once lived in him and has now withdrawn, or that he himself has stopped living in the flesh. Both verbs stand together, both at once. Two lives run at the same time in the same body: Messiah living in him, and Paul living in the flesh by faith in the Son of God.

And Paul names the ground of it all in the last words of the verse. He lives by faith in the Son of God, “who agaped(loved) me and gave Himself up for me.” The One who dwells in him is the One who first gave Himself up for him. This is the same order as every step of taking hold. The price was paid first, and the indwelling rests on it.

So the Spirit within is the same, and the name is the same. What changed is the manner of the appearing, the payment of the price, and the reach of the gift, which now rests on everyone who believes as a promise that does not depart.

But if Messiah lives within a person, where does that life show? Paul in another letter names the whole person, every part of him, and prays for all of it.