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Wednesday 5 December 2018

Zechariah 2:10,11 - I will dwell in your midst

2:10
God dwelling with man is a central theme of the Bible. In the Garden of Eden God walked with man (Gen 3:8). Enoch walked with God (Gen 5:22). Jesus is called “Emmanuel” which means “God with us, and in Rev 21:3 about the final state of things it says “the dwelling of God is with man”. God created us to dwell with Him and He with us. And we are meant to rejoice in this.

2:11

And this dwelling with God and He with us is not confined to Israel, for here we are told that many nations will come and dwell with God and be His people. There are repeated promises throughout the Old Testament that God’s salvation would go to all the earth. It was never to be restricted to Israel, though it would flow out from Israel, as indeed it has done. For ourselves, the salvation that God has given to us is meant to then flow out from us to others. And notice that the status of the people coming from the nations is the same as for the Jews. Paul and the other apostles understood this when there were those who tried to insist that Gentile Christians had to, in effect, become Jews in order to be fully pleasing to God. This was not so, and was not what God had revealed in the Old Testament.

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