37:26
We now get a description of the new relationship. God will make a covenant of peace with them. The covenant is made by God, and it will be an everlasting covenant. Hebrews tells us that the new covenant has superseded the old one (Heb 8:13). God will establish us and increase our numbers. We can so easily think that growth is all down to us, this can lead us to compromising the gospel in order to get the numbers up (and it rarely works in the long term, if at all). God gives growth. This does not mean we are passive, but God involves us in His work. “And I will put my sanctuary among them”. It is God’s heart and will to live among His people.
37:27,28
“My dwelling place will be with them”. In the Old Testament God lived among His people in a tent in the wilderness, and then in the temple in Jerusalem. Under the new covenant God lives among His people by dwelling within us through the Holy Spirit. Rev 21:3 declares that the dwelling of God is with man. “I will be their God, and they will be my people”. As I have said on numerous occasions, this is the oft repeated refrain of the Old Testament, expressing the purposes of God. And all this will be a witness to the world.
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