"I in Thee, Thee in Me, For Time and for Eternity"

He that dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.  

Ps. 91:1

What a promise the Lord has given us that we have a secret place, safe from every harm, a place of comfort and security.  Where is this place?  Psalm 90:1 says it is in the Lord: "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations," and 91:9 proclaims, "Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling."  

Last night, I rested in the comfort of the Lord, meditating on what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit, thus it was amazing to me to come to my next "sleep study" on Romans, entitled appropriately, "The Holy Spirit, Our Seal and Constant Companion."  I say "sleep study" because, at night, when I can't fall back to sleep after a 3 am awakening, I always listen to a sermon.  In all honesty, and somewhat shamefully, I'm usually lulled back to sleep by the monotone voice of a preacher yet happy that the word of God is lodging somewhere deep within the recesses of my mind.  The monotone voice of Barry Minsky is the reason I chose this series in Romans, but God, in His infinite plan, had other intentions for me. 

I'm sure you have noticed that I have been fixated lately on what does it mean to be "in Christ" and how should that affect us?  For this post, I will be focusing on being "in Christ."  I think my contemplation started many years ago when we sent out Christmas cards asking "Who do you say I [Christ] am?" reflecting Jesus' poignant, personal question to his disciple Peter that began with the broad stroke, "Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?"  It's a question that all of us who have a knowledge of God (and Romans 1:19-20 tells us we all do) must answer.  It's the proverbial elephant in the room.  We read in Scriptures all Jesus proclaims to be; we have people tell us who they claim he is; we have all of creation testifying that there is a creator - yet all of this information demands we either shelve it ("suppress it" is what Romans 1:18 calls it) or be changed by it.

Jesus, in righteous indignation, overturned the tables of the moneychangers who merchandised easy salvation - how convenient that the Passover observer didn't have to cart his doves or sacrificial lamb over many miles or could leave the observation of its perfection to the seller - last minute sacrifices could be bought and sold at the sinner's convenience.  The first three gospels recount Jesus' actions and quote Him as saying, "My house shall be called a House of Prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers," and John quotes Jesus saying, "Take these things away! Do not make my Father's house a house of merchandise!" 

I thought, how interesting that He spoke that rebuke to the merchants selling doves, the very symbol of the Holy Spirit; it reminded me of David's cry when acknowledging his sin, "Do not take your Holy Spirit from me!"  Rather than cry for mercy, the Jews question Jesus' authority to do this: "What sign do you show us, since you do these things?" 

Jesus answered that their sign would be "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up!"  The sign of Jonah given to a wicked and adulterous generation in Matthew 12:40: "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."  They, of course, used His words to condemn him of blasphemy, but John 2:21 clarifies that the temple Jesus spoke of was his own body.  

It follows then, that to be in Christ, is to be in the Temple of God.  

What blessed unity, this secret place, wherein a believer dwells, experiencing the glory of God - the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. I struggled many years with how can God be one God if there is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit?  I heard it preached once not to think of the Trinity as (1 + 1 + 1), but rather (1 x 1 x 1), each being the fullness of the other.  That made sense to me. How can a man and a woman become one flesh in the eyes of God?  How can two people, raised in varying ways, perhaps in different locations, pledge to forsake all others and promise him/herself to the other as long as they both shall live?  Only by being married, could I realize this miracle that happened. I don't know how God miraculously joins a man and a woman as one flesh, or makes one new man out of Jew and Gentile, or takes a multitude of sinners and makes them one in Christ, but He is. My mother, when she was baptized into Christ, said it well: "I in thee, thee in me, for time and for eternity." I didn't expect to find in Romans 8 this unity of God and believers.  Here is an excerpt of Pastor Minsky's expounding on Romans 8, but I would encourage you to listen to his entire sermon, The Holy Spirit, Our Seal and Constant Companion:

"You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him."  Romans 8:9-17

First of all, I want you to note that the Lord makes a point of calling this individual, the Spirit, by different titles in Romans chapter eight beginning with verse nine.
Listen to what he is called.

“You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.”
So he is first called the “Spirit of God.” Well, now let’s go on a little further.
“Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.”
Do you notice? He is the Spirit of God, obviously referring to God the Father. So here is this relationship that the Holy Spirit has with the Father. And then we find that he is the Spirit of Christ. And so there is a relationship between the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Then we read in verse 10.

“But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”
Here we have the Spirit who dwells in us being called the Spirit of God, he dwells in you; the Spirit of Christ, anyone who does not have the Spirit does not belong to him. And then we are told if Christ is in you. Do you see the point? What the Word of God is doing for us here is bringing together the various persons of the trinity and indicating in the clearest possible way that there is an intimate, integral relationship that if you have the Spirit, he is the Spirit of God. If you have the Spirit, he is the Spirit of Christ. If you have the Spirit, it, in fact, is Christ himself, who is dwelling within you.

If we are in Christ then, we dwell in the temple of the Lord, the temple He raised from the grave in three days, the new and living church.  We dwell in the secret place of the Most High - under the shadow of the Almighty.  Not only do we dwell in the temple, we who are wed to Christ, are the temple, as surely as a husband and wife are one.  First Corinthians 6:19-20 says, "Do you not know that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?  You are not your own; you were bought at a price."  Our salvation, our reconciliation to God, was bought with a price - the price of God's own Son, stamped with the approval of the Holy Spirit, bonded in love "for time and for eternity."

Enjoy Psalm 91 performed by Sons of Korah: