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Acts 7:6–7
“God spoke to this effect—that his offspring would be sojourners in a land belonging to others, who would enslave them and afflict them four hundred years. ‘But I will judge the nation that they serve,’ said God, ‘and after that they shall come out and worship me in this place.’”
God promised to consecrate the tabernacle and the temple as His dwelling place among the old covenant Israelites (Ex. 29:44–45). The infinite Creator, who cannot be limited to just one place (Jer. 23:24), chose to make His presence felt in a special way in a particular location. Yet the ancient Jews misunderstood this promise. Many of them thought that their possession of the tabernacle and the temple were sufficient for God’s blessing. They believed that the nation’s existence and the Lord’s continuing to speak to them were inextricably linked to the land of Canaan and to the sanctuary. They did not think that their sin could bring ruin on the temple or cause them to forfeit the promised land. They answered Jeremiah’s warnings by saying, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord,” thinking that since they had the temple, God would not judge them (Jer. 7:1–4).
The Babylonian destruction of the temple and the preservation of the Jews in exile revealed that God’s presence and the covenant community’s existence did not depend on the Holy Land or the temple. Yet the New Testament indicates that many Jews did not learn this lesson. The Sanhedrin charged Stephen with blasphemy for preaching Jesus, who said that the first-century temple’s days were numbered and that the covenant community would exist not only in Canaan but wherever people would worship God, through Christ, in spirit and in truth (Acts 6:8–15; see Mark 13:1–2; John 4:19–24).
Effectively answering the charge of blasphemy, then, required Stephen to show how Jesus’ teaching was congruent with the history of old covenant Israel. If this history demonstrated that God’s presence was not tied to the temple or the land, then neither Jesus nor Stephen was a blasphemer. Describing Abraham’s call while he was in Ur, Stephen demonstrated that the Lord could and did speak to His people when they were not in the promised land (Acts 7:1–5). Elaborating on the history, Stephen reminded the people that God told Abraham that his descendants would leave Canaan and be slaves to Egypt before returning to the promised land (vv. 6–7; see Gen. 15). This, John Calvin writes, showed that “the Church of God was elsewhere than in the land wherein they dwelt; that the fathers were chosen to be a peculiar people, and that they were kept safe under the tuition [instruction] of God, before ever the temple was built, or the external ceremonies of the law were instituted.”
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
The new covenant brings a genuine newness to the church’s relationship to God. Yet the realities of the new covenant were not entirely unknown to the old covenant people. Those who knew the Scriptures well understood that the temple and land arrangement would not be permanent, since the knowledge of God would one day be found throughout the earth. Today, true worship is not tied to one place but occurs wherever people call on God in spirit and truth.
For further study
- Genesis 46:1–4
- Jeremiah 29:1–14
- Malachi 1:11
- Matthew 28:18–20
The bible in a year
- Deuteronomy 5–7
- Mark 12:1–27