Man's Paradise and God's House

The 84th Psalm opens out a new and special source of delight, but one which unfolds itself in many other passages. When God put man in paradise it was not God's dwelling, but man's. God visited man there, though man was already unfit for His presence; but at least it was man's dwelling, though prepared of God for him. But now God calls us to dwell in His house-His tabernacle. This is altogether a new thing, and of sovereign grace,-our dwelling with Him and in His house. (Compare John 14) We have this by His dwelling in us, and so our dwelling in Him; for thus we know the joy of what belongs to the place where God has made His home, and thus become the home of that soul where He dwells. The passages above; Eph. 2, at the end; Rev. 21; and 1 John 3 and 4, all open this out.