Apparently the verses above from Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Psalms have little to do with the matter of meeting. Yet in fact they are on the matter of meeting. Exodus 15, we know, is a section of the victorious praises offered to God by the released people. When the children of Israel were released from Egypt out of the tyranny of Pharaoh, when they crossed the Red Sea, and when they saw all the Egyptian armies were drowned under the depths of that sea, they offered a praise to the Lord.
Verse 13 says, “Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation.” Have you ever noticed that the destination of God’s guiding is His holy habitation? He guides us to this destination. He leads forth His redeemed people, and He guides them to such a destination, that is, His holy habitation. We know that this is the dwelling place of God. Firstly it was the tent or the tabernacle. Eventually it became the temple. Whether it was the tabernacle or the temple, it was the dwelling place of God, His holy habitation. This is the destination of God’s leading. This is the destination of God’s guiding. God leads us and guides us to this destination, His holy habitation.
Could you realize that God’s habitation is the meeting of His redeemed people? So you have a term that combines these two things together: the tent of meeting. The tent refers to God’s dwelling place, and the meeting, no doubt, refers to the gathering of God’s people. This indicates that the gathering of God’s people is just God’s dwelling place.
In the Old Testament, the picture was not so clear because it was really hard to portray how the gathered people of God were just God’s dwelling place. In the Old Testament type you have God’s dwelling place typified by the tent, the tabernacle, as the center of God’s gathered people. At the same time you have a gathering of God’s people around the tent.
In the New Testament, you have to realize that God’s habitation is just the church. And the church according to the Greek word, ekklesia, means a kind of meeting. It is a meeting or an assembly of the called-out ones. When God’s called-out ones meet together, this is the church. The church is just the meeting of a collective people, a gathering of the believers.
According to the New Testament teaching, do you believe that the saints in a locality do not need to come together, do not need any gathering, yet they could be the church? You have to realize without the gathering together of the believers in their locality, there is no practical church life. The practical church life is just the gathering of the saints in a certain locality. If you just live in Huntington Beach, but you don’t come together, there are many saints, no doubt, in that city, but practically speaking there is no church.
The church becomes real and practical when you all come together. That is an ekklesia. The ekklesia is the coming together of all the saints. And this coming together of all the saints is a gathering. You have to realize this gathering is the habitation of God. So the church is just the tent of meeting. The tent signifies God’s dwelling place; the meetings signify the gathering, the coming together, of all the saints. Exodus 15:13 talks about the meeting of God’s redeemed people. They got redeemed, but what should they do after being redeemed? God led them forth to the meeting. God guided them to the meeting.