Psalm 36:8 says, “They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures.” We may say that we are satisfied with the Lord, but do we have some experience of being abundantly satisfied with the fatness of the Lord’s house? What is the fatness of the Lord’s house? It is the fountain of life, which is the Lord Himself. The fountain of life is in the house of the Lord. Psalm 36:9 says, “For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.” With this fountain of life there is the light. This absolutely corresponds with John 1:4: “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” The fatness of the Lord’s house is the fountain of life with the source of light. Whenever you enjoy the Lord Jesus as your life, you sense that you are enlightened.
In the holy place of the tabernacle the serving priest first went to the showbread table, typifying the Lord as the bread of life, the life supply, to us. Then he would proceed to the lampstand, which signifies Christ as the light of life (John 8:12). When we enjoy the Lord as life, we enjoy the light of life and sense something within us shining. The more you enjoy the Lord as life, the more you sense that you are filled with light and enlightened within. From the lampstand the priest then proceeded to the incense altar to burn the incense. This typifies our prayer to the Lord ascending as a sweet savor unto Him. This shows us the fatness of the Lord’s house which comes from the experience of the fountain of life and the source of light.
Whenever you experience the Lord in such a way as life and as light and as the sweet savor of incense in your prayer to God, you will immediately sense the need of the building up of the Body, of the Lord’s house, of the corporate church life. The more you enjoy Christ as life, the more you will desire, hunger, and thirst for the church life. The more you enjoy the Lord, the more you will sense the need to fellowship with others. When you get into the church life, into the Lord’s house, the house of the Lord will bring you back to all the many experiences of Christ and will enrich and strengthen these experiences. Then you will be satisfied abundantly with the fatness of the house of the Lord. You will see that the fountain of life and the source of light are in the house of the Lord. If you are not in the house of the Lord, it is possible for you to have a foretaste of the fountain of life and the source of light, and this foretaste will bring you and cause you to get into the church life. When you get into the church life, into the house of the Lord, you will say, “Here is the place where there is the fountain of life and the source of light.” You will have a real sense of the sweetness, the fatness, of the Lord’s house.
In Psalm 27:4 David said, “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.” The only thing that David was seeking was to dwell in the Lord’s house for his entire life. In Psalm 84:10 the psalmist said, “For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.” The best way to redeem our time is to keep ourselves in the courts of the Lord. One day there is better than a thousand days. Some people may criticize you by saying that you are wasting your time, but actually you are not wasting your time. You are gaining your time one thousand fold by remaining in the Lord’s house in the enjoyment of the Lord.
The Lord’s house in the Old Testament was first the tabernacle and then the temple. In the tabernacle and the temple there were two main materials—acacia wood and gold. The wood was overlaid with gold and united, knit together, by the gold. Forty-eight standing boards of acacia wood formed the main part of the tabernacle. All of these forty-eight boards were overlaid with gold. There were golden rings on each board which served to unite the boards (Exo. 26:24). In addition there were bars made of acacia wood overlaid with gold running through the boards to connect them (26:26-29). The acacia wood signifies the human nature, and the gold signifies the divine nature. The divine nature and the human nature have to be built up together and mingled together as one. Thus, the dwelling place of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, is the mingling of divinity with humanity.
The first mention of the house of God is in Genesis 28 with Jacob. Jacob had a dream of a ladder set up on the earth with the angels of God ascending and descending on it (v. 12). When Jacob awoke he said, “This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven” (v. 17). Verse 18 says, “And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it.” Jacob then called this place Bethel, which means the house of God (v. 19). The stone with oil poured upon it is Bethel, the temple of God, the house of God. We are the stone, and God is the oil. Thus, in this picture we again see the principle of the mingling of God with man. The house of God, the temple of God, is the mingling of divinity with humanity.
When God was incarnated, the divine nature was mingled with the human nature. Jesus, the incarnated God, was the mingling of the divine nature with the human nature, and He told us that He was the temple (John 2:20-22). Through the Lord’s death and resurrection, this temple was enlarged to become the church, the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 3:16). The church as the temple of God is the mingling of God with man in a corporate way. There was not just one board in the tabernacle but forty-eight boards overlaid with gold. This mingling of God with man is the mutual abode, the dwelling place of God and the dwelling place of His seeking ones. God’s seeking ones are His abode, and He is their abode. Through the death and resurrection of Christ, the mingling of God with His chosen and redeemed people to produce the mutual abode has been accomplished.