In my morning time with God and His Word, the following verses caught my attention:
“A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families. He leads out the prisoners with singing, but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.”
Psalm 68:5-6
Other verses speak of God being a father to the fatherless and a defender of widows (and a lover of “the foreigner residing among you” (Deut. 10:18) and an upholder of the cause of the appressed (Psalm 146:7), but this hit in a different way today. God is a father to the fatherless and a defender of widows “in his holy dwelling.”
The Hebrew word translated “holy dwelling” is the word used to mean God’s tabernacle or temple. As John Walton and other Old Testament scholars say, the tabernacle and the temple are designs meant to remind us of the Garden of Eden, full of Edenic imagery. They were used to demonstrate God’s desire to dwell among His people, first in the tabernacle that was carried through the desert and stationed in the Tent of Meeting and later in the Temple in Jerusalem.
God allowed the Temple to be destroyed after Jesus came, died, and rose again, leaving the Holy Spirit to dwell with us and in us. The progression of the tabernacle, the Temple, and the Holy Spirit living in and among God’s people are all pointers to God’s ultimate plan and design:
“Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.””
Revelation 21:1-4
God is a father to the fatherless and a defender of widows in his holy dwelling. Since Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden, human beings have not dwelt with God in His holy dwelling. God has dwelt among His people in limited ways in the Tabernacle, and in the Temple, and (presently) in people who have received the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, but we have not lived with God in His holy dwelling.
Though God’s people have the comfort and guidance of the Holy Spirit in this world, this world is still on the other side of Eden, and this world as we know it will pass away. We await the new heavens, the new earth, and the new Jerusalem where God will dwell with His people.
In the meantime, though God is a father to the fatherless and a defender of widows in His holy dwelling. What does that mean? We are separated from God’s holy dwelling in this life. We are in between Eden and the New Jerusalem.
I believe it means that commissions those who have God in us (the Holy Spirit) to the “defend the weak and fatherless” and to “uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.” (Psalm 82:3) He commissions us to “care about justice for the poor” (Prov. 29:7), and He commissions us to love the foreigners living among us. (Deut. 10:19)
God is a father to the fatherless and a defender of widows in His holy dwelling. That is who God is in his inner sanctum. That is who God is at the core of his being. God “sets the lonely in families,” and “God leads out the prisoners with singing.” This is God’s very heart at the core of his being. This is who God is, and this is who we should be as His children.
The word translated “sets” (the lonely in families) in the NIV means to abide, to continue, to establish, to dwell, or to cause to dwell, or cause to make a dwelling. Thus, God causes lonely people to dwell in families. In other words, families are God’s antidote to loneliness.
Just as the Tabernacle and Temple were demonstrations of God’s desire to dwell in and among His people, families are demonstrations of God desire and heart for people – to be the cure for their loneliness. Just as the Tabernacle and the Temple were pointers toward the reality of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (and ultimately the reality of the New Jerusalem in which God will dwell face to face among His people), families are pointers toward the ultimate family of God in which we become His children in perfect relationship with Him.
We are all prone to loneliness, so God causes people to dwell in families. When a person does not have a family – a father, a mother, a husband, a wife – God sees and He cares in His holy dwelling. God has a heart for them.
When family breaks down, which it inevitably does in this fallen, in between world, God’s heart extends to us. When people are violent, abusive, and unkind, the result is a sun-scorched land. This is where we live, though God’s heart in His holy dwelling is for the orphan, the widow, the stranger, the poor, and the weak.
Thus, God has given us the deposit of the Holy Spirit, and God calls us to be followers of Jesus, the exact representation of God in human flesh, to walk as he did, self-sacrificially loving the people God made in his image. God seeks to make a dwelling place for all people who receive Him in the family of God.
When Jesus was told his mother and brothers were looking for him, he pointed to his disciples and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers.” (Matthew 12:46-50) The answer for loneliness in this in between world is families; and when families fail us, it is the family of God; and even when the family of fails us, God, Himself, is a Father to the fatherless and a defender of widows.
We have this hope in the deposit of the Holy Spirit who testifies with our spirits through whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8:15-16) This is the hope to which we cling as we wait like Abraham and all the people of faith who came before us for the City whose architect and maker is God.
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Postscript
I think about these things in relation to Administer Justice, the faith-based legal aid organization with which I am involved as a board member and a volunteer in a local legal aid clinic that works out of my local church. The model of Administer Justice is to invite people into a neighborhood church for help with legal issues. We empower people with the help of a lawyer and the hope of God’s love.
We invite people into a local “dwelling” of the family of God. In that place, prisoners are led out with singing. As we sing and worship God as a family, He sets us free from the things that bind us and hold us back and oppress us, because that is who God is, and it is what He desires to do.
When Jesus announced His ministry, He said He came to proclaim “good news to the poor”; “freedom for the prisoners”; “recovery of sight for the blind”; “to set the oppressed free”; and ” to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19) That is Father’s redemptive work in the world that Jesus came to do. That is God’s desire for us to do.
We participate in God’s redemptive work in the world when we do things like being involved in Administer Justice. We can also be involved in God’s redemptive work as we go about our daily routines and live out our daily lives, as we live in relation to our own families, to the people within our circles, the people with whom we work, the people in our neighborhoods, and God’s family with whom we worship.
We participate in who God is at the very core of His being when we bring people into that kind of relationship, when we, ourselves, become a father to the fatherless, a mother to the motherless, a defender of widows, a welcomer of strangers, a protector of the vulnerable, a provider for those who are poor, and a freer of those who are oppressed. There is nothing that is more central to who God is than these things. It is at the very core of His being, at the foundation of His throne, and it is who God is in the inner sanctum of His holy dwelling.
While God causes the lonely to dwell in families, the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land, which is a consequence of their own doing. God does not cause the sun to scorch the land. The land is scorched by the wicked actions of those who rebel against God and refuse to be part of His redemptive work.
We participate in God’s redemptive work as we learn, as Jesus prayed, to dwell in Him and to allow Him to dwell in us. (John 17:6-26) Through our connection to God and His connection in us, we introduce the coming of God’s kingdom into a sun-scorched world. Though we have yet to join God in His holy dwelling, we are connected to Him through His Holy Spirit and can live out the reality of His kingdom which is here among us as we live it out, pointing to the fulfillment of His kingdom in the New Jerusalem.
Navigating by Faith 