Deity--"I dwell with him that is of
a contrite and humble spirit." There is in the very outset this
distinction between what is great in God and what is great in man. To
be independent of everything in the universe is God's glory, and to be
independent is man's shame. All that God has, He has from Himself--all
that man has, He has from God. And the moment man cuts himself off
from God, that moment he cuts himself off from all true grandeur.

There are two things implied in Scripture, when it is said that God
dwells with man. The first is that peculiar presence which He has
conferred upon the members of His church. Brethren, we presume not to
define what that Presence is, and how it dwells within us--we are
content to leave it as a mystery. But this we know, that something of
a very peculiar and supernatural character takes place in the heart of
every man upon whom the gospel has been brought to bear with power.
"Know ye not," says the Apostle, "that your bodies are the temples of
the Holy Ghost." And again in the Epistle to the Ephesians--"In Christ
ye are builded for an habitation of God through the Spirit." There is
something in these expressions which refuses to be explained away.
They leave us but one conclusion, and that is--that in all those who
have become Christ's by faith, God personally and locally has taken up
His dwelling-place.

There is a second meaning attached in Scripture to the expression God
dwells in man. According to the first meaning, we understand it in the
most plain and literal sense the words are capable of conveying.
According to the second, we understand His dwelling in a figurative
sense, implying this--that He gives an acquaintance with Himself to
man. So, for instance, when Judas asked, "Lord, how is it, that Thou
wilt manifest Thyself to us and not to the world?" Our Redeemer's
reply was this--"If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my
Father will love him, and We will come unto him and make Our abode
with him." In the question it was asked _how_ God would manifest
Himself to His servants. In the answer it was shown _how_ He would
make His abode with them. And if the answer be any reply to the
question at all, what follows is this--that God making His abode or
dwelling in the heart is the same thing exactly as God's manifesting
himself to the heart.

Brethren, in these two things the greatness of man consists. One is to
have God so dwelling i