The Movement of God - 20

Where was God's PLACE, on Earth, before the Tabernacle?  What place did God have to rest, on the Earth, while Noah was bobbing along over the waves?  Where did God walk with Enoch?  Where did God dwell in the days when Abraham was his only companion?  Where did He go, when Adam & Eve left the Garden?

God still inhabited an Eternal, Spiritual realm, of course.  But on Earth, once Adam & Eve were exiled, it was as if God himself had been exiled also.  That is, the moment humanity lost its spot in the Garden, God lost his place to live with them on Earth.

Speaking AS IF Eden was real (not a myth or a metaphor), and whether Eden remains hidden somewhere, or whether Eden was lifted off of the earth... Whatever Eden was, really... Eden was God's place, on the Earth.

And God lost it.

When Man lost Eden, God lost Man, because God's Garden was made as a place God could walk with his Man.  For a brief time, the Triune God had shared that place with humanity.  But the day Eve & Adam were punished with exile, on that day God also lost a home, because God's earthly home was that place, with those two.

After Eden, God Himself had no earthly place to call home!  It was somewhat fitting, then, that Abraham, Isaac & Jacob all lived nomadic lives.  They had all built altars to the Lord, in particular places, after they'd met God in one of those places.  But each time, after building those altars, Abraham, Isaac & Jacob moved on.  So did God.

For all that time, God himself held no particular place, on the Earth.

But that began changing on the very first day God called Moses.

We noted earlier that God's first commission for Moses was replete with dynamic vocabulary.  "Come... send... bring... out..."  But we left out a very important statement, before that one.  And this statement was not dynamic or motional, but static and positional.  Before sending Moses, God situated Moses.  The first thing God said to Moses was, "Do not come nearer.  Take off your shoes, for the place on which you're standing is holy ground."

Holy ground.  God himself claimed that patch of earth.  It was special.

God's desire for holy space is as old as the Garden of Eden. Perhaps even older.

To be continued...