The builder entered the house he built. Not a representative. Not a visit. The substance filling the shadow from inside. The Bet of Bereshit inhabited at last.
Document 8 of 10
Everything in this series has been moving toward one moment. The Bet of Bereshit (the enlarged house in the first letter of the first word of the Torah) declared the destination before the creation began. The tzelem (shadow or image) of humanity was the house built in the shape of the one who would inhabit it. The neshamah chayyim (breath of life) was the first breath of the builder in the house, the down payment of what the full inhabitation would be. The mishkan (tabernacle, portable dwelling) was the declaration moving through the wilderness. The temple of Shlomo was the acknowledgment that even stone cannot contain what is coming. The Davidic covenant was the building of the lineage. The seed held at the right hand was the protection of the builder’s plan above every earthly power. And now, the moment the entire building project was always moving toward.
The Word moved in.
Yochanan 1:14, kai ho Logos sarx egeneto kai eskenosen en hemin. And the Word became flesh and eskenosen among us. One word. Eskenosen. The builder entered the house.
Yochanan (John) opened his account of the gospel not with a birth narrative but with a declaration about the nature of the one being born. In the beginning was the Logos (the Word, not merely speech or sound but the self-expression of the divine being, the declaration of YHWH made audible and visible, the same one who was in-beginning in the first word of the Torah), and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. The same one. The I am. The eternal self-expression of YHWH. Present before the creation. The one through whom all things were made.
And then verse 14. Kai ho Logos sarx egeneto, and the Word became flesh. Not appeared as flesh. Not took on the appearance of flesh. Egeneto, became. The verb is the same verb used throughout the creation narrative for things coming into existence, let there be light, and there was (egeneto) light. The same becoming. The same genuine arrival into a new mode of existence. The Word, the eternal self-expression of YHWH, the I am, the one declared in the first word of the Torah before the creation began, genuinely became what it had never before been. Flesh. The tzelem. The house.
And then the word that contains the entire building project in a single syllable. Eskenosen. From the Greek verb skenoo, to pitch a tent, to tabernacle, to set up a dwelling, to take up residence in a specific place. The root is skene, a tent, a tabernacle, a dwelling structure. The same concept as the Hebrew mishkan (tabernacle, the portable dwelling YHWH built in the wilderness with Israel, from the root shakan meaning to dwell or settle). Yochanan chose this word with complete precision. He did not say the Word came to visit. He did not say the Word passed through. He said the Word eskenosen, the Word pitched his tent, the Word set up his tabernacle, the Word moved in and took up residence.
Eskenosen, from skene, a tent, a tabernacle. The same concept as mishkan. The Word did not visit. The Word did not pass through. The Word pitched his tent. The Word took up residence. The builder moved into the house he had been building since the first letter.
The Bet of Bereshit was enlarged in every Torah scroll because it was the declaration of what was always coming. The mishkan was built in the wilderness because YHWH was moving toward the house with his people. The temple was built in Jerusalem because the approach was continuing. The Davidic covenant was established because the lineage of the nail-bearer needed to be built. The seed was held at the right hand because the timing of the arrival was YHWH’s alone to determine. And in the fullness of time, Galatians 4:4, hote de elthen to pleroma tou chronou (when the fullness of time came, when the appointed time arrived, when the moment was complete), YHWH sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the Torah.
Born of a woman. The tzelem of humanity, the house built in the shape of the builder, receiving into itself the fullness of the one who had declared it in the first letter before the creation began. Not a partial filling. Not a hovering presence over the structure as the kavod (glory, the weighty, shining presence of YHWH) had hovered over the mishkan and filled the temple. The fullness, pleroma (fullness, completeness, the full measure of what something is), of the divine substance entering the shadow. The substance filling the form that had always been cast in its shape.
Yochanan says we beheld his doxa (glory, the same kavod that had filled the mishkan and the temple, the visible weight of the divine presence). The glory that could not be contained in the stone temple of Shlomo was contained in the tzelem of one human being, because the tzelem was always the right shape for it. The mishkan and the temple were structures that could not contain the fullness. The tzelem, built in the shape of the builder, shaped to correspond to the divine nature in both form and character, was the house the fullness fit into. Not because it was large enough. Because it was the right shape. The shadow fits the substance that cast it because the shadow was always cast by that substance.
And he dwelt among us. En hemin, in us, among us, within our midst. Not above us as the pillar of cloud over the mishkan. Not within the inner chamber as the presence in the holy of holies. Among us. In the same flesh. In the same mode of existence. The builder in the house at the same level as every other person in the house, eating, sleeping, walking, weeping, asking questions in the temple, sitting down to teach among the people, touching the untouchable, speaking to those no authorized interpreter would speak to. The fullness of the divine presence in the most intimate possible mode. Not distant. Home.
The kavod (glory) that could not be contained in the stone temple was contained in the tzelem of one human being. Not because the house was large enough. Because it was the right shape. The shadow fits the substance that cast it, because it was always cast by that substance.
This is what he who has seen me has seen the Father means in the context of the entire building project. The house that was declared in the first letter, the enlarged Bet, the dwelling, is standing before the disciples in the form of Yeshua. The substance that cast the shadow of humanity has entered the shadow and is visible in it. To see Yeshua is to see what the house was always built to carry. The fullness of YHWH in the tzelem of the human being. The builder in the house. The breath that animated the house from the beginning now present in the house in the fullness of what that breath always came from.
And eskenosen, the Word pitched his tent, echoes all the way back to the Bet of Bereshit. The first letter is a house. The first word of Yochanan’s account of the incarnation uses the word for tent-pitching, tabernacling, moving in. The house declared in the first letter and the tabernacling declared in the first account of the Word becoming flesh are the same declaration, one in the pictographic form of the Hebrew letter, one in the Greek verb of the gospel account. The builder moved in. The house he had been building since before the creation began received him. The Bet of Bereshit was inhabited.
Not finally, because the full and permanent and universal inhabitation comes in the documents that follow. What the incarnation accomplished was the entry of the builder into the house in the mode that made the completion of the building project possible. The Word moved in so that the nail could be driven. The builder entered the tzelem so that the covenant could be completed from inside the house. The passage between the pieces that Genesis 15 required could only be walked by one who had passed through the door of the tzelem, who had become flesh, pitched his tent, taken up residence. The Word moved in so that YHWH in a physical body could cry out to YHWH pure spirit in the aloneness the covenant required. The builder was in the house. And the final work of the building project was about to begin.
Eskenosen, the Word pitched his tent. The builder entered the house he had been building since the first letter. The Bet of Bereshit was inhabited. The building project moved to its completion.
The Bet declared it — a house, before anything was made.
The tzelem was built for it — the shadow in the shape of the substance.
The mishkan moved toward it — YHWH approaching with his people.
The house of David delivered the seed — the nail-bearer into the tzelem.
Kai ho Logos sarx egeneto kai eskenosen en hemin.
And the Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us.
The builder moved in. The house he declared before the light was called received him.
The Gospel Revolution • Mike Williams Ministries
William Ethan Massengill • Michael Lilborn Williams • Daniel Thomas Rouse
Published by Audrey Williams