Then Jesus came, and oh! He said: this is the temple of God! God don't live in a house. He doesn't live in buildings anymore. Hey, they're nice, but this isn't the house of God. He said: the house of God, and God's resting place, can never be a building, because it can't handle it.
The only suitable resting place for God is a person, and a body of people related to Christ, and connected to one another. He demonstrated what that looked like, and they followed Him around - miracles, presence/power of God, people being touched by that - and then He said: I'm going! I'm leaving here, I'm going.
They said: You can't! We're just on a roll. He says: but wait, there's more… He said: if I stay, then you can't get what I got; and God's plan has always been to give you what I've got. I've just modelled for you. I've left you an example. I've taught you about it. I've shown you the life, I've revealed what the Father's like.
Now I've got two more things to do; 1) go to the cross, and remove this problem of sin that you worry about so much; 2) get you back to where we've always intended you to be, from before time began - filled with the Holy Ghost, filled with all the fullness of God, rooted in His love, demonstrating His life and His power.
That is what He said: “that glory that was in the Old Testament came and went, but this one will not go”.
Notice what we read in John 14. “He will abide with you and not leave you”.
In the Old Testament, it was always habitation. God would come, and they would pray for God to come, and God would come and show up. Now Jesus says: “I am the temple”. This is what it looks like. Everywhere I go, God is coming with me. Everywhere I go, because the glory is inside. He took him up on a mount one day, and He prayed. Then suddenly He turned into this brilliant searchlight - face began to go white, His clothes grew brilliant, and they saw the glory.
Why didn't they see it before? Because it was hidden in an earthen vessel. The earthen vessel just concealed what was in Him, the treasure. Here's the thing: did you get anything different to that? That's why God came. He gave them a glimpse.
You know what they wanted to do? Why don't we stop, and build a building, and stay here in this place of glory? No, no, no, no! No Son. We've got to go down there! There's work to be done! There's a whole world to get this. I don't want You to stay up here enjoying this glory. I want You to get out there, because shortly, I'm going to commission You, and before I commission You wait!
Wait! Wait, wait, wait! They said wait? We want to get going now. No, no, no. He said: you need this glory within you. You need the glory of My Spirit within you. This man that God created to carry His glory, and manifest His glory in life, now by faith in Christ is restored back into His presence, back into relationship, and the glory comes again to reside within us.
That's why it says in 2 Corinthians: “we have this treasure, Christ in an earthen vessel”.
If you can only see how bad you are, and where your problems are, and all that's wrong with you, then you can't experience the glory within. You have to make changes. God intends us not to be waiting around for Him to come, but to understand who we are in Him, and what He's put in us that's so valuable. Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Christ - that's the glory of God, is in you, but that's only the down-payment; there's more to come. More, more, more, more! Why don't you treasure that? Why don't you get to know that, and understand it? The New Testament church didn't have a Bible; they just had the glory within, and they lived from that glorious Holy Spirit working within them - a personal relationship. God connected that with never going to go away.