A Dwelling Place of God

I want to impress upon you this thought as we begin to study this verse together this evening; that there are 3 different levels of the Holy Spirit's indwelling that are implied here by the way that the apostle Paul is speaking. Because I believe that this is true, I am going to make three points of them in regard to our teaching tonight. 1st – Paul is speaking of the Universal Church as being a dwelling place of God. 2nd – He is speaking of the local church, which you are a part of, as being a dwelling place of God. And 3rd – He is speaking of you, the individual Christian as being a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. I want you to be aware of the fact that Paul will speak more specifically of Christ's indwelling in relation to the local church and of individual believers in his prayer in chapter 3, verse 17, when he says – "that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith", and so we will delve more into the particulars of what that means when we come to it in our study. But this evening we do want to get the overview of the Spirit's being a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.