Isaiah named a child Immanuel, “God with us.” Matthew says that name lands on Jesus. Presence is no longer a building you travel toward.
Under Moses, nearness was regulated: court, holy place, priesthood, calendar. Distance taught holiness. The prophets kept promising a day when God would dwell with His people more deeply — law on the heart, Spirit poured out, a house not made with hands.
Immanuel is that direction becoming a Person. The temple was a shadow of access. The Messiah is access.
Matthew quotes Isaiah 7 in the birth narrative so the whole Gospel is read as presence arriving. That is why conflict with temple gatekeepers is not a side plot. If God is with us in the Son, the old centre cannot remain the centre.
The book ends with “I am with you always.” That is Immanuel after the resurrection — presence going with a people to the nations.
When the temple fell in AD 70, the old map of “where God is” fell with it. That did not make God absent. It publicly ended the administration that had restricted access.
You do not commute to presence. In the New Creation the dwelling of God is with man — now, in the Son.