Temples of the Holy Spirit: Part One
(topical)
1. Russ Perman tells this story: "Working as a secretary at an international airport, my sister had an office adjacent to the room where security temporarily holds suspects. One day security officers were questioning a man when they were suddenly called away on another emergency. To the horror of my sister and her colleagues, the man was left alone in the unlocked room. After a few minutes, the door opened and he began to walk out. Summoning up her courage, one of the secretaries barked, "Get back in there, and don’t you come out until you’re told!" The man scuttled back inside and slammed the door. When the security people returned, the women reported what had happened. Without a word, an officer walked into the room and released one very frightened telephone repairman. [Reader’s Digest]
2. Those of us who preach the Word often feel like that sister. We are unsure what to do about a situation or how to interpret a passage, so we take our best guess. And sometimes we are wrong.
3. As a result, it can be hard to get accurate teaching on confusing subjects, like just about anything related to the Holy Spirit.
4. This is true with the Bible teaching that believers are temples of the Holy Spirit. Although this teaching is used to promote Christian health clubs, the actual Biblical teaching is much deeper than that. So deep, in fact, that we need to dedicate several sermons to the subject.
5. To understand what it means to be the Temple of the Holy Spirit; we need to begin with Old Testament background. God only allowed one central sanctuary; at first, it was a portable tent-like structure called the Tabernacle. It was then replaced with a glorious building constructed on Mt. Zion in Jerusalem called the Temple.
Deuteronomy 12:4-7 reads, "You must not worship the LORD your God in their way. But you are to seek the place the LORD your God will choose from among all your tribes to put his Name there for his dwelling. To that place you must go; there bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, what you have vowed to give and your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks. There, in the presence of the LORD your God, you and your families shall eat and shall rejoice in everything you have put your hand to, because the LORD your God has blessed you."
6. There is virtually no connection between the Temple and modern church buildings. As we will see later in the series, it really isn’t right to call a church building "the House of the Lord." It is okay in a figurative sense, just as our praise is not an offering in the sense of killing and animal and roasting it on an altar. But there is an important and deep connection between the Temple building and the body of every true Christian.
7. The New Testament tells us that our bodies are "temples of the Holy Spirit" (I Cor. 6:19).
Main Idea: What is entailed with us being temples of the Holy Spirit?
I. We Are Not Temples Merely Because We Are REGENERATE
A. Old Testament BELIEVERS were also regenerated
B. Jesus and NICODEMUS (John 3:1-10)
(show photo Sunday-Jesus)
Even in the Old Testament, the New Birth is presented as a sovereign act of God, compared to rain (water) and wind (spirit), as just as controllable by human beings (NOT under human control, but divine). Note that both the Hebrew word (ruach) and the Greek word (pneuma) can be translated as wind, spirit, or breath.
Ezekiel 36:25-27 “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”
Ezekiel 37:9-10 “Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, `This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’" So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.”
Also in Ezekiel 18:31, we read, “Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel?”
Of King Saul, we read in I Samuel 10:6, “The Spirit of the LORD will come upon you in power, and you will prophesy with them; and you will be changed into a different person....”
C. New Birth called "Circumcision of the HEART" (Deuteronomy 30:6, Jeremiah 9:23-26)
Deuteronomy 30:6, "The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live."
See also Jeremiah 9:25-26 where God condemns Israel for having an uncircumcised heart.
Application Have you been born of the Spirit? Does your Christianity flow from who you are, or are you trying to do what Christians are supposed to do, thinking that such behavior will make you a Christian? No, we have to be born-again. How? First, God has to give you that desire; He brings you to spiritual life. He then shows you that you are a sinner, He creates a desire within you to want to be saved from sin, you believe that Jesus died to pay your sin debt and then rose again, and you trust Him to forgive you. You want Jesus Christ in your life. Your decision to accept Christ evidences that you have been born again.
II. Under the Old Covenant, God Specially Dwelt in the SANCTUARY
(show Tabernacle first and then Temple)
A. He is WITH the people, not IN them
Generally, generally, generally. There are exceptions (Moses, Elijah, etc.)
James Hamilton writes,
"Solomon was aware that God was not contained by the temple (1 Kgs 8:27); nevertheless, he fully expects Yahweh to be present in the temple (8:13). Further, he expects the righteous to pray toward the temple because that is where Yahweh is (e.g., 8:44). Thus, when Hezekiah is in distress he goes to the temple to spread the threats of the Rabshakeh out before Yahweh (2 Kgs 19:14). Similarly, it is righteous of Daniel in exile to have windows opened toward Jerusalem when he prays (Dan 6:10; cf. 1 Kgs 8:48–49)." [James Hamilton; see note at bottom of page for documentation]
B. A transition cannot take place until after the ASCENSION (John 7:37-39)
John 7:37-39, "…in the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ’If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified."
C. A FEW Old Testament believers were pointed out as indwelt
The fact that Moses, Joshua, Elijah, etc., are pointed out as being indwelt by the Spirit in the OT meant that THIS WAS NOT A NORMAL, TYPICAL OCCURANCE.
III. Under the New Covenant, Individual Believers Are INDWELT by the Spirit
A. The PROCESS began before PENTECOST
The Book of Acts is a transition from some being indwelt to the point when all believers were indwelt. It began before Pentecost, when Jesus breathed on His disciples and told them to receive the Holy Spirit. This was a temporary indwelling. Then, in Acts 2, only the 120 apparently received the Spirit. Then Spirit came sometimes with the laying on of hands after baptism, sometimes immediately when unsaved people believed and were saved before being baptized.
B. ALL New Covenant Believers Are Indwelt
Finally all believers are said to be indwelt by the Spirit (Romans 8:9 and I Corinthians 12:13).
Romans 8:9 tells us that to not have the Holy Spirit means to be unsaved: "You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ."
I Corinthians 12: 13, "For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
C. From the BUILDING to JESUS to the BELIEVER being the Temple
John 2:18-22, "Then the Jews demanded of him, ’What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?’
Jesus answered them, ’Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.’
The Jews replied, ’It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?’ But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken."
The theologian James Hamilton researched this subject and found the promise from the Lord "I will be with you" 108 times in the OT; note how this differs from the New Testament promise Jesus made, "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (Matthew 28:20b).
D. Next week, we will see that we have Temple QUALITIES
Application Sometimes we don’t appreciate what we have because we’ve had it so long. But the indwelling Spirit is not present just to give us warm wigglies. He is there to empower us, to help us live a life worthy of our calling. And many Christians have experienced the endurance that comes by the Spirit:
Do you know Christ? If so, you have the Spirit of God within you and you are His temple. Come back next week to find out the implications of this truth!
[note: the theme and many insights--but not all the contents -- of this sermon series is based on an article by James M. Hamilton Jr., Ph.D. titled, ""Were Old Covenant Believers Indwelt By The Holy Spirit?" in the November 22, 2003 edition of the Evangelical Theological Society Journal.]
