Although, as we have already established, Paul is writing primarily to the Gentiles in this letter, it is apparent that the Temple of the Jews is prominent in his thinking as he makes his illustrations.
In verse 14 he tells them that Christ has made peace between the two groups, Jew and Gentile, by breaking down the barrier of the dividing wall. This is more than a simple analogy.
In the Jerusalem temple, the God-fearing gentiles were allowed to worship in the court of the gentiles. This was the place the merchandisers had taken over to change money and sell animals, and that is what made Jesus so angry. This place had been designated a place of prayer for the ‘nations’, meaning non-Jews, and by His own declaration, they had turned it into a den of thieves. They had effectively squeezed the gentiles out of the place of prayer God had reserved for them.
In any case, even when they could worship there, they were not allowed to go further. As I mentioned in a previous sermon, there was a sign over the door going into the inner court where the Jews worshiped, warning that any gentile passing through would be put to death.
There was a dividing wall. Two groups, worshiping one God, the same God, separated by a real, physical wall; but also a wall of prejudice and despising; a wall of national segregation and loathing.
How would you feel, if you moved to a new town and went to a large church there, and the first Sunday you visited you walked through the front door into the first room, and a sign over the door to the next room said, “If you were not born in this town, you must stay in this room and pray. If you pass through this door ushers will carry you out to the parking lot and see you to your car”
Would you go back? No, you wouldn’t even stay...I hope.
But Christ Himself, through His blood, broke down that dividing wall, and abolished in His flesh the hostility of the Law and ordinances which was also against the gentiles, because not having the Law and ordinances, those things only represented an enmity...a hostility between them and the Jews, between them and God.
He took all that out of the way.
Continuing with this line of thought, Paul tells us that we are now fellow citizens and belonging to God’s house. Then he goes further to say that we, the church, which is now comprised of believers from both groups and therefore actually now only one group, are ourselves, being built into a holy temple in the Lord, a dwelling of God in the Spirit.
Not only are you now a member of God’s house, says Paul, you have become God’s house. A place where He now dwells. He was with you in the Person of His Son, now He is in you in the Person of His Spirit.
This is the point on which we will settle and meditate today.
The first thing we must be sure to observe and understand clearly, is that
GOD DOES NOT NEED A PLACE TO LIVE
By that, I mean He is not dependant on us. He is not homeless without us. We have not provided something for Him.
In his address to the Athenian philosophers on Mars Hill, Paul said,
“The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, neither is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all life and breath and all things...”
Let us be sure to establish in our minds early on, that God is not contained in any way. He contains.
One writer has said that just as the bucket sitting at the bottom of the ocean is filled with the ocean, at the same time it is surrounded and engulfed by the ocean entirely.
The believer is thus filled with the Holy Spirit of God, but always remember that “...in Him we live and move and exist...”
Now having established that and being aware that God is not in need of anything, and knowing that He is all-sufficient in Himself, we have to believe that His coming to dwell in us is for the sake of fellowship with Him, and for our benefit in every way.
So we need to spend some time here, looking at how God sees us as His dwelling place, and we must look at it with all humility and reverence because it is a topic often over-looked, and seldom in our conscious thoughts as we go about our day to day living.
THE TEMPLE OF GOD
When Paul talks of us being temples of the Holy Spirit, which he does in some passages we will look at in a few minutes, this is not an analogy he uses lightly. In his mind, or any orthodox Jewish mind, there are volumes being said when that reference is made.
God dwelt in the Old Testament temple. It was the place where He met with His people. Again I repeat, He desired to be among them, as He now desires our fellowship as evidenced by His atoning work for us and regenerating and sanctifying work in us.
The inner sanctuary where the priest went in to light the incense and offer prayers for the people was called the ‘Holy Place’. It contained the lamp stand, the altar of incense, and the table of show bread, all types of Christ and the relationship He would establish for us with the Father.
In this inner sanctuary was a veil, and behind that veil was the “Holiest of All” or the “Holy of Holies”. This small room contained the mercy seat and the ark of the covenant, and it was here that God’s presence dwelt. Only the High Priest could enter the Holy of Holies, and that only once a year with the blood sacrifice, to make an offering for his own sins and the sins of the people.
The Temple was a holy place throughout. It was treated with great dignity and solemnity by the nation of Israel, and certainly by the Priests who served there, because they understood that this was where God and man met together.
All of the Temple; the structure itself, the furnishings, the decor, the worship utensils, the veil of the inner sanctuary, every piece of it was a type or foreshadowing of Christ and what was to come in Him.
That was why God, when He gave Moses instructions for the building of it, warned, “See that you make them after the pattern for them, which was shown to you on the mountain.” (Ex 25:40)
All of it was representative of Christ’s atoning work and His office as our Merciful and Faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, and therefore all of it had to be prepared perfectly according to that plan, to be a perfect representation of what was to come.
Now, as God dwelt in the Holy of Holies of the ancient temple, Christ now lives in us, living temples of the Holy Spirit.
WE ARE TEMPLES
Let’s look at those passages I indicated earlier.
In I Corinthians 3:16,17 Paul is addressing a specific problem in the young Corinthian church. They were bickering over who was more important, boasting either that they were disciples of Paul or of Apollos, looking for esteem that comes from being connected with celebrities...well-known and admired men. Let’s read the verses:
“Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are.”
So we see at least two things here. One, rather than boasting of following a mere man, they should understand that they are God’s and His alone, and two, that they should be given over to His use in service for Him, just as the temple was entirely dedicated to worship and service in His name.
Next go to I Corinthians 6:18-20
“Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.”
Corinth had been, and was still at this time, a place where there were many temples to idol gods, and many immoral practices still being performed in the name of religion. There were temple prostitutes to whom the men would go under the pretense of worshiping fertility gods. There was much sacrifice being made to these demon gods, and the meat from those sacrifices was still being sold in the market place, which then raised some serious ethical questions for Christians.
Because many believers had recently come from these other religions and their practices, a lot of these practices were finding their way into the church. These baby believers had not yet learned the basics of their new faith, and were not seeing the harm in continuing in their old ways.
So Paul is teaching them that they are now to see themselves as temples of God’s Holy Spirit, and begin responding to life and the world around them accordingly.
Another passage you can read later, addressing these same issues, is II Corinthians 6:14-18, and it is a great passage that includes the wonderful promise, quoted by Paul from the Old Testament, that God would dwell in us and walk among us, and be our God and we would be His people. But it also comes with some exhortations to walk separately from this world, and I strongly urge you to look it up, read it and meditate upon it.
Now I want to be careful here, not to enter into the legalistic habit-blasting that has been so characteristic of many of our pulpits for so long.
I do not believe that it is proper for us to make a list of every little cultural taboo and use these passages of scripture as a hammer to pound them with.
Let’s take smoking as an example, because all of us in our modern age know that it is bad for our health. Even smokers know that. It hasn’t been all that long since I gave up my pipe, and I really only did that for the sake of effective ministry.
But even when I smoked, I knew it was unhealthy. However, if I take this exhortation of Paul’s to try and put a guilt trip on you about smoking, then you have a right to use it to pound on me about eating biggie fries at Wendy’s.
I mean, where do we draw the line? All of us, many times without realizing it, consume things, and engage in habits or activities that are not entirely healthy for our body.
And on the one hand, I have to say that yes, we have a responsibility that most of us do not measure up to, to take care of our bodies and our health because we really are bought with a price and should take care of that which God has entrusted to us.
That is an individual choice, and it is between you and God, and I encourage you, I admonish you, to seek to live with a clear conscience before your God concerning the treatment of your body and those things you indulge or become involved in that effect your overall health.
But that is all I will say about that. What I have a duty to make clear to you from the scriptures, is that the Bible is very clear about certain things that as Christians we are to do and not to do with our bodies, and those things that are specified are the things we are to obey and there is no leeway in those cases to say, ’yeah, but’.
Flee immorality. That’s pretty straightforward, isn’t it? In their case, they were going in to temple prostitutes. But we all know what the Bible’s admonitions are about adultery, fornication (or, sex outside the marriage union), same sex partners, the entertainment of lust and lasciviousness. We know what it says about acting unbecomingly with our bodies by being belligerent and pugnacious, which means ready to get into a fist fight with anyone who looks at us cross-eyed...
In short, use the sense that God gave you, and more importantly, be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit within you, and keep a clear conscience before a Holy God by treating your body, using your body, both privately and publicly, in a way that brings glory to the One who indwells you, and not shame or reproach.
Remember, says Paul, that you were bought with a price and you are not your own.
Friends, I got news for you. You’ve never been your own. But now you serve a Master who loves you and desires the best for you, and because of His great sacrifice to purchase you back, deserves your obedience and devotion and reverent service.
That includes the dedication of your body to Him without reservation or restraint.
You are His dwelling place. He calls you holy. He has made you a holy temple in the Lord. That makes you very, very important. Respect yourself.
Let’s go on from here now and talk about
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF BEING A DWELLING PLACE OF GOD
There are so many things about the Christian experience that we hear so often, and many times said in the same canned way without deviation, that they become ‘old hat’ to us. They strike our ear softly in passing and never receive any direct attention from the conscious mind.
This is why it is important for the Christian to be aware, and beware, of the noise and confusion of this worldly life that would keep us so busy and so distracted that we fail to set aside time to meditate on God’s Word and reflect on what it is really saying to us. To sharpen the focus of our thinking and ask, ‘what is this really saying to me, and what is the significance of it in my life?’
I want you to clear your mind, stop thinking of what it is you have planned for later on, or whether the outfit you picked out today really matches your shoes, or those plans for the future that you have to begin saving up for now, or anything else that might occupy your thoughts.
I want you to think about this, and only this right now; I want you to picture in your mind, a world that has rejected its Creator. An entire planet populated by men and women lost and wandering and without any hope, going about daily life as though this is all there is, and just hoping to survive from one moment to the next, grabbing for whatever material comfort and gain they can get, because someday it will be over and they will go back to the dust from which they came.
Then I want you to picture some of those people suddenly infused with a Life from outside of themselves. Suddenly they have purpose. They have hope for a bright future. They do not feel lost anymore, but have a great deal of confidence in who they are and what they are doing and where they are going. They begin to take on a noble air, because they now have some inkling of their worth and they no longer feel useless and insignificant. They are not puffed up. It’s not an overweening self-esteem that brings them to look down their nose on those still wandering and lost. It is a sense of fulfillment and joy and contentedness that makes them want to share this experience with those others, in hopes that they too can be filled and completed.
This should be the mindset of the Christian, knowing that God indwells him.
Can you fathom this? The God of the universe, who holds all things together by the word of His power, who fills all things and is bigger than the universe; bigger than time, literally lives in you. Calls you His dwelling place. What a magnificent creation you are! What high and wonderful privilege we have been given, to house the Holy Spirit of God!
Turn to the gospel of John, chapter 14 for a moment. Let’s read verses 2 and 3 together.
“In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”
Now let’s make some sense of this. First of all, your King James version, and the one most of us are more familiar with , says “In My Father’s house are many mansions”
The first thing we see is that He says “In My Father’s house”. So if you think about it, why would we expect to find ‘mansions’ in a house?
Some have suggested that it really means ‘rooms’. As though He is assuring us that there is room for everyone in His Father’s house. But Vine’s dictionary of New Testament words says that there is nothing in the Greek word used here, to indicate that it is referring to separate rooms.
The King’s translators came up with the word ‘mansions’, because they were English, and it is a derivative of the word ‘manor’, or ‘manse’. All of them, including the word in the Greek text, simply mean ‘abode’, or ‘dwelling’.
So now we can justifiably lay this word ‘mansion’ aside, and go on,
Jesus said, “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places...”
Now I would ask you to give this some conscious thought. Although none of us has been to Heaven yet, we do have some hints in the scriptures about what Heaven will be like. We don’t have time here to do an in depth teaching on what systematic theology says about Heaven; but I feel safe in asserting that we’re not going to have need in Heaven for individual dwelling places. We will not need protection from the weather; we will not need privacy, or a place to store material possessions; we will not be driven by pride to have the best lawn in the neighborhood or to put up the flashiest Christmas decorations...
I’m sure you get my drift.
Next, I would like to point out to you that Jesus did not ascend from the Mount of Olives, enter Heaven, strap on a tool belt and start building houses in preparation for our arrival. Nuff said there.
So what was He telling them, and us, in John 14:2,3?
2 things:
That we who are of God’s house are also His dwelling place. We are the mansions. We are His abode, by His choice. He dwelt in the Holy of Holies to be close to His people, and now He has made us the new Holy of Holies. We, who are of God’s household, who dwell in Him, are His place of dwelling.
and...
He was going to prepare a place for us, (remember He’s talking to them just before His crucifixion) by sprinkling His own blood on the mercy seat in the heavens, not made with hands, to make propitiation for us.
Because of His shed blood and His resurrection from the dead, there is now a place prepared and preserved for us forever, in Heaven, the dwelling place of God.
And His promise is that He will return and receive us to Himself, that where He is, there we may be also. In the meantime, we are not without hope and we are not without God, because He is so anxious to be with us,... to have us with Him, that He couldn’t wait until we get to Heaven; He came to live in us now. The veil that separated the Holy of Holies from the inner sanctuary; the veil that hid God from men and warned them away, has been torn in two, in the tearing of Christ’s flesh.
The veil is rent, and not only did it open the way for all who will to come into the presence of God...it allowed God to rush out to us, to take up residence in our hearts, and say, “I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE”.
As we close chapter two and prepare to move on to chapter 3 of Ephesians, I want you to see how far we have been brought.
We begin as ‘dead in trespasses and sins’ and end as God’s own dwelling place.
We begin as strangers and aliens, and end as citizens and family. We begin without hope and without God, and end with full and constant access to the throne of grace, indwelt by the God who made us holy and blameless before Him.
We begin far off, and end, brought near by the blood of Christ.
Are you far off? What is true of you today; right now? Are you dead in trespasses and sins? Are you Ephesians 2:1, or are you Ephesians 2:22?
The provision has been made. The work is done. Grace has made a way, and by simple faith you can today; right now; be brought so near to God by the blood of Christ, that you will be in Him, and He will be in you. Today, you can be a dwelling of God in the Spirit. What honor. What privilege. Just appropriate this gift to your life right now. Ask Him in. He’s standing right at the door. You can pass from Eph 2:1, to Eph 2:22 ... that is, from death to life, instantly, and forever. It’s all for His glory and by His grace, and He yearns to call you ‘family’.
Has He been preparing the stones of your life? Shaping them; fitting them, getting them ready for use in His holy habitation? Bringing you to this place today so that you can be added to the structure of His church? Then today is the day of surrender.
Let Him build you up. Let Him call you ‘holy’.
