In my years of church going, I always cringed when I heard the verse mentioned that our body is a temple (1 Cor 6:19-20). Usually, this meant a sermon was forthcoming on the sins of overeating, not exercising, tattoos, how women dress, alcohol, drugs, foul language, etc.
Today’s blog is an oversimplification of the theological significance of temple in the Bible. My goal is to show how our body being a temple isn’t what we may have thought. If we can understand the purpose of having a temple, maybe then we can see the idea of being a temple in a different light.
The tragedy of my many years in the evangelical realm is that I had an inappropriate understanding of what the Bible is all about. The meta message that I received over a long period of time is that God is angry with me and every verse in the Bible was written to tell me what a dirty, rotten sinner I am. My body is a temple and I am somehow destroying it. I am blessed to have been given the opportunity to see God’s kingdom and His Word from a new perspective.
Sacred and Holy Space
Sacred space was instituted by God in the beginning. Scripture says that God created man (meaning mankind as a whole) and placed him in the Garden of Eden, where God walked among them in the cool of the day (Genesis 3). The idea of the garden was intended to be a place where God could walk and talk with man as they lived on earth. The garden was a sacred space where eternal God and physical man could dwell together.
When man chose to defy God, breaking and harming relationship with God, the space was no longer sacred and holy unto God. Man had to leave the garden. God’s primary character of holiness could not dwell with man while man was in that state of heart and mind.
God’s overall desire has always been to be in relationship with man. But God can only interact in certain places and to people whose hearts are right. Sacred spaces, altars or memorials, of worship were built in the places that God chose to interact with man. God spoke to Moses in the burning bush and told him to take off his sandals because the spot where God spoke to man was holy ground (Gen 3:5). Three angels appeared to bring a message to Abraham and an altar of worship was created in the place (Gen 18). The place where Jacob dreamed of a stairway to heaven also became a place of worship (Gen 28:10). Other places in the Old Testament stories became memorials of a space where God came to earth to speak with man.
After the days of Abraham, Israel became God’s chosen people to whom God sent prophets and teachers. The Israelites built a tabernacle as a place where God could come to meet with man. The tabernacle was a portable structure set apart as a holy space that God could visit.
As generations passed, the Israelites settled permanently in ancient Palestine with Jerusalem as their center of worship. In 957 BC, Solomon built the first permanent temple in Israel. The temple had outer courts, inner courts, and a place known as the holy of holies. This was where God came to visit his people. Only cleansed and purified high priests could step into the holy of holies. Holiness and cleanness were a very important aspect of maintaining a space where God could dwell on earth.
Solomon’s temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BC. The second temple was built in the same spot in 515 BC. (This time until the second temple was destroyed in AD 70 is known as the Second Temple Period).
The Old Testament prophet, Ezekiel, saw a vision of God’s presence leaving the temple in response to the Israelite’s continued worship of false gods (Ez 10). Unfortunately, the Bible does not record the cloud of God’s presence being in the second temple as it had been in the first temple. Some say this is because the Ark of the Covenant was not present. Others say it is because of the troubled relationship between God and the Israelites. Holiness and cleanness were still an issue.
The roughly 400 years between the Old and New Testaments have no record of God’s presence coming to earth to speak to and dwell with man.
Jesus- God with Us
As Matthew records the Christmas story, he writes that “all of this took place to fulfill what the Lord has said through the prophet: 'Behold the virgin shall be with child and give birth to a son and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God with us’” (Matthew 1:23, quoting Is 7:14).
The temple and the religious system weren’t working to connect God with man. So, God slipped into human flesh as the Son and came to walk and talk among us. Jesus was God incarnate and came to show people what God is really like and to close the gap that prevents people from connecting to God. (This again is an oversimplification of deep theological issues).
In a sense, Jesus became the temple, a place where God could be on earth and mingle with man. This is why he told the religious leaders that if they destroyed this temple (meaning his body), he would rebuild it in three days (John 2:20). He endured temptation without sin and provided a holy, sacred space for God to interact on earth.
Believers Become the Temple
When Jesus was preparing for the crucifixion, he taught his disciples that he needed to go away (rise from the dead then ascend into heaven) so that the Holy Spirit could come and be their helper and advocate. “But very truly I tell you it is for your benefit that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7).
When the Holy Spirit arrived on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2), God had now come to earth to dwell with man in a new way. The presence of the Spirit in all believers fulfills the promise of Jesus that he would “be with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt 28:20). Jesus was the first temple of God on earth in the new age. He was the cornerstone upon which the temple, AKA the church, was built. Jesus replaced the holy of holies in the temple and became our access to God (John 2:18-22).
What does this mean for us?
In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes about the sin that people get caught in, particularly sexual sin (1 Cor 6:15), stating that our bodies are joined and united with Christ. If we are united with Christ and one spirit with him, we should flee the things that dishonor Christ.
In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul tells them that “we are the temple of the living God” (2 Cor 6:16). Peter wrote: “Just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do for it is written ‘Be holy, because I am holy’” ( 1 Peter 1:15). Holiness is still a requirement for God to dwell in a temple. Holiness is not a divine mandate so that God can continually scold us. Holiness is a requirement of any place that wants to invite God's presence.
A reminder here: the occurrences of the English word you, particularly in the New Testament, almost always have a plural meaning in the original Greek. These were letters written to entire churches, not individuals. So, there is an imperative implied that the faith communities, the churches, must be holy.
We are sinners. We can’t maintain perfect holiness on our own. So, Jesus as our great High Priest metaphorically gives us his righteous, clean robes to wear so that God is able to dwell among us. We have to take care to do our part to create a sacred and holy space for God to interact with us and with the world.
It isn’t about rule keeping or religious activity. Being a temple is about loving God. It’s about walking with God and enjoying Him like man did in the Garden of Eden. He wants to walk and talk with us so much that God sent his son to make this happen. He gave us the Spirit to convict us of sin and the opportunity to confess and repent of sin and be cleansed. In Christ, God has given us every help we need to be his temple so that he can walk and talk with us.
“Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me” John 14:23.
Copyright @ TA Boland 2024
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