GOD'S TEMPLE
GOD’S TEMPLE
Ephesians 2: 19-22; 1 Corinthians 3: 16-23
I was noticing in the previous lecture that in Ephesians you get the truth presented in many points in contrast to Corinthians, and in both somewhat in connection with the labours of Paul as related in the Acts of the Apostles. Corinth was Paul’s foundation as regards church work and Ephesus was, in a sense, the climax or crown of his work. We learn in the Acts of the Apostles that Paul was a long time at both places. It was at Corinth that the Lord detained him. And he laboured, I think, three years and a half at Ephesus; it was long, patient labour. One can hardly read the Acts of the Apostles without seeing that Ephesus was really the climax of his work in connection with the assembly. The apostle tells the elders of Ephesus that he “had not shunned to declare to them all the counsel of God”. In the Revelation the Lord makes known to John the defection of the church, and Ephesus is seen as the point of departure; it was Ephesus that had left their “first love”. The Lord shows to John the decline of the church which had been the great work of Paul. I only just refer to this because it helps to the understanding of the relative place of the two epistles.
My thought at this time is to speak of the church as God’s temple. In 1 Corinthians 3 the apostle says, “as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation”; I do not therefore expect to get the truth of the complete building in Corinthians, because what is presented is elementary, a foundation. If I want to get the completeness of the building, what it is in the mind and counsel of God, I have to go to Ephesians. It is in the main the same idea. Scripture does not present the idea of two temples, but in the one case we are [p. 119] carried on to the temple in its completeness, and in the other you get it in a rudimentary way.
I am going to speak first as to what is presented as to it in the Ephesians, and then to look a little at what comes before us in the Corinthians, because the latter brings out what one might call the practical bearing of the truth, which is very important to us. It is very helpful in the present day to understand aright the truth of the temple, to recognise the presence of the Spirit of God here, and its consequences, for the practical result of it is that you become vessels for the manifestation of the Spirit. The practical denial of the presence of the Spirit is the great sin of Christendom. One can see all around in professing Christianity men really gifted of God, but not in the truth of the temple, not apprehending the presence of the Spirit. I do not deny for a moment that they are gifted men, and that God uses them. He uses them up to the measure of the light they have; but the light which should come through them is greatly obstructed, and the saints of God do not get from such persons the benefit which they ought. The light is obstructed to a very large extent by the human mind, for where the presence of the Spirit of God is not recognised the human mind is allowed, it is in activity in the things of God, constructing them into a system, and the consequence is that the light of the Spirit is very greatly obstructed.
As I pointed out last time, in Ephesians 2 the apostle is working down from the truth of the body, or I should rather say, from the truth of the Head to the truth of the temple. He says, “Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord”. We find here much [p. 120] the same contrast of thought to Corinthians that I referred to in connection with the body. The temple, as I understand it, is here identified with the glory of the kingdom. You get the same connection in the Old Testament. When God’s people were wanderers, moving about from place to place through the wilderness, God walked with them in a tent; God did not dwell in a temple then. The idea of a temple did not connect itself with the wanderings of God’s people in the wilderness, but with a city and a fixed habitation. It speaks of the temple in Psalm 78, “He built his sanctuary like high palaces”. But so long as the people of God were wanderers in the wilderness, God dwelt in a tent, that is, in grace He came down to their condition. There is a beautiful feature of grace in that. The temple connected itself in the Old Testament with the glory of the kingdom, and it was not until the man of peace, Solomon, reigned, that the temple was built. David was not allowed to build God a house, because he had shed much blood; but when the enemies were subdued, and the kingdom was established in peace in Solomon, then Solomon builds God a house. David and Solomon both form a type of Christ — David as subduing the enemies, Solomon as reigning in peace.
I believe what I say as to the connection between the kingdom and the temple is confirmed by the fact that when the eternal state is spoken of in the Revelation, the kingdom having been delivered up, the idea of a temple is dropped, and the expression employed is that “the tabernacle of God is with men”. God does not cease to dwell with men, He is their God and they are His people.
The thought of the temple in Ephesians connects itself, as I understand it, with the counsels of God in their accomplishment in the kingdom, “the administration of the fulness of times”, which is identical with the kingdom. So we find a later allusion to the kingdom in chapter 5, that “no ... idolater hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God”. In the kingdom Christ is supreme, Christ is Lord. It is the mediatorial kingdom, which, though not exactly a Scripture term, is one which conveys the idea well, for Christ is the Mediator, and all the good which God has for man is administered in power through Christ. What is true now to faith will be true then in a public way. We get the blessings of the kingdom; “the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost”; but when the kingdom is established, righteousness, peace, and joy will rule in a public way through the Lord Jesus Christ; He will reign; and it will be the kingdom of God and of Christ; “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever”.
Now we find here that “all the building fitly framed together groweth”. The temple is not here looked at as complete, but as growing, that is, growing spiritually, “unto an holy temple in the Lord”. The expression “in the Lord” appears to me to connect the temple with the kingdom. As I said before, what will mark the kingdom will be the glory and supremacy of Christ. He is Lord to faith now, Lord to those who believe, and in the kingdom He will be publicly supreme and Lord. What faith gets now, peace, and grace, and reconciliation, will be for the earth then, for God’s people down here; He will be Head and Husband of His people, and Head of the Gentiles; and these blessings which faith now enjoys will be brought into the world through the Lord Jesus Christ. Here we have, that the whole building “fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord”. When it is viewed in the light of the kingdom, there is no hand of man seen in it, there is no work of man recorded at all; it is “fitly framed together”, it “groweth”, indicating that there is a divine energy in every part of it — it “groweth unto an holy temple”, where there is nothing which can defile, “an holy temple in the Lord”, in the One Who is supreme in the administration of the kingdom.
That is the view which is taken of the temple here; and we are further told this, it is “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets”, that is, on the foundation of their testimony, for apostles and prophets are viewed as identified with their testimony, and the chief corner-stone is Jesus Christ. Paul speaks in Corinthians of Jesus Christ as the foundation that had been laid; and in Ephesians Jesus Christ is the chief corner-stone. There is no decline in the character.
Just one thought in corroboration of this which we can gather from the Revelation in the heavenly city. I am not confounding the two ideas, for no two ideas presented to us in Scripture are to be confounded; many ideas in Scripture run parallel, and every idea is distinct and unique, but one often serves to illustrate another. Now in the heavenly city, the new Jerusalem, the foundations are garnished with all manner of precious stones; that is, distinctiveness is maintained, but everywhere there is refracted light; that is the idea of a precious stone. And the gates of the city “were twelve pearls, every several gate was of one pearl”. The foundation is the beginning, and the gates are the completion of a city, as we read in the Old Testament, that the foundations of Jericho were laid in Hiel’s firstborn, and the gates set up in his youngest son. It is exceedingly beautiful thus to see that there is no diminution in the perfectness of the city. So, too, in the temple the foundation is Jesus Christ; and Jesus Christ is the chief corner-stone.
I do not think we have exactly the same idea in Corinthians. It says there, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” I doubt if that will be the form in which God will dwell in the temple in the kingdom; but it is [p. 123] the form in which God is now dwelling. The verse in Corinthians which I have just quoted connects itself to a certain extent with the thought in the last verse of this chapter, “In whom ye also are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit”; that is present. It is the status of Jew and Gentile as builded together by human instrumentality; it is not “fitly framed together”; that is connected with the temple. There are thus two ideas; one is of the temple, which connects itself with the kingdom, and the other of the habitation of God, which is present; that is, that God is dwelling here Spirit-wise, by the Spirit.
I do not propose to say much more on that side. My object in referring to Ephesians 2 was rather to show the church as the temple of God; and I believe it is the temple of God, as being the body of Christ. Everybody here may not quite grasp the connection of the two thoughts; but each successive truth which comes out in Ephesians 2 flows from the truth of the body, or rather of the head and the body, with which the subject begins. The church could not but be the temple of God if it is the body of Christ, as the Lord’s own body when He was down here could not but be the temple of God, for the simple reason that of necessity God was there.
Now we will turn to 1 Corinthians 3: 16: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are”. I trust the Lord may enable me to suggest a few thoughts in connection with this passage, which is of great importance to us practically. Here you come on to different ground from that in Ephesians. The counsel of God is not the prominent thought here; it is the prominent thought in Ephesians 2, and therefore the whole building is said to be fitly framed together, and to grow [p. 124] unto a holy temple. Here it is somewhat different; the building is looked at in connection with the responsible work of man, and this is another side of the truth. It is a very great thing to see the two sides of a truth in Scripture; the same truth may be presented on the one side in connection with the counsel of God, and on the other in connection with the responsibility of man. Hence being viewed on the latter side you get here the possibility of the temple of God being defiled, and judgment coming upon the defiler.
Now I can understand the question being asked, in fact I have asked it myself many times, Why is the thought of the temple introduced in Corinthians? I believe it is because the kingdom is true to faith, though no one would venture to say that the kingdom is yet manifested. Christ is Lord to faith, and so the kingdom is true to faith. Therefore, on the same principle, the temple is true to faith; that is, that what will have its accomplishment, its full result hereafter in the day of the glory of Christ, is already true for faith. That is a great principle in Christianity. Everything that is established for God in Christ, is true to faith. Otherwise, how would you understand the passage in Hebrews 12, “Ye are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel”. You could not understand that passage if you did not see that every item in it is established in Christ; you could not otherwise be said to have “come” to it; but the fact is, that having come in faith to Christ, you have come to all which is established in Christ. Therefore you have come to the kingdom in that sense: “We receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved”. It is my conviction that so far as God is concerned, every purpose and counsel is settled and established in Christ: “All the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us”; that is, by faith. You are entitled in faith to take up all these things; they are all good for faith, the kingdom is good for faith, and so, too, the temple, for Christ is in glory, and the glory of God is displayed in Him; and the Spirit of God being here, the apostle takes up the thought of the temple in connection with man’s responsibility.
There is another point in connection with the church which I would like to bring forward by the grace of God, and that is, it forms as the temple a link between the past and the future. Do you think that if God has once established His temple upon earth He gives up the idea of a temple? Once God has set up His temple here, you may be sure man cannot abolish it. The temple at Jerusalem was God’s sanctuary, in the place of His choice. One of the most instructive studies that I know of in the Old Testament is the close of Psalm 78. God had rejected Shiloh, and the tabernacle in which He dwelt among men. He chose not the tribe of Ephraim with which Shiloh was connected; but He “chose the tribe of Judah, the mount Zion which he loved”; He chose David; He took him from the sheepfolds to feed Jacob, His people, “and he built his sanctuary like high palaces, like the earth which he hath established for ever”. That is what God did; and nothing can set it aside. Because of God’s temple at Jerusalem, kings are to bring presents unto Him. But God could say to a stiff-necked people, “the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands”, and hence in the setting aside of Jerusalem, the church, as God’s temple, forms a link between the past and the future; that is, the thought of the temple is not given up, only instead of the temple being local and material, as it has been and [p. 126] will be, it is now composed of living stones; “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?”
There is another point of interest in connection with the church; you do not find the thought of the temple coming out until in a certain sense there was freedom from Jerusalem. In the first phase of the church, as is seen in the earlier part of the Acts of the Apostles, Jerusalem was looked upon as a church centre; and when a serious question arose at Antioch it was referred to the apostles and elders at Jerusalem, and Paul and Silas went about afterwards in every direction carrying the decrees of the apostles and elders. Doubtless divine wisdom was in it, but I think saints had to learn the truth that the Holy Spirit was sufficient for the assembly apart from Jerusalem. And that is the ground which Paul takes in the epistle to the Corinthians, when he says, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you”. I think Paul was the first who began to build distinctly on that foundation, and a very important foundation it was, too; for the time came when, in the judgment of God, Jerusalem could be no longer a centre. God allowed it at first in divine wisdom, that the work should be consolidated in Jew and Gentile; but it was a state of things which was not destined to continue.
It is to be noticed that in the first epistle to the Corinthians there are three leading truths: the first is the temple; the second is the body — “the Christ” really; and the third is the victory over death, in connection with the prophecy, “Death is swallowed up in victory”. And these privileges, which belong to God’s people upon earth in a literal way, belong now to the church in a spiritual way; for saints are the temple of God, a privilege which is proper to Israel; they have the Christ, for they are His body; and they have the victory given them over death.
[p. 127] I have said that in Corinthians the temple is connected with man’s responsibility; the warning is introduced, “If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy”. In the point of view in which the building is looked at in Ephesians, “fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord”, there is no possibility of defilement coming in. But in any case, “The temple of God is holy”; that is, the temple of God has that character, and woe be to the man that corrupts it. I have no hesitation in saying that the temple of God has been corrupted, and the worst principles have been introduced into it; no one can know the history of the professing church without knowing that. But the consequence of it will be that judgment will come upon the corrupters. If anyone were to ask me who is the great corrupter of the church of God, I should say the Pope, because he is the head of the great corrupting system; and I do not doubt that system will specially come under the destruction of God. Depend upon it, God will vindicate the holiness of His temple. But man is responsible to maintain it; that is the point here. There is no responsibility in Ephesians 2; but there is responsibility here; that is, that saints are responsible to maintain the holiness of God’s temple, because the Spirit of God dwells there.
I want now to give you one or two ideas connected with the temple. The first and by far the most important point is this, that God is there. That is the great idea of the temple, and that is the very thing which Christendom has practically lost. They have gone back to material things, to a bygone age, and have lost the sense of the presence of the Spirit of God. What must be the first principle with us is that God is here. If you ask me what has the responsibility of being the house of God, I say that Christendom has that responsibility, though it has become like a great house in which are all kinds of vessels; but God is [p. 128] here by the Spirit. There are two very important points connected with the temple of God which flow from this — grace is there and light. I see these two principles in the shewbread and in the candlestick in Israel’s temple. Go back for a moment to Corinth, and think of its condition, and of the idolatrous people there. If anyone desired to get any light as to God, or any idea of the grace of God, where could it be found? In the Christian company and nowhere else; it came out there, because they recognised the presence of God, that God was dwelling here by the Spirit, and what characterised the dwelling of God was grace and light. To know anything about law people might have gone to Jerusalem; but to know anything about grace and light, they would have to go to the Christian company, where alone they would find it expressed.
In connection with that, while fully admitting that Christendom has the responsibility of being the house of God, still if you ask me where the manifestations of the Spirit come out, I reply that the manifestations of the Spirit come out through the body. Many persons in early days evidently fell under the power and influence of the Spirit, who had no part in the Spirit. But it is of real Christians it is said, “By one Spirit are we all baptised into one body ... and have been all made to drink into one Spirit”. The manifestations of the Spirit are set in the church as the body of Christ. I see many a gifted man who is undoubtedly in the body of Christ, and yet knows nothing at all about the truth of the body nor of the presence of God here by the Spirit; he looks upon the house of God as a material building; a building of brick or stone, a place of worship; and therefore, although he is a member of the body of Christ, he is not very serviceable; there may be a manifestation of the Spirit there, but the light of the Spirit is greatly obstructed, because he allows, to a large degree, his mind to work. If the presence of the Spirit is not recognised, man [p. 129] always allows his mind to work. Men are sent to college to train them for the ministry, and to study systems of theology and the like, which are the work of men’s minds. And they feed upon these things and get their ideas formed by them, and the light is thus greatly obscured. I do not deny that the manifestation of the Spirit may be there, but it is greatly marred where the presence of the Spirit is not recognised, and if you recognise that God is dwelling here by the Spirit, you will recognise that it is only the spiritual person who can appreciate His presence. You can bring nothing but what is of God into contact with the Spirit of God. And that is what the apostle urges at the close of 1 Corinthians 2, it is the spiritual man discerns all things; and the Corinthians were not spiritual. They were the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelt in them, but everything was in confusion among them, because they were not spiritual. It raises a very important question with us as to what “spiritual” means. It is a very simple word to my mind; it is not attainment, I should reject the thought of attainment; it is clearly the normal and proper condition of every saint. What I understand by a person being spiritual is that the flesh is subdued and the Spirit is the power of apprehension and the source and spring of thought and feeling. And that ought to be the case with every one of us; we all have part in the Spirit, the Spirit of God dwells in us, and therefore the Spirit of God ought to rule completely in us. The Spirit of God is to be the spring of activity, as well as the power of understanding, for you cannot understand anything of God by the natural mind. There is nothing I dread more in the things of God than the activity of my mind. I know that the instant my mind begins to be active in divine things I am in danger; I never get anything lasting by it. I do not set aside the mind; but in the Christian the mind is simply an eye, it lets in light, that is all. I could not understand the [p. 130] things of God without a mind; but if you want to understand the things of God, you must guard against the activity of the mind; what you want is to be subject to the Spirit of God and to judge the flesh, and then you will very soon get an understanding in the things of God. You get understanding by the Spirit, because the Spirit brings the mind of Christ. I understand all the things of God by the Spirit of God. The first point I recognise is this, the Spirit of God is here, the saints “are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit”. Then I recognise, that not only is the Spirit present, but that there are the manifestations of the Spirit, and they are all placed in the church as the body of Christ.
I am no longer speaking of the temple in connection with the glory of the kingdom, I am speaking of the temple in connection with man’s responsibility. Of course the very fact of saints being the temple of God is an immense privilege; but the thing is viewed also upon the responsibility side. The first practical thing for us is that we should covet by the grace of God to be spiritual. We ought all to covet to be spiritual, that is, that the Spirit of God should be really in us the power of understanding, and the spring of thought and activity, governing the mind and feelings. If the presence of the Spirit is recognised in the soul, then I say where the Spirit of God is, there is wonderful sense of light and grace. Then, as belonging to the body, we are vessels for the manifestation of the Spirit. But take care you do not obstruct the light. You are to be here a vessel of light and grace; do not let anything hinder the light which ought to shine out through you, and the grace that ought to be manifest in you.
I have only one thing more to add. All good which God has for man comes out through the body of Christ, just as when Christ was here upon earth the good that God had for man came out through His body. What God had to say to men, and all the good [p. 131] works which God had for men came out through Him; “there went virtue out of him, and healed them all”; it all came out through His body. And so the good which God has for man now is by the Spirit, through the body of Christ, the church; that is the channel of it.
May God give to us understanding to recognise what I would call the first cardinal truth as to the church, that is, that saints are the temple of God, for God is dwelling here by the Spirit.