The Church is the Holy Temple of God
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Welcome
Welcome
We are gathered to worship the triune God
Thursday Board meeting and Congregational Discussion regarding masks, distancing, how that is affecting our church
What is the church series?
Book to pick up
Reading of Church Covenant
Prayer
Introduction
Introduction
What is the Church?
The Church is the Ekklesia of God
The Church is the Unified Body of Christ
The Church Exists for the Glory of God
The Church is the Holy Temple of God
Temple = where does God dwell? Where is God? Where does his presence reside? How can he dwell with sinful humanity? Where can you experience God?
Humans are designed to seek the spiritual because we are made in God’s image in instinctively long for him.
The yearning to know What cannot be known, to comprehend the Incomprehensible, to touch and taste the Unapproachable, arises from the image of God in the nature of man. Deep calleth unto deep, and though polluted and landlocked by the mighty disaster theologians call the Fall, the soul senses its origin and longs to return to its Source.
This is at the center of many of the dark, misguided, ignorant spiritual practices today; the desire to encounter the spiritual reality, to experience God in some way.
So people reach out to the realm of the spiritual because they are desperately seeking something they know that the material, wholly rational world cannot provide. And yet the reach out in the naive belief that everything that might reach back is good.
The temple, very simply, is the place where God dwells with his people.
I. God’s holiness
I. God’s holiness
To understand the significance of the temple, we have to start with God’s holiness.
Meaning of “holy”
Meaning: Consecrated, set apart, different, unique
God is infinite while all else is finite - he is eternal while all else is temporary
God self sufficient while all else is dependent
God, in his character and being, is completely unlike anything or anyone else in existence
This builds upon the idea of God’s glory, which we talked about last week
God’s holiness is his infinite glory set against all else in existence
Isaiah 6:1-4
1 In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”
4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.
God’s holiness means it is no simple matter to dwell with human beings
Why is this? Because God in his holiness is everything that humanity is not.
This is why we don’t like to talk about God’s holiness very much
God’s holiness makes us squirm, because we know it’s implicitly saying something about us too
It’s relatively easier to talk about God’s glory, because we’re just talking about how awesome God is
But when we start talking about his holiness, we know we’re talking about his glory in contrast to us, meaning that to say great things about God is simultaneously to say true but unpleasant things about ourselves
Illustration: The purity and beauty of snow
Snow is beautiful
Dirty snow is awful
Part of talking about the purity of snow involves at least an implication of the disgusting ugliness of tainted snow
Application: I challenge you to think about the reality of your character, thoughts, actions, and life measured against the infinite perfection and greatness of God
Think about the weight of your corruption and depravity measured against God
Every lie you have ever told
Every time you have gossiped about other people
Every lustful and impure thought you have ever had
Every ounce of greed and jealousy you have ever harbored in your soul
Every self-righteous judgmental attitude you have ever held
Every moment you have spent drunk or high and not in subjection to God
Every selfish motivation you have ever had
Every time you have injured another person with your words or actions
Isaiah 6:5
5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
If you do not every feel in your being a dreadful fear of the goodness of God, perhaps you do not really understand just how good he is and just how bad you are
The temple in the OT was a picture of this
Throughout Exodus 25-40, Israel is given instructions on how to build a tabernacle, which was a precursor to the temple, and then they build it
When they finally complete the tabernacle, the glory of God fills it, but then Moses is not able to enter it!
Exodus 40:34-35
34 Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. 35 And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
Why is Moses unable to enter the tabernacle? Because God is holy and he is not.
Even Moses, the best of what Israel had to offer, cannot enter God’s presence.
God’s holiness separates him from us, but God’s holiness is also what drives him towards us in love.
II. God’s grace
II. God’s grace
God’s holiness isn’t just his moral perfection and purity; it’s also his transcendent, radical love that surpasses anything humans have - everything about God is set apart and different in a unique and superior way, including his love and compassion. Where human love would give up on people, God pursues them.
As God is holy and set apart from you in his righteous perfection, so he is holy and set apart from you in his perfect love
In his love, he makes a way for sinful, impure, corrupt, depraved people to dwell with him
He does this by making his people holy as he is holy
Leviticus 19:2
2 “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.
This theme is absolutely central to Leviticus: if Moses is going to be able to enter the tabernacle, if God is going to be able to dwell with his people without consuming them, they must be holy
Leviticus 11:44-45, Leviticus 19:2, Leviticus 20:7, Leviticus 20:26
But how do unholy, impure, corrupt, depraved, sinful people become holy?
If you are ever going to be able to be anywhere near a perfect and holy God, he has to clean you up; no amount of your effort will ever do
In the OT, this is the sacrificial system and the law
When you turn the page from Exodus to Leviticus, you read in the opening line of Leviticus Leviticus 1:1
1 The Lord called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying,
By the time you get to Numbers, you see something a bit different Numbers 1:1
1 The Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tent of meeting, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying,
What changed? Leviticus. The sacrificial system
God graciously provided a means by which animal sacrifices could atone for the sin and impurity of his people
The blood was a symbol of the life of the animal, and it’s life was being traded for the life of person offering the sacrifice - therefore, a persons sin could be forgiven and God could dwell with them
But this system of sacrifice was only ever a foreshadow
Jesus is the culmination of God’s work to make holy a people for himself with whom he will dwell
Hebrews 9:11-14
11 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) 12 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
Hebrews 10:19-22
19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Jesus offered once for all time a perfect sacrifice in his own life to atone for the sins of an unholy, corrupt, depraved people in order to sanctify them and create in them a dwelling place for God
God has done all that is necessary to clean you up and make you holy
This is why the Christian faith is not about working hard to clean yourself up so that you can come to God
The Christian faith is about what God has decisively done for you in the death and resurrection of Christ to clean you up and bring you to him
The dwelling place of God is now no longer a place or a building but a people
The Church:
The assembly of the redeemed
The unified body of Christ
The people whose sins Jesus has atoned for, whom Jesus has cleansed, sanctified, justified and forgiven
The CHURCH is now the temple of God, the dwelling place of the almighty
III. God’s temple
III. God’s temple
The NT now puts forward Christians, the church, as the temple of God where he dwells among them
1 Peter 2:4-5
4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
As the temple of God and holy priesthood, how should we live holy lives of spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Christ Jesus?
As the holy temple of God, we glorify God in all we do
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
One of the reasons that we wage war against our sin is because God lives in us - how can one in whom God dwells involve themselves in sin? In this example, how can someone be united to Jesus then turn around and unite himself to a prostitute.
If God is holy, and we as his temple are holy, and if God is graciously sanctifying us, how can we continue to willfully walk in sin?
As the holy temple of God, we live set apart from the world
2 corinthians 6:14-18
14 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,
“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
17 Therefore go out from their midst,
and be separate from them, says the Lord,
and touch no unclean thing;
then I will welcome you,
18 and I will be a father to you,
and you shall be sons and daughters to me,
says the Lord Almighty.”
As the temple of God, we guard against idolatry
This is part of the reason why we believe it’s a terrible mistake to date or marry a non Christian
This is why we do not desire to join ourselves at the hip to any national or political entity
This is why Christians should be wise as to who they go into business or deep friendship with
This is NOT to say that we do not want to engage with the world around us
It means that we take great care to guard where our ultimate allegiance lies
As the holy temple of God, we guard the integrity and unity of our church
16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
Contextually, Paul is dealing here with divisions in the church around different people and talking about the whole church as the temple of God.
The temple is the dwelling place of God, his answer to the fragmentation of our society
If any person threatens the integrity or unity of the temple, he brings God’s judgment upon himself because he is working against what God intends for his people, to be a holy temple where he dwells in our midst
This is why we practice church membership
A church is not just a loose and casual affiliation of Christians who generally get along with one another
A church is a covenant community where we commit ourselves to one another
To mutual accountability to one another
To mutual responsibility for one another
This is also why we practice church discipline
Conclusion
Conclusion
As the holy temple of God, we take great joy and delight in the knowledge that God has not waited for us to clean ourselves up and come to him; rather, he has sanctified and cleanses us through the blood of his son and has come to dwell with us. Therefore, above all we celebrate that Almighty God dwells with us his people, and in us as his church.