THE TEMPLE OF GOD
“Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling, saying to them, It is written, AND MY HOUSE SHALL BE A HOUSE OF PRAYER, but you have made it a ROBBERS’ DEN” (Luke 19:45-46). The house of the Lord was very important to Jesus. It was built to be a place where God’s people could enjoy forgiveness, friendship and communion with him. It was never meant to be controlled by the religious leaders who wanted to look down upon others and steal from them.
If you want to know the character of a man, look at what makes him glad and what makes him mad. Jesus became furious and drove out those who were fleecing people in the name of God. The house of God had been perverted for human religious purposes. And yet, the physical temple from which he drove the thieves would be destroyed within a generation, and it was only a type to begin with. In other words, it was of secondary importance to the true plan of God.
“However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says” (Acts 7:48). God never dwelt in literal, man-made temples. It was all symbolic to teach people about what kind of relationship they could have with him. It was Stephen who said these words in the seventh chapter of Acts, and he was talking about the very temple system that the religious leaders had corrupted, which caused Jesus to drive them out.
If God never dwelt literally in a physical temple, then what was its purpose? Its purpose was to point people to his true design and intention—the true temple of the living God. Where is this temple? What is this temple? We don’t have to wonder. “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). If Jesus got so upset with what the religious leaders had done to the physical temple, because of the way they hurt his people, can you imagine how he feels about corrupting the lives of his people now? The hearts and lives of his people of which the temple in Jerusalem was only a symbol?
The body of Christ, the assembly of believers—called the “church” in most translations—is the temple of God. “In whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord” (Ephesians 2:21). That is not a literal, physical building Paul is talking about. He’s talking about Jews and Gentiles in the one body, the church. The only temple God has ever wanted is the only one he has or ever will have until Jesus comes again. It is the hearts and lives of his people. That’s where God lives.
Dewayne Dunaway
