Your Body is the Temple of God
A New Meaning for God's Temple in the New Testament
The house of God in this, and similar passages now refers both to the tabernacle (or the temple) and the people of God. Stephen the first martyr of the Christian church comments as follows:
"Our fathers had the tent of witness in the wilderness, even as he who spoke to Moses directed him to make it, according to the pattern that he had seen. Our fathers in turn brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations which God thrust out before our fathers. So it was until the days of David, who found favor in the sight of God and asked leave to find a habitation for the God of Jacob. But it was Solomon who built a house for him. Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made with hands; as the prophet says, `Heaven is my throne, and earth my footstool. What house will you build for me, says the Lord, or what is the place of my rest? Did not my hand make all these things?'" (Acts 7:44-50)
These discussions pave the way for the New Testament teaching that church buildings are never to be called "the house of God." The New Testament does refer to a "temple of God," but following the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem the only temple of God is a group of people---never a building. During the entire present era of the outcalling of the church, God lives in individuals who live in a personal, covenantal relationship with Him through Yeshua the Messiah. This era of Biblical, redemptive history extends from Pentecost to the Rapture. This time period when Israel would have neither temple nor sacrifice nor national homeland was predicted by the prophet Hosea:
For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or teraphim. Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; and they shall come in fear to the LORD and to his goodness in the latter days. (Hosea 3:4-5)
Your Body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit.
When you become a believer, the Holy Spirit becomes a part of you -- is IN you. In short, your body becomes a container, or a "house," in this case, a "temple." So read in context, this verse is saying that your actual, physical body IS the Temple of the Holy Spirit. If this is not clear enough for anybody and everybody, please read this next verse:
Be ye not unequally yoked together with
unbelievers: for what fellowship hath
righteousness with unrighteousness? and
what communion hath light with darkness?
And what concord hath Christ with Belial?
or what part hath he that believeth with an
infidel? And what agreement hath the
temple of God with idols? for ye are the
temple of the living God; as God hath said,
I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and
I will be their God, and they shall be my
people. Wherefore come out from among
them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord,
and touch not the unclean thing; and I will
receive you, And will be a Father unto you,
and ye shall be my sons and daughters,
saith the Lord Almighty.
2 Corinthians 6:14-18
With Paul's logic expressed here, we could also ask: "What agreement has Christian doctrine with New Age teaching?" The answer should be abundantly clear, touch NOT the unclean thing (this applies to physical uncleanness, such as joining your body with a prostitute, or eating things God has declared unclean, and it also applies to the spiritual standing, don't partake of the doctrines of demons). The sad truth is, the false teachers that claim that God just doesn't care about your weak, fragile human body, are in grave error, because they do not know the scriptures. In a manner, they DO know the scriptures, but only as it was taught to them. They harbor the traditions of the elders in their hearts, setting aside the commandments of God for the "best thoughts" of men. They rip God's commandments out of the Bible, and paste in their own Post-It notes containing their own inarticulate scribbles.
God Himself determines what was and is and will be unclean, and what is best for you. Trust Him. But God says and then man says well I think He REALLY meant...
...these verses couldn't be clearer. YOU ARE the "temple of God," when you abide in Christ, when Jesus lives in you. Is it YOU, or YOU joined to everyone else?
The New Testament's bold assertion that man is the dwelling place---the temple---of God begins with the announcement of the Apostle John that the Second Person of the godhead had now become a man and come down to earth as Immanuel---"God with us."
And the Word became flesh and dwelt (Greek: eskenosen = tabernacled) among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. (John 1:14)
Shortly after at Passover in Jerusalem Jesus confirmed that He was in some special sense the actual temple of God, greater and more important that the Second Temple he was visiting:
The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers at their business. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all, with the sheep and oxen, out of the temple; and he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, "Take these things away; you shall not make my Father's house a house of trade." His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for thy house will consume me." The Jews then said to him, "What sign have you to show us for doing this?" Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." The Jews then said, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?" But he spoke of the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken. (John 2:13-22)
Paul the Apostle in his clear reaffirmations of the moral demands of Torah and their applications to Christians of the present era teaches that the Shekinah---the Holy Spirit---of the living God now makes His sanctuary in the body of all those who believe in Jesus and who subject themselves to his Lordship:
Our normal, reasonable, daily service, he says, is to present our bodies, as temples to God's service:
I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:1, 2)
and
Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If any one destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and that temple you are. (1 Corinthians 3:16-17)
Paul continues,
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, "The two shall become one flesh." But he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee immorality. Every other sin which a man commits is outside the body; but the immoral man sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:15-20)
In his Second Letter to the Corinthians the Apostle again speaks of God's people as a collective temple,
Do not be mismated with unbelievers. For what partnership have righteousness and iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, "I will live in them and move among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore come out from them, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch nothing unclean; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty." (2 Corinthians 6:14-18)
The New Testament also teaches that God corporately in the midst of the gathered community of his people. Each believer, a living stone, has been fitted into an invisible building which constitutes a dwelling place for God in the Spirit:
Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands---remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit." (Ephesians 2:11-22)
The Ultimate Meaning of the Temple
There remains yet much mystery as to the meaning of the Jewish tabernacle and temples with their precise measurements, strange appliances and rituals, all given by God according to a precise set of divine blueprints. What does God wish us to learn from all this?
Some things are clear. Sinful men can not approach a holy God without a suitable sacrifice. The shedding of blood is somehow necessary to make atonement for human evil. Even forgiven sinners need washing and regular cleansing in order to enjoy fellowship with their Creator. No man can approach God directly without a proper Mediator. Men are weak and need not only a Savior, Kinsman-Redeemer (Goel), but a priest to intercede for them. The problem of human sin is deep, troublesome and persistent. Men sin against one another, against nature and above all against God. Yet God in His love wishes to teach us the depths of his love and forgiveness and mercy through the symbolism of the temple.
The temple, therefore, is a picture for all time of man as in relationship with God, a picture of God as man intended him to be.
"Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away." And he who sat upon the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true." And he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the fountain of the water of life without payment. He who conquers shall have this heritage, and I will be his God and he shall be my son. (Revelation 21:3, 7)