EPHESIANS: Building a Temple
EPHESIANS Number 31:
Since it is the Lord Jesus in whom our faith and trust are placed, our text continues in verse 21-22 with, “In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord. In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” Ephesians 2:21-22 (KJV)
1 Corinthians 3:16 (KJV) asks, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? So incredible is it that we may not realize this that Paul asks again in 1 Corinthians 6:19 (KJV) “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?”
God has always lived among His people. He created us for this. Genesis 3:8 tells us that in the Garden where He had placed the first people, God walked in the cool of the day. In the wilderness, God lived in the holiest place in the tabernacle and led His people as a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. The Temple in Jerusalem was the house of the Lord too and in Revelation we find that the Lord walks among the churches (lampstands) and lives among His people.
So it is today. He dwells among us, living in the Church corporately and within the spirit of each believer particularly.
Peter, Simon Rock himself, elaborates considerably. This is a bit long, but we need the whole thing to get the full effect of his words to us.
1 Peter 2:1-10 (KJV)
“Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby (if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious).”
“To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.”
“Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.”
“Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.”
“But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Which in time past were not a people but are now the people of God. Which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.”
I love that Peter ties growth into spiritual maturity into the building of the Church upon the bedrock of the Lord Jesus Christ. He points out that we are becoming a part of what Father is building. We are in effect living stones. Each of us has a place and a part in the integrity of the entire structure.
To Peter, the reason we should lay aside the old poorly fitting clothing of the flesh and put on, as it were, the godly and well-fitting clothing of the righteousness we have in Christ, is so that we will grow. It is the doing of this that causes us to grow precisely because the only way it can be done is by the power of Holy Spirit acting as the dynamo that energizes all such change.
We are, in his words, “holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God.” When we walk by faith rather than by what the world and the flesh tell us is best, we present our bodies as living sacrifices.
We sacrifice the idea that we know best.
We sacrifice the notion that our thoughts and feelings tell us what is real.
We sacrifice our right to be right.
We lay all that on the altar of the word of truth.
In this way, we prostrate ourselves to the absolute Truth of His Love and grace flowing through us because of His Life within us.
Peter’s conclusion in verses 9 and 10 is this, “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Which in time past were not a people but are now the people of God. Which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.”
We have choices. We can live according to the flesh. According to the way of the world. When we do that, we live in a very noisy environment that makes it very difficult for us to hear the Spirit within us. When that happens, we have effectively quenched Him and the consequence it that we miss out on our best life, which is His Life lived in and through us.
Alternatively, we can remember that we were once aliens and strangers without hop and without God in the world and that He showed us mercy and called us His own. What a great reason for thankfulness. This wonderful gift calls us to lay all that ill-fitting fleshly nonsense aside and live a life dependent on the Lord. We can count on Him leading us and guiding us into what is best for us. When we do this, we glorify our Father, or in the words of Peter, we show forth His praises. We become lights in the darkness and that will call some out of the dark shadow of death and into His marvelous light.
In this way Father makes us a “building fitly framed together that grows into a holy temple in the Lord” as the last verse in Ephesians 2 pointed out for us.
