Jeremy approaches Bible teaching with a passion for getting the basic doctrines explained so that the individual can understand them and then apply them to circumstances in their life. These basic and important lessons are nestled in a framework of history and progression of revelation from the Bible so the whole of Scripture can be applied to your physical and spiritual life.
Jeremy Thomas is the pastor at Spokane Bible Church in Spokane, Washington and a professor at Chafer Theological Seminary. He has been teaching the Bible for over 20 years, always seeking to present its truths in a clear and understandable manner.
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and our series on the New Testament framework. Today, a smaller, bite-sized piece from the larger lesson. We hope you enjoy it.
The Spirit's indwelling again is depicted by temple imagery. We read one passage in the 1 Corinthians. Look also at 1 Corinthians 3.16, because this passage is often not understood exactly correctly. 1 Corinthians 3.16. Paul's talking about how the church grows. This is the passage where he says, I planted, Apollos watered, but and you can fill in the blank, right?
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But who? God was doing what?
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Causing the growth. This is that passage. The growth of what? The individual believer? Or is he talking about in the context the growth of the church? He's talking contextually about the growth of the church and every man's responsibility to contribute to the building up of the body of Christ. Right? And the question of this whole chapter is, how are you building?
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How are you contributing to the body of Christ?
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And he comes down in verse 16 and he says to the Corinthians as a group, Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? So if any man destroys the temple of God, in other words, you're tearing down the church, you're not contributing to its upbuilding, you're contributing to its downfall. What does he say? God will destroy him. What does that mean? Well,
it's talking about divine discipline. That's what it's talking about. Talking about divine discipline. Why? Because the temple of God is holy. The Na'as of God is holy, and that is what you are. So the church itself is a spiritual temple, and we're supposed to contribute to it by upbuilding it. And that, of course, means that we are a holy place, and the world is to meet God at this holy place.
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We are the meeting place for the world and God.
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So that's important temple imagery. Also look at 2 Corinthians 6, 16, because in this letter, he's not referring to the church as a whole, primarily, but the individual believer, more specifically, the individual believer is a temple as well. So the church church corporate is a temple, but also the individual believer is a temple. He asks the Corinthians, who again are compromised with false teachers. He says, What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God. And then he quotes from the Old Testament to discuss how God would dwell in them. Ultimately, we know now by means of his spirit. So we individual are temples. Okay, and remember two words Hiran, the whole complex, and Naas, the most holy place. And guess which one is used? Naas. Okay, the most holy place. That is you. So I mean, obviously, how are we supposed to live our lives? If we're the most holy place, our lives should represent that holiness. I mean, God says it himself. Be ye holy as I am holy. That means to reflect my holiness back to me. Be light in the world, be holy people in the world, live different lives. The good news is that no, we can't do that on our own, but we have someone indwelling us called the Spirit of God. He dwells in that most holy place. And when we get to next week, we talk about how his work is effectual in our lives, how he produces that holiness. We have to talk about abiding and filling these types of work. But for now, just know that you are a spiritual
temple. So Israel always has a physical temple. Okay. Israel always has a physical temple. Is there a physical temple in the land of Israel right now? Is there a physical temple up on the Temple Mount? No, you've got the Temple Mount, right? You have the Dome of the Rock, you've got the Alaksa Mosque on the south end, uh, you've got some other mosques, school on the northern end for Islam, Islamic kids, stuff like that. Uh there's no temple there now, but there is to be a temple there in the future. Whenever there is a physical temple, Israel is center stage. Whenever there's no physical temple, guess what? Spiritual temple is center stage, and that's us. But there's always a temple. Why is there always a temple? Because God wants to dwell with man. What was the very by the way, let's just think in a much bigger picture.
What was the very first temple technically? The Garden of Eden. How many entrances? One. Which direction was it? East. When they build the tabernacle and later the temple, which way is the one entrance situated to the east? So um there's a lot of imagery here.
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Ultimately in the new heavens and new earth there is no temple, for the Lord God and his son are the temple, right? But that's for the future. He will dwell with them in the New Jerusalem. So which is a cube, though, by the way. It is a cube, right? It's a perfect cube, the New Jerusalem. One fifteen hundred miles by fifteen hundred miles by fifteen hundred miles. So it's a fifteen hundred mile cube, right? What shape was the most holy place? A perfect cube. Both in the tabernacle and the temple of Solomon. So interesting. Um, but so the temple imagery is what signifies again a
meeting place. It's where God meets with man. In the Old Testament, Israel would go to the temple to meet God. In the New Testament, church, uh, people go to believers to meet with God. So this is what makes it so important for us to be filled with the Spirit, to be a separate people. So the Spirit who indwells our sinless, regenerate nature, will manifest the life of Christ through us, and that way the world will want to become Christians. Unfortunately, we're not doing a great job at this, but I mean certain individuals are. Um with this. We tend to just look a lot like the world.
