One Temple Ps 89:31-48; 2 Sam 7:1-14; Eph 2:11-22; Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
Introduction
From the time of creation[1], God was working to make his home with humanity. In the Fall however, the Lord was made homeless.[2] However the plan of God recorded in the Bible testifies an ecstatic End, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.” (Rev 21:3). The Bible is very interested in where God lives[3] and the reason for this is that the Lord created us for the most intense fellowship with himself[4]. Even before the construction of the temple David climaxes the 23rd Psalm with, “goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” (Ps 23:6 cf. Ps 27:4). When the physical temple was constructed, God promised to put his heart there (2 Chron 7:16)[5], so naturally the faithful Israelite wanted to dwell in God’s house to enjoy covenant communion with him[6]. It was however the promise that God made to David in 2 Samuel 7 that opened up the most dynamic dimensions of temple spirituality.
2 Sam 7:1-14
Instead of David being given permission to build a house for God, the Lord brought forth one of the most profound promises of the Bible “I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son…. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me.” (2 Sam 7:12-14, 16). The pledge of a “house” for David stands for an eternal dynasty[7]. As a divine promise, it opens up a perspective vaster in time and space than the present creation. This is the vision of a single all-encompassing temple Paul will outlay in Ephesians 2.
Ephesians 2:11-22: A Vision of Oneness
The apostolic insight into a single Christ-centred community indwelt by the Spirit of God depends on the healing of what the Bible considers to be the biggest division in humanity. Not gender or race or wealth or education but Jew and Gentile[8]. The chasm between these two was created by God’s original exclusive choice of the Jews[9] and for millennia seemed irreconcilable[10]. Paul’s focus on the relationship between Jew and Gentile[11] is so strong because in the Spirit he understands that their reunion will prophetically signal the first creation world is being remade as one[12].
The apostle piles up terms to highlight the split between Jew and Gentile, “separated…alienated…strangers…far off…hostility”. Behind ancient and modern anti-Semitism the real issue is always who has God’s/the gods favour. Today, whenever something significant happens in Israel there is rioting in the Arab world. This is because in Islam it is Ishmael, an ancestor of Mohammed who is the child of promise and not Isaac the father of the Jewish people[13]. The good news in the gospel is that the chasm between Jew and Gentile has been bridged “by the blood of Christ….in his flesh” (vv.13-14). Jesus was born and lived as a Jew, but the expression “blood of Christ”[14] is a short-hand way of talking about how the life of Jesus was taken violently in crucifixion to bring us all near to God. A crucified man was a person who had lost their covenant status, a crucified man dies as if they were a Gentile (Heb 13:12)[15]. This is why in Jesus himself we see our reconciliation to God. At one point we hear him crying out to a distant God, “My God, My God why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34) but in his last breath we hear him speaking to the all-near Father, ““Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!”” (Luke 23:46). In himself Jesus moved from the extremity of alienation from God to his closest presence taking all of us, Gentile and Jew, with him.
Reconciliation, the bringing together into a unity of those who were previously estranged and hostile has been achieved in Christ[16]. What I said last week about the concentrated use of “in Christ” language in Ephesians 1 is also true here. The spiritual/covenantal oneness between Jew, Gentile and all humanity exists “in Christ Jesus” (v.13), “in him” (v.22), “in himself” (v.15). Jews and Gentiles are one in the new covenant of Christ’s blood (Luke 22:20)[17]; and the new covenant is actually Jesus himself (Isaiah 42:; 49:8). My sister used to talk about our strong family ties “blood”, but the only everlasting family is the one formed through the blood of Christ.
When the One God[18] acts the result is oneness is humanity. He has “made us both one” (v.14) he has “create in himself one new man in place of the two” (v.15), “reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross” (v.16). This is not a unity of uniformity[19] but of mutual indwelling love.
When the apostle says, “through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father” (v.18) [e testifies that we are enveloped in the Trinitarian life and teaches we share Jesus’ perfect access[20] to the Father in the heavenly holy of holies (Heb 10:19-22). There is no veil or barrier or precondition that must be transversed to be in God’s most intimate presence. Unlike the Israelites of old who had to travel to the temple and could only enter so far inside[21], we are the new temple “In him (Christ)…being built together into a dwelling place for God by/in the Spirit.” (v.22). As more Jewish people become followers of Jesus and live in unity with Gentile converts God’s Spirit fills the one Body of Christ with his presence and power[22].
Application
Let me recount an example of the sorts of things that happen when the people of God live in the true power of unity. In the early 1700’s the pious German nobleman Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf opened up his country estate (Herrnhut) to religious refugees from across Europe (Lutheran, Reformed, Baptist, Catholic). They immediately began to argue about who had the true Christian teaching. Zinzendorf intensified prayer and visited all the members of the community asking them to sign a covenant which called upon them “to seek out and emphasize the points in which they agreed” rather than stressing their differences. Not long after when they met at a communion service the Holy Spirit was poured out (13/8/1727) with signs and wonders, the people were so hunger for the Word of God they had to have three services every day, 5.00 and 7.30 a.m. and 9.00 p.m. Everyone desired above everything else that the Holy Spirit might have full control. Self-love and self-will and disobedience disappeared and an overwhelming flood of grace swept everyone “into the great ocean of Divine Love”. This launched a continuous 100-year (24/7) prayer meeting and the first global Protestant missions movement[23] which included a focus on the evangelising of the Jews and praying for their conversion[24]. What is the relevance of all this for us today?
Conclusion
In a situation where the powers of evil attack have been attacking the unity of the Church (cf. Eph 6:12ff.) successfully for centuries we should be careful lest there be in any of our hearts a “dividing wall of hostility” (v.14) that opposes the blood of the cross. Accepting that ever element of alienation and division has been reconciled to God in Christ (Col 1:20) we must make praying for the salvation of the Jewish people a priority[25], we are called to ask God to bless the Catholics down the street, the Seventh Day Adventists in our Bassendean Community Centre Hall, then interceding for the Churches of Christ, Presbyterians and Baptists across the railway line and so on. We need our spiritual eyes opened (Eph 1:18) to the dimension of the temple God is building today. I believe that my 70th celebration in the hall was so unusual because all sorts of ethnicities and Christian spiritualities were present in the shared love of Christ.
The Spirit of the Lord is working to shift St Marks from a close-knit caring but inward looking “village mentality” to see that we are a part of the dwelling place of God in the Spirit (Eph 1:22) which encompasses not only every sort of human being but a whole new creation (2 Cor 5:17; Rev 21:3). We are the local manifestation (1 Cor 3:16-17) of a temple whose fulness in Christ fills all things without measure (Eph 1:22-23)[26] [27]. In the End “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Hab 2:14) because the cosmos will be filled with the glory which is already indwelling us.[28] It’s time to live out the implications of what is Coming.
[1] Eden was a temple in which the Lord walked and talked lived with his image and likeness (e.g. Gen 3:8-9)
[2] In rejecting the command of God (Gen 2:17), the testimony of Jesus was already fulfilled, “you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you” (John 8:37).
[3] The Old Testament tells us often about God’s “dwelling place”. Outside of time this is “heaven” (1 Ki 8:39; 2 Chron 6:30; 30:27 etc.). earthly dwellings include, Mount Sinai (Ex 24:16), the tabernacle (Ex 2:8; Num 5:3; 2 Sam 7:5 ; 1 Chron 17:5; Ps 78:60; Jer 7:12; Hos 12:9), the Jerusalem temple (2 Sam 7:5; 1 Ki 6:13; 8:13 etc.), Mount Zion (1 Chron 23:25; Ezra 7:15; Neh 1:9; Pss 43:3; 68:16….Isa 8:18; Ezek 43:7 etc.)
[4] Cf. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” (Rev 3:20)
[5] The centre of who he is as a Person.
[6] The Lord’s desire was universally contested through idolatry, “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man” (Acts 17:24).
[7] Like, the “house” of Windsor.
[8] As this division was caused by God’s choosing of one man from out of all humanity, that is Abraham (Gen 12:1-3), it can only be undone by another and greater choice of God, Jesus (Isa 42:1; Luke 23:35).
[9] We know that the original, eternal, choice was Jesus (Eph 1:4).
[10] Which is exactly how it appears to Orthodox Jews today.
[11] Taken up, for example, in Romans 9-11, which is not a digression form the central topic of justification by faith, but integral to understanding the power of the gospel.
[12] Universal reconciliation in Christ of all things (Eph 1:9-10).
[13] I recall talking to two friendly Arab businessmen in Cairo, they were more than happy to talk to us a Christians but had no time for Jews.
[14] 3x more common in the New Testament than “death of Christ”.
[15] See especially “a hanged man is cursed by God” (Deut 21:23), and the way the suffering servant is regarded in Isa 52:13-53:12.
[16] No blame, no shame, no distance between us and God and one another (e.g. Ps 34:18).
[17] Which Paul can speak of as “the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood” (Acts 20:28).
[18] The basic declaration under the old covenant was, ““Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.2 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” (Deut 6:4-5). An undivided God demands undivided devotion.
[19] Like under authoritarian regimes or religious cults or one huge denomination as in Roman Catholicism.
[20] The Old Testament Greek background here is the priests bringing offerings to God. Jesus perfectly brings us to the Father (John 17:2; Heb 2:13b).
[21] There were clear gradations of holiness, gentiles, women, men, priests, high priest in terms of access to God.
[22] This living temple is filled with the eternal pleasure of the Father glorying in his Son’s bloody sacrifice creating a home fit for his holy dwelling (John 17:11).
[23] Zinzendorf even had an audience with the pope.
[24] https://jewsforjesus.org/publications/newsletter/newsletter-nov-1994/zinzendorf-and-the-jewish-people
[25] Cf. “to the Jew first, and also to the Greek” (Rom 1:16), and the whole argument in Romans 9-11.
[26] Jesus is presently filling “all things” through his Body (Eph 4:10ff.).
[27] In the symbolic world of Revelation, the Church is the city of God whose dimensions are a perfect cube, the ultimate holy of holies that will be the entire new creation (Rev 21:16 = 21:2, 9-10)).
[28] In the End, all of knowable reality is one vast eternal temple where Father, Son and Spirit indwell one another and humanity as the Church and Bride of the Lamb (Rev 21:22).