Slideshow image

Reason #22: Jesus Rose From The Dead…So that The Church Would Become A Temple 

We have heard the good news (Reason #20) that Jesus is our temple--the place where heaven and earth meet perfectly.

We have also haerd the good new (Reason #21) that through Jesus our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.

And the good news continues!--not only Christ himself and not only the individual Christ follower but also the church as a whole is a temple of God.

This sequence of "Christ-me-us" is one way to think about the implications and applications of the Christian life in general. For example (1) Christ is the light of the world, (2) through Christ I am a light and (3) through we together as a community are the light. 

And this sequence is also true regarding the theme of temple: (1) Jesus is the perfect temple, (2) through Christ I become a temple (1 Corinthians 6:19) and (3) the community of Christ followers together become a temple. 

It become so important for us to see both the individual as well as the corporate implications of what Jesus has done.

We read the vision of the community being a temple in a passage like the 2nd chapter of Ephesians:

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22)

Some implications of Christian believers together being a temple include the following:

1. The sacredness of the Christian community and, with the sacredness, a call to holiness.

2. The community as a place of worship.

3. The community as a place of sacrifice: "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship" (Romans 12:1).

Let together live into our identity as a "temple in the Lord"!

For more on the temple theme check out this video: