Temple

Let's open our Bibles firstly to 1 Corinthians chapter 6. 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and then we'll have some Old Testament readings as well. If I was to ask you what first came to your mind when we mentioned the concept of the temple, I wonder what you would say. Many people might say holiness and that's certainly one of the main principles that is associated with the temple.

But I think the main thought associated with the temple is that it is the place where God dwells. The temple is the place where God dwells. Let's read 1 Corinthians 6 verse 19.

What know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have from God and you are not your own? For you are bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God's. Please mark that page or keep your finger there.

We'll come back to it but let's go over to 1 Chronicles in the Old Testament. 1 Chronicles chapter 16. In the Old Testament the presence of God was represented or was symbolized among his people by the Ark of the Covenant.

The Ark, remember, it was just a little chest, a little box. And that box was first built for the tabernacle, the tent in the wilderness, the journeys of the people of Israel. And inside that box, the lid of the box was the mercy seat, and inside that box they put the two stones containing the Ten Commandments, God's covenant with his people.

And so that Ark represented the presence of God among his people. And David, who is a beautiful, a lovely man of God, had that Ark brought up to the city of Jerusalem. Chapter 16, that's when he brings up the Ark.

Look at verse number 7. 1 Chronicles 16 and 7. Then on that day, the day the Ark was brought up, David delivered first this psalm to thank the Lord into the hand of Asaph and his brethren. So David writes a song to rejoice at the presence of the Ark, the presence of God in Jerusalem. Look at verse number 29.

Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name. Bring an offering and come before him. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

Chapter 17. Now it came to pass as David sat in his house that David said to Nathan the prophet, Lo, I dwell in a house of cedars, a beautiful house, but the Ark of the covenant of the Lord remaineth under curtains. Didn't seem right to David that he had this beautiful house of cedar and the Ark representing God's presence is just sitting in a tent.

Then Nathan said unto David, Do all that is in thine heart, for God is with thee. Well, then David finds out that he's not to build the house for the Lord, but his son Solomon will build that house. Now come over to chapter 21.

A little bit of time has passed. David has actually sinned by numbering the people and he is told if he wants to stop the plague from wiping out the people, he is to go and offer a sacrifice in the threshing floor of Ornan, just outside the city. First Chronicles 21 verse 25.

So David gave to Ornan for the place 600 shekels of gold by weight. And David built there an altar unto the Lord and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings and called upon the Lord. And he answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of the burnt offering.

And the Lord commanded the angel and he put up his sword again unto the sheaf thereof. At that time when David saw that the Lord had answered him in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there. Chapter 22 verse 1. Then David said, this is the house of the Lord God.

This is where we're going to build the temple. And this is the altar of the burnt offering for Israel. And David commanded to gather together the strangers that were in the land of Israel.

And he sent masons to shew rot stones to build the house of God. And David prepared iron in abundance and the nails for the doors and so on. Verse 5. And David said, Solomon my son is young and tender.

And the house that is to be built for the Lord must be exceedingly magnificent of fame and glory, or your margin might say of fame and beauty, throughout all countries. I will therefore now make preparation for it. So David prepared abundantly before his death.

Then he called for Solomon his son and charged him to build a house, to build the temple for the Lord God of Israel. Lastly, 2nd Chronicles 6. 2nd Chronicles chapter 6. Verse 1. Then said Solomon, the Lord has said that he would dwell in thick darkness, but I have built a house of habitation for thee and a place for thy dwelling forever. Verse 18.

But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee, how much less this house which I have built. Okay, we can turn back to 1st Corinthians chapter 6, which will be our main text. And in 1st Corinthians 6, the body of the believer is called the temple of the Holy Spirit.

And the temple is the dwelling place of God. Remember David's desire back in 1st Chronicles chapter 17 was to build a house for God to dwell in, a house for the ark. He said, I dwell in a beautiful house of cedar, but what about the ark that symbolizes God's presence? God needs a house.

Indeed, I think the most common name for the temple in the Old Testament is not temple, but it is house, house of the Lord or house of God. And so the concept house of God is also meant to convey the place where God dwells. The first time you read the phrase house of God is Genesis chapter 28.

And Jacob discovers that God was uniquely present in a special way. And God said, Jacob says, this is the house of God. And in Exodus 23, the first time you read the phrase house of the Lord is a reference to the tabernacle where God dwelt among his people in their wilderness journey.

So the house of God or house of the Lord or the temple refers to the place where God dwells. In 1st Corinthians 6 and 19 now, the believer's body is said to be a temple of the Holy Spirit. It is saying that the Holy Spirit who is himself God dwells within every single Christian.

Remember, temple conveys a sense of permanence in contrast to the tabernacle that was just a temporary structure. But Solomon said in 2nd Chronicles chapter 6, this is going to be a place for your dwelling forever. That was the intent, a place for God to dwell forever, a permanent dwelling place.

And now the temple is set up in Jerusalem in the place of the kingdom. Now, when 1st Corinthians says that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, it is saying that the Holy Spirit, who is just as much God as the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit has moved in to your body. He has taken up residence.

He has made your body his dwelling place. That's an amazing thing. We might get accustomed to it and take it for granted, but think of Solomon's words back there in 2nd Chronicles 6. He says he was in awe of the prospect of God dwelling among them.

He says, will God really dwell among men on the earth? 1st Corinthians says he will. You have the Holy Spirit from God. He dwells within your body.

Well, when did that happen and why did that happen? I want to focus some comments for younger believers for a few moments and just remind you that the Holy Spirit began to dwell in you at the very moment of your conversion. The moment that you were saved, the Holy Spirit took up his residence in your body and your body became a temple of the Holy Spirit. Now, I hope you young believers, I hope you're reading your Bibles regularly and systematically, not just a haphazard picking a place here and there, but reading through the Bible.

And as you read through the book of the Acts, you will notice a couple of places where there seems to be a delay from the time that people were saved to when they received the Holy Spirit. That does happen a few times in Acts. A new dispensation, a new era of God's dealing with people was beginning and there were some unique circumstances.

But even in the Acts, we get that indication that the Spirit was going to be received upon believing the gospel in Acts chapter 11. When Peter is speaking of his interactions with Cornelius and others in that household, this is what he says. He says, God gave them the gift of the Holy Spirit who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.

And in chapter 10, he said we should baptize them because they have received the Holy Spirit. It wasn't to be baptized in order to receive the Spirit, but because they had the Spirit upon believing the gospel, he said they should be baptized. The Holy Spirit is received the moment we are saved.

That becomes more clear as you read through the epistles. It is very helpful for you if you are trying to defend a doctrine. It's very helpful if you have more than just one proof text.

There might be a favorite text that we have to substantiate a certain belief, but it's very helpful if you can turn to multiple scriptures to support a doctrine because you might meet somebody who has a particular view on that passage and they might challenge you on your belief on one certain passage and you might feel a little bit weakened or concerned. It's good to have multiple scriptures that you can turn to. So Galatians chapter 3 says we receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

Ephesians chapter 1 and 13 is a great one. It says after you believed, or literally it means upon believing, you were sealed with the Spirit of promise. Romans chapter 8 says if someone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to God.

If you are saved, then you must have the Spirit, he says. Other scriptures you can piece together. John chapter 3 and Titus, the washing of regeneration and other scriptures from Galatians.

There's many aspects, many different doctrines that we've got to piece together a number of scriptures to formulate that conviction and that understanding and that's nothing to be ashamed of. God has made it that way. But the scriptures testify that the moment that you were born of God, your body became the temple of the Spirit.

Now that's different from previous dispensations. This is something that is new. Prior to the birth of the church in Acts chapter 2, believers were not permanently indwelt by the Spirit in the same way.

So David prays one time in Psalm number 51, don't take your Holy Spirit from me. But believers today never have to pray that. In John 14, in the upper room ministry, the Lord says, the Spirit of truth dwells with you, he will be in you.

Something was going to change. Yes, in the Old Testament, the Spirit was at work. He would come upon people, he would fill people, he would use people and help people.

But he did not permanently indwell them. For some, it might have been the regular course of their life, but their bodies were not the temples of the Holy Spirit like we have in this age. Temple conveys a permanent dwelling, a habitation for you forever, for your dwelling forever.

So God is never going to take his Holy Spirit from you. At times we can grieve the Holy Spirit. We can quench him, we can hinder his working within us.

It might take us time to learn to walk in the Spirit, but the Spirit of God dwells within us from the day of Acts chapter 2, from the birth of the church through this present age. The body of every believer is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Now I want you to notice the connection between redemption and the habitation, or the dwelling of God.

Redemption and the dwelling of God. Look at verse 20 in 1 Corinthians 6. You were bought with a price. You were bought with a price.

That's not the normal word for redeem. It is sometimes translated redeem in Revelation, but it's just a word that means to buy in the marketplace. But it's the concept of redemption.

It's emphasizing the price that has been paid. He says you've been bought with a price. The cost, the price of our redemption, is the precious blood of Christ.

So chapter 5 of 1 Corinthians says Christ, our Passover, is sacrifice for us. That's the lamb to redeem his people. Now in chapter 6 we're temples of the Holy Spirit.

We have been redeemed and now we're a temple. Habitation, the temple, it follows redemption. That significance is pictured in the Old Testament.

We read about David buying the threshing floor of Ornan to sacrifice. And it says in the first Chronicles that that's how David knew that the temple was to be built in this place, because the sacrifice was accepted there. And when God honored that sacrifice and consumed it with fire, David says this is the house of the Lord.

So at the very foundation of the temple is redemption and sacrifice. That's foundational to the concept of the temple. There was redemption, now there's a temple.

You were bought with a price, your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. And when David buys it, 1 Chronicles says that he pays 600 shekels of gold. It's interesting because in 2 Samuel 24 it says that David paid 50 shekels of silver.

Now 2 Samuel was written many years earlier. And 2 Samuel says that David paid Ornan 50 shekels of silver and 1 Chronicles says he paid him 600 shekels of gold. That's a big difference.

Do you think this is one of those biblical contradictions that the skeptics talk about? I don't think so. It just pays off to read very carefully, doesn't it? 2 Samuel says he paid 50 shekels of gold for the floor, sorry, 50 shekels of silver for the floor and the oxen. The animals and the precise site that the altar was going to be built for sacrifice, 50 shekels of silver.

Chronicles says for the place, for the entire site, 600 shekels of gold. You see what he's saying? It's actually the beautiful intricacy of scripture because silver often speaks of redemption and gold speaks of greatness and glory and majesty. And so when he's buying the exact place, that specific plot where they're going to have an altar and make a sacrifice and shed blood, he buys that with silver.

But the site where the is going to be built for the glory and the majesty of God, he buys that with gold. Silver for redemption, gold for glory. Those thoughts are seen in 1 Corinthians 6. You were bought with a price.

There's the silver, the redemption. Now glorify God in your body. There's the gold.

Redemption is foundational to the temple, but the purpose of the temple is to bring glory to God. Your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. You were bought with a price.

Glorify God in your body. Consider one other connection. You read in 1 Kings 6 that they date the building of the temple back to the time of their deliverance, their redemption from Egypt.

It says Solomon began to build the temple 480 years after Israel was redeemed from Egypt. Redemption was so momentous, it was so foundational that the time of the building of the temple is dated back to their redemption. They were redeemed in order that they might be a dwelling place of God.

It says he began to build the temple in the second month. The first month is the month of Passover, redemption. Now the second month they build the temple.

Redemption is foundational to the dwelling of God. So there you've got 1 Corinthians. We are bought with a price.

We have been redeemed. But once we are redeemed, these bodies are now a temple for God's glory. You see, it's not just meant to be an academic study, is it? But he's saying the logical, reasonable, spiritual response to having been redeemed is that now the lives of our body would be devoted to the glory of God.

Glorify God in your body. He has given us his spirit to dwell within us. Galatians says, because we are sons, he has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.

That's one reason why he has given us the spirit. Corinthians, though, is maybe intimating another reason with this concept of the temple. The temple was a place for God to dwell among his people.

And by giving us his Holy Spirit, God is saying he wants fellowship with us. He wants to dwell among his people. And by giving us his spirit, he has made our bodies his temple.

He has created a way to express that intimate fellowship, created a way for us to enjoy that fellowship, and he has created a way for sinful but redeemed people to live lives that are beautiful and glorious to him. You see, a consequence of being redeemed is the question of ownership. Notice the end of verse 19.

You are not your own. It's kind of a funny statement, isn't it? You're not your own. Well, whose am I? I thought I was my own.

This is my life, isn't it? Doesn't this belong to me? It says you're not your own. I bought you, I redeemed you out of the slave market of sin. You are not your own.

More than that, you're now a temple of the Holy Spirit, the house of God. And if it's the house of God, it belongs to God. You can't just do whatever you like in the house of God.

You've got to honor and obey the God whose house it is. Can't just do whatever you'd like in the life of that body. It's the temple of the Spirit.

Belongs to him. I wonder how conscious we are, day by day, of the command that God has given us to walk in the Spirit, to be led of the Spirit. Our bodies are his temple.

This life that I have is his. What is it called when you take and use something that doesn't belong to you? Are we robbing God? Is this life in the body really devoted to the glory of God? In the context of 1 Corinthians 6, he's been dealing with the sin of fornication, sexual immorality. He says you can't just do whatever you please in that body.

It's not yours. It's a temple of the Holy Spirit. It belongs to God.

Learn to find your pleasure in bringing glory to God. Learn to find your pleasure in bringing glory to God with your body. Temples exist to glorify God.

We've thought of why the body is called a temple, because the Holy Spirit dwells within. Secondly, how the indwelling of the Holy Spirit began at conversion. That's when our bodies became a temple.

Thirdly, notice the connection between redemption, sacrifice, and habitation, the dwelling of God. Now I just want to end by thinking of just one of the major concepts of the temple, is that it is for the glory of God. Solomon's Temple in the Old Testament, think about it.

David says, the house that is to be built for the Lord must be exceedingly magnificent, famous, and glorious, or beautiful, he says. And it mentions elsewhere in Chronicles that David set aside a hundred thousand talents of gold and a million talents of silver. That's seven and a half million pounds of gold.

The price of gold today is about 1,500 US dollars an ounce. Seven and a half million pounds of gold. I might give you more of those calculations later, but it's a stunning amount, isn't it? He says, we've got gold and silver and brass and onyx stones and glittering and sparkling stones and precious stones and white marble stones.

Over and above all of that, there's things I've taken from my own treasury, more gold and silver to overlay the walls of the house. This house, this temple was going to be stunningly beautiful. Remember what happened when the ark was brought into the Holy of Holies? After everything was completed and they put the ark in that holiest of all, it says the glory of God filled the house.

The priest couldn't even stay there any longer. It makes sense, doesn't it? Where the presence of God is, there should be glory. And the presence of God is in our bodies.

Glorify God in your body. The temple is to be beautiful and glorious. And your body's a temple.

Okay. So if your body, if the life in your body is supposed to be beautiful and glorious, our bodies are temples, and the temple's supposed to be beautiful, what do you conclude? Well, the first thing you might think is, Matthew, what's going on with you? What happened to you? I mean, it doesn't seem to be working out for you. Are you disobeying? Or maybe I should put weightlifting and plastic surgery on my goals for 2011 to make sure that the temple is beautiful.

Should we, what should we do? We could add ornate decorations and enhancements to make sure the temple is beautiful. We should have the assembly pay for fitness memberships to make sure the temple is beautiful. Sounds good.

Well, a word of balance. Indeed, we should be marked by self-control in our bodies. It's true.

I won't emphasize that now because you're probably planning to have a big piece of dessert at lunchtime, so I'll let that go. We'll worry about the self-control later. But this is when it's important to remember that very often the physical and material of the Old Testament corresponds to the spiritual in the New Testament.

So Israel is promised blessings in the physical land, great harvest, many possessions, but Ephesians says the church is blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. Old Testament priests offered physical animal sacrifices. First Peter says the church is a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices.

Joshua leads the people of Israel in battles with physical sword. Ephesians says we're to arm ourselves with the armor of the Lord. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but with the sword of the Spirit.

The temples of this dispensation, yes, they are to be beautiful, but the emphasis isn't on physical beauty. Now that's no criticism of all you beautiful people, and if you consider yourself to be beautiful, that's okay. You're still allowed to be beautiful.

But think of First Peter chapter three. It says the sisters adorning not to be external, the braiding of hair and putting on of gold jewelry and the clothing that you wear. He's calling for modesty and godliness.

Then listen, there's another translation. This is what it says. Let it be, let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle, a meek and quiet spirit which in God's sight is very precious.

The imperishable beauty of a meek and quiet spirit which in God's sight is precious. Second Corinthians chapter 10, Paul gives an idea of what people thought of his physical appearance. They say his bodily presence is weak, and I don't doubt that the apostle Paul didn't look the most beautiful after as many shipwrecks and the beatings that he received, but he was glorifying God in his body.

Yes, the temple of our body should be beautiful and glorious for the Lord, but it's not about the eyes of man or self-glory, but God's glory. In fact, if you came up to Solomon's temple, you wouldn't be struck with the beauty on the outside of it. White marble stones, they look nice, but it wasn't stunningly beautiful on the outside.

But if you stepped on the inside, gold everywhere, amazingly beautiful on the inside. The Holy Spirit wants to produce beauty from your life. The fruit of the Spirit.

Stephen already mentioned that, didn't he? Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, faithfulness, goodness, kindness, meekness, self-control. That's a beautiful cluster of fruit. Spiritual character that will be seen in the actions of our body, and by those Christ-like characteristic, our bodies will be beautiful for God.

Psalm 90 says, let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us. Doing works of righteousness will glorify God in your body. It's an amazing thing that we even have the opportunity to glorify God in our body.

Remember, young believer, within your body, there is still the flesh, the principle of sin. And when you were saved and the Holy Spirit came inside, the flesh was not eliminated, the flesh wasn't even weakened. But the Spirit has empowered our bodies so that these lives can be to His glory.

Romans 3 spoke about the members of our body, our tongues, our lips, our hands being used for iniquity and sin. But now in Romans 6, He says, yield your members, your body, as instruments of righteousness unto God. And maybe there's people here, really all of us, probably feel a measure of shame at how our bodies have been used at times in the past as vessels of iniquity.

But you've been justified, you've been redeemed, bought out of sin. Now all of us can glorify God in our body. We read in 1 Chronicles chapter 16, which was before the temple was built, but I think it's a very significant passage.

It's very momentous. It's related to the building of the temple because the temple was to be built for the ark. And 1 Chronicles 16 is that psalm that is written when the ark comes up to Jerusalem.

And David is excited, he's thrilled, and he's praising the Lord. And he writes that psalm and he says, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. That's what the temple is for, to worship God.

And worship is more than Sunday morning, you remember that. We can live lives of worship, the actions of our body can be worshiped. And he says, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

I don't think we naturally consider holiness to be a beautiful thing. We sometimes think of holiness as something that is restrictive, plain, unattractive. But God says sin is what is ugly, holiness is beautiful.

So David's unlawful union with Bathsheba, that was ugly. But Hebrews 13 says, marriage is honorable, the bed undefiled. David's orchestration of Uriah's death, that was ugly, but the Lord laying down his life as a sacrifice, that was beautiful, that was worship.

And this temple was built in Solomon's day to be beautiful and glorious. The temple, they were going to worship God from that temple in the beauty of holiness. And God says that our bodies have been made the temple of the Spirit.

And with this body, we should worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Glorify God in your body. Let your life be beautiful for God.

God has claims upon our bodies and upon our lives. He has a claim because he's our creator, a claim because of redemption. You are not your own, you're bought with a price.

And a claim because of the temple, the temple of the Holy Spirit. It belongs to him and is for his glory. Think of the worth of God for a moment.

Because in 1 Chronicles 17, remember how the idea of the temple originated with David? He said, I dwell in a house of cedars. And the ark representing God's presence, it's just an attempt, but I think my God is worth more than that. My God deserves more glory, David says.

I want to build him a temple, a house because of the worth of our great God. That's what the temple, that's how it originated. Because David saw how great his God was and he thought he was worthy of more glory.

So there's a question to ask ourselves. Our bodies are temples. Does God deserve more from my life? Glorify God in your body.

1 Chronicles 16, give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name. David says this house, this temple for the Lord must be beautiful and glorious. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

So let your life be beautiful for God. Glorify God in your body.