You are that temple

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What is a temple?

A religious building, yes. But specifically, a temple is a place where humans meet with God. Even more specifically than that, it is where impure humanity meets with pure divinity. It is where the divine and the human, otherwise alienated from one another, meet; where the sacred and the profane intersect once more. All of humanity knows itself to somehow be outside. A temple is where, briefly, we can be brought back in.

In the Old Testament, the divine and the human mingled in a physical building, where, with strictly limited access, we could fellowship with the holy God. In the New Testament, the divine and the human mingled in a physical body, where, with unlimited access, we could fellowship with the holy God. And while the Old Testament temple kept out the unclean, weak, and defiled, the New Testament temple embraced the unclean, weak, and defiled. Eden after the fall, Noah’s ark, the tabernacle, Solomon’s temple, the second temple—they all had walls. Access denied. The final temple had no walls. Full access opened.

We no longer enter a temple of wood and stone to meet with God. God has entered a temple of flesh and blood to meet with us. His name is Jesus of Nazareth.

We today know that we have been cut off from God; we long for the bliss of restored fellowship with God. But we live two thousand years after Jesus Christ, the final temple, walked around, offering the de-walled presence of God to any who desire it. So how do we today benefit from Jesus Christ’s templing presence? The astonishing answer of the New Testament is that we have something much better than being able to touch and hug that walking temple. We are part of that final temple. We relate to Christ not as clothes to a body but as body parts to a body.

The apostles teach us that we who believe in Christ are joined to him. And the apostles carry that union-reality through to its necessary conclusion if Jesus is the final temple—he is the one “in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (Eph 2:21–22). Jesus Christ is “the cornerstone” of this temple (Eph. 2:20), and we, united to that cornerstone, are “living stones” (1 Pet. 2:5).

“God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple” (1 Cor. 3:17). But how could we, the unholy ones, be joined to the holy one, Jesus Christ? The answer is that Jesus is not only the final temple, where the sacrifices were offered; he is also himself the final sacrifice—“Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:7). On the cross, he was treated as unholy so that we, unholy ones, could have restored access to God. Jesus was kicked out from God’s smiling presence—“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46)—so that we could be brought into God’s smiling presence.

In Jesus, the house of the Lord has shown up among us, walking and talking, launching the restored fellowship the temple was anticipating and building toward all along. And in the new earth, that fellowship will achieve perfect fulfillment.

To be in Christ means not only that we will certainly enjoy the new earth forever out ahead in our future, but also that this wondrous future has been launched back into our present. This is underscored time and again in the New Testament.

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