In recent months we have returned frequently to the idea of ‘Tabernacle’. We shall conclude our present proccupation with these summary thoughts.
YOU ARE THE TEMPLE OF GOD!
The Tabernacle in the Wilderness was the place where the priestly family was fed (Lev. 6:16-26). Christ is the food for all of the priesthood of believers today (1 Pet. 2:5). He is the Bread of Life and we must learn to feast upon Him moment by moment if we are to be effective priests in His Kingdom. He is the one upon Whom our soul is to delight.
You are the Temple of God! “Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17).
From the moment you put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ as your personal Savior He came by His Holy Spirit to dwell in your heart. He now wants to settle down and make Himself at home (Ephesians 3:14-19). The apostle Paul uses a word for “dwell” meaning to settle down in a dwelling, to dwell firmly in a place. The idea is to live in a home. To settle down and feel completely at home as a permanent residence. Where does He have His residence? It is “through His Spirit in the inner man” (v. 16). It is that part of the believer that has experienced spiritual renewal by the Spirit of God.
This took place at the new birth when the Holy Spirit regenerated us. Our bodies are the Temple of the Holy Spirit where Christ dwells because Christ purchased us at the price of His own blood (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”
BELIEVE!
All these earthly tabernacles and temples were short-lived in time. All were destroyed. Even these old frail bodies will turn to dust one day. However, there is an eternal Temple that shall not be corrupted by death. It is eternal, “a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Corinthians 5:1).
The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ sets us free from the power of sin and death. The only condition for us to have that eternal dwelling place for Him is to believe on Christ as our Savior.
We are part of something even greater in God’s eternal plan of redemption. Ephesians 2:19-22 tells us God is building His Temple and it involves you, me, and every believer down through the history of the church. “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.”
The true, Biblical, and faithful church is a living, growing organism. New believers are included in God’s Temple (cf. 1 Peter 2:5). Both Jewish and Gentile believers are being “joined together” into this “holy temple.” Here the word for temple is ‘naos’ which always refers to the sanctuary or holy of holies. See John 2; 1 Corinthians 3; 6. Paul is not referring to the entire Temple area with its open courts (hieron).
GOD BUILDS
God chooses and places individual believers into His Temple. He builds it. What is His purpose? It is to “become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit.”
God came down and met with His people in the Shekinah glory over the Temple. Now He dwells in His new temple which is constructed of spiritually living regenerated believers in Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit indwells each individual believer who is His temple (John 14:17; Romans 5:5; 8:9, 11). His corporate dwelling place is composed of all believers, both Jewish and non-Jewish.
When is the last time we read of the Tabernacle in the Bible? Revelation 21:3 is a picture of the new heaven, new hearth and the New Jerusalem. The apostle John says he heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them.”
He goes on to tell us, “I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb” (Revelation 21:22-23).
Are you ready for that great and wonderful day when He shall come with trumpet sound?
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Chapter 11 of Peter Sammons’ “The Messiah Pattern” has further thoughts about God’s desire to tabernacle amongst His people. The book is downloadable free, as a PDF here: https://christian-publications-int.com/images/PDF/MESSIAH_PATTERN.pdf
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