What Is the Church? (Part 3)
It Is
the Temple of the Holy Spirit
(1 Cor. 3:16-17)
From our two previous studies, one thing that becomes quite evident about Christ’s church (or ekklesia) is its spiritual nature. It is a spiritual Bride. It is a spiritual Body. In our first lesson, “the Bride of Christ,” we also learned what the church is not. It cannot be an organization, nor a facility, nor a meeting or event. And yet these are the predominant uses of the term among Christians in America today, because they fail to see the spiritual nature of the church, and as a result they misunderstand and misapply the Word of God.
Several years ago I was a “church planter” with a large denomination (I use quotes because I don’t believe we can plant something Christ Himself already planted nearly 2,000 years ago). As part of the process, I had to file articles of incorporation with the Secretary of State here in Minnesota. Along with my “team,” we had to write by-laws and a constitution. Then we had to file for federal tax exemption with the IRS. I never questioned these practices back then, because I thought that this is what all “church planters” do.
But what was I really “planting”? The Secretary of State granted us a charter of incorporation, which meant that our “organization” was now a creature of the State of Minnesota. In my blindness, I did not realize that we had become a “state church,” because it was the state that created the organization (that is what incorporation is). Of course, lawyers tell churches that this is what they must do in order to protect themselves and their “assets.”
Not did only did our incorporating bring us under the control of the state, but our creation of a 501c(3) tax-exempt organization brought us under the control of the federal government (and restricted our ability to speak biblically about political candidates). But at least we could officially tell everyone we were now a “church”! And yet the Word of God no where tells us that these are the things that constitute His church. (For more information about churches incorporating and seeking federal tax-exempt status, visit: http://hushmoney.org.)
But the biblical criteria for whether an assembly is actually a church is quite simple: Is Christ present in our midst? In the context of church discipline in Matthew 18, Jesus said, “For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst” (Matt. 18:20). You see, where the Head is, you will find the Body. Where the Bridegroom is, you will find the Bride.
It is Christ’s presence therefore that constitutes a church, regardless of when, where, or how they meet (or what “officers” they have or what legal documents they possess or follow). Jesus said that HE would build His church (Matt. 16:18) (in other words, “not us”). Sadly, there are groups today who think they are a church, simply because they have a sign with “church” in the name. They think that calling themselves a “church” makes it so, and when they see the word “church” in their New Testaments, they automatically apply that term to their self-made organizations. They fail to see the spiritual nature of the church, and they fail to recognize that Christ may not even be present in their midst.
And now we ask for the third time, “What is the Church?” In this article, we will study this answer: “It is the Temple of the Holy Spirit.” Paul, in addressing a “party spirit” within the Corinthian church, wrote:
Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? 17) If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple. (1 Cor. 3:16-17 – NASB)
If you are familiar with the King James Version of this verse, you know that “you” is translated “ye.” Even if you are unfamiliar with the Greek text of this verse, “ye” (the archaic form of “you”) tells us that “you” is plural. In the “Redneck Bible,” this might be translated “y’all” - in other words, “you corporately,” or “you together.”
Yes, the Bible also teaches that our individual physical bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit (see 1 Cor. 6:19, which is in the context of sexual immorality). But in 1 Cor. 3:16-17, the Bible teaches that believers gathered together are collectively the temple of the Holy Spirit. We see this clearly in 2 Cor. 6:16 as well:
What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” (NASB)
While we know that the Holy Spirit of God dwells in every believer (Rom. 8:9; Eph. 1:13), this verse teaches us that the Holy Spirit also dwells among His people when they are gathered. We know that God is omnipresent, and yet we also know that He manifests that presence in different ways and in different places (e.g., the “shekinah” glory in the Old Testament temple or His judgmental presence in hell). When the congregation of God gathers under the headship of Jesus Christ, God Himself, through the Person of the Holy Spirit, is in our midst!
We must never take Christ’s presence for granted. He warned the congregation at Ephesus that He might remove their “lampstand” if they did not return to their “first love” (Rev. 2:5). The “lampstand” was a symbol for the spiritual church that was at each of the seven cities Jesus addressed in Revelation 2-3 (see 1:20). In other words, Jesus was warning the believers in one location that He could remove His presence from among them. Then they would be like so many so-called churches today. They have the name (as did the church in Sardis – Rev. 3:1), and they may even have the right “doctrine,” but Christ is no longer present in their midst because they refused to give Him the preeminence.
The Greek word translated “temple” in the Corinthian passages quoted above is significant. There are two words in the New Testament that are translated “temple.” One word describes the entire temple building, as we find in Luke 2:46 when His parents found the boy Jesus in the temple, talking with the “teachers” there.
The other Greek word for temple (naos) refers to the rooms that included both the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place (the area circled in the temple diagram below). This is the word that Paul uses to describe the church as the temple of the Holy Spirit. We are God’s holy place! And that rightly so, seeing that it is His HOLY Spirit who dwells among us. This ought to have implications of how we ought to think and act when we are gathered under the headship of Christ.
It is not without significance that the New Testament uses Old Testament terms to describe Christ’s church. I am continually learning (and being amazed in that process) of how much the Old Testament describes and pictures the present age of the church. We call these pictures “types” (Heb. 11:19). Like a parable pictures another truth (Mark 4:30), these types refer to fulfillments (which we sometimes call “antitypes”).
The Old Testament is filled with types concerning Christ. The Passover lamb was clearly a type of Christ, for example (John 1:29), as was Melchizedek (Heb. 7:17). In fact, Christ Himself is the fulfillment of the Old Covenant (Luke 24:44)! The New Testament refers to these Old Testament types as “shadows” and that Christ is the substance (literally, “body”) of these shadows (Colossians 2:16-17). And this typology is also rightly applied to the Old Covenant tabernacle itself:
They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.” (Hebrews 8:5 – ESV)
The old tabernacle was actually a copy of a heavenly reality! It could only have been a “shadow,” since the things “seen” (physical) are “temporal” and the things “unseen” (spiritual) are “eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18). Just as there was once a “seen” (physical) temple, there is today an “unseen” (spiritual) temple. In describing how the Gentiles have now been brought into the same redemptive community as Israel through the blood of Christ, Paul writes:
Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, 20) built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21) In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22) And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Eph. 2:19-22 – NASB)
Notice that we are members of “God’s household,” part of the “whole building,” a “holy temple in the Lord,” and a “dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit.” Wow! What a powerful spiritual reality. And if you read Revelation 21:14, you will see another picture of this “household” of God that is built upon a foundation that includes the apostles, and what a beautiful picture the Lord shows us there.
Another text that confirms that the New Testament church is the fulfillment of the Old Covenant temple is in 1 Peter 2:5:
You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (NASB)
This new temple is clearly a “spiritual house.” The physical of the Old is now fulfilled in the spiritual of the new. And notice that this new spiritual temple also employs a new priesthood. Peter repeats this reference to a new priesthood just four verses later:
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Peter 2:9 – ESV)
It is important to see that Peter is actually quoting the Old Testament in this verse. In Exodus 19:6, we see God’s original plan for His priesthood:
And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel. (ESV)
God told Moses that His people would be a “kingdom of priests” and a “holy nation.” We know that the Old Covenant priesthood involved Levites (specifically the sons of Aaron). But God’s plan was for an entire people (or nation) to function as His priests. And we see this plan fulfilled in the New Covenant (1 Peter 2:9). We are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and we function as priests in this temple.
This doctrine that some call the “priesthood of the believer” has traditionally focused upon our direct access to God through Christ (Eph. 2:18; Heb. 4:16). This historically was in reaction to the notion that Christians had to go to a “place” or a “person” to access God, as is taught in some denominations. I’ve heard this doctrine of the believer’s priesthood described as the “competency of the soul in religion.” In other words, the believer, apart from any organization or hierarchy, can come to God directly. This is a doctrine that was heralded during the Protestant Reformation.
But the “priesthood of the believer” teaching, in Scripture, goes beyond the blessed truth of direct access to the Father through the Son. This priesthood means that each of us has a ministry before the Lord, which is actually our New Covenant worship!
In the New Testament, the Greek word most commonly translated “worship” is proskuneo (59 times). This word has the picture of one prostrating himself or herself before God. It appears in several places in the Gospels (in reference to the worship of Jesus), sparingly in Acts, and most frequently in the book of Revelation (24 times, in reference to worship of Jesus and the Father). We see only a few uses of this word in the book of Hebrews (relating to the Old Covenant) and only one other place in the epistles (regarding the unbeliever who worships God when sees Him in our midst – 1 Cor. 14:25).
While this word is all over the Gospels and the book of Revelation, I believe that it is significant that this Greek word does not appear at all in the epistles when referring to Christians. It is because the nature of our worship in this life goes beyond singing songs of praise to God and bowing before Him. While proskuneo is rarely used of believers in the time between the Ascension of Christ and His Second Coming, there are three other Greek words that are used in the epistles to describe our New Covenant worship.
In Romans 12:1, we are commanded to present our bodies as living sacrifices (an Old Covenant temple picture), which is our reasonable “service of worship” (NASB). “Service of worship” is a translation of the Greek word latreia, which was used of Levitical service performed in the Old Covenant temple. The focus of this word seems to be upon the service or work that is performed. In other words, it is the service we perform (presenting our bodies as living sacrifices) that is worship. As I like to say, “Worship is not a service – Service is worship.”
In Romans 15:16, Paul uses two additional Greek words that describe our New Covenant worship:
To be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles with the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. (NASB)
Paul is employing Old Testament pictures in this verse. The Greek word translated “minister” is leitourgos (from which we get the English word, “liturgy”). Originally, in secular Greek language, this word referred to those who would volunteer for civil service. We see in its New Testament usage, most likely then, that the focus is upon the heart of the one serving. As New Covenant ministers, it should be our heart’s desire to serve Christ as our priestly worship.
The Greek word translated “priestly duty” in Romans 15:16 is hierourgeo. This word literally means “one who works in the temple.” The focus here is upon the place and its sacredness. Paul viewed his ministry of bringing the gospel to the Gentiles as his temple duty! His spiritual sacrifice at God’s altar was the souls of Gentiles “sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” Just as the elders in Revelation 4:10 “cast their crowns before the throne,” we too will lay at His feet, as an offering, any good thing the Lord has done through us.
So, you can see that God has created a new (and spiritual) priesthood in the New Covenant temple, which is Christ’s church. In the Old Covenant, the priest’s ministry had two focuses: ministry TO the Lord and ministry FOR the Lord. We see their ministry FOR the Lord occurring in situations such as affirming lepers to be clean, or in teaching the people the law of God, or in helping them prepare for worship. But I believe that a more important aspect of their work was their ministry TO the Lord:
Then bring near to yourself Aaron your brother, and his sons with him, from among the sons of Israel, to minister as priest to Me… (Exodus 28:1a - NASB).
The phrase “minister as priest(s) to Me” occurs eight times in the book of Exodus alone. The Lord is concerned with ministry to Himself. In other words, the Lord has a need for which He has created priests to meet. I’ve often struggled with this notion that the Lord would have a “need,” seeing that He is self-sufficient. There are a couple of ways that I have reconciled this in my mind. The first is that His need is actually His desire. He desires that He be ministered unto by us. The other thing that helps my understanding is the fact that a sovereign God can create anything He wants, including a need for Himself.
Many saints have written about the Lord’s need and our ministry to Him (Watchman Nee, for example), and for me to explore this more fully would require another article. But there are a few matters I would still like to discuss. In Ezekiel 44:15, we see the sons of Zadok as types of the New Covenant priests:
But the Levitical priests, the sons of Zadok, who kept charge of My sanctuary when the sons of Israel went astray from Me, shall come near to Me to minister to Me; and they shall stand before Me to offer Me the fat and the blood," declares the Lord GOD. (NASB)
God’s vision to Ezekiel was of a future temple, and I believe that, according to the New Testament, the church is the fulfillment of that vision. Like ancient Israel, the world today, and much of professing Christendom, has gone “astray from” the Lord, but there is a remnant that the Lord has called out of the world (the ekklesia) to “come near… to minister” to Himself. We are that royal priesthood (1 Pet. 2:9). We see an important result of this ministry TO the Lord in Acts 13:2:
While they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” (NASB)
Out of the experience of the elders in the congregation at Antioch ministering to the Lord, there came God’s Revelation. Their ministry FOR the Lord flowed out of their ministering TO the Lord. How often we go about trying to minister for the Lord, when in reality all we are doing is asking Him to bless OUR work. Before we can truly minister FOR the Lord we must first minister TO the Lord and seek to meet His need. Then we will know what it is He desires to do through us as we minister for Him.
In light of this truth, I want us to think of the reasons we “go to church.” Is it to be fed? Is it receive some sort of blessing from God? Or is it to minister TO the Lord? If we are to assemble to minister to Him, then it is to bring a sacrifice to Him – be it our prayers, our praise, or simply giving our loving attention as we listen to Him speak through His Word.
As we walk in the awareness of who God is, and as we hunger and thirst for Him, I believe we will begin to minister TO the Lord. Out of this ministry TO the Lord will flow the ministries FOR Him that He reveals and orchestrates. May this truth of our priestly duty of ministering TO the Lord transform the way we think and act.
We tend to think of “eternal life” as beginning when we die. Yet 1 John 5:12 tells us that “he who has the Son has life,” and Jesus said that He brought “abundant life” (John 10:10). We who know Him have His life in us. Believers already possess that eternal life, and as we become conformed to the image of His Son (sometimes called in the Bible “sanctification”) that life becomes increasingly manifested in our lives. We do not wait until we physically die to spiritually live. We live that life now, in these earthly bodies.
But there will be a time for each believer when the Lord takes us “home,” at which time we will simply shed these tents that were our bodies (2 Cor. 5:1-4). If we are walking with Him now in this life, physical death should be no more than a “change of address.”
Interestingly, there is not an abundance of Scripture that gives details about what some call the “eternal state” (the world after this one), but the book of Revelation probably contains the most information. But if there was only one phrase in all of Scripture to describe Heaven, the following five words would be sufficient for the believer: “they will see His face” (Rev. 22:4). That would be enough for me to know now, but God tells us more:
There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him. (Rev. 22:3 – NASB)
And do you know what the Greek word for “serve” is in that verse? It is the verb form of latreia, the same word Paul uses in Romans 12:1 – our “service of worship.” The same thing we are to do today TO the Lord and FOR the Lord is what we will do for eternity.
Melody Green wrote the following words that her husband, Keith (who now is with the Lord in heaven), sang in “There is a Redeemer”:
When I stand in glory, I will see his face,
And there I’ll serve my king forever, in that holy place.
If that is our eternal ministry, should it not now be our ministry today?
Dave Lilligren
February 2007