The Temple of God

I Corinthians 3:10-23

 I have been to Israel on a number of occasions. In fact I used to host tours to the Holy Land regularly for a number of years, although I haven’t been back for quite a while. I got tired of those long plane flights and long bus rides. One thing I never tired of was the first sight of the city of Jerusalem. The best view of the Old City is when you approach it from the east over the Mount of Olives. The dominant landmark of the Old City of Jerusalem is the Dome of the Rock. It is a Muslim shrine (to be distinguished from a mosque) with a huge beautiful gold plated dome that shines in the sunlight. It was built in the seventh century and sits on the rocky summit of the temple mount. Muslims regard this site as holy because they say that it was from this spot that Mohammad began a visit to heaven one night. When the crusaders controlled the city they turned it into a church and called it Templum Domini, the Temple of the Lord - because that was the original site of the Jewish temple built by Solomon and later restored by King Herod. That is why that little piece of real estate is so fought over these days between Palestinians and Israelis. Ariel Sharon caused what is called the second intifada – a new wave of Palestinian uprising - simply by stepping onto this sacred ground. When you see this magnificent religious shrine you get a sense of what the Jerusalem temple must have looked like in Jesus’ day. The temple of God was one of the great structures of the ancient world and it remains so today.

Jesus’ comments about the temple got him in trouble. Jesus predicted the destruction of the temple while sitting on the Mount of Olives shortly before his arrest. In fact his words were used against him at his trial, and were one of the reasons he was executed. Jesus’ predictions turned out to be true. Within a generation, the temple was in ruin, destroyed by invading Roman armies. When we read what Jesus said carefully we see that Jesus was not only predicting the destruction of the stone temple but also predicting his own death – the destruction of this own body. He refers to his body as a temple. The apostle Paul picks up on this metaphor of a body being a temple in our epistle lesson for today. He says in verse 16, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” That is the verse I am preaching on today. I have two points.

1. First, you are the temple of God. That is what the apostle says. What does he mean? He means this is two ways. First, you individually are the temples of God. Our bodies are temples. Paul says a few chapters later in this same letter: “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” In the Gospel of John, right after he cleanses the temple by driving out the moneychangers, he predicts the destruction of the temple. He says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jewish religious leaders were outraged and said to him, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?” Then the gospel writer explains, “But He was speaking of the temple of His body.” Jesus was talking about his own resurrection, and the temple was his own body raised from the dead.

The physical temple in Jerusalem was considered by Jews in OT and NT times to be the dwelling place of God on earth. They believed that that God in a special way dwelled in the holy of holies, the innermost chamber of the temple building. Of course they believed that God was Spirit and omnipresent – that he was present everywhere and could never be limited or confined in a physical structure. But they believed that in some way God was especially present in that structure of stone. As Christians we also believe that God is Spirit and omnipresent. There is nowhere that God is not. But we also believe that God was present in a special way in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is our equivalent to the temple. Furthermore the NT teaches that we are temples of God as well. Our physical bodies are physical temples of God. We believe that God dwells within us a Holy Spirit. We come to this church building to worship on Sundays and sometimes we call this building the house of God. But we also house God. God dwells within us. We are temples of God.

The second thing that the apostle Paul meant, when he say that we were the temple of God, is that he was referring to the Church. I am not talking about the church building, but the church which is composed of people. Paul talks at great length about the church being the Body of Christ. Christ does not walk the earth in the body of Jesus of Nazareth any longer. That body died 2000 years ago. But Christ still walks the earth in his church which is his body. The Church is called the body of Christ. We are the temple of God on earth individually and as a church. Those are the two ways that we are the temple of God. “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”

2. Now for the rest of his message I want to explore the implications of those statements.

It means that we are not our own. Paul says in chapter 6 of this letter: “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.” There was a famous book published back in 1971 as part of the women’s rights movement entitled “Our Bodies, Ourselves.” It is still in print, having been republished in 2011. It was about women’s health and sexuality. I am certainly not going to get in to those issues in this sermon. I don’t know about the content of the book. I never read it. But from a spiritual perspective the title is not true. These are not our bodies and we are not ourselves. “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

When something is not ours, it changes the way we look at it and treat it. If I borrow something from someone – a tool or a book or anything else – I take special care of it because I know it is not mine. I am more careful than normal because if it is lost or damaged that I have to give an account of it to its owner. I will have to return it someday. I am responsible for it until that day. That is the way we should consider our bodies. They are not ours. We have them on loan from the Creator and Owner of this world and everything in it. In the context of the letter in which Paul spoke these words were spoken about sexual immorality. The verse right before it says, “Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.” That is the way we ought to come at sexual ethics – not with a list of do’s and don’t’s, but with this basic principle that our bodies do not belong to us. If they did, then we could do whatever we want with them. But from a biblical perspective we are just the caretakers of these physical forms for a few decades. When they are returned to God, we are responsible for what we have done with them.

The same is true with our selves. The body is just the outermost shell of who we are. Our selves – our psychological selves – our minds, our emotions, our wills – what the Bible calls the soul or sometimes the spirit - is the engine of this body. It also is God’s. We belong to God body and soul. “For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

Let me talk about that first part of that verse also. You were bought with a price. This is the Christian concept of redemption, which is at the heart of the Christian gospel. It communicates the idea that we are the purchase of God. We have been bought and paid for. We are not our own. The Epistles picture us as being in bondage before our spiritual awakening. We were slaves, and our freedom has been purchased and we have been set free by Christ. “For freedom Christ has set us free,” Paul says elsewhere. Christ has given us our freedom at a great price. What are we going to do with it? Eleanor Powell said, “What we are is God's gift to us. What we become is our gift to God.” Christ bought us back from death at the cost of his own death. He gave us life at the cost of his own life. He redeemed us and set us free. We are free agents who can either spend our lives in gratitude or on ourselves.

There are a couple of other implications of this idea that we are the temple of God. Another is that we represent God. Whenever anyone saw the Jerusalem temple they knew that it represented the presence of God on earth. In the same way we represent the presence of God on earth. When people drive through this town and see the church buildings they think they represent God, or at least Christianity. When I am identified as a pastor publically I am aware that I represent God to people, or at least I represent this church in a certain sense and represent Christianity in a broader sense. When Lee Quimby as Town moderator invites me to say the invocation at the Town Meeting, he is not asking me as an individual citizen of Sandwich. He is asking me because I am the pastor of the church. I represent something more than myself. For better or worse Ministers represent God to many people. That is why when ministers do immoral things it damages not just their own reputation, but the image of the larger church and Christianity. That is why the sex abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church has done great damage not just to the Catholic Church but to all of Christianity, because a lot of people do not distinguish between different branches of Christianity.

In the same way every one of us Christians represents Christ and God. We are the temple of God. We are the Body of Christ. If we are followers of Christ, that means that our actions or lack of them, will reflect on Christ and his church. And they should, because we are his church. We are the living presence of Christ to this world.

Another aspect of being the temple of God is that we have some building to do. Both the apostles Paul and Peter develop this metaphor of the people of the church as being a building. Paul writes in our passage today:

“According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. 11 For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, 13 each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. 14 If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.”

The apostle Peter writes: “Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house….” The metaphor being employed by both of the apostles is that some building is going on. God is building something of our lives. We are building something of our lives through the grace of God. God is building something here in this town in this church. Lots of churches have building programs in which they erect new structures. But every church is in the middle of a spiritual building program. In Paul’s metaphor we are the builders. What are we building? What type of material are we using? Are we doing the best that we can to give glory to God through what we do as a church in this town?

In Peter’s metaphor (which is somewhat different than Paul’s) we are the building material. He calls us living stones which are being built up into a spiritual house – a temple to glorify God. In either case, some building us going on. It took King Herod the Great forty six years to completely rebuild the temple which Jesus and the disciples worshipped in. You can still see today the foundation stones of Herod’s temple in the Western Wall, which is the holiest site to Jews today. Those huge stones are impressive. If the foundation stones are so impressive, we can only imagine how great the temple was.

Our lives are a temple. The foundation of our spiritual lives according to Paul is Jesus Christ. “For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” It is a sure foundation. The storms of life will not wash this foundation away. The earthquakes that shake our lives will not crack this foundation or cause it to fall. If that stone foundation of the Jerusalem temple is still standing after 2000 years, how much more will the foundation of Jesus Christ stand throughout eternity. The question is not whether the foundation will remain. It will. The question is whether what is built on it will stand the test of time. Herod’s temple did not stand. It was torn down by the Romans. Not one stone above the foundation was left standing. How about our lives? What will stand the test of time?

Paul writes: “12 Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, 13 each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is.” The Day that Paul is referring to is the day when we have to return our lives to God and give account of how we have used our time and materials. On that day it will become clear what we have done with our lives. Will they stand the test? Some people’s lives are only about themselves and their possessions. Other people invest their lives in that which will not perish. The missionary Jim Elliot, who died young, wrote: "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." We cannot keep these bodies. We cannot retain our earthly lives. They are only of value insofar as we spend them for that which does not perish. Let us do so.