Where God Dwells
Temples serve as dwelling places of gods where people worship and make offerings. Temples remain significant sites of worship and ritual for many religions. The Bible gives accounts of temples dedicated to gods and idols, such as 1 Samuel. After Saul’s death, the Philistines cut off his head and took it to the temple of their god.
1 Samuel 31:8–10 (ESV)
8 The next day, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. 9 So they cut off his head and stripped off his armor and sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines, to carry the good news to the house of their idols and to the people. 10 They put his armor in the temple of Ashtaroth, and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shan.
According to 1 Chronicles 10:10, the temple where the Philistines took Saul’s head belonged to a god named Dagon. In Acts, there is also a mention of the temple of Artemis. Besides these, the Bible also notes other temples belonging to Israel's neighbors who worshipped other gods.
God in the Tabernacle
Israel, the nation God used to reveal Himself to the world, also had a temple. The Bible says that Yahweh had a dwelling place among His people. First, His glory lived in a tabernacle. The tabernacle was a mobile sanctuary for God during Israel’s exodus. In Exodus 25:8, God commanded a tabernacle to be made for His dwelling among His people.
Exodus 25:8, ESV
8 And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst.
And Exodus 10:34-35 says, the glory of God filled the tabernacle.
Exodus 40:34–35, ESV
34 Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. 35 And Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.
God in the Solomonic temple
After Israel had settled in the land God had promised them, King David was determined to build a house for the Lord.
2 Samuel 7:1-3 (ESV)
1 Now when the king lived in his house and the Lord had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies, 2 the king said to Nathan the prophet, “See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent.” 3 And Nathan said to the king, “Go, do all that is in your heart, for the Lord is with you.”
However, God told David that it would be his son who would build Him a house for His dwelling.
2 Samuel 7:12-13 (ESV)
12 When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
Solomon, David’s son, was determined to build a house for the name of the LORD and God promised to dwell in the temple upon its completion.
1 Kings 6:11–13 (ESV)
11 Now the word of the LORD came to Solomon, 12 “Concerning this house that you are building, if you will walk in my statutes and obey my rules and keep all my commandments and walk in them, then I will establish my word with you, which I spoke to David your father. 13 And I will dwell among the children of Israel and will not forsake my people Israel.”
Solomon built and finished the temple in seven years, as recorded in 1 Kings chapter 6.
1 Kings 6:37–38(ESV)
37 In the fourth year the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid, in the month of Ziv. 38 And in the eleventh year, in the month of Bul, which is the eighth month, the house was finished in all its parts, and according to all its specifications. He was seven years in building it.
Solomon then dedicated it to the LORD, and he and all the people of Israel offered the first sacrifices at the new temple (1 Kings 8:62-64). The Priests and Levites served in the temple of the Lord as it was their duty to offer sacrifices to the Lord on behalf of the people. They offered sacrifices such as burnt offerings, grain offerings, peace offerings, sin offerings and guilt offerings.
But as Jeremiah had prophesied, the armies of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came against Jerusalem and laid siege to it in 586 BC. The Babylonians breached the city and burned the temple that Solomon had built (2 Kings 25).
God in the rebuilt temple
After many years without a temple in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel started the work of rebuilding the LORD’s house in 538 BC after king Cyrus of Persia allowed Jewish exiles in Babylon to return to Jerusalem to rebuild their city. The builders rebuilt the second temple on the ruins of the Solomonic temple (Ezra chapters 1-6). Following the temple's completion, Israel resumed its practices. Later, King Herod the Great renovated and expanded the second temple. It is at the second temple where Jesus taught during His ministry.
However, in AD 70, about 40 years after Jesus’ death and ascension, the Romans destroyed the second temple, as Jesus had prophesied to his disciples in Mark 13:1-2, that “There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” There remains no temple in Jerusalem to this day.
Where is God’s dwelling place amidst his people?
While addressing the people of Athens in the Areopagus, Paul said that, “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man” (Acts 17:24). Why would Paul say to the Greek that God didn't live in a temple made by man when the temple in Jerusalem, built by Zerubbabel and Herod, was still standing? Was this a contradiction on Paul’s part?
Paul's Damascus experience, meeting Christ, undoubtedly unveiled to him what happened during the crucifixion of Christ. On the cross, Jesus yielded up His Spirit after offering His body as an all time single sacrifice for the sins of the world (Heb 10:10-12). The temple curtain, dividing the Most Holy Place from the rest of the temple, was torn in two, top to bottom, symbolizing humanity's newfound access to God through Jesus Christ, our High Priest (Matthew 27:51, Mark 15:38, Luke 23:45). God was no longer confined to a single place among His people. Paul further wrote to the Church in Corinth that God now dwelt in the body of Christ, the Church and in the individual disciples of Christ (1 Corinthians 3:16-17, 1 Corinthians 6:18-20).
There are two places where God now makes His dwelling amidst His people.
One: God’s dwelling in the Church
According to 1 Corinthians, the body of Christ, the Church, is the new temple of God in whom He dwells.
1 Corinthians 3:16-17 (ESV)
16 Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? 17 If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.
Note: In Greek, you is plural in verses 16 and 17.
If God refers to the church as His temple, then what’s the composition of this temple? According to 1 Peter, the members of the body of Christ are the living stones being built up as a spiritual house, a temple, unto God.
1 Peter 2:4-5 (ESV)
4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
During His ministry, Jesus mentioned that his body was a temple, a thing His disciples only understood after His resurrection. He was revealing Himself as a living stone that was rejected by the builders, which had become the Chief Cornerstone (Acts 4:11).
John 2:18–22 (ESV)
18 So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking about the temple of his body. 22 When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
Every believer is a living stone and when these stones are built up together, they form the temple of God. If the Church of Christ is the temple, services have to be done in the Church. The body of Christ as a holy priesthood is to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ the High Priest.
Two: God’s dwelling in the Christian
Individually, every Christian is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Promised the Holy Spirit, and the Father sent Him to every believer.
John 14:15–18 (ESV)
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. 18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
Later, in His reply to Judas, Jesus stated that He and the Father would live in those who keep God's Word.
John 14:23 (ESV)
23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
And in verse 26 of the same chapter, Jesus promised God would send His Holy Spirit to His disciples.
John 14:26 (ESV)
26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. (ESV)
Jesus instructed the disciples not to leave Jerusalem until they had received the Holy Spirit (Luke 24:49, Acts 1:4). At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit filled those who were waiting and continues to fill those who believe in Christ (Acts 2:1-4). God, the Holy Spirit, lives within His people.
In his letter to believers in Corinth, Paul reminded them they were temples of the Holy Spirit and edified them to glorify God in their bodies.
1 Corinthians 6:18-20 (ESV)
18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So, glorify God in your body.
Individually, we offer spiritual sacrifices to God by glorifying Him in our bodies. We are to cast out sexual immorality, malice, bitterness, anger, gossip, greed, pride, self-pity, hatred, among others, from our bodies.
What happens when someone takes God's dwelling to a false god's temple?
God in the temple of idols
The book of 1 Samuel offers a relevant example.
1 Samuel 5:1–4 (ESV)
1 When the Philistines captured the ark of God, they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. 2 Then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the house of Dagon and set it up beside Dagon. 3 And when the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the LORD. So they took Dagon and put him back in his place. 4 But when they rose early on the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the LORD, and the head of Dagon and both his hands were lying cut off on the threshold. Only the trunk of Dagon was left to him.
False gods and idols cannot stand in the presence of the Almighty God. We live in a world full of idols, yet we are not of it. Since the Holy Spirit lives in us and we live in the world, idols must fall as they submit to God in us.
Idols in the temple of God
Conversely, what happens when someone brings idols into the temple of God? Both the Old and New Testaments offer examples we can learn from.
According to 2 Kings, Israel had stopped reading the Book of the Law in the temple as God had instructed. God had commanded Israel through Joshua that, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” (Joshua 1:8, ESV)
Yet we find out that Hilkiah, the high priest, found the Book of the Law during temple repairs. The Book of the Law had remained lost for at least 67 years until Hilkiah found it during Josiah’s reign as King of Judah. The Book of the Law was always within the temple. What events at the temple led to the Book of the Law being neglected?
Josiah’s reaction after reading the Book of the Law, throws light on what was happening. The book had revealed to King Josiah that Israel's idolatry at the temple and rejection of God aroused His anger (2 Kings 22:14-20). Israel's introduction of idols into God's temple caused them to forsake the Book of the Law, leading to its complete neglect as they served false gods.
When we introduce idols in the temple of the Holy Spirit, we distract ourselves from God and His Word and eventually neglect Him entirely as we serve idols.
Following this, Josiah started reforms to cleanse God's temple of all idols.
2 Kings 23:4–7 (ESV)
4 And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest and the priests of the second order and the keepers of the threshold to bring out of the temple of the LORD all the vessels made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel. 5 And he deposed the priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to make offerings in the high places at the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem; those also who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and the moon and the constellations and all the host of the heavens. 6 And he brought out the Asherah from the house of the LORD, outside Jerusalem, to the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron and beat it to dust and cast the dust of it upon the graves of the common people. 7 And he broke down the houses of the male cult prostitutes who were in the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the Asherah.
We must also cleanse our hearts and lives of anything that does not belong in the temple of the Holy Spirit.
In another example of idols in the temple of God, the gospel of John records that Jesus drove out from the temple those who had turned it into a marketplace.
John 2:13-17 (ESV)
13 The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. 15 And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. 16 And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.” 17 His disciples remembered it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
Many in the Church are trading God’s Word for secular ideologies in God’s temple. Righteousness and steadfastness are being traded for earthly pleasures and conformity to world standards. We sacrifice truth for lies, and everlasting life for empty vanity. We are exchanging life for death. Are our lives temples or houses of trade? Is the Church of Christ a temple or a marketplace? Like Jesus did, may the Holy Spirit make a whip and drive out all idols and sin from His temple.
The zeal for the Holy Spirit’s temple should consume us to bring out of His temple, all sin. Purge out of your life what does not belong in the temple of God. The Holy Spirit says to you today, “Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.” When you hear the voice of God’s Spirit, do not harden your heart.
In whom will God dwell?
God will dwell in the one who loves God and keeps His Word.
John 14:23 (ESV)
23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
The Holy Spirit will dwell in the person who is humble to acknowledge their sin, contrite in spirit to repent and tremble at the Word of God to obey it.
Isaiah 66:1–2 (ESV)
1 Thus says the LORD: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? 2 All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the LORD. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.
The Holy Spirit will not forcibly dwell in someone who is not welcoming of Him. The person must have a love for God, obedience, humility, and a broken spirit.
The coming Temple
In Christ’s revelation to John, he saw no temple in the new Jerusalem.
Revelation 21:1–3 (ESV)
1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
Ultimately, God will be the temple.
Revelation 21: 22 (ESV)
22 And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.
The LORD will forever dwell with His people.
Amen.
