April 2026

The Point of The Temple

John 1:14–18 (ESV) —  And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.  (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’ ”)  For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.  For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.  No one has ever seen God; God the only Son, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

What’s the big deal with this “temple” thing? 

Compared to other religions (especially older ones), Christians don’t talk about our “temple” all that much. The word “temple” rarely shows up in our worship liturgies, and is even less common in our every day speech. In our culture, and even in our religious practices, there just isn’t a lot of discussion about our “temple”. 

So, because of this, it’s maybe not uncommon for Christians (especially western-American Christians like us) to wonder: why does this even matter? I think for a lot of us, a “temple” seems like something old religions had, but that we’ve somehow evolved beyond. We struggle to care because we don’t see how learning about it is relevant. 

It is relevant to us though. In fact, it’s massively relevant. When we look in the Gospels and see how Jesus regarded the temple in Jerusalem, and then we also read what He taught about God’s Temple, we find out that Jesus passionately and even aggressively sought to realign the common understanding of what God’s Temple is, how it functions and what it stands for. 

Why is Jesus so passionate about this? Your God desires a relationship with you, and He desires that you and everyone else in this world understand how to have that relationship. Correctly identifying and understanding the “Temple” that facilitates that relationship is important to Him. In short, God’s Temple is where you encounter the Holy Spirit. Obviously our Lord passionately desires that we receive that blessing. 

What The Temple Is

Two months ago, this newsletter series began to explore the idea of what God’s Temple actually is. Simply put, the Temple is where God meets with man. 

Originally, all of creation was supposed to be a meeting place between God and man. Life is more than just a biological process. True, eternal life is knowing God (John 17:3). Prior to the fall, all creation was a place for God and man to dwell together and live in relationship. We see this in the beginning of Genesis. Adam was having conversations with God and God walked among His creation just like we do. 

When we started looking at this two months ago, we began by laying an important, but not very intuitive point: the Temple can change but our God never does. 

The Temple In Transition

Sin necessitated a change in the Temple. Sinners needed to be distanced from God’s righteous presence or they would suffer judgement. God’s plan was to graciously return them to a righteous state, so that He could graciously return them to His presence and into eternal life. Man was cast out of God’s presence (Genesis 3:22-24). The whole of creation was no longer the meeting place between God and man. 

One of the exciting things about the story of salvation in the Old Testament, is that a key theme there is God drawing us back into His presence. He led the Israelites through the wilderness and His presence went before them. He graciously gave them the Tent of Meeting and then Solomon’s Temple. Even after the Tent was raided at Shiloh (Psalm 78:60, Jeremiah 7:12), and Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem burned (2nd Kings 25:8-9), the Lord restored the fortunes of Jerusalem and allowed them to rebuild another temple (Haggai 1:7-10). Still, those changes to the Temple of the Lord were minor in comparison to the change that was about to come. 

Two months ago we looked at how Jesus boldly claimed that His body is the Temple. This was a radical change in thinking for Jews the whole world over. Even today, this claim is offensive to people who misunderstand what the point of God’s Temple is. 

The Dwelling Place of God?

Ancient, idolatrous religions built temples out of marble as a house for their idols, which were made of metal, wood or stone. Consequently, when most of us think of a “temple”, we think of huge colonnades or vaulted ceilings and probably a statue of something. This ancient but common approach to religion is a kind-of default state for humanity. We think we can build or work our way into God’s presence and favor. God’s Word, however, denies that possibility. The salvation and righteousness that must be the foundation of our relationship with God comes to us by grace alone.  

God must come to us; we cannot climb our way to Him through our good works (Romans 10:6-7). Again, that’s one of the beautiful things about the Old Testament. The Old Testament is the story of God coming to His people and taking them to Himself. He even, graciously, gave them a gigantic temple made of stone and gold and promised to make His presence known there (Deuteronomy 26:1-3). 

He did not, however, need His people to build Him a house to live in. 

Isaiah 66:1–2 (ESV) —  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?  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 Temple isn’t for Him, it’s for us. The Temple is a place where God makes His name dwell, but not because He needs a roof over His head (1 Chronicles 17:3-6). Even King Solomon, who build an absolutely magnificent Temple for our Lord, acknowledged this truth when dedicating that Temple.

1 Kings 8:27–30 (ESV) —  [Solomon prayed,] “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!  Yet have regard to the prayer of your servant and to his plea, O Lord my God, listening to the cry and to the prayer that your servant prays before you this day,  that your eyes may be open night and day toward this house, the place of which you have said, ‘My name shall be there,’ that you may listen to the prayer that your servant offers toward this place.  And listen to the plea of your servant and of your people Israel, when they pray toward this place. And listen in heaven your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive.

The Temple, wherever or whatever it is (we’ll look at that more in future articles), is a point where the Holy Spirit’s work of creating and maintaining life is concentrated. The power of the Holy Spirit is uniquely known and experienced by the Lord’s Temple. The Word of God is proclaimed from there and the prayers of the saints are heard from there. The Means of Grace are present there and those are the things the Holy Spirit uses in His work of creating and maintaining life. There is tremendous blessing attached to the Temple of the Lord God and that is why it still matters to Christians. 

We still have barely scratched the surface looking at the Lord’s Temple and the Holy Spirit who dwells in it. This radical shift in the Temple that Jesus brought into the world is important for us to understand. So in months to come, we will look at what the Temple is now and what the Holy Spirit is doing in it.