Building up the temple

Remember that song? It was a Sunday school favourite of mine. Building up the Temple of the Lord… The girls had to shout “Boys come and help us!” after which the boys shouted, “Girls come and help us!” and we all sang together, “Building up the temple of the Lord.” It was a bit of fun, and the leader would make it a competition to see which group shouted the loudest.

But what did it really mean to us? We had no idea. We just liked the excuse to shout in church as loud as we could.

Messing up the temple

On Palm Sunday, after Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, after all the people had cried ‘Hosanna,’ Jesus went into the temple and had a look around at everything that was going on. But because it was late, he went to Bethany where he was staying.

When they arrived back in Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out the people buying and selling animals for sacrifices. He knocked over the tables of the money changers and stopped everyone from using the temple as a marketplace. He said that the temple was meant to be a house of prayer for all nations, but instead it had been turned into a den of thieves. Strong words! (Mark 11)

So this temple was important to Jesus. It was a place where people’s focus was meant to be entirely on God. They came to God for forgiveness, via the altar, and sought his presence. To turn it into a den of thieves was an outrage to Jesus.

Perhaps Jesus saw that the temple symbolism was important for more than just Jewish culture and traditional worship.

He clearly wanted to do more than just mess up the temple. He wanted to mess with the Jewish attitude towards the temple. On another occasion his disciples were marvelling at its beauty. Jesus told them, ‘Destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days.’ But he was referring to his body, which the disciples later understood (Mark 13, John 2).

So Jesus was the first in the New Testament to think of the body as a temple, starting with himself. This is taken further by other New Testament writers.

The New Testament Temple

In the book of Acts, Steven refers to the first Old Testament temple, built by Solomon

⁴⁶ “David found favour with God and asked for the privilege of building a permanent Temple for the God of Jacob. ⁴⁷ But it was Solomon who actually built it. ⁴⁸ However, the Most High doesn’t live in temples made by human hands. As the prophet says,

⁴⁹‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Could you build me a temple as good as that?’ asks the LORD. ‘Could you build me such a resting place?

⁵⁰ Didn’t my hands make both heaven and earth?’

(Acts 7:46-50)

It’s clear to us that God doesn’t dwell in temples made by human hands because he still existed and ruled and reigned as God of the universe after the temple was ransacked! It was God who brought the Jews back from captivity to a destroyed Jerusalem.

So the first thing we read about the temple in the New Testament is that God does not need it!

This is repeated 10 chapters later in Acts 17 when Paul tells his listeners…

He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples.

(Acts 17:24)

God doesn’t live in temples. So where does he live? (is that a trick question? Isn’t he omnipresent?!)

Answer: He still lives in temples!! Just not man-made ones.

We are that temple and we are those temples.

The whole body of Christ is God’s temple

Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?

(1 Corinthians 3:16)

This is a reference collectively to the church body as God’s temple. You yourselves (plural) are God’s temple (singular).

We are individual temples

And later in the same book Paul uses the same analogy to show that each of us is individually a temple of God:

¹⁸ Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. ¹⁹ Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; ²⁰ you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your bodies.

(1 Corinthians 6:18-20)

The place of his presence

Both these references use the same Greek word for temple which refers to that part of the temple where God himself resides, the place of divine manifestation, the innermost part of the temple. The Greeks had two words for temple and the other word referred to the whole temple and its outer courts. But Paul chooses to tell us that we are the place of God’s manifestation.

You are his temple. You are the place of the presence. When you go about your daily business, you are carrying the presence of God with you.

So let’s think about building the temple in terms of first our own personal spiritual formation, growth and edification, and second our being built together as one community of believers who become the place of God’s manifestation.

Let’s go back to the temple that Jesus turned over, the temple where he referred to his own body as a temple (John 2), and let’s go back to when it was first built. This was the second temple they had had in Jerusalem as the first one built by Solomon had been destroyed. We can learn about this in Ezra chapter 4 of the Old Testament.

As we read will be able to draw some comparisons with our own ‘temples of the Holy Spirit’, both individual and corporate.

Re-building the temple

Solomon’s temple had been destroyed because God’s people had strayed so far from his ways that they needed a complete reset.

In Ezra 4 we come to a point in the story where God has sovereignly brought the Jewish captives back from exile in Babylon (Ezra 1) and they have, despite their fear of surrounding onlookers, rebuilt the altar and laid the foundations of the temple.

At the end of chapter 3 things were going well. They’d built an altar, reinstated worship there, and built the foundations.

Let’s see how Ezra’s crew are getting on in chapter 4.

Opposition to the build

Sadly, we find that there is an enemy at work who does not want to see Jerusalem rebuilt.

And as we work to build ourselves up in the most holy faith (Jude 20) there is an enemy who will oppose us with various strategies. In this chapter there I see three such methods.

Method 1 – Disruption from within – the inside job

First, the enemy of God’s people attempts to infiltrate the ranks.

The enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the exiles were rebuilding a Temple to the Lord, the God of Israel. ² So they approached Zerubbabel and the other leaders and said, “Let us build with you, for we worship your God just as you do. We have sacrificed to him ever since King Esarhaddon of Assyria brought us here.” ³ But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the other leaders of Israel replied, “You may have no part in this work. We alone will build the Temple for the Lord, the God of Israel, just as King Cyrus of Persia commanded us.”

(Ezra 4:1-3)

We know from verse 1 that these are enemies. So when they offer help, we know it’s a scheme to do damage to the work. They are liars. They pretend to be worshippers. Thankfully the leadership has the discernment not to be fooled.

For us, as we build our own temple, offering our bodies as a house of prayer, and our church community as a temple to God, we must be aware of our spiritual enemy’s schemes. The bible says he masquerades as an angel of light. If that’s so, he will come in, not as some demonic form that scares us all, but looking like a worshipper. This is the first level of attack and it is very subtle.

Don’t you know that you are God’s temple and that his Spirit lives within you? When we are building our own personal temple, let us be careful where we get our input from.

You might find some teaching edifying, but is it in line with the word of God?

Be careful who you allow to help you build your life. People may come to you claiming to be supportive and offer help. Seek the guidance of the Lord through prayer, through his word and through his people.

When the enemy’s attempt at infiltration fails, the next level is discouragement and fear.

Method 2 – discouragement and fear

Let’s read on:

⁴ Then the local residents tried to discourage and frighten the people of Judah to keep them from their work.

(Ezra 4:4)

If the enemy can’t infiltrate your ranks, he will try to hurl negative thoughts at you, causing fear and discouragement. This is an ongoing battle for many of us and affects our mental health.

There are many ways people can be helped to get out of fear and discouragement but for the Christian two points must be made.

You have greater opposition than non-believers…

First, don’t feel bad about the fear and discouragement you feel. It can be worse for Christians for two reasons:

1. You have a spiritual enemy now that you have given your life to Christ. When you were dead in your transgressions and sins you were not a cause for concern for the enemy. Like when the Jews were in exile they were no threat to the Babylonian king. They were his captives! Now they are home and rebuilding Jerusalem, they are a potential threat. As you have been set free from the kingdom of darkness, it’s likely that you will be more aware of the spiritual battle than ever before.
2. The second reason discouragement can be worse for Christians is that you feel you should now be living in victory! If you were a proper Christian, you tell yourself, you’d not be having these thoughts and feelings. Then the enemy can tell you to keep quiet about it, not tell other Christians because they might judge you as less spiritual. Let’s make BCC a safe place to talk about mental health.

…But you have better weapons.

Second, the Christian has the ultimate answer to fear and discouragement. For every extra attack that the enemy now throws at you, you have infinitely more defences at your disposal as a child of the most high God. You have the full armour of God. You have his word. No weapon formed against you will prosper as you lean into God’s presence, abiding in him and allowing his words to abide in you.

Meditate on scripture. Keep a bible verse on you all day long. Apply it to every situation.

Back to method 1 – disruption from within

 ⁵ They bribed agents to work against them and to frustrate their plans. This went on during the entire reign of King Cyrus of Persia and lasted until King Darius of Persia took the throne.

They use bribes to get others to work against the temple build. The enemy will use any and all tactics to defeat the building of God’s people and his church. But we are not unaware of his schemes. Here we have a blended approach from the enemy – discouragement, fear and infiltration!

Method 3 – Bring in the big dogs!

It seems that despite the ongoing opposition, God’s people continued to rebuild the city. This is great, but the enemy did not go away. Sorry about that!

It was time to bring in the big dogs. They wrote to their king.

This reminds me of C. S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, where a fictional demon writes to his nephew, mentoring him on how to manipulate, control and bring down a particular Christian he has been assigned to.

You can read the letters in Ezra 4 but for now, let me pick out a few points I see in these letters between the enemies of the rebuild and their king.

Lesson 1: We are rebels!

In these letters between the locals and the king of Babylon we see that the Babylonians saw the Jews as rebellious.

And our spiritual enemy sees us as dissident and rebellious to his kingdom. He is the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4) but we are not of the world!

And when we don’t fall in line with his evil wishes for us, we are seen in just the same way that the king of Babylon saw these Jewish worshippers:

We suggest that a search be made in your ancestors’ records, where you will discover what a rebellious city this has been in the past. In fact, it was destroyed because of its long and troublesome history of revolt against the kings and countries who controlled it. (v15)

Yes! May we have a long and troublesome history of revolt against the kingdom of darkness!

And in the king’s reply…

I ordered a search of the records and have found that Jerusalem has indeed been a hotbed of insurrection against many kings. In fact, rebellion and revolt are normal there! (v19)

We are not of this world and never will be. Our worship and our ways must absolutely fly in the face of all the enemy sets as normal in our fallen world. So let us continue to rebel against the kingdom of darkness!

Lesson 2: The enemy is threatened by our presence!

It’s not just that the Jews were a nuisance state who just needed keeping in line. Their insurrection was an actual cause for concern. They had the enemy scared!

More from the letter to the king:

¹³ And the king should know that if this city is rebuilt and its walls are completed, it will be much to your disadvantage, for the Jews will then refuse to pay their tribute, customs, and tolls to you.

The Jews may or may not have intended to pay their tax, but the point is that it was a clear possibility in the mind of the enemy that they would become powerful enough to resist payment. A weaker state could be punished for not paying taxes and forced to pay. But these Jews were seen as a real threat.

¹⁶ We declare to the king that if this city is rebuilt and its walls are completed, the province west of the Euphrates River will be lost to you.”

Basically, if you let Jerusalem be rebuilt, you’ll lose all of Israel! The power of the Jewish people was a worry to this immense state of Babylon.

Can you see that now the enemy is bringing in the big dogs, it’s because it is they who are living in fear? They fear our progress! You may feel like the enemy is large and has control of the minds of most of the world, but he fears our churches and our own spiritual growth.

When the enemy tries to strike fear into our hearts it is because in actuality, it is he who fears us!

And so the building stops. But temporarily.

²⁴ So the work on the Temple of God in Jerusalem had stopped, and it remained at a standstill until the second year of the reign of King Darius of Persia.

(Ezra 4:24)

For us, the enemy is at times allowed to thwart our plans to build ourselves up, or build God’s kingdom. But God is ultimately more powerful. In his wisdom, God has allowed the devil certain influence within the world but only within the boundaries set by God.

Don’t be discouraged if the building is delayed. God has allowed it in his wisdom. Keep going like these Jews did until they could go on no longer. And when you have done all you can, stand. Wait. God will lead the way.

Paul’s temple building example

Paul, who wrote about the church as the temple of God, experienced all of this. He was in the temple-building business on a huge scale, working for God to build the kingdom and build people up in the faith.

He tells the Corinthian church in 2 Corinthians 11 how much opposition he has experienced – beatings, hunger, danger, betrayal, you name it. In the middle of this passage he says he has laboured and toiled. And that is our response to opposition like this. We get on with the job anyway!

The lull in the building does not mean it won’t go ahead. The building will resume. This is the end of the chapter but not the end of the story. Hang in there. Be aware of his schemes but don’t let them defeat you. You are on the winning side!

Summary

We are temples of the Holy Spirit.

There is an enemy at work to destroy the temples we are building, either in our personal spiritual formation or the growth of the local church.

Three of his aims are to infiltrate the inner life of the person or body of Christ, to send fear and discouragement, and to call on higher powers to put a stop to your growth.

Our response is to keep going, and stay focused on the master builder and his word.

Remember that Jesus said, ‘destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days.’

Satan thought he had destroyed Jesus at the cross but it was the greatest backfire in human history. He didn’t understand that by having Jesus killed he was facilitating the ultimate sacrifice for sin, making way for us to be seen as holy temples ourselves.

When you feel attacked in your spiritual life, remind the devil that he is defeated. You stand on the victory already won by Jesus. He said he will build his church and nothing, not even hell, can stop it.

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