In "Your Body as Sacred" numero uno, I went over the attributes of humanity that are the expression of God's image in us. For me, this would be enough motivation to treat my body with the reverence that God expects. However, after the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ; Christians obtained a much more significant reason.
If you are a Christian than your body is the temple of God.
The Holy Spirit lives in you; I alluded to this briefly in my "Echad" blog entry when I quoted 1 Corinthians 6. Today, I'm going to fully explain this amazing spiritual responsibility.
Fair warning, this is a long blog. I have trouble condensing and abridging while writing about purity because I think it is so misunderstood and unnappreciated today even among Bible-believing Christians. I think its imperative to be as comprehensive as possible so that I am as clear as possible. Also, I don't want it to ever seem as though I am using Bible verses out of context which is why I try to cover so much scripture, so that the context is apparent.
Let's begin.
Since I like starting from square one, lets define what a "temple" is. According to Google, a temple is "a building devoted to the worship, or regarded as the dwelling place, of a god or gods or other objects of religious reverence." This is a great definition. Thanks, Google.
Since I like starting from square one, lets define what a "temple" is. According to Google, a temple is "a building devoted to the worship, or regarded as the dwelling place, of a god or gods or other objects of religious reverence." This is a great definition. Thanks, Google.
Now, lets revisit Genesis. Before the fall of man, Adam and Eve had perfect communion with God. He walked in the garden with them and spoke to them face to face. They didn't need a church. God was present with them in a tangible way. Then they sinned and ruined everything, and God cast them out of the garden of Eden.
After the fall of man, we (meaning human beings) were no longer worthy of communing with our holy, righteous Creator. You can read all about it here, but the point is this; before sin entered the world, God dwelt with us. He walked with us. Just think of it, perfect communion, in person, with the Lord, God Almighty…and then our sin separated us from Him. That is what sin does; it separates.
But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.
Isaiah 59:2
So what now? How did we commune with God after the fall of man? Where did we find His presence? Short answer: We didn't.
Not for a LONG time.
Except for Noah, Abraham, and a few others whom God used to further His plans; God gave the human race the silent treatment. No decrees, no commandments, no answered prayers. Nothing. Then, after establishing a nation of people through Abraham, God commanded Moses to have a tabernacle built.
Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them. Make this tabernacle and all its furnishings exactly like the pattern I will show you.
Exodus 25:8-9
*A tabernacle is a mobile "temple". At this time in Israel's history, God's people were constantly on the move as they had not yet entered the Promise Land.
Note the use of "dwell" in this verse as in our Google definition of "temple". The tabernacle was to be where God chose to manifest His presence in the world so that His people would be able to commune with Him. This is obviously a big deal. If you are going to follow God, you need Him to lead you; how can He lead you if you have no means of communion with Him? See the dilemma? And so God tells Moses to build a tabernacle so that He might commune with his people. He tells Moses how to build it down to the very. last. little. detail.
It takes SIX chapters of scripture to describe how God's temple is to be constructed, how the furniture is to be built, and how the temple is to be used.
For example:
"Make the tabernacle with ten curtains of finely twisted linen and blue, purple and scarlet yarn, with cherubim woven into them by a skilled worker. All the curtains are to be the same size—twenty-eight cubits long and four cubits wide. Join five of the curtains together, and do the same with the other five. Make loops of blue material along the edge of the end curtain in one set, and do the same with the end curtain in the other set. Make fifty loops on one curtain and fifty loops on the end curtain of the other set, with the loops opposite each other…"
Exodus 26:1-5
And etc.
Get the point? God is keenly interested in every aspect of His temple, and not just because He has a passion for interior design. He wants to make it VERY clear to Moses and the rest of Israel that they are building something holy. It takes THIRTY-SEVEN verses to dictate the construction of the temple. You can read all about it here. Want to know what it probably looked like? See here:
This picture is a very informative representation. Please note all the gold furniture inside the tabernacle. There is a large lamp stand, a table for bread offerings, an altar for burning incense, and in the back (behind the veil of purple and scarlet) we find the ark of the covenant. Also, you would find the bronze alter and the bronze basin in the courtyard (not pictured). The bronze altar was where the sin sacrifices were burnt and the priests would wash themselves in the basin so they would be ceremonially clean before entering the tabernacle.
If you follow the link I provided, to the whopping six chapters we are discussing, you will see that God was as picky about the construction of all these items as He was with the tabernacle itself, and God continually reinforces that the Israelites are to follow His instructions exactly.
Additionally, He gave detailed instructions on how to make the incense to be burned, the anointing oil, the garments the priests are to wear, and etc. God leaves nothing out. Over and over He tells Moses that these implements of worship are to be "holy", "most holy" to the people of Israel and sacred to their children for the generations to come.
In Exodus 40, the Lord instructs that all these items and the tabernacle must be consecrated before they are used. To consecrate means "to declare sacred; dedicate formally to a religious or divine purpose" (thanks, Google). Ceremonially, this consecration is performed by anointing the temple, the items, and the priests with blood from sacrifices as well as the sacred oil.
*If you are offended by the idea of animal sacrifice, please see the first note below.
Now, I will be entirely honest. I used to think these chapters in Exodus were terribly boring. Truthfully, the first two times I read the Bible all the way through I definitely skimmed these parts. They lost me with all the cubits and the poles and gold, and I just didn't care. Ok, cool architecture but what does it have to do with me? Nothing, or so I thought. I was reading through these chapters earlier this year and I finally read it all word for word. You know what suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks? These verses aren't just about a sacred building built thousands of years ago, these verses are about my body.
Bear with me. You'll see.
Lets return to the idea of consecration. So, once the temple and all the items in it were anointed with blood from "sin offerings" (aka animal sacrifices) and sacred oil, they were now HOLY. They belonged to God and became symbols of His glory among the Israelites. This means they were sacred. According to Google, if something is sacred than it is "connected with God (or the gods) or dedicated to a religious purpose and so deserving veneration." Veneration means "great respect; reverence". Now the most sacred,holy part of the tabernacle was called the "Most Holy Place" and it housed the Ark of the Covenant. Think of the Ark of the Covenant as the anchor of God's presence in the tabernacle/temple. When the Israelites traveled or went into battle, they would dismantle the tabernacle and carry the Ark before them. By God's power that came from the ark, the Israelites conquered their enemies. It was in the "Mercy seat" of the ark that God spoke to His people.
“You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold. Two cubits and a half shall be its length, and a cubit and a half its breadth. And you shall make two cherubim of gold; of hammered work shall you make them, on the two ends of the mercy seat. Make one cherub on the one end, and one cherub on the other end. Of one piece with the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends. The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be. And you shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I shall give you. There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you about all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel.
Exodus 25:17-22
So while the tabernacle and all its items were sacred and holy (and essential for worship), the ark was where communion with God specifically took place. Therefore, the ark of the covenant was really the physical manifestation of God's glorious presence. This is the closest we've come to true communion with God since Eden.
Now, there were a lot of rules about showing the appropriate respect/reverence for God's temple and the holy items in it. Breaking these rules required either a sin offering/sacrifice or you simply died. Lets talk about this in detail regarding the ark of the covenant.
So while the tabernacle and all its items were sacred and holy (and essential for worship), the ark was where communion with God specifically took place. Therefore, the ark of the covenant was really the physical manifestation of God's glorious presence. This is the closest we've come to true communion with God since Eden.
Now, there were a lot of rules about showing the appropriate respect/reverence for God's temple and the holy items in it. Breaking these rules required either a sin offering/sacrifice or you simply died. Lets talk about this in detail regarding the ark of the covenant.
For example, only those who were ceremonially clean could touch the ark and it was to be carried by the Levite priests (Exodus 25, Deuteronomy 10, 1 Chronicles 15). Four hundred years after it was made, King David's men were transporting the ark on a cart (when they were supposed to have priests carrying it) and the oxen pulling the cart stumbled. The ark began to fall and a man reached out to touch it in order to keep it from falling, and he died. The man died because the ark was being misused and the man was not consecrated or ceremonially clean, he was not worthy of touching the glory of God (1 Chronicles 13). When the Philistines had captured the ark of the covenant, God inflicted all sorts of illness on them (1 Samuel 5). No one except for Moses and the priests were supposed to touch, approach or even SEE the ark of the covenant (it was covered by three layers of cloth when carried in the open), and seventy people were killed when they irreverently removed the cover and looked into the ark (1 Samuel 6). Sound familiar? If you have good taste in movies, it should:
That clip is definitely my favorite representation of God's glory in action. Now, lets talk about this reverence that God's glory so rightly deserves. Some people are offended by the idea that God might kill someone simply for disrespecting him. He kills an "innocent" man just for stopping the ark from falling? He killed seventy people for opening it up and looking inside just because they weren't priests? Watch that clip from Indiana Jones, do you feel badly for any of those Nazi's? Do you think it is unfair that God melted their faces off? Why not? Because they are the bad guys. They are Nazi's so they represent, perhaps, the purest evil seen on this planet and (more importantly) they tried to kill Indiana Jones! So, it is a victorious thing when God's glory consumes them (because they are unworthy) and spares Indiana and Marion (made worthy by the respect they show when they close their eyes to the glory of God). Even the nameless Nazi soldiers are not guiltless. They made their choice, they put on their swastikas. They are the bad guys.
Guess what, compared to the glory of God, we are all the bad guys. There is no one righteous, not one, who continually does good and never sins (Ecclesiastes 7:20 and echoed in Romans 3). Our "righteousness" is like "filthy rags" to God (Isaiah 64:6) All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). We all deserve to have our faces melted off in comparison to the righteous glory of God. If you are one of those people who have difficulty buying this, please read the note at the bottom of this entry.
So, how do these verses relate to our bodies?
If you are a Christian, if you believe God had to send Jesus to die for your sin so you could have eternal life, than God sanctifies you with His glory; He dwells within you. Your body is the temple. Not the building you go to on Sundays, YOU are God's holy temple.
For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”
Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear (reverence) of God.
2 Corinthians 6:16 to 7:1
In this letter from the apostle Paul to the church at Corinth, we are told that our bodies deserve the same reverence that God's first tabernacle deserved. This means we have a responsibility to God and must strive for holiness in our bodies. This truth is present throughout the Bible from the prophetic books of the Old Testament (Jeremiah, Isaiah) all the way through to Revelation.
Am I suggesting that those of us who do not honor our bodies as the holy temple of God should have our faces melted off? Well, luckily Christ died for sin so we don't have to worry about our faces melting off, but it is absolutely something we are held accountable for. God expects us to honor our bodies as temples of His Holy Spirit. This is non-negotiable.
I'm about to get into doctrine for Christians. If you are an atheist, agnostic, Buddhist, Druid, whatever; the only thing I want to say to you is that your body is meant to be a temple of the living God. You are fearfully and wonderfully made and you deserve respect, appreciation, and you deserve to be CHERISHED and RESPECTED by others. You are gorgeous and marvelous and awe-inspiring Ok? That's all I have to say to you.
So fellow Christians,
So fellow Christians,
My body, your body, is the temple of the living God, because His Holy Spirit dwells in us. What does that mean exactly, to have the Holy Spirit in us? Lets read how Jesus Christ, himself, introduced the Holy Spirit:
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 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. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to 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...These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 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. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
John 14:15-27
So, the Holy Spirit is part of the trinity, "God in three persons" (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). I like to think of it like the different states of matter- solid, fluid, and gas. I often wonder if that isn't a truth of God purposefully displayed in physics for us. So God is God and Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, just as water is water (liquid), ice (solid), and steam (gas). It is all H2O. Jesus explains that God the Father will send the Holy Spirit to dwell in His people after He returns to heaven.
So, as Jesus said, if you love Him and strive to follow His commandments, than you belong to God; you are forgiven and sanctified through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and you have the Holy Spirit in you. From the passage of scripture above you see that the Holy Spirit is called a "helper". You might think of it like a conscience on steroids, convicting the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgement (John 16:8). It works as a moral guide and also aids in our ability to understand God's word (being called the Spirit of Truth throughout the Bible) so we can apply it to our life.
So, as Jesus said, if you love Him and strive to follow His commandments, than you belong to God; you are forgiven and sanctified through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and you have the Holy Spirit in you. From the passage of scripture above you see that the Holy Spirit is called a "helper". You might think of it like a conscience on steroids, convicting the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgement (John 16:8). It works as a moral guide and also aids in our ability to understand God's word (being called the Spirit of Truth throughout the Bible) so we can apply it to our life.
Sounds simple right? However, the Holy Spirit works in deeper spiritual ways as well. Other scripture speaks of the Holy Spirit expressing our hearts to God when we can't seem to find the words ourselves:
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
Romans 8:26-27
*In the Bible "saints" refers to ALL believers- not just those deemed "saints" by the Catholic church.
In a powerful, spiritual way, as we seek God, the Holy Spirit helps bring forth the "good" things in us. The inspiring motivational qualities of life that help us follow God's word and do good works:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Galatians 5:22-23
And my favorite:
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
Romans 15:13
Personally, I can't imagine life as a Christian without the Holy Spirit. I have seen and felt these "benefits" (sort to speak) of the Holy Spirit throughout my life. It makes sense to me that for this gift of communion with God we are expected to honor our bodies as God's temple. Seriously, doesn't that just make sense?
Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.
1 Corinthians 3:16-17
So, how does one honor their body as the holy temple of God? In many ways. We are told to do this by taking care of our bodies, staying as healthy as possible. We are commanded to use our mouths to exalt God and build up other instead of cursing, being crude, and tearing each other down. We are to use our bodies to serve those who are less fortunate. And (my favorite commandment concerning our bodies) we are told not to defile the temple of God with sexual sin.
And Jesus said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
mark 7:14-23
So what should we do when it comes to sexual immorality? RUN FOR YOUR LIFE.
Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. 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, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
1 Corinthians 6:18-20
So, what exactly is sexual immorality and how do we deal with it?
That's another blog for another day.
That's another blog for another day.
Note on Animal Sacrifice:
Let's talk about animal sacrifice for just a moment- let's clarify. The wages of sin is death (Roman's 6:23). When we (as the human race) chose to walk away from God, we were cast out of the Garden of Eden and made mortal. We die. Each one of us. That is a consequence of our "original" sin. Now, without forgiveness of sins, the wages of sin is eternal death which is the eternal separation from God (remember, sin separates). Before Christ came and died as a PERFECT sacrifice for our sins, God allowed His people to "try" to atone for their sin through animal sacrifice. If you eat burgers, I don't want to hear you complain about this. Killing an animal to avoid hell is a little more noble than killing an animal for a BLT, in my opinion. If you are a vegetarian or a vegan, remember, God doesn't like death either. God's "original" plan was to hang out in His garden with a bunch of vegans, but we mucked that up. Death is our fault. Death is the price we pay for rebelling against God and Jesus came to pay that price in full so that we don't have to kill animals anymore in a pathetic attempt to present ourselves as righteous. So, in a way, Christ sort of died for people and animals. Personally, I think that God allowed animal sacrifice for atonement of sin so that we would have to be intimately involved with the consequences of our actions, so that we would understand the severity of our sin and the punishment of death. Sometimes, I think I might work harder to live righteously if every time I sinned I had to go out and kill one of my pet chickens or my sweet goats. Really, that was the point of all the ceremonial laws that God gave through Moses and the animal sacrifices when those laws were broken; God made it impossible for His people to ignore their sin and how short they fell of the righteous glory of God.
Note on the reverence that God deserves:
Where were you when He laid the foundation of the earth? Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place? That it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it? Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Job 38.
You know how, when you are a child, your parents punished you to teach you respect? To respect danger, like not running across a road without looking or touching a stove. To respect your parents and your elders. To respect authority like your teachers and police officers. Then, when you are an adult should you need to be punished? When you have matured, shouldn't you simply do what is right because you know it is right? You understand the benefits of doing what is good and the consequences doing what is bad without having to be told by someone else. Isn't that maturity?
This is what God did with the human race. Humanity was largely "on its own" from the time we were cast out of the garden of Eden until God began speaking through Moses with laws and commandments. From the time of Adam until Moses we filled the world with evil. We corrupted the goodness that God gave us and sinned and sinned. WE made all those laws necessary. We had to be told not to rape and murder and commit incest and adultery and lie and steal and cheat. God spoke through Moses to lift us up out of the wicked spiritual anarchy we were in, and He had to teach us respect. This was a thousand years before Christ; the human race was primitive and utterly wicked (compared to things like gender equality and the Geneva Convention and human rights movements of today). However, by the time Christ came, it was excepted that we would be mature enough and ready to understand His teaching. So through Christ, all that punishment is no longer necessary. We get grace and mercy. Does that make sense? Like the kid who is punished to keep from touching the stove until he is old enough to understand why, God punished those who disrespected His glory until the human race was mature enough to understand our need for Christ. This is why God killed those who directly disobeyed His commandments regarding His glory in the ark of the covenant.
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