Exploring My Strange Bible - I am who I am Part 9: The Spirit & The Temple

Episode Date: November 27, 2017

In this episode we are going to look at the way that the spirit’s presence in the Bible story is often connected to a physical building… the temple or the sacred space of God. It’s a major theme uniting the hebrew scriptures and a theme that New Testament authors use to talk about who Jesus is. Then, the theme continues on into the Book of Axe and the letters to the apostles in the New Testament.

Tim Mackey, Jr. utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you have. On this podcast, I'm putting together the last 10 years worth of lectures and sermons where I've been exploring the strange and wonderful story of the Bible and how it invites us into the mission of Jesus and the journey of faith. And I hope this can be helpful for you too. I also help start this thing called The Bible Project. We make animated videos and podcasts about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology. You can find those resources at thebibleproject.com. With all that said, let's dive into the episode for this week. Well, in this episode, we are continuing in the series called I Am Who I Am. We're exploring the huge, multifaceted portrait of God in the pages of Scripture and the storyline of Scripture. And in this series, at this point, we're well into a number of teachings about the person and work and the portrait of God's Spirit throughout the Bible.

and the portrait of God's spirit throughout the Bible. What we're going to look at in this episode is the way that the spirit's presence in the storyline of the Bible is often connected to a physical building, the temple, or the sacred space where God's presence and glory takes up residence. It's a major theme uniting the storyline of the Hebrew scriptures. It's also a major theme that the New Testament authors used to talk about who Jesus is, the one in whom God's glory dwelt and was visible. But then also the theme continues on into the book of Acts, into the letters of the apostles in the New Testament. And temples, you know, it depends on what kind of culture you grew up in.

And temples, you know, it depends on what kind of culture you grew up in. In most modern Western culture, temples and sacred holy spaces is not really a thing for most people anymore. At least they don't use quite that language to describe it. And so for many people, this is just a foreign kind of concept in the Bible of sacred holy spaces. So what we need to do is relearn, give ourselves categories for what this kind of space even is, and then what it means for Jesus and his followers to be temples for the dwelling of God's spirit, because that's precisely the language that the New Testament uses to describe a follower of Jesus and a community of his followers. So what does that mean, and what are the implications of that? That's what we're going to explore in this teaching.

So let's dive in and learn together. I invite you to get out a Bible, get out your Bible, and turn with me to the New Testament, to Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians, chapter 3, 1 Corinthians chapter 3. We're coming around the bend just a few more weeks in this series. We've been in on the Holy Spirit as a part of this bigger series called I Am Who I Am, where we're exploring the Christian God, what a Christian means when they say the word God. And we've been camping out the longest on the Spirit. We did a series on the Father and on the Son and now on the Spirit because, as Josh and I have said many times, the Spirit for many of us, especially in Western culture, is kind of the most difficult or ambiguous, often confusing or mysterious part of the triune God, Father, Son, Spirit,

to relate to. And so we just thought, let's just take a good long while, let's just cover as many passages as we can in the New Testament and in the Scriptures about the Spirit, the Spirit's role and the Spirit's and in the Scriptures about the Spirit, the Spirit's role, and the Spirit's work in our lives. So today what we're going to explore is the role of the Spirit in creating and inhabiting and indwelling temples, which I'm sure is a burning question for all of us. Like, does the Spirit inhabit temples? Like, you woke up thinking about that this morning. But it actually is, it actually really is a quite important burning issue, even if we don't know about it. And that's what we're going to let Paul talk to us about in 1 Corinthians, is the Spirit's

role in creating and in inhabiting His temple. Paul wrote this letter to a church in the city of Corinth, ancient city of Corinth, which was the Las Vegas of the ancient Roman Empire. It's actually funny. It was a town located on an isthmus between an inlet from the Mediterranean Sea and so on, and it was a port town, like a harbor town, big population, lots of transient population, people coming in and out. And it was actually so, the city was so well known for entertainment, for its sex industry, for being a hub for the worship of all of the Greek and Roman gods, loads of temples everywhere, that in kind of Greek language of the day, the word Corinthian became just a synonym for being sexually promiscuous or sleeping around. So you could actually say, oh, you're such a Corinthian,

and you're not talking about where they're from, if you know what I mean, right? You're talking about their lifestyle, right? And so this was the kind of city. And so Paul strategically chose it as a place to set up a community of followers of Jesus, of Christians. And so this church, he founded it, he hung out for about two and a half years, set up leaders, and then he went on to plant a new church. And then he started getting reports about how this church was falling apart. And he wrote a letter to address all of the ways that this church was falling apart, and it's sitting in your lap, and you call it 1 Corinthians. So the first, he's going to hit at a number of topics. We're going to look at two places where he hits at

problems where these Las Vegas Christians have completely misunderstood the gospel. And so the first one is in chapter 3. And what he's going at, essentially, this church is being torn apart because people in the church have kind of fixated. They've had a few different teachers and pastors over the church, and some people have kind of fixated on different like leaders or teachers or pastors, and they've become divisive about it, and they've kind of set up little parties within the church, and we're like, we're about this guy. We think this guy is really awesome, and it's not just that they like different people, it's that they're actually starting to divide and starting to, you know, split off, and the church is on the verge of splitting. And look at 1 Corinthians chapter 3. Look at what he says.

Just, I want us to get a feel for the problem he's talking about. 1 Corinthians chapter 3, look at verse 3. He says, listen, you all are still worldly. Since there's jealousy and quarreling among you, aren't you worldly? Aren't you just acting like mere humans? Listen, when one of you says, hey, I follow Paul. I think he's the best. But then somebody else is saying, I follow this other guy, Apollos. I think he's the best. Aren't you mere human beings? So this is just a sample of what's going on here. You have jealousy, you have quarreling, people dividing because they have their favorite theologians or teachers or pastors or whatever. And this is surely not a problem the Western church has ever dealt with, right? And so people elevating, and power grabs, and people thinking

they're better, and that their theology is more correct or whatever, and so it's this, and they're splitting and so on. And Paul's like, dude, you're acting like you're not Christians. You're acting like your greatest allegiance is to your little party or to your correct theology and not to the one to whom all of these different Christians are actually have given their allegiance, and that is Jesus. You're actually acting just like the rest of the world acts. So he combats this. He goes at this issue in a lot of different ways. One of the arguments that he pulls out to say, do you see how ridiculous you're being? Look down in verse 16. It's not one that you and I would think to say.

Look down in verse 16. He says, listen, don't you guys know that you all, the you there is plural, so you need a Texan, y'all. Put in y'all right there. Don't y'all know that y'all are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in the midst of y'all? Listen, if anyone destroys God's temple, referring to splitting it up in these divisive, you know, jealous, quarreling way, God will destroy that person. God's temple is sacred, and y'all together are that temple. Now, he has about five different, you know,

reasons he pulls out for why this is really screwed up behavior for Christians, but this is one of them. This is one of them. And he just puts it out there as if it's just kind of self-evident. this is one of them. This is one of them. And he just puts it out there as if it's just kind of self-evident. Like, don't you know, y'all are God's temple, and that God's spirit is in your midst. So therefore, God's temple is sacred, therefore you shouldn't be acting like this. And it's assumed, I guess, he thinks that they'll just hear that and be like, oh, yeah, good point, or whatever. And, you know, I don't know what comes into your mind when you hear the word temple. We don't have really anything in our cultural setting that at all recreates the experience or anything like temples. They were incredibly common in the ancient world, especially in Corinth, the Las

Vegas of the ancient world. There were temples everywhere. And so what does Paul mean by this? That he can just kind of bring out this side comment and be like, don't you remember? Like, you all together form this temple, and that God's personal presence in the Spirit is in the midst, which means that the church isn't your little, like, pet project. It's not your social club that you can organize just the way, like, you want it to according to your preferences, but rather this is God's temple. So he uses this to argue against division in the church. Paul does this in a lot of different places. He pulls out this idea of y'all are the temple. He used this argument, y'all are the temple, to combat racism in the early church. If you read his letter to the Ephesians, that he's writing to churches who are kind of being torn

apart by this Jew and non-Jew divide, and there's cultural tensions in the church, and he says, listen, Ephesians chapter 2, he says, listen, you all are God's temple. God's built you all together into one house together. You're the temple where God lives by his Spirit. And so we might hear that and we think like, wow, that's great, Paul. Fight racism, fight division, unity, right? And we like that. We think that's awesome. What a great way to go, Paul. Turn the page with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 6. The next problem in this church that Paul targets, this church is full of problems, right? Reading 1 Corinthians is both scandalizing and really encouraging at the same time

because you're like, okay, Christians were messed up from the start, which means there's hope for the rest of us, right? So here he's targeting something that he heard about that a number of the men in the church are doing, and they're continuing a practice that was just super common in Corinth. And that's before a lot of these men were Christians, they participated in the worship at the different temples and shrines around. They were just everywhere

in Corinth, and one part of the worship of many gods involved getting drunk and having lots of sex, and particularly sex with prostitutes or sex workers who were hired to work at that temple. And if it was like a fertility god, a god or goddess that you worship who brings fertility and rain, whether to humans or to the ground or to your cows or something, part of the worship of these gods involved getting drunk and having lots of sex. And so a number of these Christians were like, whoa, Jesus died for me. I'm free. I'm freed from my sin. And they just were like, which is why I'm going to keep doing this, right? Because I'm free from sin. Sin has no hold on over me. And so there was no, in their world, to be religious was not the same as being moral. If you're a

religious person as a Greek or a Roman and you worship Apollos and Zeus or whatever, like Apollos and Zeus sleep around, you know? So like, why can't I as a Roman citizen? So this was a huge shift in their thinking. So Paul combats this. And look at how he goes at this. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 6. Look at verse 15. He says, listen, don't you know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ, if I have given my allegiance to Christ, put my faith into him, I've been united with him. My body is linked to his, so to speak. Should I then take the members of Christ and unite them with the prostitute?

What? You're kidding me, right? You're kidding me. You think that's logical? Don't you know that the one who unites himself with the prostitute is one with her in body? Don't you remember what our foundation story in Genesis, right? Don't you remember what the scriptures say about the meaning of marriage and sexuality and gender and so on?

The two will become one flesh. For whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in what? In spirit. So he has this idea that you have Jesus, and Jesus is the one in whom the presence of the eternal Creator God dwells. And if I put my faith in Jesus, I'm bound to Him in spirit. And underneath this is this idea that we've been looking at all throughout this series, is that what Jesus, His life was for me, His death was for me, His resurrection was for me. I grab onto Him in faith, and by His Spirit, His personal presence takes up residence

in my life. And it's like I become one with Him. It's like I get married to Jesus. That's what He's saying here. When you put your faith in Jesus, you've entered a covenant, you've accepted His covenant commitment to redeem you, and it's like you're married to Jesus. You become one with Him. like you're married to Jesus. You become one with him. And so should you take a body that is now identified and part of Jesus and then go join it with someone that you are not in the marriage covenant with? And he would just say, that doesn't make any sense at all. You're acting insane as a Christian there, right? You're betraying your identity as a Christian when you sleep with someone that you're not married to. Now, go down to verse 19. He brings out a second argument here. He says, by the way, don't you

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. Or some of your translations reads, you do not belong to yourselves. You were bought at a price, therefore honor God with your bodies. Do you notice he pulls out this same exact reason that he did in chapter 3. So he addresses the whole church, and they're like dividing up according to theology and teacher parties, and they're being really mean and jerks about it. And so he says, don't you all know that y'all are the temple? And when he's combating racism in the church, and people or ethnic groups are elevating themselves above one another and so on, no, you all are God's temple where God's Spirit dwells. And we say, go Paul, fight racism, fight disunity, fight division in the church.

And then all of a sudden Paul heads at Sacks. And he's like, don't you know? Why are you sleeping with someone that you haven't made a lifelong marriage covenant to? Don't you know that you're God's temple and the Spirit dwells within you? And some of us are like, oh, yeah, the racism and, like, division, I'm stoked that Paul, like, is against that, but you're going to use the same, like, whoa, sex? Like, that's a little extreme, Paul, right? Right? And so maybe this is one of those places where I don't take the

Bible so literally or whatever. It was just kind of Paul's deal or whatever, you know? But he appeals to the same exact reason. You are God's temple. You all together are God's temple, and then you individually are God's temple where His Spirit dwells. Therefore, like, don't allow racism to divide your church. Don't allow theological differences to rip apart your church, and don't allow racism to divide your church, don't allow theological differences to rip apart your church, and don't sleep around. Don't have sex with someone that you're not married. For Paul, it all goes together. It just all makes sense based out of this idea that you were God's temple. You were God's temple. Now, there might be some of us when we get to the sex thing and we're like, okay, we're totally on the same page. Here, there might be some of us, you know, we would self-identify as Christians, but we're

kind of leery and not sure what we think when the topic of sex and the scriptures and Paul and Jesus comes up. And there might be some of us here who you would not self-identify as Christians, and you're like, Christians are weird when it comes to sex, you know, bizarre. So how do we get at this? And so what I want to do is I want to get underneath this, because clearly this is really an important idea for Paul. Paul can just bring out this idea that you are God's temple, collectively and individually. And for him, this idea has so much importance that it actually has the power to completely reshape our community life, but also to reshape my individual life, even to reshape something so foundational to me as my

understanding of sex. It gets a complete overhaul if I could just understand that I'm a temple where God's Spirit dwells. And so what's the backstory here? And that's what I want to do, because when Paul says the word temple, there's something very clear that was coming into people's minds. And that's something that came into people's minds was a whole storyline and an actual building that I'm going to show you a picture of. And so what we're going to do is we're going to look at the backstory, like what is Paul really getting at, and what should we be hearing? Because when Paul says to a group of people and to individual Christians, y'all are the temple, he's throwing a huge hand grenade out there that explodes, but because of our cultural distance and time distance, we don't hear the

explosion. We just, it's like temples, that's weird. That's what people believe in a long time ago or whatever. We're modern people, you know. So we don't hear the explosion anymore. In Paul's day, to say something like that was explosive. So we're going to look at the backstory, and then we're going to focus on what Jesus said about himself at the temple, and then come back around to these passages and what it means for us to be God's temple. Backstory of the temple, Jesus' temple, what it means for us to be a part of the temple. You guys with me? Okay. So, let's go back to chapter 3 with me. Let's just look at the language Paul uses here. Chapter 3, verse 16. Don't you know that you or yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? He just assumes that it's

like, oh yeah, oh yeah, I've heard Paul talk about this a whole bunch before. Yes, yes we are. We are God's temple. What does it mean for Paul to say that? When Paul's saying this, he's writing this somewhere in like the 50s of the first, what we call the first century BC, excuse me, AD, after Jesus. And when Paul says this, there is actually, he's a Jewish rabbi who's given his allegiance to Jesus the Messiah. And for a Jewish rabbi to write a letter and say, you all are the temple, when he says the word temple, there's just one thing that is in his mind in terms of background, and it's an actual building. It's an actual building that's still standing when Paul

writes these words right here. And where's that building located? Some of you know. these words right here. And where's that building located? Some of you know. It's in Jerusalem. It's in Jerusalem. Here's a picture, at least a recreated model of it. For a Jew, the temple refers to one thing only. It refers to a building that existed in the city of Jerusalem. Now, this is a large-scale model of the temple that would, in the rough shape that it would have been, as accurately as we can tell from ancient sources, this would have been the shape of the temple that Jesus knew and cruised around. This would have been the shape of the temple that the early Christians would have known, that Paul would have known, and so cool. This model is located in Jerusalem. It's a large, outdoor, full, small-scale model of the whole city of Jerusalem in the first century. The size of this model is

actually about the size of this whole floor right here. It's so awesome. Oh, dude, I just stood there for hours just getting told. What's sad is there's no little people. Like, they didn't go that far, right? But every other little detail is just incredibly detailed, and there's, you know, walkways around it, so you can see it from every angle, whatever. So the model of this temple is actually quite a large, quite a large thing.

So this was a magnificent, magnificent structure. It was one of the wonders of the ancient world. The temple that Jesus and Paul would have known would have been architected and done by one of their kings, a guy named Herod. So this was the form of the temple that they would have known it, but some kind of Jewish or Israelite temple would have stood in that spot in the city of Jerusalem for over a thousand years when Paul's writing these words. There has been some kind of temple or structure, one couple versions of it got torn down and burned down or whatever, they're eventually rebuilt, but there's been a temple or something like it in that spot for over a thousand years. Now,

just think about that. A thousand years is a really long time. And this building was the center of all of Israelite and Jewish life and culture and religion. This building, like, it's hard for us to really grasp the significance. About all I can do is to say, if we're Americans, think of the symbolic significance of the White House, of the National Monument, and of the Statue of Liberty, and then put them all together, and you're almost to what this building would have represented to a Jewish person. So it was the White House. This is where the leadership of the whole nation was housed, in the buildings around the temple. This is like the center of the whole nation was housed, in the buildings around the temple. This is like the center of their governance and so on.

It was their national monument. It was an architectural building that told a story. Every single part of this building had symbolic significance and told a story. And so it's like their Statue of Liberty. They look at it and they find the story of who they are as a people. It tells them of their story. And so it's like their Statue of Liberty. They look at it, and they find the story of who they are as a people. It tells them of their story. And so what is that story? And why? And actually, just think about this. So that building is standing there, and what is Paul? He's a Jewish rabbi, become a follower of Jesus, and where does he say the temple is located? Where's the temple for Paul? Well, apparently it's a group of people who can't get along sitting in a house church in the city

of Corinth, and he says, y'all are God's temple. and he also says it to a group of christians sitting in the city of ephesus and he says it in about a bunch of other letters now i mean that's about it as explosive as me trying to say to you all like let's start a new movement let's retake america or something like ridiculous like that or something and so if I were to say, like, y'all are the White House, and you laugh, right? Because what a ridiculous idea. But that's exactly the same effect of what Paul is saying. I mean, this building is standing, and he's talking to followers of the Jewish Messiah and saying, y'all are the temple. No, Paul, the temple standing in Jerusalem. No, no, no, no, no. Y'all are the temple. And in fact, you individually are each a temple for God's presence in the Holy Spirit to dwell. That's a very, very evocative, inflammatory, and volatile statement that Paul's

making. Why is he making it? It's part of the story of what that building tells. So what are temples? Temples are not buildings that we really have an equivalent to anymore. But think about the most easy way to think about it, and this is not unique to Israel. Almost all human cultures for most of human history have some concept of sacred space or of temples or of shrines. The idea that there's something transcendent, there's something bigger than all of us, there's something going on in the world that we feel cut off from or that we're disconnected from, but that's part of what makes life beautiful and strange and wonderful, and there is meaning, and that that meaning is connected to some kind of being or person who's responsible for all of this. And temples and

shrines and sacred spaces are spaces where our space, here we are in normal day-to-day space, somehow overlaps with sacred space, with the divine space. It's a space where it's not like your living room or something, or like the park where we all hang out. It's a space where it's not like your living room or something or like the park where we all hang out. It's some unique space where our existence overlaps with the divine and where we meet with and we experience that ultimate transcendent thing that when I watch a sunset, it's just like, holy cow, the universe is the most crazy place and there must be something going on here. And then the sunset's over and and then you forget about it, or whatever. You go on with your day. And so those moments of transcendence and meaning, that we feel like there's something

going on here, those are all concentrated in these places of sacred space. We call them temples or shrines. And in the storyline of the Bible, that building tells the storyline of the entire Bible. Because in the storyline of the Bible, sacred space and human space were completely united and overlapping, or at least that was the ideal, and that was the purpose. And you find the description of that ideal union of sacred space and human space at what part of your Bible? Where do you find it? Page one and two of your Bible, right? We call it the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden is the Bible's way of talking about a space where God's space and human space just completely were in union, and there was a close personal connection and relationship between Creator and creation,

personal connection and relationship between creator and creation, between the creator God and the image-bearing creatures of God in harmony, and so on. But of course, you know, the good times only last about two pages, right? And so, right, so these image-bearing humans, they refuse to submit themselves to the wisdom and generosity of the Creator. They define good and evil for themselves, and so they create this rift. They drive heaven and earth apart, so to speak. And so what remains are these little moments or these little places where God keeps pursuing, pursuing humanity to restore that relationship and to keep heaven and earth united. And what those little spots where heaven and earth still overlap are what were called temples. This is where Israelites perceived that the God of the universe was still pursuing and trying to reconcile himself to his people. And that was the whole concept of what that building was about. You would walk into that

building, and if you read the description of that building, you can read it for, you know, geek note-takers of you, in the book of 1 Kings, 1 Kings chapter 6 through 8, and you read the description of going inside this building, and it was full of gold and jewels and pictures of angelic figures and so on, but also full of all of this garden imagery. There's pomegranates, you know, like engraved everywhere, and there's almond blossoms, you know, woven into the artwork and the gold architecture, and there's the smell of incense, and there's fresh bread there every day, and there's flowers engraved everywhere. You go in, and it's like I'm going back to the garden. This whole building was to recreate the experience of re-entering the garden. And so you have these

priests, and they, on behalf of our broken, screwed-up humanity, go into the very presence of God, and all is whole, and all is well again. And they offer these sacrifices that are offered for the sins of the people, and it's like God and humanity are reconciled and united here in this space. And so, I mean, they could have made so much money if they could offer tours of the temple. But the problem was that actually because this was such a unique and sacred and holy space, only a few could go in. It wasn't like for general admission, you know, because this is a unique, sacred space. It's not to be defiled, is the language the Bible

has used, or it's not to be mistreated or just treated like any other kind of space. It's kind of like our concept of the bathroom, actually, as Americans. So how many of you would ever eat dinner in your bathroom? Why wouldn't you do that? Because that's gross. That's gross. That's why you wouldn't do it. And I don't even have to argue that. Like, I don't need to give you five reasons why it's gross. You just know that's gross. And it's because for Americans, the bathroom is holy. It is a holy, sacred space, which means it's a space that's set apart for a unique set of activities and only those activities, right? Namely, right, so like going to the bathroom or dental hygiene. Now, here's what's funny.

Here's the great ironic contradiction or something, because you won't eat in the bathroom, but what do you stick in your mouth every single night in the bathroom? Right? Your toothbrush, which is, what a gross thing. Like, you stick it in there every night, and then, like, you put it back, and it's just sitting there with half of the food that you just got out of your mouth on it, and then you stick it back in the next morning and the next night. That's gross. But see, what that shows us is that our concept, see, we look at temples in the ancient world, and we think, oh, how primitive, or that's

cute, or that's so silly, or whatever. But it's like, no, every culture has its own concept of sacred spaces. And usually, like, they're not fully logical. And our version of the bathroom is not logical at all. If we really wanted to be logical, we. And our version of the bathroom is not logical at all. If we really wanted to be logical, we would brush our teeth in the kitchen. Anyway, that's just a different thing. So that's the idea here. And so you have this sacred space that's for the union of human beings and their creator. This is a place where we're reimagining what human beings are for and what they're like. And you have these

human beings, these representative priests in the presence of the Creator, and all is well, and there's no division, there's no separation or whatever. That's what this building was about. This building was about the hope of God and humanity being reconnected and reconciled in relationship, close personal relationship. That was what this building was about. And that they would do these rituals in the building that constantly pointed them forward to this hope. Now, there's the problem. There's a problem that develops throughout the storyline of the Bible. And that problem is because this building, this symbolic building, because it

is actually a physical thing or a building, the people of Israel became fixated on the symbol instead of the reality to which it pointed. And so you can read the great prophets, you can read Isaiah, you can read Jeremiah or Ezekiel, and they'll all point out this huge problem that you have, like, people going into the temple in Jerusalem, and, like, they were like, well, God's with us. His presence is here with us, and so they do, like, you know, sing the songs in the choir and offer the sacrifices or whatever, and then they go back and sleep with their neighbor's wife or whatever and don't give, like, their workers their wages and don't keep the Sabbath or whatever. And so Jeremiah's like, wages and don't keep the Sabbath or whatever. And so Jeremiah is like, dude, you think, hold on here,

hold on. So you think that you have a relationship with God because there's this building in Jerusalem. Don't you remember that the whole reason there's this building in Jerusalem is to remind you of this reality, of the story that God's pursuing you, that He's constantly moving forward towards you despite your sin. He gives you a means to reconcile you and offer sacrifices for your sin so the relationship can be restored. Don't you know the whole point was about this transformative sharing of space so that you rediscover your humanity through forgiveness and grace and repentance and so on. And so the prophets are just like, dude, you've missed the boat. You've missed the boat entirely. And this is precisely both the reality and the problem for when Jesus steps onto the scene. Would you flip back a few pages with me, past Romans, past the book of Acts.

Flip back about 75 pages with me to the Gospel of John. The Gospel of John, chapter 1. Gospel of John, chapter 1, just page 1. So the story of Israel taking advantage of the temple, abusing the temple. Surely we have a relationship with God. Look at our nice building. We have a temple, for goodness sakes. And the temple means that God's dwelling right in our midst, so things must be great between us, right? Because the building is there. And so Jesus came onto the scene, just like Isaiah, just like Jeremiah, just like Ezekiel, fully convinced that the temple had just become a farce,

convinced that the temple had become corrupt, that it was being taken advantage of by corrupt leaders, corrupt rulers, and that it was no longer serving its purpose as a sign pointer to God's heart to be reconciled and rejoined to humanity and the goodness of the garden. And so, in all of the Gospels, this theme of the temple comes up. Look at John's way of doing it. Look at the first sentences. In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made, and without him nothing was made that has been made. Now, Josh already explored John chapter 1 a couple months ago when we were doing the series on Jesus as the Son of God. What story is he echoing right here? What biblical story is he echoing in

your memory right here? In the beginning, right? He's borrowing the first words from page 1 of your Bible. He's retelling the story of creation, but retelling it now with the lens on of this new revelation of who God is, who Jesus revealed God to be. That God is this being who is one, the one true God, but who is Father, Son, and Spirit. And so his word, his word to describe the Son or Jesus is this phrase, the Word of God, as God's spoken word in Genesis chapter 1. And so Jesus was both with So was he with God, or was he God? Exactly. Exactly right. So, and I'll give you $500 if you can explain that to me, right? So that's not the point. So he's retelling a story of Genesis 1 here, that actually it's the Creator God who's actually entering into and becoming a part of his creation. Go down to verse 14. This is really what I want

to focus on here, verse 14. The Word of God, or the Word, excuse me, became flesh, that is, God became human and made His dwelling among us. Now, just look at that little word in verse 14 that little phrase made his dwelling made his dwelling this is this is such a fascinating little word when you think of you know the word dwell has kind of been revived in the english language because of the magazine some of you know the magazine dwell it's all about modern home architecture and so on but uh for the most part do we you do you use the word dwell anymore? The home where I dwell. Do you say that? Do you say dwell? No, we just don't really use it. It's kind of an old-timey word or something like that, or Bible word. Made is dwelling. This is a solid, solid biblical word.

And it's a biblical word that the prophets used and that the story of Israel constantly used to describe that building. That building is where the very presence of God, the Spirit of God, dwelt. Dwelt. And so when the author of John is using this little phrase right here, made his dwelling, literally it means to set up a sacred space. Jesus comes among us as the place where heaven and earth overlap and unite. Humanity and deity perfectly united. In other words, Jesus is sacred space. Jesus is where God and humanity meets together in perfect unity and harmony. That's how John begins his story. Now, if you want to turn there, or you'll see it up on the screen, in chapter 2, there's a story. I'm leading you on a trail. This will all lead back to

1 Corinthians. Trust me. Trust me, right? I'm leading you on a trail. But this is a story about Jesus going to the temple. And, well, I'll just let the story tell itself. When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts, he found people selling cattle and sheep and doves and other people sitting at tables, and they were exchanging all of this money. And so meek and mild Jesus, right, he made a whip out of cords, and he drove everyone from the temple courts and the sheep and the cattle, and he scattered the coins of the money changers, and he overturned their tables. Now, let's just stop right there. So, you know, if you're familiar with the story

of the Bible, you've probably heard some version of this story before, but this is really intense. Remember, in our culture, what's the equivalent of the temple? I named three spaces. What are they? White House, National Monument, Country of Liberty. Now, if like tomorrow morning you were to take a flight, right, to like, you know, the White House and get a little pass for some event they're having there, but in your back pocket was a whip, right? And you just start running around like doing something like this, what would happen to you? What would happen to you? I mean, dude, the guys with the mics and so on, I mean, they would like, you know, clobber, be like burying you and, you know, like you would disappear in a black SUV and you'd never

be heard of for the rest of your life or something, right? So that's what would happen. That's what would happen. That is in our setting exactly what Jesus is doing right here. If you read the story all the way through, in all four of the Gospels, the stories about Jesus in the New Testament, this is the event that put the target on Jesus' head from the religious leaders. At his trial, if you go read the story of Jesus' mock trial, this is the event that gets brought up as to why they have the right to execute him and put him to death. This event was absolutely crucial. This was the most inflammatory thing that Jesus ever did. Why did he do it? Why did he do it? To those who were selling the doves, he said, get out of here. get out of here. Stop turning my father's house into a market. His disciples remembered then that it is written, and they quote from the Psalm, Psalm 69, zeal for your house will consume me.

So let's stop right there. Jesus grew up soaked in the Hebrew Scriptures. He knows Isaiah. He knows Jeremiah. He knows Ezekiel. He knows that they all pointed out that the temple had become a total joke, a complete joke, that Israel had mistaken the symbol, the building, for the reality, which is reconciled relationship and God and humanity knit together in sacred space. And so Jesus is doing just what Jeremiah did. When Jeremiah stood up in the temple and said, listen, this place is a farce and God's going to bring his judgment on this. And Jesus is doing precisely that, except even more,

because he's totally interrupting the sacrificial system, right? There's no animals being exchanged anymore, and so for, who knows, hours, for a whole day, no sacrifices that day. I mean, and he's getting the attention of everybody, declaring publicly through these actions, this is a total joke. This is a joke.

Look how the story finishes. Next line. Then the Jews, and specifically the Jewish leaders at the temple, if you read the stories that goes on, they say, what sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all of this? Which is exactly what you would ask, right? Like, who are you to walk into the White House and act like you own the place? Jesus answered, Destroy this temple,

and I will raise it again in three days. Now, they replied, Huh? So it's taken 46 years to build this structure, this temple. You're going to raise it again in three days. And then the author, the author John, he stops the story, and then he turns at you, the reader, and he whispers in your ear. Now, you know what temple he's talking about, right? Is he talking about this joke of the building anymore? And the answer is no. The temple he was talking about was his body.

So, if Jesus, as the Gospels claim, is… he is the temple. That's the whole point, that the stories are trying to… that Jesus is the one to which this building and the story and its symbolism was ultimately pointing, of this union of the Creator and created, this union of God and humanity in perfect harmony and in perfect relationship. And the building has become such a joke that here is the temple, but it's not a building, it's a person. It's the person of Jesus, and it's the person who is, in fact, God become human to be and do for us what we could never do for ourselves. And so Jesus says that this building no longer serves its purpose. The true temple is here, and the true temple is

here to do and fulfill the reality to which the temple pointed. And notice what he said, this temple will be rebuilt when? Three days. What's he pointing forward to? He's pointing to his death. He's pointing to his death, which would be the place where humanity's sinfulness was dealt with, God's justice was brought upon it, and Jesus absorbed the collective effects of humanity, selfishness and sin and evil to Himself. He let it do its worst to Him, right? The Creator God becomes weak and takes into Himself all of the mess that we have created. And in the rituals of the temple, this was all the whole point of what sacrifice was about, was we created such a huge mess in this world. We have the death of

these animals to remind us of what the gravity of just the horror of what humans have caused in God's good world. And so here is the Creator God taking that into Himself in Jesus. But it's not just to make us feel horrible about ourselves. The whole point is to reconcile human space and God space together. And so the temple will be raised, right? What human sin caused in the world and brought to death, God's passionate love and covenant commitment will create new life out of. And so this temple will be raised. And so then in Jesus' resurrection from the dead, he becomes the temple. He's this little walking, talking space where heaven and earth overlap. And then it gets even better, of course, because Jesus promises that he's going to send out his spirit. His spirit.

To those who look to him in faith, Jesus says, I'm going to give them the gift. Another Jesus, right? As we've been talking about in this series. Another comforter. My personal presence with you. And so if Jesus is the temple, and he gives the gift of his spirit, then those who grab on to Jesus in faith are also what? What are you? If you grab on to Jesus? You're the temple. All of this is in the back of Paul's mind when he just throws out this line to the Corinthians. You're going to divide up your church because you think like

this teacher and their theology is better than that teacher and their theology. You're kidding me. You're kidding me. What you're actually doing is you're reintroducing into the temple all of those old, human, sinful, selfish agendas that, like, created this whole problem in the first place, right? So, Jesus is the place where all of that died, where humanity's sinfulness and selfishness died and was dealt with and was raised, and Jesus is now the temple. And for those who attach themselves to Jesus by God's Spirit, you all together, collectively, you are the temple. And then he addresses individual Christians who have attached themselves to Jesus in faith. And if what's true of Jesus is now true of them, his spirit is now personally present in them, then all of a sudden, like,

your life is sacred space, and your life is shared space, right? That's the whole point, is that God's space and human space come together in this sharing of space where there's healing and where there's reconciliation. And so he points out to these guys in Corinth who are going around and they're sleeping with people who they're not married to. And he's just like, holy cow, you're treating your life as if it's just your own private space now. I mean, the line that he used is exactly, your body doesn't belong to you anymore. It's a temple. It's shared space. I have a little children's book that I read to my son, and it's called Your Body Belongs to You. And it's a little book about healthy physical boundaries

and how nobody's supposed to touch your body except for, you know, like this, your body belongs to you or whatever, except when mommy and daddy change your diaper or for, you know, like this, your body belongs to you, or whatever, and except when mommy and daddy change your diaper, or whatever, you know, like this kind of, it's one of those type of books, your body belongs to you, and like, dude, if there's a mantra, if there is a mantra of American culture, it is what? Your body belongs to, and if I'm a Christian, if I'm a Christian, it, it, and that's a good idea, that's actually, there's so much about that that's really good. Don't get me wrong on that, right? But it is a reshaping of my concept of who my body belongs to and what it's for.

If I'm a Christian, then all of a sudden I've attached myself to Jesus, and so my body actually doesn't only belong to me. It actually also belongs to another. that is, its maker, right? And that is the one who dwells personally in my life and is here to heal me and reconcile me to himself if I'll just stop acting the way that I used to act. It's recognizing that my life and my body and that this life and this body is shared space. And this is really where I think, man, it comes down to it. This is where it's hard for us to hear.

And the best thing I can liken it to is like the day-to-day struggle of like spouses or roommates in the reality of shared space. My first apartment, I moved out from my parents, and the first apartment I ever got, I had a roommate who was a good friend of mine, and some of you know this, you used to have a best friend, right? And then they became your roommate, right? And then you realize, oh my gosh, no, no, that was really bad. And so, you know, I'm personally, I'm not the most, I've gotten better,

but I'm not the most cleanly person when it comes to paying attention to the kitchen in particular. And so I had this roommate, and he was really hyper-aware of all that kind of stuff. And so I lived off of those little box pastas. Remember box pastas when you were, some of you were like, yeah, that's my entire diet, is those little box pastas that you buy, some of you were like, yeah, that's my entire diet is those little box pastas that you buy and they're cheap. And so one time I was making some box pasta and it was spiral noodles. And the, one of the noodles, have you ever had this happen? The noodles falls out and it goes down under the electric burners and then it just sizzles into a black crisp right under there, right? And so I was, oh, bummer. And so afterwards, you turn it off,

and you get the black noodle. And so I had this black crisp noodle. And apparently, somehow, it just ended up in the sink. And we didn't have a food disposal. And so there was like the little gross cup thing that collects all the food, you know, and you take that thing out, that nasty thing. And somehow, the noodle, when I was washing the dishes, got lodged under. And then it just sat there for a while. It sat there for about a month. And my roommate, like, he didn't, I remember we had our first kind of, like, really intense talk about how's this going for us living together. And he was like, dude, Tim, the black noodle. I was like, what? And so he took me in, like, and he showed me, like, the, and it was not black anymore. It was like black

and green and orange or whatever, like living, this living thing in there. And the reason it stuck in my memory is because it's this first kind of adult experience of really recognizing how important shared space is. The kitchen was shared space. It was unique, holy space set apart for the preparation and consumption of food. And I violated that space, right? And I violated it because I just treated it like it was mine. And like I didn't like it in my space, I don't pay attention to black noodles in the sink apparently. And that's not a value and that's not important to me. And the whole challenge of roommates and of getting married and of sharing space together

is it's not your space anymore. And actually, what if the person you're sharing your space with actually knows better than you about how the space needs to be maintained? Are you willing, if this is all about relationship, are you willing to hear out the fact when the Spirit points out and says, hey, remember your body shared space? Like, that's that activity that you're doing? Like, that's the black noodle thing, right? Like, that's not going to lead to life. That's not going to lead to health and growth and a deepening of this relationship. Actually, like letting that thing fester is going to rot and ruin you.

That's what Paul's doing right here. He's saying, letting selfish agendas in the church rip us apart, that's rot. And that's not going to lead to life in our shared space. That sleeping with someone that you're not married to, that will actually begin to rot and ruin your body and soul and mind. And so your body doesn't belong to you anymore. If you're a Christian, your body is a temple. It's shared space. Do you see what Paul's getting at right here?

This is a very powerful concept, it seems to me. And it's all linked to the presence and the reality of the Spirit. And so here's what I'd like us to do in the time that remains that we're here for worship. I want us to hear these words of Paul. And if there are things about our collective life here where you recognize that your attitude or whatever, the way you're viewing things in our collective life here at Door of Hope, it's not healthy, it's selfish, it's divisive or whatever,

then I would just encourage you, just ask the Spirit to point out, where am I choosing not to recognize this as shared space? And as we go into worship, I encourage you to ask the Spirit to point out areas in your own life, what you do with your body, things that your choices that you're making that do not lead to life, and allow the Spirit to point those out and to be like, dude, black noodle, black noodle. Like, that's not, you're not going in the right direction. Your body doesn't belong just to you. It's shared sacred space for healing and for relationship with your creator. These are very powerful words

that Paul addresses to the church, and I think we need to hear them and allow the spirit to speak to us as well. Amen? Thanks for listening to Exploring My Strange Bible podcast. Hope this is helpful for you. Hope it opens up all kinds of questions, all kinds of new avenues of thought for you, ways for you to think about yourself and your own life and your own purpose in the world and your purpose in relation to the people around you to be a vehicle

for God's own honor and glory and love to spread throughout his world. There you go. What an amazing set of scriptures to reflect upon. Thanks for listening. And we're going to continue on with the last part of this series in the next episode. So see you next time. set of scriptures to reflect upon. Thanks for listening. And we're going to continue on with the last part of this series in the next episode. So see you next time.