Sanctuary of God

The New Testament applies Temple language and imagery from the Hebrew Bible to the Body of Christ, the Habitation of the Living God.

Apart from contacts between Jesus and the early church with the priestly authorities, the New Testament shows little interest in the Jewish Temple of Jerusalem. Instead, terms from the Temple are applied to the New Covenant community inaugurated by Jesus. What the Temple and the Tabernacle foreshowed came to fruition in the “Body of Christ,” the “Habitation of God in Spirit.”

The Apostle Paul applied the Greek term translated as “Sanctuary of God” to the congregation in the city of Corinth, and he used related terms when describing other congregations – (‘naos theou’, ναος θεου, “We are the sanctuary of the Living God, even as God said, I will dwell in them…” - 2 Corinthians 6:16, 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4).

[Photo by Timothy Meinberg on Unsplash]

Similar terms used to describe the Church are from the Septuagint Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible’s description of the Tabernacle and the later Temple in the City of Jerusalem. This application illustrates the identity of God’s people under the New Covenant.

In Paul’s epistles, for example, the English term “Sanctuary of God” translates the Greek clause, ‘ton naon tou theou’, and the noun ‘naos’ means “sanctuary.” In the Septuagint, ‘naos’ refers to the inner sanctum of the Temple, the “Holy of Holies.”

Paul applied the term to the local congregation four times in his two letters to the Corinthians. Once he used the noun naos by itself in Ephesians for the Church that consists of Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus - (1 Corinthians 3:16-17, 6:19, 2 Corinthians 6:16):

• (Ephesians 2:19-22) - “No longer are you strangers and sojourners but fellow citizens of the saints, and members of the household of God, having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, there being for chief cornerstone Jesus Christ himself in whom an entire building is in the process of being fitly joined together and growing into a holy sanctuary (‘naos’) in the Lord; in whom you also are being built together into a habitation of God in the Spirit.”

The Assembly does not consist of men made of stones or goatskins. Tents and stone structures do not “grow.” The Church is not a building but the assembly of the Spirit-filled saints of God wherever they come together for prayer and worship.

The local assembly is God’s “Sanctuary” because, like the ancient Tabernacle and Temple, His presence dwells in it (the “habitation of God in the Spirit”). The presence of His Spirit makes it “holy.” Therefore, the Church must not be violated, sullied, disrespected, or desecrated - (“If anyone defiles the sanctuary of God, God, will defile him, for the sanctuary of God is holy, and such are you” - 1 Corinthians 3:17).

HIS PRESENCE DEMANDS HOLINESS

Language about preserving the Temple’s holiness and the punishment that awaits those who “defile” the Sanctuary reflects the purity regulations of the Tabernacle from the Torah. For example, Numbers 19:20 reads:

• “But the man that shall be unclean, and shall not purify himself, that soul shall be cut off from the midst of the assembly because he has defiled the sanctuary of Yahweh.”

In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul is explicit:

• “And what concord has Christ with Belial, or what portion has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the sanctuary of God with idols? For we are the sanctuary of the living God, even as God said, I will dwell in them… – (2 Corinthians 6:15-17).

The Apostle to the Gentiles summoned Jewish and Gentile believers to live holy lives by learning to remain “separate” from sin and idolatry. He identified the local congregation as the “Sanctuary of God” inhabited by the Spirit of Yahweh. To bolster his point, he cited two passages in the Hebrew Bible:

• (Leviticus 26:11-12) - “And I will set my habitation in your midst, and my soul shall not abhor you, But I will walk to and fro in your midst, and will be unto you a God, and you will be to me a people.”

• (Jeremiah 31:33) - “For this is the covenant which I will solemnize with the house of Israel after those days, declares Yahweh, I will put my law within them, Yea, on their heart will I write it. Thus, I will become their God, and they will become my people.”

Paul previously linked the “Spirit” to the presence of God that now dwells in the Assembly. The Gift of the Spirit that indwells believers demonstrates that God lives among His people. Collectively, they constitute the “Sanctuary of God” in each city where they reside.

Hence, Paul identifies the local assembly of believers as the “Sanctuary of God.” That identification is built on promises of the New Covenant from the Hebrew Bible, including the promised Spirit (“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit… And I will put my spirit within you” - Ezekiel 36:26).

As the Apostle teaches elsewhere, the institutions of the old covenant were “types” and foretastes of the true realities that Jesus is actualizing in and through his New Covenant community filled with God’s Spirit - (“Who, indeed, are rendering divine service with a glimpse and shadow of the heavenly things”- Hebrews 8:5, Colossians 2:16-17).

The Tabernacle and the Temple were “shadows” of the greater reality of God indwelling His people through His Spirit. Whenever and wherever Christ’s followers are gathered for worship, the Spirit is present and working among his people, the “habitation in the Spirit.”

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SEE ALSO:

• Living Waters, True Worship - (In Samaria, Jesus revealed that the presence of God no longer is limited to specific locations or man-made structures – John 4:20-24)

• Ekklesia, the Assembly - (The Christian use of the term church or ekklésia is derived from the assembly of Yahweh gathered for worship in the Hebrew Bible)

• House of God - (Jesus is the true and only way of access to the Father, the Greater Bethel, and the House of God – John 1:47-50)

• A morada de Deus - (O Novo Testamento aplica a linguagem do templo e as imagens da Bíblia hebraica ao corpo de Cristo, a habitação do Deus vivo)