A Living Temple

      “But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation” (Heb. 9:11).
      “Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:4-5).
        Here’s the progression of God’s dwelling place on the earth: from Tabernacle, to Temple, to a spiritual House of Living Stones. Scripture also refers to this His House and the Mountain of the Lord.
        End-Time Lesson: Paul describes how this House is being built during the two great Days of the Church Age. “Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit” (Eph. 2:19-22).
       This spiritual House is the “more perfect tabernacle not made with hands,” for each of us is a living stone fashioned after the image of Christ by the Holy Spirit. He doesn’t use a chisel to chip away at our ungodly habits and cracked thought patterns. He uses the gentle laser light of God’s Word to expose the darkened places in our soul and body.
         This spiritual reconstruction doesn’t happen automatically. The Holy Spirit offers us a blueprint of the next step in our being conformed to the image of Christ, but we have to give the “go ahead” to move forward with the reconstruction and be willing to do the work with Him. As with many such reconstruction jobs, sometimes it usually begins with demo day. We cooperate with the Spirit to expose those areas that are not “up to code” so the structure of our House can be assured and true.
       In Psalm 103:14, we are told that Father knows our frame. He knows that even though our spirit has been made new, the rest of our framework—our soul and body—need work. Philippians 1:6 informs us that this good work of being fashioned after the chief cornerstone will continue until Christ returns. And then, in a twinkling of an eye at the rapture, it will be complete.
        As the glorious Day of the Lord dawns, the Capstone will descend and gather His living stones and take us back to Heaven to be with Him wherever He goes. This “Living Temple” will then be seated as the immortal government of Heaven. We will remain in Heaven, ruling over the earth during the final 1,000-year Day (Christ’s millennial reign), for the earth is His footstool. By the way, this is why a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, complete with animal sacrifices, will be an abomination to God, an apostate temple.
         At the end of the Day, after the final judgment, God will make the new heavens and a new earth, and this completed Living Temple will descend to the new earth as the City described in Revelation 21. We are the City—the New Jerusalem—that is the center of the Kingdom of God on the new earth. It is populated with eternally righteous mankind.