The Holy Temple by A. E. Lemon

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Jan 14, 1904

The Holy Temple

By A. E. Lemon

A. E. LEMON, M. D.

“THE temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.” 1 Cor. 3:17. It is important to know how to preserve the temple holy, but we should first know what the temple is. “Your body is the temple.” 1 Cor. 6:19. Is the body of every human being a temple of God? We desire to know the truth. God’s Word is “the truth.” John 17:17. There we shall find the answer.

The Word does not say, Ye are temples, as of many; but, “Ye are the temple,” as of one. “The temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.” Is the body of every human being holy? Is it not God’s presence that makes the temple holy? And when he dwells in us, do we not become his children? “I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” 2 Cor. 6:16. Does God, then, dwell in every human being? God is not a formless, pervading presence, but a personal God. He sits upon the throne of the universe. He has dealt with this world in all the ages through his Son Jesus Christ, who is both Creator and Redeemer, and who is also a distinct person, and a personal Saviour. Is Christ in every man? Either he is, or he is not. “If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of [“as to,” Gr.] sin; and the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” Rom. 8:10. As such can be said only of believers, it follows that only believers have Christ dwelling in them, by his personal representative, the Holy Spirit, as to 1 Cor. 6:19. And therefore only believers can constitute the temple. And, moreover, unbelievers are not united, and can not be one temple, and since they are not holy, they can not be the holy temple. And it follows that only those who are “holy brethren” (Heb. 3:1) can constitute the holy temple; for “the temple of God is holy.”

Now it appears manifest that the “holy brethren” are not all separate temples, but “all one in Christ,” and “members one of another.” Let Paul tell us what the temple is: “Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord.” Eph. 2:19, 20. This is the temple of which the prophet wrote: “Behold the man whose name is The BRANCH; . . . he shall build the temple of the Lord, . . . and he shall bear the glory.” Zech. 6:12. The temple at Jerusalem was a prophecy of Christ, the greater temple. The Jews sought to destroy the greater temple by killing Christ. But he said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. . . . But he spake of the temple of his body.” John 2:19-21. So it is that we can be the temple of God only as we partake of Christ, and by the new birth so become “members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.” Eph. 5:30.

Such only is the temple of God, which in its true Scriptural light becomes the glorious “habitation of God through the Spirit,” when Christ dwells in our hearts by faith, through his personal representative, the Holy Spirit. May every reader seek to become a living stone in God’s temple (1 Peter 2:5), not by works of eating and drinking (Rom. 14:17), nor by the works of the flesh (Rom. 3:20), but washed, sanctified, and justified, in the name of Jesus and by the Spirit of God. 1 Cor. 6:11. And when we let the Holy Spirit cleanse our hearts from sin, and make his abode with us, we shall live to God’s glory, with one object, to save souls. And then when Christ comes in a little while from this, he will “change our vile body,” and redeem us to himself. Let us not “mind the things of the flesh,” but with the last warning message as our watchword, press forward to warn the world of its impending doom.