A. E. LEMON, M. D by A. E. Lemon, M. D.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Jan 21, 1904

A. E. LEMON, M. D

By A. E. Lemon, M. D.

The Holy Temple—No. 2

A. E. LEMON, M. D

The temple of God is the body of Christ. John 2:21. And we become the temple of God only as we partake of Christ, and become “members of his body.” Eph. 5:30.

Now, does the term “temple,” as applied to the Christian, mean the physical body, or the soul, or the whole individual? “Your body is the temple.” 1 Cor. 6:19. And so some might think that the physical, fleshly body, of which the stomach is a most important member, constitutes the temple. But let us turn on the search-light of Scripture.

The temple is God’s dwelling-place. 2 Cor. 6:16. But where does Christ dwell? “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.” Eph. 3:17. The heart is the mind, the intellect. “With the heart man believeth unto righteousness.” Rom. 10:10; Heb. 10:16. But since the “body is the temple,” and since God dwells in the mind, it follows that the whole individual is the temple of God. “Ye are the temple.”

We have ceased to believe that the soul is immortal, but it is hard for us to get away from the rest of Plato’s heathen doctrine that the soul is an entity in itself apart from the body. In the beginning of the Bible God gives an illustrated definition of the soul. He “formed man out of the dust.” He made his bones, the framework; his muscles, the working part; his nerves, the feeling part; and his brain, the thinking part. All these parts he put together into one complete, harmonious, indivisible whole. Into this completely formed masterpiece of his handiwork he breathed the breath of life. It does not say that he put his spirit into him, or that he put a soul into him; but that he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Thus man stood before his Maker, a living, thinking, working being. And what did God call this complete being? A body and a soul?—No. He called him a soul, a living soul. Gen. 2:7.

So let us learn to put away the old heathen notion, and look upon the whole individual, the whole being, as the soul. And so the whole man, not a body alone nor a soul as separate from the body, but the complete being, is the temple of God.

While we as individuals may become righteous by faith in Christ, and may become holy by the presence in us of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:11), our flesh, the matter of which we are composed, and which is constantly changing, is not holy, and nothing that we can ever do will make it holy. And while the care of the body is a work by no means to be neglected, yet we must remember that “flesh and blood can not inherit the kingdom of God.” 1 Cor. 15:50. If we expect to prepare ourselves, our body temples, for translation, by our own works in eating or drinking or dressing, are we not making the mistake the Galatians did? “Having begun in the Spirit, are we now made perfect by the flesh?” It is our human tendency to try to do for ourselves what only Christ can do for us. But we must learn the lesson that Christ is all in all. He, and not we ourselves, is the builder of the temple. We must yield our hearts fully to him, so that he can “dwell in our hearts by faith.” And so long as we are fully submissive to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, just so long we shall be kept by that power, as holy temples unto the Lord.