The 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. Far more frequently, we find terms from the Temple 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 Apostle Paul, for example, applies the Greek term translated as “Sanctuary of God” to the Assembly in the city of Corinth, and he uses 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 Sigurdur Fjalar Jonsson on Unsplash]

Similar terms applied by the New Testament to the Church are from the Septuagint Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible’s description of the Tabernacle and the later Temple complex in the City of Jerusalem.

The employment of this language illustrates the identity of God’s people under the New Covenant. In Paul’s epistles, 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 sanctuary proper, 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.”

In Ephesians, Paul mixes his metaphors. 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 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”). Moreover, His presence makes it “holy.” Therefore, it 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).

THE SANCTUARY IS HOLY

Language about preserving the Temple’s holiness and the punishment that awaits those who “defile” the Sanctuary reflects the purity regulations of the Tabernacle in 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 a 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 identifies the local congregation as the “Sanctuary of God,” the place inhabited by Yahweh. To fortify 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 possessed by believers demonstrates that God dwells 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. As the Apostle teaches elsewhere, the institutions of the old covenant were “types” and “glimpses” of the true realities that Jesus is now actualizing in and through his New Covenant community - (Colossians 2:16-17).

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

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SEE ALSO:

• One Spirit, One People - (By his death and resurrection, Jesus formed one covenant community - One New Man - based on faith in him, not ethnicity or nationality – Ephesians 2:11-22)

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

• Seated in the Sanctuary - (The Man of Lawlessness will be unveiled when he seats himself in the House of God - 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4)

• Assis dans le Sanctuaire - (L'Homme de l'Anarchie sera révélé à ceux qui ont des yeux pour voir quand il prendra sa place dans la Maison de Dieu - 2 Thessaloniciens 2: 3-4)