Tuesday, January 15, 2019

PT-2 "United in God's Temple" (Eph. 2:20-22)


SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/15/2019 9:58 AM



My Worship Time                                                             Focus:  PT-2 “United in God’s Temple”



Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Eph. 2:20-22



            Message of the verses:  20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, 21  in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, 22  in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.”



            We have been talking about the truth that the Church is the body of Christ, and the Church is also “a holy temple in the Lord.”  There is a truth that we also need to look at and that is that the body of Christ, the church, will not be complete until the last person whom God has chosen in eternity past will become a member in Christ’s body.  I have spoken about this many times in my Spiritual Diaries, and I want to now talk briefly about this once again and add some things that I have thought about because of my studying for my Sunday school class in Revelation.  Once again we have to go back to eternity past where God the Father told His Son that He was going to give Him a bride.  Psalm 2 speaks of this as the psalmist goes back into eternity past to bring out this point.  God would chose a bride for His Son and then His Son would come to earth to pay the price for His bride through His death on the cross.  We mentioned that the church will not be complete until the last person chosen by God receives an effectual call from the Holy Spirit, and once that happens the Body of Christ will be complete and the Lord will then come to the clouds in the air to receive His bride.  This event is called the rapture of the church and is yet to take place. 



            In my Sunday school class of a couple of weeks ago I was teaching on the wrath of God, which is one of God’s attributes and is seen throughout the book of Revelation, especially in the 16th chapter where we read about God’s final seven plagues given to those on planet earth.  I mentioned that as I viewed the wrath of God from different parts of the Bible that it was like a river that at times flowed slowly and at other times it flowed in rapids and small waterfalls.  As I was thinking about this and then with those whom God chose in eternity past my mind went to two specific acts of God’s wrath seen in the early chapters of Genesis.  In the 6th chapter of Genesis we read about the flood, and once the flood was over we read that man did not live as long as they did before the flood.  This is a truth that is seen in the book of Genesis.  Next I thought about the tower of Babble where God judged man by confusing the languages so that one day after this judgment people began to speak in different languages and so they went with people who spoke the same language and so most of the people left what we call Babylon.  As I thought about these two judgments my conclusion was that by these two judgments man’s ability to learn began to slow down.  Man did not live as long as before the flood and man could not communicate with others who spoke different languages.  Now as we look at the world we live in today we can see that because of man’s accumulative learning we are back to the ability of man’s ability to learn back before the judgment at Babel.  5 The LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. 6 The LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them. 7 “Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech." 8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city. 9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth (Genesis 11:5-9).  Now you may wonder what my point is in all of this when it comes to having the last person in the Body of Christ to be saved.  My thought is that because of these two judgments that many more people were born into the world.  If the languages had not been changed by the Lord then I believe that mankind would possibility destroyed the world a long time ago.  When we read about what will happen in the tribulation period and how God said that He will destroy those who destroyed the world that I believe this would have happened thousands of years ago.  God chose people for salvation in eternity past to give to His Son, and all of those people have to be born along with all of those who will not accept the forgiveness that God offers through His Son. 



            John MacArthur talks about cathedrals in Europe that have been under construction for hundreds of years as they keep on adding rooms to them, and this pictures the growth of the Church as each new saint becomes a new stone as seen in 1 Peter 2:5 “you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”  MacArthur writes “As kingdom citizens, family members, and living stones, believes in Jesus Christ are a holy priesthood who offer up spiritual sacrifices in God’s ‘holy temple.’  As a living functioning, and precious part of that temple, we ‘also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit (se also 2 Cor. 6:16).”  “Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, "I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM; AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.”



            “The term ‘ a dwelling’ (katoiketerion) carries the idea of a permanent home.  ‘God in the Spirit’ makes His earthly sanctuary in the church, where He takes up permanent residence as Lord.  This would be a vivid perception for people living amid temples in which pagan deities were believed to dwell, as in the temple to Artemis in Ephesus.”  This certainly is not true of the Church as it is not some small physical chamber where idols are kept.  The Church is the vast spiritual body of all the redeemed, where in it resides the Spirit of God.



            MacArthur concludes in comments on this section which concludes our study of the 2nd chapter of Ephesians by writing “Through the blood, the suffering flesh, the cross, and the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, aliens become citizens, strangers become family, idolaters become the temple of the true God, the hopeless inherit the promises of God, those without Christ become one in Christ, those far off are brought near, and the godless are reconciled to God.  Therein is the reconciliation of men to God and men to men.”



            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  It is all said in the wonderful quote from John MacArthur.



My Steps of Faith for Today:  When I am tempted I need to quote Scripture.



Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “The Geneva Bible of 1560.”



Today’s Bible question:  “After denying Jesus, what did Peter do when he heard the cock crow?”



Answer in our next SD.



1/15/2019 10:53 AM

No comments:

Post a Comment