39.What is being constructed?

A "holy temple in the Lord."

Ephesians 2:21 is a significant statement. Some passages of the Scriptures teach us of God’s ways. Other passages of Scripture inform us of God’s purpose, God’s goal, God’s mark toward which He is pressing.

Ephesians 2:21,22 is one of the passages that emphasize God’s purpose in all His workings. He is creating a holy temple. The Temple of God is being constructed. The eternal Temple of God, the House of God, is Christ—Head and Body.

Here is one of the central truths of all Scripture. God is seeking an eternal habitation. Never again, as Stephen informed the Council, will God dwell in a temple made by hands. God will dwell only and forever in Zion, in Christ. Christ is the House of God. In Him dwells all the fullness of God in bodily form. But Christ is not to be the only room in the House of God. If that were the case He would have told us so.

In God’s House, in Christ, His eternal Temple, there are to be many rooms. Christ went to prepare a place for us. He went to the cross. There His body was broken and His blood was shed. His blood was sprinkled on the Mercy Seat in Heaven. Then His body and blood were given to His Church to eat and drink. This is how Christ is preparing a place for us.

Each believer, each saint, is being constructed as a room in the eternal Temple of the most high God. Each individual room is being fashioned by the Father with extraordinary care. No resource of Heaven will be withheld when one of the rooms is being measured and perfected.

In the fullness of time the Lord God will give the proclamation. Then the rooms of God’s House will flow together in unimaginable unity and maturity. The finished construction will be breathtakingly beautiful, superbly refined and adorned, a Bride for the Son having neither spot nor wrinkle nor any blemish of any sort whatever. Such is the eternal Temple of God, Mount Zion of the Psalms, the holy city, the new Jerusalem, the Church, the Body of Christ, the Wife of the Lamb.

In God’s House there are many rooms. Christ is the Cornerstone. Each member of the Body of Christ is an eternal abiding place, a living stone, in the House of God. Here is the fulfillment of the Old Testament feast of Tabernacles.