The durability of a temple also symbolizes the imperishable nature of the church, the great house which God is building in the world. It shall advance till the world shall end. Other institutions wear out. Colossal edifices of state totter and fall, and the wrecks of mighty dynasties lie strewn along the centuries. But while every thing else grows old, the church of God endures. The great house grows greater; spiritual builders are at work, in our own and in other lands, quarrying out new stones, and polishing them, and setting them in the walls. Many a time have its enemies battered it, and threatened to lay it in heaps; but the gates of hell have not prevailed against it; it endures; it still rises; column after column is added to it; it will rise till frieze and cornice and arch and dome are finished, and the top-stone shall be set with shoutings of Grace, grace unto it. The church, the great temple of God, shall stand.
3. The temples of antiquity were distinguished by their beauty of proportion and perfection. The Greeks and Romans employed the genius of their master artisans and their finest sculptors. All that the highest skill and taste and cultivation could do was profusely lavished on those immortal works of art; and the results produced were those models of architectural strength and symmetry which succeeding ages, with all their boasted progress, have not excelled. Unity of design, the adjustment of many parts in one harmonious whole, each part fitted to its appropriate place, with nothing left out and nothing superfluous, but all united to produce an impression of beauty and harmony on the mind of the beholder—these were the characteristic excellences of those grand old temples to which the apostle compares Christians in our text.
They too are temples in the harmony and proportion of that character which the Holy Ghost builds up within them. Christian character is symmetrical. Like a stately temple, it combines many parts. Faith, love, humility, patience, meekness, hope, endurance, forgiveness, courage, zeal—all these are the materials which constitute the spiritual edifice. But distinct as they are, they together make one consistent character.
This harmony of the Christian graces is one of the best tests to distinguish true piety from its counterfeits. The want of this is singularly apparent in the bigot or the enthusiast. Such persons generally exhibit a disproportioned, unbalanced character. A few virtues stand out in unnatural prominence, while others seem wanting altogether. A few duties they will perform with the utmost punctiliousness, while others equally essential they never think of. Religion with them becomes identified with some favorite dogma or ism, and tends in that direction to a monstrous development. This distortion of character, this fungus growth in one direction and utter barrenness in others, evinces a want of grace altogether. Such persons are not temples framed by the Holy Ghost. Rather are they like rude, unsightly structures reared by some unskilful hands. Remember, if you are a Christian, you must exhibit the work of religion in your whole character. You cannot cultivate one grace at the expense of another. You cannot be all faith and no love; all humility and no self-denial; all zeal and no charity. It is not in that way the Holy Spirit works. The different parts of the spiritual edifice, says Paul, are “fitly framed together,” and “grow unto a holy temple in the Lord.”
4. Another peculiarity of the temples was, that they were the property of the deity to whom they were dedicated. No private individual owned them. Neither kings nor emperors nor the state were their proprietors; but they were regarded as belonging solely to the gods in whose honor they were built.
And how true is this of Christians, those spiritual temples which God has in the world. The apostle, speaking of the whole church of God, says, He has purchased it with his own blood. And to believers individually he says, “And ye are not your own; for ye are bought with a price.” “None of us liveth to himself, and none of us dieth to himself; whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.” A better title in the universe cannot be found than that which Christ has to Christians. He has bought them, ransomed them, redeemed them. They are his absolutely. He is the sole proprietor of these temples. No one else owns them. They do not own themselves. This is your position, my Christian friend. What you are and what you have about you belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ. You owned his right to it all when you professed to be his disciple. Whatever demand is made upon you for your time, your labor, or your property, by him or his cause, you are in duty bound cheerfully to pay. Ye are God’s building; ye are God’s temple; ye are not your own.
5. The significancy of the figure employed in the text will further appear when we consider the use to which a temple is devoted.
A temple was regarded as the dwelling-place of a divinity. The pagan temples had their sacred shrines, attended by priests or vestals, who claimed to repeat the oracle uttered by the gods. In the true temple at Jerusalem, Jehovah manifested his special presence, and the holy of holies was his dwelling-place. The Christian therefore may well be called a temple; for says the apostle, “The Spirit of God dwelleth in you.”
The hearts of many impenitent men are sometimes visited by God’s Spirit, as is indicated by the sudden awakenings of conscience; but never is the Spirit said to dwell with them.
Christians are truly temples, as they enjoy the presence of God’s Spirit. That presence is manifested not by oracular voices or ecstatic visions. Fanaticism may recite the vagaries of the imagination, and call them new revelations of the Spirit; it may be ever on the look-out for signs and omens, and boast that it can “dream dreams;” but such manifestations are no proof of the indwelling of God’s Spirit.