Originally posted by tamborine lady:
Yes, we are the temple of God now. All of us here understand that.
What some people don't seem to want to pay attention to is that these words that were spoken by Jesus are for all of us!!! Not just the Jews. It doesn't matter how many times you say it, it doesn't make it so!
Tam
Words have meaning; but they only have meaning when taken in context. If you allegorize Scripture as you are doing, then you may as well allegorize the death burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ as well, and make it all meaningless. For example, the J.W.'s allegorize the resurrection of Christ saying that it was just a "spiritual" resurrection. It wasn't literal. His body didn't really rise. You can make the Bible say anything you want when you pull it out of its context in order to make it "apply to you."
You are like the little old lady who sought to find God's will by making the Bible "apply to her" in a similar way. She prayed for God to show her His will through the Scriptures. So she closed her eyes, opened her Bible, and her finger landed on the verse:
Judas went out and hanged himself.
That didn't sound very good. So she thought she should try this again. She closed her eyes, opened her Bible, and her finger fell on the verse:
Go and do thou likewise.
Once more she tried: This time her finger fell upon the verse:
Whatsoever thou doest do quickly
Yes, all Scripture applies to us. But only in the context that it is given. If we interpret Scripture in the light that you suggest, you would have suggested that that lady go out and hang herself, because that is how you are applying the Bible to yourself.
The Old Testament Temple was just that--an Old Testament Temple for worship for the Jews. It does not have anything to do with New Testament churches or even New Testament Christianity at all. It was an episode in history, never to be repeated again. In it we see the authority and deity of Christ, not the church. You are looking at the wrong thing in that episode. Focus your eyes on Christ, not the building.
What did Christ mean: "Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up again." That statement should give you a clue to what the New Testament Temple is.
If there is any building in the Old Testament that could be comparable to the church it would be the synagogue more than the Temple, for the synagogue was a place of teaching, a place of learning doctrine. Study Acts 2. That was the first priority of the New Testament believers--the teaching of doctrine. "And they all continued in the apostles' doctrine..."
The temple in the New Testament is the believer, and only the believer.
DHK