(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)
“A room with its door was by the posts at the gates. They washed the burnt offering there. In the porch of the gate were two tables on this side and two tables on that side, on which to kill the burnt offering, the sin offering, and the trespass offering. On the one side outside, as one goes up to the entry of the gate toward the north, were two tables; and on the other side, which belonged to the porch of the gate, were two tables. Four tables were on this side, and four tables on that side, by the side of the gate: eight tables, on which they killed the sacrifices. There were four cut stone tables for the burnt offering, a cubit and a half long, a cubit and a half wide, and one cubit high. They laid the instruments with which they killed the burnt offering and the sacrifice on them. The hooks, a hand width long, were fastened within all around. The meat of the offering was on the tables.”
(Ezekiel 40:38-43)
“Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “You rulers of the people and elders of Israel, if we are examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, may it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, this man stands here before you whole in him. He is ‘the stone which was regarded as worthless by you, the builders, which has become the head of the corner.’ There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that is given among men, by which we must be saved!””
(Acts 4:8-12)
A dry description of a Temple that didn’t at the time exist. But we see in it a focus on worship. A focus on sacrifice. These were needed things. Sacrifices to cover sin and iniquities, which enabled a full and open worship in God’s presence. These are foundational issues. These are the REASON there was a tabernacle or Temples in the first place. A way for us to approach God and get covered from all the things that prevent us from interacting with God. They all pointed to our need for God. And our need for something to help us reach God. God wants a relationship with us. He always has. And sin prevents that. It is a gulf we cannot cross. We need God to help us. God to bridge the gap. God to make us what we cannot make ourselves: righteous.
Jesus was THE sacrifice. He doesn’t COVER our sin and iniquities. He washes them off of us. At every level. His blood poured on the altar remakes us. Transforms us. Turns us from ourselves into copies of Himself. We get to inhabit His righteousness because He chose to inhabit our sin on the cross. He made an exchange. He went down to death with us so that we could resurrect to life in Him. He is THE foundation of it all. In Him we get free. In Him we get mercy. In Him we get grace. In Him we can be righteous. In Jesus, we are saved. In Jesus, we can journey toward God. In Jesus, we are new creations.
Summary
We become the Temple when we get saved. God inhabits us. We are the place that we meet with Him. We are clean. We are whole. We are His. Renewed and restored. The journey of our lives after salvation is the journey of realising that we can walk in the promises that He promised us. Renewing our minds to see things as He does. Becoming more like Him every day in every way because of the work He does in us. Choosing to put aside ourselves and to walk and live like He does and did. To be God’s children. It is a choice and it is centred around Jesus. He is the foundation of our lives with God. Outside of Him, we can do nothing. In and through Jesus, we can have everything God says we can have.
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