The Sanctuary of God

The New Testament applies temple language from the Hebrew Bible to the Body of Christ, the habitation of the Living God.

Except for contacts between Jesus and the early church with the priestly authorities, the New Testament shows little interest in the Jerusalem Temple. Instead, we find that terminology and imagery from the Temple are applied to the New Covenant community of Jesus. What the Temple and earlier Tabernacle foreshowed has come to fruition in Christ and his Church.

The Apostle Paul, for example, uses the Greek term translated as the “Sanctuary” for the Church of Corinth, and he employs related terms when describing other congregations – (e.g., ‘naos theou’, ναος θεου, “We are the sanctuary of the Living God, even as God said, I will dwell in them…” - 2 Corinthians 6:16, 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4).

[Photo by Sigurdur Fjalar Jonsson on Unsplash]

Similar terms in the New Testament for the Church are derived from the Septuagint Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible’s description of the Tabernacle and the later Temple complex in Jerusalem.

The employment of this language illustrates the identity of God’s people under the New Covenant. In Paul’s epistles, the English term “Sanctuary of God” translates the Greek clause ‘ton naon tou theou’ and the noun ‘naos’, the latter meaning “sanctuary.” In the Septuagint, ‘naos’ refers to the inner sanctum of the Tabernacle and the Temple, the sanctuary proper, or the “Holy of Holies.”

Paul applies the term to the local congregation four times in his two letters to the Corinthians. Once he uses the noun 'naos' by itself in Ephesians for the Church that consists of Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus - (1 Corinthians 3:16-17, 6:19, 2 Corinthians 6:16):

• (Ephesians 2:19-22) - “No longer are you strangers and sojourners but fellow citizens of the saints, and members of the household of God, having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, there being for chief cornerstone Jesus Christ himself in whom an entire building is in the process of being fitly joined together and growing into a holy sanctuary (‘naos’) in the Lord; in whom you also are being built together into a habitation of God in the Spirit.”

The Church is not a building but the assembly of the saints of God wherever they come together for prayer and worship.

The local congregation is God’s “Sanctuary” because, like the ancient Tabernacle and Temple, His presence dwells in it (the “habitation of God in the Spirit”). Moreover, the Divine presence makes it “holy.” Therefore, it must not be violated, sullied, disrespected, or desecrated:

• “If anyone defiles the sanctuary of God, God will defile him, for the sanctuary of God is holy, and such are you” - 1 Corinthians 3:17).

THE SANCTUARY IS HOLY

Language about preserving the Temple’s holiness and the punishment that awaits those who “defile” God's sanctuary reflects the purity regulations of the Tabernacle from the Torah. For example, the passage in Numbers 19:20 reads:

• “But the man that will be unclean, and will not purify himself, that soul will be cut off from the midst of the assembly because he has defiled the sanctuary of Yahweh.”

In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul speaks clearly:

• “And what concord has Christ with Belial, or what portion has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the sanctuary of God with idols? For we are a sanctuary of the living God, even as God said, I will dwell in them…” – (2 Corinthians 6:15-17).

The Apostle to the Gentiles summoned Jewish and Gentile believers to live holy lives by learning to remain “separate” from sin and idolatry. He identified the local congregation as the “Sanctuary of God,” the place inhabited by Yahweh, the God of Israel. To fortify his point, he cited two passages from the Hebrew Bible:

• (Leviticus 26:11-12) - “And I will set my habitation in your midst, and my soul will not abhor you, But I will walk to and fro in your midst, and will be unto you a God, and you will be to me a people.”

• (Jeremiah 31:33) - “For this is the covenant which I will solemnize with the house of Israel after those days, declares Yahweh, I will put my law within them, Yea, on their heart will I write it. Thus, I will become their God, and they will become my people.”

The Gift of the Spirit possessed by believers demonstrates that God dwells among His people. Collectively, they constitute the “Sanctuary of God” in each city where the followers of Jesus gather for prayer and worship.

The identification of the local assembly as the “Sanctuary of God” is built on promises of the New Covenant in the Hebrew Bible. As the Apostles taught, the institutions of the “former covenant” were “types,” “shadows,” and “glimpses” of the true realities that Jesus inaugurated and now maintains in his New Covenant community:

• “Let no man, therefore, judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a feast day or a new moon or a sabbath day, which are a shadow of the things to come, but the body is of Christ” - (Colossians 2:16-17).

• “But Christ, having become a high priest of the good things to come, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands…” – (Hebrews 9:11. Compare Hebrews 8:13).

• “For the law having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, complete those who draw near” – (Hebrews 10:1).

The Tabernacle and the Temple were “shadows” of God’s greater reality that indwells His people. Wherever we as Christ’s followers gather for worship, the Spirit is present and working among us in the True and Greater “Sanctuary of God.”

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SEE ALSO:

• The Mission - (The mission of the Assembly of Jesus is to proclaim the Good News of his Kingdom to all Nations until he returns – Matthew 24:14

• Kingdom of Priests - (Disciples reign with Jesus as priests who render service in his Tabernacle and mediate his light and Word in the World)

• The Congregation - (The New Testament usage of the term “assembly” or “congregation” is derived from the language and imagery of Israel assembled before Yahweh)

• Die Behausung des lebendigen Gottes - (Das Neue Testament wendet die Tempelsprache aus der hebräischen Bibel auf den Leib Christi an, die Behausung des lebendigen Gottes)