Temple

Temple

There are 3 Hebrew and 3 Greek words that are translated temple in the Bible. The 3 Hebrew words are translated house, palace and temple; the 3 Greek words are translated sacred, priestly, edifice, temple, a dwelling place, inner sanctuary and house.¹

Temple = name given to complex of buildings in Jerusalem which was the center of the sacrificial cult for the Hebrews. Three temples stood successively on Mt. Moriah in Jerusalem: Solomon’s, Zerubbabel’s and Herod the Great’s. See 2 Chronicles 3 & 4; 2 Samual 7; 1 Chronicles 17, 28:12-19; 1 Kings 6 &  7; Leviticus 16:14-15; 2 Kings 25:8-17; Jeremiah 52:12-23; Ezra 6.²

The word temple is used many times in the Bible in reference to the worship of GOD and as His dwelling place.

GOD dwells in a heavenly temple Psalm 11; Ecclesiastes 5:1-2; Isaiah 6:1-4.

GOD does not dwell in temples made by man Isaiah 66:1-2; Acts 7:44-50, 17:22-28.

Don’t put your trust in the natural or earthly temple Jeremiah 7; Micah 3; Matthew 12-1-8, 24:1-2.

We will dwell in GOD’s eternal temple Psalm 36:5-9, 65:1-4; John 14:1-3; Revelation 21.

We are GOD’s temple in the earth 1 Corinthians 3:16-18, 6:19; 2 Corinthians 2:16; Ephesians 2:19-22.

The key to this teaching is that GOD’s Kingdom has come on the earth because Christ gave His life as a ransom for humanity on the cross rose from the grave and ascended to heaven and then He sent His Holy Spirit to live in those who believe in Him. We are the temple of GOD in the earth. When we understand that GOD dwells in us so that we can serve and obey Him then we will walk in the fullness of His Kingdom while we are on the earth as it is in Heaven.

“Nevertheless when one turns to the LORD, the veil is taken away. Now the LORD is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the LORD is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the LORD, are being transformed into the image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the LORD. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from GOD, and you are not your own? And what agreement has the temple of GOD with idols? For you are the temple of the Living GOD. As GOD has said: ‘I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their GOD, and they shall be My people. Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of GOD, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple of the LORD, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of GOD in the Spirit.”

Study the gospels and see what Jesus said about the Kingdom of GOD.

All scripture is from The Holy Bible The New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1994

¹ Young’s analytical Concordance of the Bible, Wm. B. Eerdman’s Publishing Company

² The New Compact Bible Dictionary, Zondervan Publishing House, 1967