The Greek word for temple refers to the inner temple, not the outer temple. The temple of God is where God as the Spirit dwells and where we as His people worship Him. The temple is the place where we can render our worship to God. We must worship God in His temple. Today He is the Spirit who dwells in our spirit (John 4:24).
The temple is also the one Body, the church. First Corinthians 3:16 refers to a local church as God’s temple. The very next verse (v. 17) refers to the universal church as God’s temple. How many temples are there? In the state of California, there are more than fifty local churches. Each one of these local churches is an expression of God’s one temple. In each of these expressions, we are being fitted together and are growing into a holy temple in the Lord (Eph. 2:21).
Whether universal or local, all of these temples are God’s habitation, God’s dwelling place. Since a habitation is a dwelling place, God can dwell in His temple and rest there. A home is a place of rest. The place where God dwells and rests is our spirit (Eph. 2:22). How marvelous our spirit is! The great God can rest in our spirit.
The source of these aspects of the Body is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, who is the consummation of the processed Triune God. In eternity past, our God was triune, but He was not yet processed. He began to be processed by being incarnated. He continued His process by being crucified on the cross. He was processed further by being resurrected from death and Hades. He completed His process in His ascension. Now He is the processed Triune God. As the processed Triune God, He poured Himself out as the Holy Spirit to baptize all His chosen ones, the believers in Christ, into one Body. This one Body is first the Body of Christ, then the bride of Christ, then the universal new man, then God’s household or God’s family, and then God’s temple, which is God’s habitation.
Within the tabernacle there were the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. The ark was within the Holy of Holies. All the marvelous, divine things were wrapped up with the ark, and today the ark is within our spirit. The ark within our spirit is Christ, who is the embodiment of the processed Triune God. Our spirit is the place where He dwells, rests, and does His secret things. Many secret things are done by God in our spirit.
The church is the called-out assembly. We may say also that it is the called-out congregation. In ancient Greek society, a mayor of a certain large city would call out the people to make them a congregation that he might speak something to them. The New Testament uses the Greek word ekklesia, meaning a called-out assembly, to signify what the church is.
As God’s chosen people, we were scattered among the unbelievers. One day God called each of us out. Before that time, we were not thinking about God. We might have been thinking about our future or many things other than God. God called us out of all those things. In the teaching of the New Testament, God’s calling is a great thing. We are the called saints. In 1 Corinthians 1:2, Paul said that he wrote his letter to “the church of God which is in Corinth...called saints.” The called saints are the church of God. That the church is “of God” (1 Cor. 1:2; 10:32) denotes the divine essence of the church. As the called ones, we have been gathered to be a congregation, an assembly. The church consists of the called-out and gathered ones. Many who have not yet been called cannot understand why we meet so often. They have not yet realized that to meet together is to be gathered as the called-out assembly.
The church, the called-out assembly, is not only of God, but also of Christ. That the church is “of Christ” (Rom. 16:16) denotes the church’s element in life. The church is also “of the saints” (1 Cor. 14:33b), denoting the human components of the church. Based on these designations of the church, it is accurate to say that God or Christ is the owner, the possessor, of the church; but to say that the saints are the owners of the church is not an adequate interpretation.
The expression the church of God denotes the essence of the church. God, the divine person, is the very intrinsic essence of the church. Every entity has an essence; it has not only a nature but an essence as well. The church’s essence is God. At our regeneration, God was born into our being. According to our realization, we might feel that we were born of God only a short time ago. However, in the eyes of God, we were born of Him two thousand years ago (1 Pet. 1:3). When we were regenerated, the essence of God was born into us.
Our natural essence is not loveable. We may think that we are quite wonderful, but our natural essence is not lovely at all. We need another essence, God’s essence, to be born into us. God’s essence thus becomes the essence of the church. When we speak of the church, we must realize in a deeper way that the church is of God essentially. God’s very intrinsic essence is the church’s essence. In Revelation, the church is likened to a pure, golden lampstand (1:12). Gold symbolizes God’s divine essence. Since the church has God’s essence, it is pure, golden. God is the church’s essence, and Christ is the church’s element in life. The church is a matter of life, and life is the element of the church.
The church is also of the saints, denoting that the church is composed of human beings. God could never have a church composed of angels, because the angels are not qualified. The angels are God’s servants. They are not of the same family as God, but we are. God needs human beings to constitute the church. God’s divine essence and Christ’s element in life need human beings. Therefore, the church must be of God as the essence, of Christ as the element in life, and of the saints as the human components. Hallelujah for such a church, for such a marvelous called-out assembly!
The church has two aspects. First, since it is uniquely one in the whole universe, the church is universal, comprising all the believers in Christ in all times and in all places (Eph. 1:22). The universal church comprises all God’s redeemed saints in the New Testament age. The Old Testament saints, such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Moses, David, and Isaiah, were not members of the New Testament church. The New Testament church began at the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts. John the Baptist was not in the New Testament church. The Lord Jesus said, “I tell you, among those born of women, there is no one greater than John; yet he who is littler in the kingdom of God is greater than he” (Luke 7:28). This shows that John was not a member of the New Testament church.
At His coming back, the Lord Jesus will close the church age, and many Jews will repent. Zechariah 12 gives us the details of their salvation. The Jews will be saved, but they will not be in the New Testament church. We are the most blessed people because we are in the most blessed age, the age of the church. This church has a universal aspect, and it includes Peter, John, Paul, and all the believers through the centuries. It includes us, and it includes those who will follow us in the future.
The church also has a local aspect. In each locality on the earth, there should be only one local church. The local church comprises only those believers in Christ who live in a particular locality (Acts 8:1; 13:1; Rom. 16:1; 1 Cor. 1:2; Rev. 1:4a, 11). The last point the Bible teaches us concerning the church, in Revelation, involves the local churches. Revelation, the last book of the New Testament, depicts seven churches in Asia—the church in Ephesus, the church in Smyrna, the church in Pergamos, the church in Thyatira, the church in Sardis, the church in Philadelphia, and the church in Laodicea. These were seven churches in seven cities. The local churches are the many expressions of the one universal church. In the universal existence, all the churches are one, but in the local expressions, the one universal church is expressed through and in many local churches. These are the two aspects of the church.
The church is the Body, constituted by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, to be the Body of Christ, the bride of Christ, the new man, the household or family of God, the temple of God, and the church, the called-out assembly. We must see all these items in the proper interpretation of the teaching of the apostles. Once we clearly see that which is the teaching of the apostles, we can see that which is not the teaching of the apostles.