In His resurrection Christ, on the one hand, raised His individual body from the dead and, on the other hand, raised all His believers up together with Him (Eph. 2:6). Thus, He enlarged His individual body into His corporate Body, which is the church. Therefore, the temple typifies the corporate Christ—the church—as the dwelling place of God.
In His resurrection Christ regenerated the believers, who were raised up together with Him (1 Pet. 1:3), that they may have God’s life and nature and become God’s new creation (2 Cor. 5:17), which comes out of the old creation by its passing through death and resurrection. The corporate Body built by Christ in resurrection is altogether a new creation, not according to the old nature of the flesh but according to the new nature of God’s life.
The corporate Body of Christ in resurrection is of His Spirit (Eph. 4:4a), it is formed by being baptized into His Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13), and it is in our spirit indwelt by the Spirit of God (Eph. 2:22). God’s dwelling place is in our spirit. Therefore, the corporate Body of Christ is spiritual, and since it is spiritual, it is mystical.
Both the temple and the tabernacle served as God’s dwelling place on the earth. His dwelling place was first the tabernacle, which was movable and temporary, and then the temple, which was fixed and permanent. The tabernacle was the predecessor of the temple as the dwelling place of God on earth, and the temple was the consummate building of the tabernacle. The tabernacle and the temple were the same in use, and they have the same significance in typology.
The building of the temple was David’s desire. David typifies the suffering Christ, who fought for the kingdom of God. David defeated the enemies, gained the good land, and also bought the threshing floor of Ornan as the site for the building of the temple. Moreover, he received from God the pattern needed for building the temple. Throughout the days of his life, through all his difficulties and according to his power, David prepared the materials necessary for the building of the temple and gave his private treasure of gold and silver. Furthermore, he called the leaders of the fathers’ houses, the leaders of the tribes of Israel, and the captains of thousands and of hundreds, and they all offered willingly and prepared all the materials needed for the building of the house. However, God did not want David to build the holy temple for Him directly because he was a man of war and had shed the blood of many; rather, God wanted Solomon as the king of peace to build the house of God in peace. Solomon typifies the resurrected Christ, who builds the dwelling place of God in the peace of His resurrection. Therefore, Solomon’s building of the temple typifies Christ’s building of the church. Whereas Solomon and the temple he built played the strongest roles and occupied a wide span in the history of Israel, Christ and the church as the unique building of God in the universe are the centrality, universality, and goal of God’s eternal economy.
The holy temple typifies the incarnated Christ as God’s dwelling place on the earth, and it also typifies the church, including all the believers, the members of Christ, to be the enlargement of Christ as God’s dwelling place on the earth. The body of Christ was destroyed on the cross, and in His resurrection Christ built up this body to be God’s dwelling place. In His resurrection Christ also raised up all His believers together with Him and enlarged His body into the corporate Body, which is the church, as the corporate dwelling place of God. This corporate Body is altogether a new creation in resurrection; it is spiritual and mystical.