Now let us look at the New Testament. The first great matter in the New Testament is the Lord’s incarnation in Bethlehem. Incarnation is God entering into man, God putting on humanity. John 1:14 says that the Word became flesh and tabernacled among men. Originally, God dwelt in the heavens, but when He was born in Bethlehem, He came to put on flesh and to be among men. The flesh that He put on was a tabernacle in which He dwelt. Therefore, His incarnation was His tabernacling among men, and His body was the tabernacle that God had raised up among men.
In John 2, the Lord said to the Jews, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (v. 19). We all know that the temple which the Lord mentions here denotes His own body. Therefore, in His incarnation the Lord was a tabernacle and a temple, which are actually the same thing. Therefore, the Lord Jesus in the four Gospels was the temple of God among men, and God dwelt in this temple. Jesus the Nazarene is not only our Savior, the Lamb of God, and the Bridegroom who will take the bride, He is also the temple, the dwelling place, the tabernacle of God among men. God dwelt in Him as the living tabernacle, the living temple. The Jews, who were utilized by the devil, hated the Lord Jesus and crucified Him, thus destroying Him as the temple. However, after three days He was resurrected from the dead, and He released His life to regenerate us. As a result, in His resurrection many people were built together to become the enlarged temple, which is the church.
Now let us look at the book of Acts and the Epistles. The subject of this section from Acts 2 to the end of Revelation is the church as the temple. In 1 Corinthians 3 the apostle Paul told the Corinthian believers that they were God’s temple (v. 16) and God’s building (v. 9b) and that the apostles were God’s fellow workers for God’s building (v. 9a). Moreover, he said, “As a wise master builder I have laid a foundation, and another builds upon it. But let each man take heed how he builds upon it” (v. 10). Are we building with wood, grass, and stubble or with gold, silver, and precious stones? In Ephesians 2 Paul says, “So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, being built...into a holy temple in the Lord...into a dwelling place of God in spirit” (vv. 19-22). Likewise, Peter says, “Coming to Him, a living stone,...you yourselves also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house” (1 Pet. 2:4-5a).
Therefore, the whole New Testament is also a story of the temple. The Lord Jesus is a temple, and the church is also a temple. The Lord Jesus as the Head with the church as the Body form a complete temple. At the end of the Bible, a big structure appears—the holy city New Jerusalem.
The more you read the Bible, the more you will have the impression that the central subject of the Scriptures is that God in Christ came to be life to us that we may be built up as His dwelling place. Both the types of the Old Testament and the plain words of the New Testament speak of this same matter. What a pity that very few in the church today have seen this, and even fewer speak about this. According to my own experience, ever since I was very young, I attended Sunday school where I listened to people telling Bible stories and ministers preaching sermons. I often heard people talking about how Adam had sinned by eating the fruit that had been forbidden by God, but I never heard that the tree of life denotes God Himself and that God wants man to eat Him to receive Him as life. For about four and a half years after I was saved, I heard more than a thousand messages in a certain Christian group, yet I never heard a message which said that the tree of life in Genesis 2 signifies that God wants to enter into man in the form of food that man may have Him as life. Thank the Lord that over ten years after I was saved, I heard from a servant of God that the purpose of God is that He wants to enter into man to be man’s life and that this is why after creating man He put man in front of the tree of life. He wanted man to face the tree of life and to eat the fruit of the tree of life. Since that day I have been inwardly enlightened to see that God’s relationship with me is a relationship of life.
However, God’s purpose does not stop there. After speaking about the tree of life, Genesis 2 also mentions that there is a river, and wherever its water flows, there is gold, bdellium, and precious stone. Then in Exodus, when the children of Israel were building the tabernacle in the wilderness, the principal material they used was gold. For example, the lampstand was made of pure gold, and the ark, the incense altar, the showbread table, and the boards were made of wood overlaid with gold. Moreover, the garment worn by the high priest had a breastplate and shoulder pieces, which had precious stones enclosed in settings of gold. Besides these, the chains were a twisted cordage work of pure gold. The shoulder pieces were woven with gold, blue, purple, and scarlet strands. Therefore, when the tabernacle was raised up and the high priest, wearing the holy garment, went in to minister, the situation inside was entirely of gold and precious stones. If you read all of this, eventually you will see that the gold and precious stones are not for anything else but for the building of God’s dwelling place.
When we read the story of how Solomon built the temple, we see again that everything inside the temple was overlaid with gold and that the outside of the temple was covered with large and precious stones. You can imagine the situation when the high priest, wearing the holy garments and the ephod with the shoulder pieces and the breastplate, went into the temple to minister. Outside the temple were precious stones, and inside was the gold; the high priest was standing in the temple in the middle of all the gold and precious stones. Now we can see that the pure gold and the precious stones are for the building of God.
As we read on, we come to the New Testament. In his first Epistle to the church in Corinth, the apostle Paul said, “We are God’s fellow workers; you are...God’s building” (3:9). Furthermore, he said, “According to the grace of God given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid a foundation, and another builds upon it. But let each man take heed how he builds upon it” (v. 10). Then Paul went on to say that they should not build with wood, grass, and stubble but with gold, silver, and precious stones. At this point we should be even more clear that gold and precious stones are altogether materials for building God’s dwelling place. As we read on and come to the end of the Bible, we see a city of pure gold, like clear glass. Its wall is built with jasper, and its gates are pearls. At this point we should be absolutely clear that the gold, pearl, and precious stones mentioned in Genesis 2 are altogether for the building of God’s dwelling place!
I would like to tell you that the Bible is a book on building. The entire Bible shows how we human beings who are made of clay have received God as our life and are thereby being transformed within. God as our life is like living water flowing within us. The result is that we who are made of clay are being transformed into gold, pearl, and precious stones and are being built together into the dwelling place of God. This is the Bible’s focus from the beginning to the end. I say again that the Bible is a book on building. At the beginning it shows us some scattered materials, and at the end it shows us a completed building. At the beginning it shows us three kinds of precious materials—gold, pearl, and precious stones, and at the end we see that these three kinds of precious materials have been built into a city of glory and splendor.