Much of the language and imagery related to the church in the New Testament is founded in the Old Testament. That is for a very good reason. As we will see over the course of time, including this morning, the church is not a New Testament concept, not solely. It actually finds its genesis, its beginning, in the Old Testament and the Covenant of Grace made with Abraham and his descendants. We hold as a body of Reformed believers that the Bible contains but one Covenant between God and man, with that Covenant being gradually revealed over the course of the history of the Bible, what is sometimes called, Redemptive History. And so we should feel no hesitance about claiming Covenant promises and images and commands as being given to and descriptive of the Church of Jesus Christ, which Paul himself describes in Galatians 6:16 as, the Israel of God. I give you all of this because what we will study today will necessarily involve the use of Old Testament passages to understand and apply what is said in our text.
Let us begin by understanding the context of 1 Timothy 3:15. Specifically, we are talking about chapters 2-3 where Paul gives Timothy instructions on the way the church is to be organized and overseen. Note here that at this point in history, the church is beginning to become an organized institution. Nowhere does the Bible conceive of the church as something other than that. It is people, but people set into order, into an authority structure designed for it and imposed upon it for their care by God himself who, by his Spirit, inspires the apostles to give some solid direction as to how to organize the church--hence the place, qualifications and roles of men, women, elders and deacons are all addressed in this section. Such organization can be traced back to the Old Testament, Exodus 18 being one example of this where Moses' father-in-law counsels him to appoint elders to help oversee Israel. The section of the letter we are looking at, which begins with verse 14, has Paul explaining that he hopes to come quickly to see Timothy, but if not, he says in our text, he has written these things in 2:1-3:13, in order that you may know how one should in the house of God conduct himself, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation/support of the truth. What we are interested in here are the four terms Paul used to describe the church: God's household, the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. These four terms are useful in helping us to define the church and its purpose. Our first five messages will deal with each of these terms. We begin today to look at the church as the household of God. And when Paul calls the church the household of God, he means to put together two related ideas. The church is, first of all, God's dwelling place. Second of all, the church is God's family. We will look at the first, the church as God's dwelling place, this morning, and look at the second next week.
God is described more than once as having a dwelling place-- The Garden of Eden is described in several places as the Garden of God e.g., Ezek 28:13). It was the place where God walked in the garden in the cool of the day to have fellowship with Adam (Gen 3:8). When Israel was in the desert, the Lord dwelt in their midst in the tent of meeting, which contained the tabernacle and the ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies where the Lord met with Moses and Aaron (Lev 26:11,12). Later, the temple in Jerusalem became the place God chose to place his name and his glorious presence (Deut 12:11; 1 Kings 8:29. Then, in the New Testament, the church is described as the place where God dwells by his Spirit (1 Cor 3:16; 1 Peter 2:4,5). Jesus himself tells us that he is wherever two or more are gathered in his name (Matt 18:20). And in fact in the Corinthians passage the church is referred to as the temple of the Holy Spirit. And so right away you can see that the Scriptures do not make such a great distinction between the church in the Old and New Testaments. The church is God's dwelling place.
There are a couple of assumptions that lie behind this description of God dwelling in the church--
The first is the assumption that the place he will dwell in is holy-- For God is of purer eyes than to look upon sin and he will not dwell where there is sin. That was why Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden. They had become sinful and could not be in the presence of God. And yet God, we know, chose to dwell among the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and chooses to dwell among the New Testament saints in much the same way. Now all of these were and are sinners and therefore unholy by virtue of being descendants of Adam. Since God cannot dwell in any place that is tainted by sin, these descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and these saints in the New Testament must in some way have been made holy. Which leads to the second assumption.
The church must be a body redeemed from sin-- And as we study the Old Testament we find that this is the case: Abraham believed God and was justified or declared righteous in the sight of God. And his descendants were cleansed of their sin by the sacrifices that God appointed to be offered for sin. Those sacrifices in turn pointed forward and anticipated the once for all sacrifice of Christ for the sins of the descendants of Abraham and the New Testament saints. The sacrifice of Christ, offered in shadow form in the Old Testament and offered in fullness in the New, was effectual, i.e., it accomplished the work of ridding the church, both in the Old and New Testaments of every stain of sin, thus making the church holy and therefore a fit dwelling place for God. (I know we are assuming here an identity between the Old Testament body called Israel and the New Testament body called the church. We will examine and prove this in another message).
The church is the dwelling place of God. While the heaven of heavens cannot contain him, he chooses to be present with his people in the church.
The church is the dwelling place of God and that has some important implications for us as a congregation, implications of blessing
It means that we as a congregation have God dwelling in our midst-- In fact this is why God has saved us, in order that he might dwell among us: 2 Corinthians 6:14-18 speaks to this as the reason why there must be no mixture either by marriage or in any other fashion between believers and unbelievers. He dwells among us. Think about that for a moment: God dwells among us, is here even as we speak, watching us, hearing what we say, receiving our worship, observing and testing our hearts and guarding us against the devil. And what I am saying to you just now is simply his word being presented to you in what I hope is a manner you are able to receive and understand. God dwells among us, and he does so even when we are not physically met together in this place, and the implications and applications of this truth are many and varied--
He saved us so that he could dwell among us-- Look again at 1 Corinthians 6:16,18. Put these two together and you have the reason he wanted us to be saved-- so that we would be his children and he could dwell among us as our Father. Our Confession speaks of the privileges and liberties we have as the sons of God. The greatest of these is that we always have our heavenly Father with us. He is always watching over us and caring for our every need. He dwells among us because he loves us, pure and simple. He wants to be with us, and could we as a group of believers want for more?
That the church is God's dwelling place means as well that he makes a distinction between us and the world-- Logically this is obvious. He will not dwell anywhere that sin is and the world is lost in sin. But more than this, the church has been since Goshen in Egypt distinguished from the rest of the world in the way that he deals with mankind (Exodus 8:22). When he judges the rest of the world, the church is spared his wrath. And he defends the church against the rest of the world (Ezra 6:11, 12-- where he even uses a heathen king to do the work of defending his church).
In short, that God dwells with us means God loves us-- And he loves us with an everlasting love. With cords of love he drew each one of us and joined you to Christ by faith and to each other to constitute the church, his church. And in love he chooses both the dwell among us and defend us against all of his and our enemies. He will not abandon this congregation, for he loves us too much. We are God's dwelling place and should expect that God will bless us as he dwells among us.
But with that blessing of his dwelling with us comes a responsibility to be undefiled
Israel of old was taught this in a key passage-- Numbers 35:34. The context of this passage, vss 29-33, applies God's Law to the matter of justice toward those accused of murder. This is case law, and teaches that a murderer is not to be permitted to live. But from this case a general principle is drawn in verse 34. The Israelites are not to defile the land where they live, for they live in the midst of the place God dwells in.
God's dwelling place would be defiled if sin were permitted to remain unpunished and unrepented of-- If the murderer is allowed to live, the sixth commandment would be violated and therefore the land would be defiled. But this principle could be applied in the case of any other commandment being broken. For example, we know Israel was exiled because of the worship of other Gods, because of the mixture of other false religions with the one true religion that worships the Lord and because of the breaking of the Sabbath. In fact the nation of Israel was guilty of breaking every commandment over a couple thousand year history and of thus defiling the land where God dwelt. The church is defiled when sin is permitted to rule in the lives of God's people.
And here is where the application to us comes in-- God dwells among us by his Spirit and warns us in 1 Corinthians 3:17 not to destroy the temple of the Holy Spirit. That word, destroy, in the greek, is also translated, defile. How could we do that? The same way Israel did-- by allowing sin to remain unpunished and unrepented of. By allowing the heathen and false religious practices of the world around us to be mixed with God's commands in the Bible in the way we worship or live our day to day lives; by failing to discipline those who bear the name "Christian" in order to bring them to repentance; by making the violation of God's holy Law a part of our lifestyle as the people of God. If we do these things we will be guilty of defiling the place where God dwells, of destroying the temple of the Holy Spirit.
And let us note carefully the warning attached to this command not to destroy or defile the temple of God--If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple. Who knows how many local congregations have died because of their wanton defilement/destruction of the place where God dwells, the church. Let us take this warning very seriously, my brothers and sisters, and see to it that we seek to be holy as a congregation and in our day to day lives. It is not a matter of convenience or living a good life so we are blessed by God. It is the demand of our holy God that we be holy.
What you and I need to take home with us is this: the church is not a club, it is not a group of nice people who are gathered together for religious purposes, nor are we here alone to do the work of God. We are the dwelling place of God and that makes us holy, holy even without our doing anything to live a holy life. Yet because God considers us holy, he expects us to live up to that wonderful status by reliance upon his grace. Now if you are present today and yet unholy, i.e., you are still in your sins, then you are separate from God and no part of the church. You may even have your name upon the membership roll of this congregation as either a full member or a non-communicant member. But if you have not surrendered your life to Christ by faith in his redeeming work by which he paid for sin, you are no real member of the church of Christ and you are under the wrath of God even as you sit here today. I urge you to consider the offense your life is to God and repent of your sin and believe in Jesus and be saved. Then you too will become part of God's dwelling place. God dwells in our midst, beloved, and let us remember that as we gather from Sunday to Sunday and live from Monday to Saturday. God dwells among us. Let us rejoice in that privilege and be holy as he is holy.
Rev. Arthur J. Fox, Pastor
10 Spruce Street
Middletown, PA 17057
(717) 944-5835