KNOWING GOD – THE GOD OF MIRACLES – Lesson Twenty
MIRACLE OF THE SPIRITUAL TEMPLE
1 Corinthians 3:16-17 – 16Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? 17If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.
(AMP) 16 Do you not discern and understand that you [the whole church at Corinth] are God’s temple (His sanctuary), and that God’s Spirit has His permanent dwelling in you [to be at home in you, collectively as a church and also individually]?
17 If anyone does hurt to God’s temple or corrupts it [with false doctrines] or destroys it, God will do hurt to him and bring him to the corruption of death and destroy him. For the temple of God is holy (sacred to Him) and that [temple] you [the believing church and its individual believers] are.
Comparison with Scriptures Regarding Herod’s Temple: It is believed that Herod’s Temple was situated on Mount Moriah where Abraham had offered up his son Isaac. Genesis 22:2 – Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”
Compare: John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Mark 15:22 – They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull).
Luke 23:33 – When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals-one on his right, the other on his left.
Mount Moriah is also the hill where Solomon built the temple. 2 Chronicles 3:1-2 – Then Solomon began to build the temple of the LORD in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the LORD had appeared to his father David. It was on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, the place provided by David. 2He began building on the second day of the second month in the fourth year of his reign.
See 1 Chronicles 21:18-22:1.
Refer to the destruction of Solomon’s temple – Jeremiah 52:12-14 – 12On the tenth day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard, who served the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. 13He set fire to the temple of the LORD, the royal palace and all the houses of Jerusalem. Every important building he burned down. 14The whole Babylonian army under the commander of the imperial guard broke down all the walls around Jerusalem.
Compare John 2:18-22 – 18Then the Jews demanded of him, “What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”
19Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
20The Jews replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
Application: Let us thank the GOD OF MIRACLES for the hope contained in 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 – 23May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.
See Haggai 2:3-9 – [V.3 – “Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it not seem to you like nothing? See Ezra 3:10-13.
V.9 – “The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,’ says the LORD Almighty. ‘And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the LORD Almighty.”
“The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,’ says the LORD Almighty. Compare: John 1:14 – The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Matthew 7:28-29 – 28When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, 29because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.
Matthew 9:8, 33 – 8When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to men.
33And when the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute spoke. The crowd was amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.”
Matthew 12:41-42 – 41The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here. 42The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here.
Matthew 15:31 – The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.
‘And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the LORD Almighty. Note: Psalm 85:8-9 – 8I will listen to what God the LORD will say; he promises peace to his people, his saints–but let them not return to folly. 9Surely his salvation is near those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land.
Luke 2:14 – “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”
Ephesians 2:14 – For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility,]
General Application: Let us seek to honor the GOD OF MIRACLES in thankfulness for the great privilege of being “spiritual temples.” 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 – 19Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.