Day 506: Where God lives - Ephesians 2 vs 14 - 22

14-16 For Jesus himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in  ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 17-18 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 

19 So then - you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20-21 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. Ephesians 2:14-22 English Standard Version

When King Solomon finished the magnificent temple that was built for God, the first ever of it's kind, he asked an important question: “Will God really live on earth? Why, even the highest heavens cannot contain you. How much less this Temple I have built!” (1 Kings 8:27) Many years later the apostle Paul made the same point while preaching to some religious people in the city of Athens. He said: “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man.” (Acts 17:24) So even today, the grandest building made by man, whether it's the Vatican palace or some great cathedral, is not the place where God lives. Where did Paul say God lives? (vs 22)

We can read that short verse so easily – yet it's a most amazing statement. The invisible being who brought the earth and all galaxies into existence has condescended to live, by His Spirit, in the lives of men, women and children whom He has reconciled to Himself. That's what vs 14-16 were about – how God made peace possible between Himself and people, as well as between Jews and Gentiles. And it was God's own beloved Son who came into the world to announce this peace, and to bring us into fellowship with the Father. (vs 17-18) Why is this message of particular importance to the people Paul was writing to? (vs 19)

People who were not Jews in Paul's day would have felt themselves to be outsiders to the Jewish race who had been given all the promises of the Old Testament. Paul is stressing that they were no longer outsiders, but a very real part of God's family. He calls them ‘saints’! That's a word which means people who are set apart for God as being holy. They didn't have halos over their heads (as artists like to paint saints) but they had God's Spirit living in their lives. And what better place to find a holy person than in a temple! (vs 20-21)

Paul, like his fellow apostle Peter, used the picture of a temple to describe this one body of people from Jews and Gentiles who now belonged to God and sought to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Peter said of Christians: “You, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 2:5) But, as we well know, the most important part of any structure is the foundation on which it is built. How good a foundation would you say this spiritual temple of God has? (vs 20-21)

We can praise God and be thankful that our hope is not based on the Church as we often see it today – a place of arguments and divisions and people who often fail miserably. No, a true believer's foundation is the message of the prophets of the Old Testament and apostles of the New Testament, and the marvellous cornerstone on which the whole structure rests, the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says it is 'in Him' that we are made a fit place for God to live in by His Spirit. God is holy and, in Christ, we are made holy. May God help us daily to grasp how awesome a truth this is, and may we so live that God feels ‘at home’ in our lives.