Temple

John 2

19   Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

20   Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?

21   But he spake of the temple of his body.

Jesus is the perfect Temple. We are also Temples of God.

1 Corinthians 6:19   What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?

All day long, we are in the presence of the Lord. At every moment of our life we must remember Who dwells in us, Who is partaker of our actions, words, thoughts. Would we do what we do in front of our Creator ? But we do.

Sanctification goes in every detail of our life, every second of our life must glorify God.

That's what Jesus did, he is our perfect model.

We need to clean the inside of the cup, then the outside: The interior of the Temple, then the courtyard.

Jesus Christ never said not to clean the outside of the cup.

God gave to Moses the model of it in the desert: the Tent of God, which is the model for the Temple of Jerusalem, and the model of our spiritual makeover. I can't comment every detail here.

At the center, hidden behind a veil, the Holy of Holies. There lies the Ark of the Covenant, containing the Tablets of the 10 Commandments, Aaron's staff, and Manna. Stone wood and manna. The Seat of Mercy is covering it.

We are covered by the grace of God. Three different materials for three aspects of the covenant.

Here the Holy Spirit dwells in us.

The veil was disrupted at the death of Jesus Christ, he is our only High Priest. He leads us in the presence of the Father.

Inside the Tabernacle, in front of the veil, the incense altar, the lampstand with seven branches, and the table for the bread of Presence. This is the Holy Place;

Aroud the Tent is the courtyard, where is the sacrificial altar. The fence has the same structure as the tent, boards of wood and hangings.

Under the wooden boards lies sockets. The sockets are made out of gold for the Holy of Holies, silver for the Holy Place, brass for the courtyard. Only gold cannot suffer corrosion.

The Temple of Solomon, made out of wood, stone and metals, has the same layout

We are the Temple of God, made also according to this blueprint.

A temple is meant to welcome a god.

The Holy Spirit is meant to fill the whole Temple of our body, our Temple laid as described by Moses.

The Holy Spirit will flee when you let strange gods in, idols in your heart.

When the Holy Spirit leaves the place, an unclean spirit, or several of them will dwell there.

This is the parable of Jesus Christ about the house, Matthew 12 : 43-45.

Demonic possession. God can make the Holy Spirit depart as happened to Saul, king of Israel. Then an unclean spirit tormented him, he tried to kill David several times.

Anger, jealousy, muders.

A Christian has the Holy Spirit dwelling in his Holy of Holies. We can at the same time have unclean spirits in the courtyard. Peter did not accept that Jesus had to leave him to die on the cross; Jesus said to him: "get behind me, satan" Matthew 16:23.

Peter wanted to keep jesus for himseld, preventing him to save mankind. This is an image of how the church behaves. Peter represents the church.

Satan inspired him this idea. Jesus rebuked satan inside Peter.

Do we not pray "Out Father, deliver us from evil" ?

Evil need to be cast our of our Temple everyday.

Let's remember this all day long: we live in the presence of the Creator.

We must be worthy of it, clean the inside of the cup then the outside: clean the Temple from its idols, then clean the courtyard.