THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH

 

Chapter 5

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The Church, A Spiritual Building

From Cathedral Mentality to Living Stones​

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Eph. 2:19-22 Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

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Those who build houses do so either for their private use or for commercial purposes. The reason God designates the Christian Church (you and I that have actively believed the Gospel of Christ) in both individual and corporate senses as a house, is to provide Himself shelter here in a physical realm. God is Spirit. To do business in a physical world, He works through visible agents aligned to His interest. That is why we have such Scriptures as 2 Cor. 6:14-18, quoted above.

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Although God built us for this purpose originally, He does not force His way into us without our permission. He stands at the doors of our hearts (this building) and knocks with the preaching of Jesus Christ (Rev. 3:20). Those who introduced this Gospel are Christ’s original Apostles. Ours is to continue in their doctrine which is also the doctrine of Christ, as in Acts 2:42 and 2 John 9-11. When the debris of sin is purged from our hearts and the Holy Spirit (the spirit of righteousness) replaces through faith in the good news about the atoning work of Christ for us, then, God has a house to live in on earth to do business.

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It is in this sense that the Bible calls us “workers together with God” in 1 Cor. 3:9. But, we must allow God to complete the building process so that He can abide within us. That is important because some of us (believers) are incomplete and not willing to allow God’s Spirit both to kill our sinful nature (Gal. 2:20; 5:16-17) and to renew our minds in order to know how good, pleasing and perfect the new will or nature of God in Christ is (Rom. 12:1-2). This is imperative because Scriptures preserved for our learning have illustrated this in the call of Abraham to, as a matter of principle, LEAVE his father’s house, place and people, before God would bless him (Gen. 12:1-2). The shadow or analogy of leaving has its substance today in how we are believers in Christ only after we have left the standards and customs of this world system to be transformed into the image of God through Christ. That is where the real enemy and the warfare is – the enemy of the cravings of our old  sinful nature, and until we kill all as illustrated in Israel’s war against Amalek (1 Sam. 15:1-3), we cannot be a building for God’s in-dwelling.

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Dear sister, your war is not against that mother-in-law. Bro., the war is not against that supposed witch (Eph. 6:12). Read Jam. 4:1-5 and discover the source of the problem. Upon some who profess the Christian Faith, God has lavished His resources with an expectation to qualify them as teachers of the life of Christ to others. But, as we speak, many are still infants in the things of Christ and therefore they are learners, but not fit to teach (Heb. 5:9-6:3).

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Let us therefore not forget that believers are the dwelling place of God (Eph. 2:22). He owns us, and He lives in us by his Spirit. We are His, bought with a price (1 Cor. 6:19-20).

 

Evaluation Questions & Answers​

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1. In 1 Pet. 2:4-5 and Eph. 2:20-22, God says He has built His house or Temple with what?

   • Living stones: people, not granite. “You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house.” (1 Pet. 2:5)

   • Foundation: Apostles and Prophets.

   • Cornerstone: Christ (Eph. 2:20).

   • Mortar: the Holy Spirit joins us – “being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit” (Eph. 2:22).

   • Cathedrals are shadows; believers are substance.

2. God does not dwell in houses made with hands (Acts 17:24-25). When people trust a place or ritual instead of Christ, their worship is misplaced, and Scripture warns that such systems can become idolatry, which is demonic (1 Cor. 10:19-20). True or False? Who receives such misplaced worship?

   • True: If we think God lives in the building, our worship becomes idolatry which is demonic. God does not receive offerings because of the hall; He receives worship through living stones. If the hall is exalted above Christ; if money is given to buy favour not from faith, then demons hijack the transaction.

   • Who receives it? The spirit behind the motive. “You cannot serve God and mammon.” The building does not make the offering holy – the heart does (Rom. 12:1).

3. When Paul was distressed in Athens because of what he saw (Acts 17:16), what did he see that he called “shrines for idols”?

   • “His spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols.” (Acts 17:16)

   • Shrines for idols: “sebasmata”, objects of worship. Altars “TO THE UNKNOWN GOD” (Acts 17:23).

   • Today’s Athens: Cathedrals called “God’s house” while members live in sin. Altars with candles, images, “holy water” sold. Buildings dedicated, but believers defiled. Paul was distressed because religion without relationship is idolatry. He did not see churches, he saw shrines.

   • Application: If our “church building” has more reverence than our “church body”, we have rebuilt Athens.

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Declaration

I am a complete building for God’s occupancy. I am not a construction site that God cannot move into. Amen.

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