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Credit: DH Illustration
A man who had led in the shedding of blood was forbidden from building the temple. This was God’s instruction to David (Chronicles 22:8 and 28:3 in the Jewish and Christian Bible), the warrior-king held in highest regard in the history of Israel. God also told David that he did not need a house, and instead, that he would be the one building David’s household for him, starting with a son, Solomon, who eventually did build a grand temple.
The site of Solomon’s temple was not a site of any of David’s triumphs, but instead a place where he expressed repentance of sin (2 Chronicles 3:1). Solomon also wrote some of the ‘wisdom books’ that became part of the Bible, and he recorded: “God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few” (Ecclesiastes 5:2). The only appropriate attitude of sinful humans before a holy God, who eventually desires ahimsa (non-violence), is silence and humility.
And silence and humility do not need a temple. In the centuries that followed, God allowed the Solomonic and successive Jewish temples to be destroyed. Their only remnant today is the ‘Western Wall’ in Jerusalem. Decades before the last of those demolitions in 70 AD, Jesus Christ explained the true meaning of ‘temple’. He called his body the temple, because God’s presence was fully in him. He then spoke of a spiritual oneness between him and his believers, and thus, it was mutually understood among the believers, “You are God’s temple … God’s Spirit dwells in you” (1 Corinthians 3:16).
In this evolution, physical temples receded into the background and, in the Bible, the word ‘church’ always means Christ’s followers, not buildings. It is he who puts new spiritual life into those who admit to him that self-purification is beyond them, and that they need help – free forgiveness through Christ’s sacrifice, and not through self-attainment.
Thus, there is no building for humans to ritually purify. Instead, Christ purifies the worshippers – the real temple – and helps them live life to his standards. “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? … So honour God with
your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) in daily duties.