by F. L. Anderson
There is nothing righteous about a building. Most people agree that the building where people meet is not the church. Yet, when you point to a religious building with a steeple on top, and ask, "What is that?" They all say, "It's a church."
Believers have been trained and conditioned to believe and call the building in which the Church meets, the “House of God” or “the Lord’s house.” In the New Testament, there is never any reference to the Lord’s house being a structure in which Christians worship, nor is there any indication that the church gave any special consideration to the building in which they met.
New Covenant Church
After the death and resurrection of Jesus, there arose a new temple. Paul is one of the first to mention this new temple. The Church, the body of Christ, has become the new temple. In 1 Corinthians 3:16 Paul says this, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?”
Despite the false doctrine and ignorance of many Church leaders and their appetite for the Old Testament glory of the temple, God doesn't live in buildings anymore. God left the building a long time ago. God's storehouse, His temple, His Church, is now His people.
Certainly, the writers of the New Testament seem to have had a clearer understanding of what truly constitutes "the church", something that is foreign to most Christians today. They referred to the people of God as God's building (1 Corinthians 3:9, Ephesians 2:19-22), God's temple (1 Corinthians 3:16-17), God's house (1 Timothy 3:15, Hebrews 3:6, 10:21, 1 Peter 2:17), God's household (Ephesians 2:19, Galatians 6:10) and Christ's body (Romans 12:4-5, 1 Corinthians 12:12, Ephesians 3:6, 5:23, 30). Christians in the New Testament didn't go to church. They were the church! They were God's building! They were God's temple! As Howard Snyder states succinctly in The Problem of Wineskins Today " A church building cannot properly be "the Lord's house" because in the new covenant this title is reserved for the church as people. So, if church buildings have any justification, it can only be practical and simply a place to meet and carry on essential functions, as necessary."
In an article entitled Four Tragic Shifts in the Visible Church, 180-400 A.D., Zens writes. "Some assert that since the early church met primarily in homes, we are obliged to emulate this example. I think the primary theological point of the New Testament in this regard is that under the New Covenant there are no holy places. Contemporary Christianity has almost no grasp of this significant point. Taking a cue from the Old Covenant, people are still lead to believe that a church building is 'the house of God.' Believers are free to meet any place in which they can foster, cultivate and attain the goals set before them by Christ. The problem today is that many church structures neither promote nor accomplish Christ's desires for His body. Homes are a neutral place for believers to meet, and the early church flourished well into the first and second centuries without erecting any temple-like edifices. But the issue is still not in what type of place believers gather, but what shape their committed life together takes as they wrestle with the many duties and privileges flowing out of the priesthood of all believers."
The temple, which was constructed by Solomon, and rebuilt by Ezra, then built again by Herod, is no longer the place that God inhabits. Under the New Testament covenant of grace, there is no single House of God or physical temple or building that serves the purpose of the Old Testament type temple. You are the temple of God. Never forget that the people of God are the Church, not the building in which you worship. God has left the building.
See Also:
See Also: