3. Church people do not understand the concept of the temple.

 3. Church people do not understand the concept of the temple.

 

In Genesis 1:27, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." Most church community people say that the image of God is God's character. However, the image of God is a person with a body, and it is said that the temple was established in the person's soul.

Jesus likened his body to a temple. In John 2:19, “Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’” This temple is the old temple that must die. In Colossians 1:15, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” And in Matthew 24:1-2, “As Jesus was leaving the temple, his disciples came to him to show him the buildings of the temple. And he answered and said to them, ‘Do you not see all these things? Truly I tell you, by no means will a stone be left here upon a stone that will not be thrown down.’”

Why must this old temple be destroyed? The reason is that the owner of this old temple is not God, but he himself sits there as an idol. He wants to be like God, so he calls himself God.

The parable is the story of the vinedressers. In Mark 12:1-5, Jesus told them a parable: A man planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a winepress and built a watchtower. He let it out to tenant farmers and went to a far country. At the end of the year, he sent one of his servants to the tenant farmers to collect some of the produce from the vineyard. They took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Afterward, he sent another servant, who was brutally beaten and brutally treated. He sent another servant, who was beaten on the head and treated with contempt. He sent another servant, who was killed. He also sent many others, some of whom he beat and others he killed.

In the Gospel of Matthew, a person is expressed as a landlord. Therefore, a vineyard becomes a concept of a house. A house is a temple. When Jesus entered the temple and drove out the merchants, he explained what a temple was. In the Old Testament, the concept of a temple was expressed as Israel, but it symbolized the kingdom of God. Since God rules over Israel, Israel is the kingdom of God. In today's terms, a temple is the kingdom of God in the soul, that is, the saints become the temple. The temple is planted in the soul. In the Bible, this is expressed as the owner giving rent to the farmers. However, people do not know the temple in the soul.

God has planted the temple in my heart, but it has not yet become mine. The temple in my heart is a vineyard that has been passed down through generations. It is cultivating the field in my heart. It is the farmer's job to plow the hard land and cultivate the good soil. However, people do not do that. In the end, they do not know about the temple. The religious leaders who appear here are farmers, but they are in a state where they have not plowed the land. Therefore, it tells us that all Jews are like that.

The reason a farmer cultivates the land is to obtain fruit. Since he has received taxes from the owner, the farmer must offer fruit to the owner. Fruit is to obtain eternal life (Christ) through the temple in the soul, and to offer the fruit of eternal life to God. Offering fruit is to offer oneself, to be united with Jesus Christ, and this is spiritual worship. God is also a farmer, and the saints who have inherited taxes are also farmers. Farmers must bear fruit.

『When I went to a foreign country』 The house is a temple. The temple is planted in the soul, but God is outside the temple. Even though there is a temple in the soul, it becomes a den of merchants, and so God is not in that temple. The house that God gave as a rent has become a den of robbers.

"And he cast it out of the vineyard." This refers to Jesus dying on the cross outside the temple. In "He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others," the word "come" means that Christ died on the cross, was resurrected, and ascended into heaven, and then entered the hearts of the saints.

When the fleshly self (evil farmer) is destroyed and the spiritual self (another person) comes to life, it means giving the vineyard (new temple). The destruction is the destruction of the old temple, and the old man (the fleshly self) in the soul of the saint dies. The old man dying with Jesus is the destruction. The old temple (old man) in the soul collapses and the new temple (new man: resurrection) is built. It is not the previous vineyard (old temple: old man), but another vineyard (new temple: three people) that is given.

In 1 Corinthians 15:47, “The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven.” The second man refers to the resurrected Jesus. He is not from the earth, but from heaven, a spirit who was born with a spiritual body. In 1 Corinthians 15:45, “So it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” A living being means a living being. The first man became a living being through the medium of the earth, but the last Adam is from heaven and becomes an eternal being. In order for this to happen, death on the cross is absolutely necessary. The reason is that everyone must get rid of the body of sin (the old temple) that has been inherited from the first man, Adam. In Galatians 4:19, “My little children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.”

Jesus fulfilled the role of the first Adam and the last Adam. The first Adam was Christ, and God was present in the temple, but the first Adam gave the body of sin to the man and the woman, and that body of sin continues to be passed down through the generations. So the temple became the master of God. They are the ones who ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because they wanted to become like God.

That is, Jesus died on the cross, breaking the chain of the body of sin that has been passed down from the first man, Adam, and through resurrection gave the saints a spiritual body from heaven. He destroyed the old temple of the saints who were united with Jesus and planted a new temple.

Romans 6:5-6 For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection. For we know that our old self is crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. The old self is the image of the person sitting in the old temple. It is the image of oneself.