Christ as the builder of God’s house

What if you find that what you are doing does not bring pleasure and glory to God? Or, what if you find that even your best efforts are imperfect? What if you come to see that building God’s temple today indeed means gathering and shaping living stones into a dwelling place for God’s pleasure and glory—and you say, Who is sufficient for these things? How can we even begin such an awesome task?¹

Building God’s house is a task that will be accomplished ultimately not by us. But by Christ. At one time he walked through the temple, through his Father’s house (John 2:16). A house that had been infested with people’s warped priorities. After he threw out the money-changers and animal traders, his disciples recalled the Scripture that said, Zeal for your house will consume me (John 2:17, quoting Psalm 69:9). Christ was zealous for God and his dwelling-place. His priorities were laser-focused on God and his house. Everything he did was aimed at pleasing and glorifying God. For his God-given calling was to save his people, and to make us fit to be with him and him with us forever. So Christ took on the punishment we deserved for our failure to be zealous for, to treasure God’s house and kingdom. He bore the whips and the stripes for our self-centred priorities, our giving our hearts to futile things, our sin of being interested only in building our own houses and kingdoms, while neglecting to love the people in our church, has been put on his account. His body, which he had said was the temple of God, the dwelling place of God, was pierced, crushed, strung up naked on a cross, yes, destroyed, for our iniquity. And yet he rose from the dead in three days, and filled his temple-body with glory (1 Corinthians 15:43). And he opened up the way for all who believe in him to find forgiveness, and have his righteousness on their account, as if their only aim were to please and glorify God, as if they found their only true and lasting treasure in God, as if they were always consumed by zeal for God and his temple. And so Christ, in his death and resurrection, becomes the cornerstone on which God builds his church.

So yes, it is God who is building his new temple, the church, on Christ. In him the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord (Ephesians 2:21). God is the builder. But the believer in Christ is a living stone, one who is being changed, chiselled, smoothed out. We don’t sit back and relax. And we don’t continue to pursue futile things. We get to be the temple with Christ, the foundation. So as God’s temple, we are called to please and glorify the Lord. We are to treasure that temple. So we look to cut off sin from our lives. We have God’s priorities as our priorities. Yes, because God is among us by his Spirit, we are called, motivated, and empowered to offer our whole spirit, soul, and body to the Lord.