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The True Temple

Wherever two or three are gathered (drawn together as My followers) into My name, there I AM in the midst of them. (Matthew 18:20 AMP)

Jesus, as the Truth, is contrasted with Satan, the liar. But He is also contrasted with all representations, types, symbols, outward forms, etc., which were and are not the true, the real. When our Lord spoke of His body as the Temple, deliberately refraining from the fuller explanation because of the fixed prejudice of His hearers, He introduced the great truth of the transition from one dispensation to another, and the complete change in the nature of temple and worship. It was because Stephen saw this and declared it that he was murdered by these very people. Said he: "The Most High dwelleth not in houses made with hands" (Acts 7:48). Paul said the same to the Athenians (Acts 17:24). This does not mean that God never came into representations when they wholly corresponded with His thought. Both the Tabernacle and the Temple were "made with hands" and God came into them in power and glory, but not to commit Himself to the thing. The time came when He forsook both and He was no longer found there. They were only temporary representations and His presence was conditional.

The "true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man" (Hebrews 8:2) is "not of this creation." The whole Letter to the Hebrews has to do with this change from the earthly and temporal to the heavenly and spiritual. Hence, He is no longer in "temples made with hands." To come right to the point: the New Testament teaches that the Temple in this dispensation is a Person, and persons incorporated into Him through death, burial and resurrection, and "baptized into one body by one Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:13). We must also remember that Jesus foretold the passing away of that entire temporal system, with Jerusalem as its center and representation. With His foreknowledge of the passing of the earthly, temporal and material things; places, systems, fixed locations, and outward forms, the Lord Jesus put the whole matter of survival upon Himself as the constituent of a spiritual structure against which the very powers of hell would not prevail. Against fixed localizing and systematizing of Himself and His presence He was emphatic, and history is evidence of how right He was. If, according to John 3:16, salvation is a matter of "whosoever," the Lord's presence and true worship, according to Matthew 18:20, is "wheresoever."

You have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things.

God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. § It pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell. § Of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.

You anoint my head with oil. § The anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.

The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.

The Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

1 John 2:20;  Acts 10:38;  Col. 1:19;  John 1:16;  Ps. 23:5;  1 John 2:27;  John 14:26;  Rom. 8:26

Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.

If the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? §The blood of sprinkling … speaks better things than that of Abel.

We have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.

When Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people … Then likewise he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.

Heb. 10:22;  Heb. 9:13,14;  Heb. 12:24;  Eph. 1:7;  Heb. 9:19;  Heb. 9:21,22

All-essential Spirit

Ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit" (Rom. 8:9).

It requires more faith concerning the Spirit than concerning the Son.

"The believer, having received the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,' comes under the influence of the law' of that Spirit (Rom. 8:2). The operating principle of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus' ever works in the direction of profound self-judgment, and of the consciousness that we have in the Lord Jesus not only righteousness, but a divine Source of satisfaction and strength.

"This law' operates not to give a sense of claim (law), but of divine gift (grace) and resource and support. And thus it makes the one in whom it operates free from the law of sin and death.' It gives the consciousness that divine goodness is an unfailing resource for our hearts, and that all the treasures of that goodness are stored up in Christ Jesus, that we may learn them there, and find the life of our spirits in the growing knowledge of Him." -C.A.C.

"The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus' made me free from the law of sin and death' - not the life,' but the Spirit of life,' - not our effort, but divine strength; not self-occupation, but occupation with Him in whom we are before the Father, and in whom the divine favor rests upon us full and constant, because on Him it rests." -F.W.G.

"The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death' (Rom. 8:2). There is the substitution of the power of the Spirit for the power of a right will and human effort, the substitution therefore of occupation with the glorified Lord Jesus Christ for occupation with spiritual growth; for then and thus alone is growth obtained." -F.W.G.

"Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh" (Gal. 5:16).

Nehemiah, Man of Action - (3)

Predestined by God