Word of Salvation – Vol.33 No.10 – March 1988

 

God’s Holy Temple

 

Sermon by Rev. M. C. DeGraaf on Revelation 21:22-27

Reading: Isaiah 60

Singing: BoW.H.605; BoW.H.803; BoW.H.305; 166; 471

 

Brothers and Sisters,

Last time, when we were looking at Acts 5 together, we began to see how (in the New Testament) the Church of God is also the Temple of God.  We referred (you will remember) to passages like 1Corinthians 3:16 in which Paul writes: “Don’t you know that you yourself are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells in you!?”  No longer is God’s Holy Spirit just concentrated in some special place like the Tabernacle or the Ark of the Covenant.  The Holy Spirit has been poured out on the whole church.  There is now not just one flame over that Tent in the Wilderness.  There is rather (at Pentecost) a flame given to each believer – and we together (as Peter says in his first Epistle) become, through that Spirit, “living stones” out of which God’s New, HOLY, and Perfect Temple is built!

That image of “the Church” and “the Temple” is continued (in a modified form) in our passage this morning.  I call it “modified” because Revelation 21 doesn’t just refer to us (“the church”) as a TEMPLE.  It refers to the people of God as a whole city and a GREAT CITY IT IS TOO!  When Christ returns we will become the New Jerusalem, the Holy City of God.  Set aside, chosen for His Holy purposes!  Made up of precious stones and streets of gold; its dimensions enormous and perfect in every way.  AND YET, despite the fact that he is primarily speaking about a city, we shouldn’t think that the Temple plays absolutely no part in John’s thinking.  He is, after all, copying a lot of his images from Ezekiel.  And when Ezekiel described the New City he spent well over seven chapters describing the new Temple and what was going to take place in it!!  John holds to the same basic message as Ezekiel but he translates it in a very different way!

In Old Testament Israel there had usually been a special holy place where God’s presence was especially concentrated.  In the wilderness there had been the tabernacle.  This was replaced in the Promised Land by Solomon’s temple.  When that was destroyed by the Babylonians, it was rebuilt 70 years later during the time of prophets like Ezra and Haggai.  That second temple was later replaced again.  This time by Herod, who built a rather large structure (most people say, more as a memorial to himself than to God!).

Whatever all the details may be, it is clear in the Old Testament that that holy place of God – the Temple – had an important place in Jerusalem.  It is difficult to reproduce exactly what it would have looked like, but we know from what is written that it was an imposing structure that would have dominated the city.

AND YET DESPITE ITS SIZE, AND HOLINESS, AND IMPORTANCE it was still only a PART of the city!  Just like the walls were only a “part” of the city, and the water-supply, and the markets, and the Roman fort, and the Roman amphitheatre on the outskirts of town.  NO DOUBT IT WAS A SIGNIFICANT AND IMPOSING BUILDING but like the Opera House or Centrepoint Tower in Sydney, many people soon learned to live around it, as if it wasn’t there.

IT ONLY ever took up so much space in their city and so much space in their lives.  There was a temple in Jerusalem, yes.  But, like in most cities, there was also prostitution, and corruption, and violence.  There was also a mob who could cry out for the crucifixion of the Son of God and the stoning of His apostles.  There were those (no doubt) who committed adultery within its walls, and used God’s name as if He didn’t exist at all!

There were many (as we saw last week) who simply put their religion in a box on the edge of their lives somewhere, to be opened at certain “religious” times but for the rest pretty much irrelevant to how they really lived during the rest of the week!

Ezekiel answers these things by describing a temple so big “you’d never be able to miss it!”  Through it God cannot be just hidden away!  John takes a bit of a different approach.  He speaks of a city where there won’t be a temple at all.  There won’t need to be – all that takes place in it will be dedicated to God.

He shows that in a great way when he borrows that image of LIGHT from places like Psalm 36 and Isaiah 60.  In his gospel, John had already described Jesus as the “Light of the World” and a “true light which enlightens every man”.  Now he describes the glory of God and the Lamb as the LIGHT of that CITY.  That image is partly a pointer to the fact that there will be no longer any need to fear.  BUT IT ALSO POINTS TO THE UNIVERSALITY OF GOD’S GLORY.  When I read a book I need light, when I do wood-work or fix my car or work in the garden or the school or the office, the same is true.

It is because of light that I can recognise your faces – and we can meet together.  Well, just as light now affects everything we do so then the desire to glorify GOD will affect our whole re-created lives, 24 hours a day.  People will look at us and what we are doing and say “Hey, isn’t God great?”

I am sure you are very much aware that by many standards we’re a pretty small church.  Yet it is still interesting how in a small group like this there is still so much diversity.

– some of us have been born in the Netherlands, others in England, or Australia, or even (the really fortunate ones) in New Zealand.

– some of us are older and hold to older values, others are younger and have (often times) very different priorities and tastes.

– some of you have university degrees; others never had the chance to finish high school.

– many of our jobs are very different – some sit at desks, others lecture, some work closely with people, others work more comfortably with wood and bricks and iron.

– when I walk into your homes some of you decorate them in the traditional Dutch “gezellig” way; others are very modern Australian; many of us are somewhere in between.

Without even speaking about theology and philosophies, even in this small church there is a great deal of diversity.

IF YOU CAN – JUST STOP FOR A MINUTE AND THINK ABOUT translating that diversity into the WORLD-WIDE BODY OF CHRIST..!!

– think of the Christians in Africa, who think an organ in church is a strange thing and wouldn’t dream of sitting still for an hour.

– or think about the Christians in Europe and Russia who have very different moral issues to face than we do.

– the tapestry is incredible: different colours, different cultures, different languages.  From the rich to the incredibly poor.  People crying and suffering, others laughing with joy.  Each one seeking, in their own way, to respond to the Word of God and serve their King.

Now obviously enough, much of this diversity is due to sin – it is greed and injustice that allows those gaps between wealth and poverty to continue.  Denominations come as much from man’s stubbornness and self-centredness as from his quest for truth!

AND YET REVELATION 21 REMINDS US THAT THAT DIVERSITY IS ALSO A GIFT FROM GOD AND A WAY IN WHICH WE ARE CALLED TO GLORIFY HIS NAME!  Here see that John is really borrowing very clearly from places like Isaiah 60.  MY GOD IS SO GREAT.  He is much bigger than any one culture, any one place, any one people, and one way of doing things.

On a national level, Isaiah speaks about the camels of Midian and Ephah the ships of Tarshish the sheep of Kedar.  On a national level we can speak of: the Rembrants and Van Goghs of Holland, the technology of Japan, the villages of England, the beautiful carving of the Aztecs or the Indonesians, the Opera House or the art of men like McCubbin or Dobell in Australia.  Whether we admit it or not all these things speak about how wonderful my God is.  After all, it is His creation / His image that makes all things possible.  For now sinful man may use these things to point at his own glory, BUT IN THE KINGDOM when it has at last come in its fullness God will be honoured as the Creator, the provider of all.  John speaks about the people of all the earth coming and offering the best of their lands to Him.  As Jeremiah 3 puts it, “no longer will they follow the evil of their stubborn hearts!”

On a personal level…
– no longer will Jack and Philip build buildings which are made of materials that cannot last,
– no longer will Tony have to face an illness that he cannot cure,
– Arie and Colin (and the other teachers) won’t need to lecture to students who nod off to sleep and haven’t a hope of understanding
– at last Ian and Stuart will be able to work with the perfect computer,
– Tony and Bert will be able to serve people in an atmosphere of love and compassion instead of evil and destruction,
– nurses, accountants, organizers, speakers, listeners, teachers, students…

Everyone and all things for God.  The beauty will remain but the frustrations, and the evil and the pain will be gone.  And when people see what we do, they will praise God.

Bothers and Sisters, that is what Jesus bought us for!  So that we could live to the fullness of what we were created for – honouring God.  Not defiantly pushing him out of our studies, or our sexuality, or our conversations.  As Jesus says in verse 27, that kind of defiance has no place in the New City.  It is transparent – with a Light shining through it – illuminating each step of the way.

AMEN.