The Tabernacle and the Temple
The Tabernacle and the Temple
by Danny C. Wash
“...your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God. You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
When Paul wrote this statement about our body being a temple of the Holy Spirit, he was writing from knowledge of the tabernacle that the Jews used for the sign of the presence of God and their interactions with Him, when they were wandering in the wilderness after coming out of Egypt with Moses. God prescribed the exact design of that tabernacle that was supposed to represent the presence of God with the Jews and would be taken down as they moved and then put back up when they rested at a certain location. Finally, Solomon built a permanent temple in Jerusalem, years after they had settled in the promised land of Israel, to the precise instructions of God as to its configuration like the tabernacle, its construction, and finish of the entire temple.
Essentially, the tabernacle and temple consisted of three main parts. There was the outer court, the holy place, and then the holy of holies. It was designed to go from one progressively to the next, from the outer to the innermost. The outer court was where the ordinary Jewish people would gather to offer sacrifices to God for the forgiveness of their sins. The holy place was only for the the Levites and priests, where they would pray and make sacrifices to God. The holy of holies was the innermost part of the temple and it was to be the place where God’s presence dwelled with His people, the Jews. The holy of holies could only be entered once each year by the High Priest, on the day of atonement, and he would make a sacrifice for the entire nation for the sins of the previous year. No one else could enter the holy of holies and the High Priest had to have confessed his sins and had to follow the exact instructions of God to enter or the High Priest would die. The High Priest had a rope attached to him as he entered in case he died, so the priests outside could drag his body out without going into the holy of holies and also dying.
So, just as the Trinity (Father, Son, & Holy Spirit) is in three parts and the temple had three parts, our bodies have three parts. These parts coincide with the arrangement of the temple. We consist of our physical body, our soul, and then our innermost non-physical part, our spirit. To return to the temple comparison, the outer court where the ordinary people were permitted, compares to our physical body, where we interact with and contact the physical world outside us. The holy place of the temple compares to the soul of a Christian. Our soul consists of our mind, will, and emotions. The holy place was where the priests fulfilled their duties of life and the temple. They sacrificed, read the Torah, and prayed to God on behalf of themselves and the people. This compares with our soul, where we read God’s word, pray with our voices and minds, make decisions with our mind, and decide with our will what we will or will not do. We can worship God with our emotions in songs and hymns, as well as our voices as we sing. Also, our emotions are part of our worship of God in conjunction with our love of God and our emotional response of joy and singing. The holy of holies compares with our spirit. The holy of holies was where God’s Spirit dwelt with the Jews. Our spirit as a Christian compares with the holy of holies, since it has been renewed, reborn, and made alive to the Holy Spirit, when we entered into this relationship and we become a Christian by our faith. When we are made alive in our spirit by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit comes into our spirit and joins with it in union. Our spirit consists of our conscience, our intuition, and the place of fellowship with God in Jesus through the presence of the Holy Spirit in union with our spirit. So, just as the Spirit of God would inhabit the holy of holies of the tabernacle and temple, God’s Spirit inhabits our spirit, which should allow God to rule over us from our spirits. Our spirit should control our soul, and then our soul communicates God’s will and love to our body and then out into the world.
Your spirit is that part of you where you truly worship God. Jesus said,“the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4: 23-24. In our spirits, we have intuition and simply “know” certain spiritual matters. We know in our spirits that we are children of God. In Romans 8: 16, we are told that, “The [Holy] Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” Also, the Holy Spirit, “helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the [Holy] Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words.” Romans 8: 26. So, when our mind, in our soul, does not know how to pray properly or for what; the Holy Spirit, residing in our spirits, intercedes for us and on our behalf with God to pray as we should in spirit. As the verses say above, we need to worship God in spirit and truth, so the Holy Spirit assists us in being able to spiritually communicate with God as we should, with the proper spiritual words.
How do we know that we have the three parts- body, soul, and spirit. 1Thessalonians 5:23 tells us, “May your spirit, soul, and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus.” Also, Hebrews 4:12 tells us that, “...the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piecing as far as the division of soul and spirit, both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” The heart as stated in this verse is not your physical heart, but it is the combination of portions of the soul and spirit; i.e., the combination of your conscience, mind, and will. Your heart is the essential you, your personality, where you are self-aware right now.
Therefore, since the verse at the top from Paul, that our “body is the temple of the Holy Spirit in you, whom you have from God,” we should heed this word and realize that the Holy Spirit would only dwell permanently in a “holy place.” We should realize that our personal spirit has been cleansed and made sinless by the presence of the Holy Spirit. (1John 3:9). This is the holy or holies in our spirit and is the place where the real worship and communication with the Lord God occurs because Jesus has accomplished for us by his death and resurrection this eternal life in our spirit. We should allow the Holy Spirit to break through into our soul, our mind, will, and emotion, and by the yielding of our will, the Holy Spirit will begin to produce the holiness, resurrection life, and love that exists in our spirit by the Holy Spirit to affect our mind, will, and emotions, which are not sinless, but sinful. For example, we are told in 2 Corinthians 10:5, that we should, “....take every thought captive to obey Christ.” This should be done by the Holy Spirit breaking through into our mind and will to strengthen us to do this to our random thoughts that are not obedient to Christ’s will for our lives. May the Lord open our soul to the control of our spirit, inhabited by the Holy Spirit, to accomplish His purposes in our life.
