“In the beginning, God created…” From the beginning of Scripture we are told that God is creative. However, out of all of God’s material creation, only humans are described as being created in God’s image. By biblical definition, humans are simultaneously physical and spiritual beings. Unlike God, we are created beings with beginnings; but, like God, we are creative beings who have demonstrated our ability to build amazing things using the resources that God created.
Yet, this creative thinking and building with our own hands whatever we imagine is too often misused for our own glory rather than for God’s glory. We have a tendency to identify with what we have created rather than finding our identity and purpose in a relationship with our Creator. We see this material inclination and the carnal rationale that comes with it manifested very early in human history. Recall that, despite God’s instruction to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Gen. 1:28; 9:1,7), people instead said, “Let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth” (Gen. 11:4).
The problem is not in our being creative and building physical things. The problem is in our motives and in our propensity to find fulfillment in and identity with things of our own design and making more than with what God has designed and instructed.
Recall that God gave explicit instructions to Israel about the physical construction of a sanctuary to be built “that I may dwell among them” (Ex 24:8). Yet, even as Moses was on Mt. Sinai receiving from God “the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of its furnishings” (v 9), the people in their impatience built something for themselves patterned after what they had seen in their bondage in Egypt and among the nations. A golden calf was fashioned, and it was declared, “This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt” (30:4), and they proclaimed a feast to Yahweh wherein they “sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play” (vv 5,6). This tendency to worship God in a way of our own making is idolatrous and has persisted in every generation.
Yet, even the physical tabernacle and Solomon’s temple eventually built in Jerusalem (along with the priesthood and its rituals and various forms of worship) were themselves merely types of that which would be ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Indeed, in his prayer of dedication of the temple, Solomon rhetorically asked, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built” (1 K 8:27).
Israel’s identification with its physical temple persisted even after it was destroyed and an inferior one was built in its place. Eventually the second temple was expanded and made more physically impressive in the days of the Herods. Clearly, the Jews took great pride in their temple. Recall that even the earliest disciples of Jesus observed to Him the beauty and grandeur of the temple in Jerusalem (Mt 24:1; Mk 13:1) to which Jesus replied, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone shall be left upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (Mk 13:2). Indeed, Jesus said this would happen within that generation (v 30). To this present day, the destruction and continued absence of the Jewish temple remains a testimony to Jesus being the Messiah and the chief cornerstone of a temple not made with hands.
Following the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, the earliest Christians came to understand that Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world, that the weapons of their warfare are not carnal, and that God’s people constitute the temple of God “being built together for a habitation of God in the spirit” (Eph 2:19-22). Indeed, the author of Hebrews observed that the covenant made at Sinai is now obsolete (Heb 8:13) and, therefore, so is the Jewish temple, its priesthood, and all its rituals and modes of worship which were physical shadows of what are now spiritual realities in Christ.
Therefore, we should not find our identity in the things we build with our hands. As grand as the cathedrals built by men may be, they are not true sanctuaries. The vaulted ceilings, the stained-glass windows, the iconic art, the elegant vestments, the implements of gold, the lofty organ, and the elaborate furnishings are the imaginations and inventions of men. These may thrill those who worship with them, but they are at best impotent imitations of that which is now obsolete in Jesus Christ or are, at worst, forms of idolatry like unto the golden calves of apostate Israel.
From a biblical perspective, when we think of churches, we should not be thinking of buildings made with hands but thinking of groups of people who are committed to Jesus as Lord and to one another as saints. Churches are not made legitimate by physical measurements. A church does not establish itself only once it has accumulated enough money to own a building and meet societal expectations in appearances and performances. Indeed, putting a premium upon these material matters reveals us to be more carnal than spiritual. Jesus’ plain words to the churches of Asia should have modern churches re-thinking their priorities and practices. To the affluent church in Laodicea, Jesus observed that many of them were spiritually poor, blind, and naked (Rev 3:17). To those in the church in Sardis with a reputation for being alive, Jesus told them they were dead (v 1). Yet, to the few who comprised the church in Philadelphia despite their “little strength,” Jesus praised them for their faithfulness in keeping His word (v 8).
Let us not find our identity in material things of our own making but instead find our identity in Jesus Christ. Let us make sure that we are emphasizing what Jesus emphasized. Let us be certain that any building we do is not to our glory but to the glory of our Creator.