Temple

TEM’PLE, n. [L. templum.]

1. A public edifice erected in honor of some deity. Among pagans, a building erected to some pretended deity, and in which the people assembled to worship. Originally, temples were open places, as the Stonehenge in England. In Rome, some of the temples were open, and called sacella; others were roofed, and called oedes. The most celebrated of the ancient pagan temples were that of Belus in Babylon, that of Vulcan at Memphis, that of Jupiter at Thebes, that of Diana at Ephesus, that of Apollo in Miletus,that of Jupiter Olympius in Athens, and that of Apollo at Delphi. The most celebrated and magnificent temple erected to the true God, was that built by Solomon in Jerusalem.

In Scripture, the tabernacle is sometimes called by this name. 1 Sam 1-3.

2. A church; an edifice erected among christians as a place of public worship.

Can he whose life is a perpetual insult to the authority of God, enter with any pleasure, a man-made temple consecrated to devotion and sanctified by prayer?

3. A place in which the divine presence specially resides; the church as a collective body. (Ephesians 2)

Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,

Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit (Ephesians 2:19-22)

Jesus referred to Himself as a temple of God (John 2:21). Choosing the word “temple” to describe the Spirit’s dwelling place within humans, designates our bodies as hallowed, sacred places, set apart for holy use. Therefore, how we behave, think, and speak, and what enters the temple through our senses expresses the quality of our worship.

Jesus knew that the Spirit of God lives in people, not buildings. Each believer of Christ is a temple of God, a spiritual house, where Jesus Christ, the Son of God, lives.