(John 2:19-21) Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. °Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? °But he spake of the temple of his body.
Jesus was at the temple. What else would they conclude based on the setting? It would never occur to them that He was referring to something other than the temple that was right there.
(Jeremiah 31:33) But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.
This, stated by God right after He declared the new covenant would not be like the old. But the only covenant they knew of was the one they were in with God. They would never make the leap of comprehending the nature of the new any more than those Jews present when Jesus spoke what He did cited above were able to grasp He was not talking about the temple standing in their midst there in Jerusalem. There was one ‘temple of God’ and that was it, standing on the temple mount in Jerusalem.
The New Covenant law is God Himself, for it is the Holy Spirit that God places within a believer that leads and guides them; a covenant law of life.
(John 5:39) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
Jeremiah 31:33 is just that. It’s about God in you. Residing in you. Leading you. Guiding you. It is a testament of God dwelling within a person; a believing, faithful person. A person who truly loves God.
(John 14:23) Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
Now consider the outcome:
(1 Corinthians 3:16) Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
Jesus pointed out that the Pharisees, who administered the law and kept the law, hated Him and the Father. (John 15:24) They always resisted the Holy Spirit. (Acts 7:51) They loved another, and it wasn’t God. That OC law was the “master” they obeyed; the object of which they were obedient and dedicated. Those among them who believed Christ and followed Him were labeled by these same Pharisees as being cursed, not knowing the law; the law the Pharisees relied upon. (John 7:49)
(Matthew 6:24) No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
Those who embrace the OC law insist that obeying the law is to obey God; the two are equivocated as one and the same. God is that law, and that law is God. Keeping the law where the result is to ignore God does not compute in the legalist mindset. And yet, God stated to Moses that by giving that law to the Hebrews, they would believe Moses “for ever” and not God. (Ex. 19:9)
And the LORD said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws? — Exodus 16:28
This was before they were given the covenant law. That does not stop legalistic minded people from concluding that God was referring to that covenant law. Up to this point, it was all about what God declared, verbally to them through Moses. They were collectively refusing to believe and act upon what God had been telling them up to that point.
God is not embodied in the OC law, and the OC law is not embodied in God. The law is, in reality, ‘another god’ besides God; along side-of; graven images of stone, and it is interesting, to say the least, that this is exactly what God spoke to those same Hebrews who were refusing to listen to Him which they heard and also ignored.
In case you were not paying close attention, consider what Adventists, who are legalistic, have done in regards to the Decalogue, imbuing it with the characteristics; the traits of God: Eternal, unchanging, a “transcript of God’s Character.” It cannot get any more blatant than that.
The ‘law of God’ prior to the giving of the old covenant law at Mt. Sinai was none other than God Himself and what He was commanding and declaring, verbally. With this understanding, take a good, hard look at the following, often cited by Adventists.
(Romans 8:7) Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
In this passage, God IS equivocated with “God’s law”. And like the “temple” those with a legalistic mind-set conclude, erroneously, this speaks of the OC law, despite the context.
The carnal mind is enmity against God, even as was the minds of those Hebrews who left Egypt. The same Hebrews who refused God and what all He commanded, aka “My law” that was extant prior to the giving of the old covenant law that was a blood covenant law where any violation, no matter how small or trivial, resulted in their condemnation. They were disobedient to God, and obligingly embraced the law, putting that noose around their own necks that would condemn them to death, seeing as they were adept at confessing God with their lips, yet their “deceitful and desperately wicked hearts” were far from Him. They were no more likely to keep that law than they were when it came to keeping what God had verbally communicated to them.
The letter of the law that kills, spells everything out in writing in specific ways. ‘Do this’ and ‘don’t do that.’ It is the language used by parents addressing their children and animal trainers addressing animals. Sit. Don’t touch. Lie down. Come.
The concept of an internalized law is outside the realm of comprehension of those who are still carnal natured and led by their flesh, having no reference points spiritually, that come from the Holy Spirit. All they know and can understand is related to them by a law that deals with the carnal nature, motivated by their flesh. They understand murder and why it is wrong from a carnal perspective. Same with other points of OC law that deal with the pulls of the flesh.
In this, carnal people continue the same game through equivocation. The Sabbath; the sign of that covenant God made with the faithless Hebrews, demanded none of them do any work on the Sabbath. They equivocated this as no different than committing a murder. Yet over the course of time, they realized that leaving an animal penned up during the Sabbath was to subject the animal to undue stress and discomfort; suffering on the Sabbath. Which then was the greater wrong? Working a little by turning them out to pasture, or leaving them suffering in their stalls?
They felt the need to be compassionate with their animals (that had value) but when it came to Jesus having compassion on those suffering from debilitating conditions by healing them on the Sabbath, those same ‘compassionate’ people denied compassion for their fellow man. A man with a neighbor suffering over the course of decades was of no value to him. Let the neighbor suffer one more day before being healed.
Take now what Christ said about good works on the Sabbath, being legal; lawful, in the context of the ruler of a synagogue who chastised Jesus for healing a man there on the Sabbath.
“Do your good works the other six days, and not on the Sabbath.”
Can you perceive the evil heart in the background? Or is the Sabbath more important to you than God and doing good works wrought in and through the Holy Spirit, always; every day?
The ‘Temple of God’ which is what a Christian now is, does not close on the Sabbath.
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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )
Acts 17:11
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