The Temples of God (16): The Temple Blueprint (2)

All Temples give God’s blueprint for us as His ultimate Temples. Man fell into sin & lost God’s Presence, but He’s restoring us to be His Temples – He’ll dwell within us & shine out of us forever. All the different Temples encode different aspects of His ultimate Temple, each providing a piece of the puzzle. We get the whole picture by putting together the revelation from them all. (1) Our SPIRIT = HOLY of HOLIES, (2) our SOUL = HOLY PLACE, (3) our BODY = OUTER COURT. We’re made with His THRONE in our SPIRIT to live under His authority. When we receive Christ & He’s enthroned within us, we discover our true identity, ability & personality, for His Spirit of grace flows from His throne to fill & transform our souls & empower us to do His will & be fruitful. Christ is the perfect human Temple; God was enthroned in His spirit and His Spirit filled His soul & flowed out of Him. But we were born spiritually dead, so His Spirit did not indwell us. Christ came to make us into true Temples, like Him. So, He died as our SIN OFFERING to take away our sins, and as our BURNT OFFERING to give us His perfect righteousness. Mercy Seat = ‘Place of Propitiation’ where God’s righteous judgment is fully satisfied by the Blood. He sees the Blood & declares us forgiven, so He’s now free to bless us. Once the blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat & accepted by God, Israel came under mercy for another year. But she had to repeat this ritual every year signifying man’s sin wasn’t yet put away (Heb 10:1-4). Christ accomplished this (Heb 10:5-10). So, Tabernacle rituals pictured what Christ would accomplish in establishing the New Covenant in His Blood in the Heavenly Temple, and activating it in His redeemed human Temples (Heb 9:7-12). As the High Priest, He offered Himself as the final Sacrifice and took His Blood into the heavenly Holy of Holies, and sprinkled it on God’s Throne, the Mercy Seat, as full payment for our sin & every blessing of grace (Heb 4:16). His Blood in Heaven ever speaks on our behalf, and is the basis for the everlasting New Covenant (Heb 12:22-24). Having done this, He sat down to signify His finished work, and entered into His work as Mediator of the New Covenant for His people (Heb 1:3, 10:11-12, 9:23-26). The Heavenly Temple is an image of God’s ultimate Temple (Man), so when we receive Christ, He also sprinkles us with His Blood & sanctifies us to Himself (1Pet 1:2, Heb 9:13-14). By His Spirit, He entered our holy of holies, and applied His Blood to our spirit, cleansing it from all sin & sanctifying it to Himself, making it a perfect new creation, and then sits enthroned there by His indwelling Spirit, to mediate the new covenant in our lives. This happened at our New Birth. He activated the New Covenant in us, so we’re now under grace. We became a functioning Temple. Having sprinkled & cleansed us with His Blood (Heb 9:13-14), He now brings us into our inheritance (v15). It's a Throne of Grace, for the Lamb’s Blood has been accepted by God on our behalf, and He sits at God’s right hand dispensing His River of Grace to us (Rev 22:1-2). This also pictures us as Temples, with Christ enthroned as Lord in our spirit, releasing His river of grace from His throne in our spirit, flowing down into our heart & life. The trees = thoughts & emotions in our soul. As we trust in Christ who lives in us, and submit to His Lordship, we receive His river of blessing into our hearts. When God entered the Tabernacle, He sat in His glory, enthroned on the Mercy Seat above the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies, and there He met with Moses & spoke with him (Ex 25:21-22). Likewise, He sits on the throne in our spirit, His base of operation in us. 3 items in the HOLY PLACE (Heb 9:1-4) = our SOUL: *(1) MENORAH = our MIND, illuminated by the oil of His Spirit. *(2) TABLE of SHOWBREAD (‘the Bread of the Presence’) = our EMOTIONS, kept ever fresh from God's Presence, shining from the Holy of Holies. *(3) The ALTAR of INCENSE next to the Holy of Holies = our HEART or WILL, at the deepest part of our soul, called the Golden Censer (‘the Place of Incense’) in Heb 9:4, where it’s described as belonging to the holy of holies. Thus, our HEART is the junction & connection between our SPIRIT & SOUL, receiving God’s life from the spirit, so that it flows into our soul (Heb 4:12, John 7:38). By God’s design, the heart should be under the spirit’s control, so a worshipping heart is necessary to receive God’s grace into our souls. As we submit our hearts into God’s Hand (the Holy Spirit), He can guide & empower us (Prov 21:1). To reign in life, put our heart into His Hand (His Spirit), who manifests in us as rivers of living water. In the Holy of Holies was the Ark of the Covenant containing 3 items, hidden under the Throne (under His control) = 3 aspects of God’s grace, He wants to release into our soul by His Spirit: (1) the Tablets of the Covenant, (2) Aaron's Almond Rod that budded, and (3) the Golden Pot of Manna (Heb 9:3-5)