The Christian Science Bible Lesson on “Soul and Body,” this week begins with the Golden Text, “…the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.” This verse always arrests my attention because it is a very sobering thought to think of myself as a temple of God.
A temple is a sacred place. It’s a space devoted to spiritual worship, prayerful effort, spiritual mindedness, peace and love. God’s temple is not an angry space, a riotous locale, nor permissive of selfish acts or deeds. It is a holy construct, designed to house activities that respect, honor, and express Godliness.
Writing to his fellow Christians, Paul said, “Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you? God will destroy anyone who destroys this temple. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.” (NLT, I Cor 16, 17).
Who destroys the temple? I asked.
Evil thoughts, beliefs and sinful practices, I decided.
Any selfish, angry, spiteful, negative emotion is a would-be destroyer of God’s temple, and God will not allow it. God will cast those destroyers out of His sanctuary, and keep the premises clean for the purpose of holy activity.
This is a very good thing for us because at times we might feel helpless in the face of “destroyers” keeping us mentally and emotionally down. But we can take heart in being assured that Christ is at work in the human consciousness, wiping out enemy sensations and eliminating their negative impact.
God loves us, and Christ manifests that love in the form of healing and redemption in the human experience.
If we ever feel like an impure temple or threatened by someone else’s shortcomings, we can take heart. Christ is purging our mental environment with Truth and Love and leaving the premises clean. Success is inevitable.
We are the temple of God, and God’s temple is holy and pure. It’s absolutely guaranteed that we realize this truth completely, for it is the way we’re spiritually made.
We are the temple of God, not a temple for error, and that is a very holy place, indeed.
Enjoy worshipping in your “holy place.”
I agree that we are the temple of God. There is one point I am a little confused on. In the platform given in S&H, it states:
“IV. God is divine Life, and Life is no more confined to the forms which reflect it than substance is in its shadow. If life were in mortal man or material things, it would be subject to their limi-
tations and would end in death. Life is Mind, the creator reflected in His creations. If He dwelt within what He creates, God would not be reflected but bsorbed, and the Science of being would be forever lost through a mortal sense, which falsely testifies to a beginning and an
end.”
In the quote you mention, MBE is saying God is not in the forms which reflect God. And I believe you are asking how does that correspond to “We are the temple of God.” If God is not “in” us, then how are we the temple of God?
That is a good question!
Think of the sun and its rays. God is like the sun and we are the ray. The sun is not in the ray, but is reflected by the ray.
We, as the temple of God, are like the ray reflecting the sun. We find the sun by looking through the ray, yet the sun is not in the ray. It’s reflected by the ray.
Another way of thinking of temple is as a place where one finds God, finds sacredness, holiness, spiritual mindedness. This “place” is a state of Mind, not a physical location.
We, as children of God, reflect the one Mind’s intelligence, wisdom and love. God is not “in” the intelligence He reflects, but God is reflected by the intelligence He creates. We are the intelligence, wisdom and love of God in operation. God is not in us, but is reflected by us.
Does that help?
Yeah… I am slowly learning it too…
Math is not in the chalk and sound is not the originator of music–nor is it in the paper score.