Built Together For A Habitation Of God

“Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

In this second chapter of Ephesians we have already had brought before us in a very vivid way our relationship to the Father as those who have been quickened together with Christ. We have been regenerated, we have been made members of the family of God, the same divine life having been communicated to every one of us and thus we are brought into this living relationship with the Father. And then we have seen our new relationship to Christ. We are now made members of the body of Christ. Christ is the Head and we are the members of His body. The body of Christ, as we have seen, is looked at in Scripture in two very distinct aspects. First, as comprising all believers from Pentecost to the coming again of our Lord Jesus Christ to call us all to meet Him in the air. In other words, all saints of this dispensation constitute the body of Christ. But then it is looked at in another way. In Corinthians it is the aggregate of believers upon the earth at a given time. All Christians today constitute the body of Christ as now manifest in the world, and all Christians throughout the entire dispensation constitute the body of Christ as it will be for all eternity. We saw that in the body of Christ all distinctions between Jews and Gentiles who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ are done away, the middle wall of partition is broken down, and we are one in Him.

Now we go on to consider our relationship to the Holy Spirit, and find that we have been constituted a habitation in which God by the Holy Spirit dwells during the time of our sojourn on the earth and in which He will dwell throughout all the ages to come. Two different figures are used, one the Tabernacle, as set forth in the book of Exodus, and the other the glorious Temple, as depicted for us in the books of Kings and Chronicles. The Tabernacle represents the temporary condition, the Temple the eternal condition which will abide forever, and so we read in verse nineteen, “Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.”

We have noticed in our earlier study that throughout this letter the apostle says, “ye,” when he is addressing Gentiles and, “we,” when he speaks of Jews. He was a Jewish believer and speaks of “we who first hoped in Christ” and then speaks of “ye who also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.” So now he says, “Ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.” Farther up in the chapter we read that the Gentiles were “strangers from the covenants of promise.” They were outside, they did not belong to that special elect nation of Israel, but alas, alas, many in Israel failed to enter into their holy privilege and so we are told elsewhere that they are not all Israel who are of Israel but God called out a remnant by accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour were baptized into Jesus Christ and were made living stones in the house of God. And now Gentiles who believe, though having no part nor lot in this matter, are brought inside and are no longer “strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints.”

What do we mean by “saints”? Simply that we are now linked with Israel after the flesh? Not at all. They forfeited all rights from an earthly standpoint. It is only those in Israel who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ who are called saints and so when he says we are “fellow citizens with the saints,” he means that the Gentiles who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ are as truly united to Christ now by the Spirit as our Jewish brethren who believe in the same blessed Saviour. A saint is a holy one, but holiness is not a question primarily of experience. A holy one is one set apart to God. People often think of saints as those who have already attained to perfect holiness, but that is not the diving thought at all. Everyone who puts his trust in the blessed Lord has been set apart to God in Christ and thus is constituted a saint. But now having been made a saint one is called upon to live in a saintly way. We do not become saints by holy living, but because God has constituted us saints, we are called to holy living.

So we read that we have been made “fellow citizens with the saints.” What citizenship is that? It is a heavenly citizenship. We read in Philippians, “Our citizenship is in heaven.” Philippi was what the Romans called a colony, but they used that tern in a different sense from what we use it today. A Roman colony was a city that had been characterized by some special devotedness to the Roman imperial government, and in order to reward the citizens of that place for their loyalty and faithfulness, the title “Colonia” was conferred upon that city. That meant that from that time on every free born person living in that place was constituted a Roman citizen and had just exactly the same rights and privileges as though they were free born people in Rome.

It was some years before Paul wrote that letter to the Philippians that the Romans were in conflict with the people to the north and to the east of Macedonia, and when the Roman legions reached Philippi, they found the citizens of that place had already raised a great army to assist and had provided vast resources to meet the army. So delighted was the Roman general with their generosity and loyalty that he sent back to Rome a splendid report. The Senate then met and conferred upon them the title “Colonia,” which means that every Philippian could then say, “I am a Roman citizen.” However, Philippi was in Macedonia and of course the people had certain duties to that government, but Philippi was governed directly from Rome and had a representative of the Roman government there. See how the apostle applies it here. We are in this world sinners saved by grace and linked to our blessed Lord Jesus Christ though He is rejected by this world. And now God so appreciates devotion to His blessed Son in this day of His rejection that He says, “I am going to confer upon everyone who trust Him, upon everyone who owns His Lordship during this time when the world is spurning Him, the title of ‘Colonia.’” They are heavenly citizens; they belong to heaven. Though in the world, we are “fellow citizens with the saints.” We have our duties, our responsibilities to the world in which we live, but our prime duty, our prime responsibility is to heaven with which we have to do because we are citizens of that blessed country and belong to the household of God.

Now he uses the figure of a building and says, “And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone.” You remember this same figure is used in other places in the New Testament. In the third chapter of First Corinthians, we read of the building that God is erecting in these wonderful Gospel days. You have it again in the sixth chapter of Second Corinthians where we read of the temple of God, and also in the second chapter of the first epistle of Peter, where believers are likened to living stones built upon the living stone, our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the Old Testament when Solomon’s Temple was erected on Mount Moriah, in order that there might be a level platform upon which the great superstructure should stand, vast stones were brought and mortared into the solid rock and then stones were fitted into that temple. At the end of seven years, it was the most wonderful sanctuary that the world had ever know up to that time. But there was a peculiarity about the construction. It went up without the sound of a hammer because the stones were quarried out below, they were also cut, shaped, and polished down there, and then placed upon that platform and cemented together without the use of the workman’s hammer. So today no one can hear a sound as a living stone is fitted into the temple of God, but God by the Holy Ghost is quarrying out these living stones from the depths of sin and He is lifting them up by His mighty power and building them upon Christ, the great foundation.

“View the vast building, sit it rise,
The work how great, the plan how wise,
Nor can that faith be overthrown
That rests upon the Living Stone.”

Someday, this temple will be completed but it is now in course of construction. Every believer is a living stone. In Africa, India, China, and the islands of the sea, God is finding these living stones and they are being built into this glorious structure. Someday it will all be completed and will remain for eternity the glorious sanctuary in which God will display the riches of His grace to all created intelligences. What a wonderful thing to be a living stone in that temple. You see, no man can make himself a living stone, only the Spirit of God can do that, and therefore it is only those who have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ who are placed in this wonderful building.

“And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone.” Does he mean that the apostles and prophets are the foundation? Not at all. He means that they are built upon the foundation that they laid. What foundation did they lay? Paul says, “Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:11). So the apostles and the prophets proclaimed the truth concerning the Lord Jesus Christ and upon that foundation this glorious temple is being builded. You say, “But what prophets are these? We have no difficulty about the apostles for we know they are the apostles of the new dispensation. Do the prophets include the Old Testament prophets?” We answer, they preached Christ. Who preached a more glorious Gospel than Isaiah? Listen to His wonderful words, “He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). Listen to Jeremiah, “This is his name whereby he shall be called, the Lord our righteousness” (Jeremiah 23:6). Listen to Zechariah, “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine and hand upon the little ones” (Zechariah 13:7). And so we might go on. In this sense, the prophets of the Old Testament joined with the apostles of the New Testament in setting forth the truth of a crucified and risen Saviour but if these were really Old Testament prophets, we might expect him to say, “Prophets and apostles” for surely these Old Testament prophets came long before the apostles did. But, you see, he reverses it and says, “And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.” Would it not be rather this, that just as there were apostles of the New Testament dispensation so there were also the prophets. We read, for instance, of certain prophets and teachers at Antioch. Some of the writers of the New Testament, as Mark and Luke, were not apostles but were prophets and so I take it that we are to limit this to the New Testament workmen, those who were raised up of God at the beginning to lay the foundation, to preach Christ, to proclaim the Gospel. It is upon this glorious proclamation that the temple of God has been building through the centuries.

“Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone.” “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). How it does get under my skin when I turn on the radio and hear a certain eloquent New York preacher talk about “our dear brethren the Mohammedans” and “our dear brethren the Buddhists” and any other kind of Christ-rejecting idolators as his dear brethren. I wonder if he has ever read that “other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." Only those who put their trust in Him are built into this holy temple. Only those who have been saved through His death, His shed blood, and His glorious resurrection are members of his body. Only those who have rested their souls for eternity upon the work that he accomplished upon Calvary have been quickened together with Him and are thus brought into the family of God. These are our brethren. Others are our fellowmen, in whom we are deeply interested, over whom we yearn with the compassion of Christ, but we dare not take that sacred term of "brethren" and apply it to those who reject our Lord Jesus Christ, who trample His blood under their feet, for it is upon His work alone we rest. We remember He said to Peter, “Whom say ye that I am?” and Peter answered, “Thou art the Christ the son of the living God.” And Jesus said, “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say unto thee, that thou are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.” What rock? That Christ is the Son of the living God. “On this rock I will build my church.” This is the one foundation. It was laid in death when Jesus died upon the tree and now in resurrection the Spirit is building this glorious temple upon Christ.

But now, as we said, the temple is not yet finished. As long as there are still poor sinners to be brought in, the temple is not complete. If you should ask for my opinion as to how near we are to the finished temple, I would say that I think there are a few more stones to be put in, just one here and there in the roof and then it will be complete. It might be that the last living stone to be placed in the building will be placed there today and then the work will be done.

“In whom all the building fitly framed together,” that is, every one is fitted by the Holy Spirit into his or her exact place as a living stone. “In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth—that is progress, not completion, it is not that it has grown up but,—“groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord.” And when it is all completed, what a dwelling place for God and the Lamb it will be. What a wonderful sanctuary through all the ages to come. When you think of being a living stone in that glorious building, does it not bring to your soul a sense of the importance of holy living, of devotedness to Christ, of so behaving yourself that He will delight in dwelling in you? Whereas in 1 Corinthians 3, and 2 Corinthians 6, the temple of God is the entire church, in 1 Corinthians 6, the temple of God is the individual. In 1 Corinthians 3:16 we read, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” And then speaking of the enemies outside, he says, “If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.” In 2 Corinthians 6:16 we read, “What agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” And it is because the church collectively comprises the temple of God that the command comes, “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.” But now look back at 1 Corinthians 6:19. You will find that he changes the figure to the individual. “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” Here we find the word is, “your body” not “your bodies.” The individual is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in him. Addressing the whole company he says that collectively they form the temple of God but each individual believer’s body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. What godliness should characterize us, what piety, what separation from the world, what faithfulness to Christ should mark us.

Coming back to verses twenty and twenty-one of the second chapter of Ephesians the temple is spoken of, but in verse twenty-two we have the tabernacle. He has been speaking of the whole company of believers and now comes back to address any group of believers at a given time like this church at Ephesus. “In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” That is a finished product right here on the earth like the tabernacle which could be placed at a given place today, taken down tomorrow and moved some place else. It was made of a number of boards which had been fitted together, covered with gold, and united by bands. Then there were two tenons which went down into sockets of silver. Beautiful curtains covered this. Once those boards had been trees out in the desert as you and I were poor sinners have no hope in the world, cut down by the work of the Spirit of God, planed and fitted together by the Spirit and now made the abiding place of God. Covered with gold—made the righteousness of God in Christ. The curtains speak of all His perfections sheltering His own. This is the picture that is used here. You as a company of Christian are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

Do we realize this as much as we should? Any church of the living God, and I use this in the strictest New Testament sense, a company of called-out believers, is the habitation of God through the Spirit. That is why the church should be kept holy, that is why unsaved people have no part in its membership, that is why Christians who are members of that church should be careful to eschew all worldliness and everything that would dishonor the Lord Jesus Christ. May God give us to so live that we shall glorify His name in this scene.