nail on the head

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Robert J. Brown wrote:
 
> I never said God would accept sacrifices of animals again, but if the
> old is gone, then it would not be an abomination to have the man of
> perdition sitting on the trhone of God in the temple of God any more
> than to have him make the same statement sitting in a latrine in a gas
> station rest room somewhere, so why does the scripture make such a big
> deal out of the fact that he will indeed be sitting on the throne of
> God in the temple of God?  Right now, we are the temple of God, but
> after the church is gone, where is the temple of God?  All
> interpretation I have heard indicate that the temple of Jerusalem must
> be rebuilt and that the trone is in the holy of holies -- it is the
> mercy seat.

Aha!  I am so glad you asked that!  Praise God, brother!  I just got a 
thought about the very issue JUST when I read your letter!!!

For Jesus to call something a "HOLY PLACE" it would indeed
have to coincide with the fact that the Old Testament Temple and
Laws are vanished!  It would have to apply to what NEW TESTAMENT
thoughts regard a "HOLY PLACE" to be!  As you so correctly said,
the Scripture makes a big deal out of the temple of God.  And rightly
so!  See what I mean:

Let us search the NT to see exactly what the NEW TESTAMENT version
of the "TEMPLE" is!!!

1 Cor 3:16  Know ye not that YE ARE THE TEMPLE of God, and that 
the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
1 Cor 3:17  If any man defile the temple of God, him SHALL GOD 
DESTORY; for the temple of God is holy, WHICH TEMPLE YE ARE.

WIth this in mind, what is done with the "Son of Perdition" in 
the reference to him standing in the temple as God?

2 Th 2:3  Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day 
shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and 
that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
2 Th 2:4  Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that 
is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God 
sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.

2 Th 2:8  And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord 
shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall DESTROY
with the brightness of his coming:

Jesus will DESTROY the son of perdition when he sits on
his throne in the temple of God.  The VERY PASSAGE in the
NEW TESTAMENT which speaks of a TEMPLE (in the correct manner
in which God sees it in NEW TESTAMENT times) also
speaks of God destroying!!!!!!  And that is the reference
to OUR BODIES being the temple of God!!!!!  And God destroying
him who defiles that temple!!!

It is not a literal temple!  Jesus would never refer to the
temple as a building now!.  If the Jews make a temple, God
will not call nor honour it as a temple.  WE are the temple.

Praise God!  We are the temple!  And the son of perdition is SELF
which, in the temple of the Holy Ghost - our own vessels - we
exalt SELF instead of God!!!

Notice the amount of scriptures in the NT dedicated to DENYING SELF.

Jesus would not call a building made with hands the TEMPLE of GOD
as a reference to a time long after the temple in Jerusalem was 
destroyed in 70 AD.  The only temple that exists now, which God 
honours by actually calling it a temple, is the believer!!!

Why would God call the believer a "temple", as foreshadowed by the literal
temple, and then overlook all that ACTUAL temple imagery in the
believer and refer to a literal physical "temple" in the NT when it 
mentions "temple" or "holy place"?

In God's mind the temple of the Old Testament was never really
"the" temple.  It was a shadow of the people of God, as was
everything else ritualistic in the OT a shadow of "things to come."
So when NT spirituality is in full force, and all shadows
of OT typology are "vanished" and "fulfilled", for God to
refer to the TEMPLE or HOLY PLACE, it would have to 
be a reference to the SAINTS.  

And above all, for the NT to even explicitly MENTION the temple of
the believer and God destroying the one who defiles the temple,
in my opinion, gives 300% assurance, at least, that God is speaking
about the saint as the temple.

Now, if Paul did not sayi anything about beleivers being a temple, and
God destroys the one who defiles those temples, then I would
have less, though not lost for confidence in my thoughts about this.

ANd the thought that PAUL wrote BOTH 1 Cor 3 and 2 Thess 2, makes
it even more concrete that the tmple is the BELIEVER!

That is why the NT gives so much reference to the temple.
> --------  "And there came a writing to him from Elijah"  [2Ch 21:12]  --------
> Robert Jay Brown III  rj@eli.wariat.org  http://eli.wariat.org  1 847 705-0424
> Elijah Laboratories Inc.;  37 South Greenwood Avenue;  Palatine, IL 60067-6328
> -----  M o d e l i n g   t h e   M e t h o d s   o f   t h e   M i n d  ------

-- 
In Christ,
Mike Blume
mfblume@ns.sympatico.ca
http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/mfblume/mblume.htm