The Family of God
As members of God's spiritual family,
we are to participate in building
God's holy temple until Jesus Christ returns.
Here now is Gene:
When you look at that Principle,
if you want to go back to Haggai,
you have a very similar Principle.
I just worded it a bit differently
because there I called it:
Building God's Church.
Here the Principle relates
to building God's family,
and as the church we are God's family.
We are God's household.
And I believe that here we see one of
the most significant messianic passages
that you can find in the whole book of Zechariah.
When we say a messianic passage,
we're referring to the promise
that a Messiah will come.
And it's fascinating how this is revealed.
Earlier we saw God speaking
through Zerubbabel in terms of the future.
Here we see Him speaking
in relationship to Joshua
but projecting ahead to the Messiah.
So here's what we read
in Zechariah chapter 6, verse 12:
You are to tell him: ...
And basically the backdrop to this
is that the word of the Lord came to Zechariah.
And Zechariah was supposed to speak to Joshua.
And this is what Joshua heard:
...You are to tell him [the Lord said] ..
You are to tell Joshua:
...This is what the Lord of Hosts says:
Here is a man whose name is Branch; ...
Now immediately that gives you a clue
that He's speaking of someone beyond Joshua.
He's speaking about Joshua
but He's projecting to a Joshua
beyond this Joshua--there,
who was the high priest in Israel.
...He will branch out from His place
and build the Lord's temple. ...
Joshua didn't build the Lord's temple
there when they came back.
Zerubbabel was responsible really
for building that temple.
So what is He talking about when He says:
...He will branch out from His place
and build the Lord's temple.
Yes, He will build the Lord's temple;
He will be clothed in splendor
and will sit on His throne and rule. ...
That can't be Joshua.
Yes, Joshua had a crown of jewels.
But he was not the Messiah.
He was not the one who's going to rule
in that new temple--
that millennial temple. There in Jerusalem
after Jesus Christ comes back to this earth.
...There will also be a priest on His throne...
Now this gets a little problematic.
But think about it:
...There will also be a priest on His throne...
Joshua was a high priest.
Is this talking about Joshua sitting beside
Jesus in the millennial temple?
I don't believe so.
...There will also be a priest on His throne,
[and] there will be peaceful counsel
between the two of them.
Jesus Christ is both priest and King.
Again, talking about Jesus Christ
who is both the priest and the King.
And so again we see God speaking
through this illustration of Joshua
at this moment in history but projecting on
into the future into this incredible time
where Jesus Christ will, literally,
build that temple.
Ezekiel's temple--the one that
we've reviewed when we looked
at Principles that come from Haggai.
Jesus Christ will literally build
that temple through His power.
Now obviously working through people.
But here it says:
He will build that temple--
that future temple.
But meanwhile, back here
at this moment in our history,
we're God's temple.
We're not a physical temple,
like in the Old Testament.
Like the temple that Zerubbabel built.
And Solomon, and Herod, and the future temples
that are referred to.
In between, which has been going on now
for about 2000 years, we are the temple of God.
Peter talks about this--God's Living Temple:
. . . you yourselves, as living stones...
I love that metaphor.
Living stones--we're living stones.
...are being built into a spiritual house...
We are a spiritual house
and we are living stones.
The metaphor is beautiful.
...[we're] built into a spiritual house
for a holy priesthood to offer
spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God
through Jesus Christ. ...
That's Romans 12:1 and 2:
Presenting our bodies to the Lord
a living sacrifice in worship,
which are acceptable to God.
Remember how Paul stated that?
Present your body a living sacrifice,
holy, acceptable unto God.
. . . But you are a chosen race,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation...
And he's using, metaphorically, Israel.
Because we're not a chosen race
the same as Israel.
But we're a chosen people.
...a people for His [that is Christ's] possession,
so that you may proclaim the [promises]
of the One who called you out of darkness
into His marvelous light.
We are God's holy temple.
Which leads to this
Reflection and Response question:
How does Paul's metaphor
of the human body illustrate our part
in building God's living temple?
And I might just reword that by saying:
How does Paul's metaphor
of the human body also illustrate our part
in building God's living temple?
You see, Peter referred to us as living stones--
a house, as it were, a temple.
Paul went on to use another metaphor
and said we are His body.
And we're parts of His body.
But we're all one.
And he said that very clearly
in Romans chapter 12, verses 4 and 5:
Now as we have many parts in one body...
That's the metaphor.
He's talking about a human body to illustrate.
...and all the parts do not have
the same function...
There he's talking about arms, and legs,
and eyes, and ears.
He's talking about the human body.
But then he applies the metaphor. He says:
...in the same way we who are many
are one body in Christ and individually
members of one another.
We belong to each other.
Peter says we're living stones.
That's a metaphor that helps us
understand an aspect of this living temple.
But Paul comes along
and he uses another metaphor.
You see, it takes more than one metaphor
to illustrate who we are.
We have an anatomical metaphor.
Paul also used an agricultural metaphor when he says:
You're God's field.
We have other metaphors that refer to
who we really are in order to
understand the relationships
that we have with one another.
And Paul just simply goes on
to follow this statement.
We're members of one another.
And by the way, the word in the Greek text
that's translated one another is 'allelon.'
And if you trace through that word,
and as it's used in the book of Romans
from chapter 12 through chapter 16,
it's used 8 times.
The first time is here.
It's translated 'one another'
in your English text.
But see, Paul doesn't leave us
with a generalization on what this means.
We're members of one another.
He goes on in verse 10 of chapter 12 and he says:
Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.
There he's using the family metaphor.
He's using the word 'brotherly love'
to illustrate we're brothers and sisters in Christ.
We're a family.
And we're to be devoted to one another
in brotherly love.
In the same verse he says:
Honor one another above yourselves.
In Christ we can honor each other
above ourselves.
As Paul said: We're not to look only to our
own interest but also to the interests of others.
I think honoring one another
above ourselves is simply, as it were,
being an accompanist to every other person
in the church--in the body of Jesus Christ.
To honor others.
And you can't honor others that way
without being honored.
That's the beautiful interrelationship
between those two concepts.
He goes on to say--fourth time he
uses the word 'allelon':
Love one another as Christ loved us.
And there he just really illustrates
what that means.
That the whole law is fulfilled
when we love one another
as Christ has loved us.
He says: Be of the same mind
towards one another.
And of course, when we function
as members of one another.
And we're devoted to one another
in brotherly love,
And we honor one another above ourselves.
And we love as Christ loved.
What does that create?
One heart, one soul, one mind.
We can be of the same mind
towards one another.
And then Paul sort of transitions, and he says:
Then accept one another.
Accept one another as Christ accepted you.
But then he balances that out by saying:
Admonish and teach one another.
We're not to accept sin in another person's life.
But we accept them
without accepting their sin.
And what do we do as a result of our love?
We admonish one another.
So you have that beautiful balance.
Admonish one another.
Exhort one another.
For the body of Christ to build itself up in love.
And then finally he says:
Greet one another with a holy kiss.
Five times you'll find that in the Epistles.
Four times in Paul's epistles.
Peter mentions it once.
And of course there was
a cultural application of that.
But basically what it says is:
If we love one another, we greet one another
in a righteous physical way.
It may be a handshake, a holy hug.
It varies from culture to culture.
But we are members of one another.
And that is really the thrust,
really I think, of the Principle that
grows out of the book of Zechariah.
Here it is:
As members of God's spiritual family,
we are to participate in building
God's holy temple until Jesus Christ returns.