Mark 11 tells us that after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, he went and looked around the temple. They synoptic Gospels all describe the cleansing of the temple which followed his entry. If he was concerned about the proper use of that temple, how much more the temple of which you are part, the temple Paul describes in Ephesians 2:19–22!
You are no longer aliens. Once you were a foreigner. Steve Baugh refers to a late second or early third century inscription in Ephesus, praising a Aurelius Barenus, who gave a multi-day banquet for the leaders of Ephesus and its 1,040 citizens. Citizenship was a rare privilege in Ephesus. The Gentile members of the church at Ephesus, and you were separated, not only from other believers, but from Christ. Your sins left you without God and without hope. Separation from God results in human separation. Sin brought disharmony to Eden. Lewis, in The Great Divorce, pictures hell as a constantly expanding city of mostly empty residences. By birth and nature we are all alienated from God’s people.
However, now you are a citizen. Christ has brought you near to God. His blood brought you near, verse 13. He reconciled you to God by the cross, verse 16. Now you are a citizen. The privileges which had been limited to Israel (by and large) now belong to us Gentiles! But your position is even better. You are part of God’s household. God has adopted you into his family. You belong there, with all of his people.
“The church is not an aggregate of diverse people, but individuals united to each other in their union with Jesus Christ…. Christ builds from living stones, sinners who are resistant material, difficult to shape, reluctant to fit with other living stones. Yet Christ continues to build — for he means to come himself, by his Spirit, to dwell among us as his house and temple (1 Cor. 3:16-17). He wants to be able to point to the church in the world and say: ‘See, that is what I can do. See my wisdom, power and love’ (cf. 3:10)!”
Sinclair B. Ferguson, Let’s Study Ephesians, p. 73
You are part of the house and household of God. You are built on the firm foundation. The apostles and prophets are foundational. Paul’s change of imagery helps unfold the reality he is describing. The coordinate offices of apostles and prophets were basic to the church, see 1 Corinthians 12:28. To be part of Christ’s church means building on the revelation and teaching of the apostles. Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone. This is not a mere decorative or ceremonial stone. This is the crucial block of the foundation, the one that determines the structure and orientation of the building. See Psalm 118:22 and Mark 12:10, where Christ quotes the Psalm, applying it to himself. You cannot be part of Christ’s church without having a relationship with Christ.
God has formed you into his house, a temple. Peter uses the term “living stones” to describe this. Paul talks about being built into a holy temple. God’s people are called into the body of Christ. The church is crucial. The sacraments, administered by the church, are not options to take or leave–they are things God uses to build you up, to draw you to himself. St. Cyprian of Carthage said in the third century, “You cannot have God for your Father unless you have the church for your Mother.” If the church is the bride of Christ, she is the mother of the faithful. Though the New Testament church cannot contain God any more than Solomon’s temple could, both are where God has chosen, where God has condescended to dwell. It is true that the Spirit lives in believers individually, but Paul here has in mind a corporate concept. The faithful, gathered from diverse backgrounds, by God’s grace pulled out of their death in sin, have become the house where God lives.
“[T]he spiritual unity of all who believe in Christ is indeed a present reality, but its fullest realization and the attainment of its highest degree lie in the future…. The fact remains that the church of God, far from being a tangled heap of wreckage, is even now God’s own perfectly proportioned temple, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ Himself as the chief cornerstone, in whom all the building is fitly framed together and all believers are built together for a habitation of God though the Spirit (Ephesians 2:20–22). God omniscient sees it thus. So does God’s child with the eye of faith.”
R. B. Kuiper, The Glorious Body of Christ, p. 48
Grasp that picture as you deal with those around you. Understand how important your sanctification is–because you are a holy temple. Self-consciously be what you are. You are the temple Christ cleansed, not with a whip, but with his lifeblood—poured out on the cross for you.
Rejoice, not just in the unity you have with one another, but above all in the reality in which that is based–the unity you have with your Savior, the fact that you have become God’s house!