Matthew 23:17

Matthew 23:17

The Visible Temple.

I. A Temple there has been upon earth, a spiritual Temple, made up of living stones a Temple, as I may say, composed of souls. This Temple is invisible, but it is perfect and real because it is invisible, and gains nothing in perfection by possessing visible tokens. There needs no outward building to meet the eye, in order to make it more of a Temple than it already is in itself. God and Christ and angels souls, are not these a heavenly court, all perfect to which this world can add nothing? This is true and ever to be borne in mind; and yet no one can deny on the other hand, that a great object of Christ's coming was to subdue the world, to claim it as His own, to assert His right as its Master, to show Himself to all men, and to take possession. When He came He had not a place to lay His head; but He came to make Himself a place, to make Himself a home, to fashion for Himself a glorious dwelling out of the whole world which the powers of evil had taken captive. He was not born in the Temple of Jerusalem; He abhorred the palace of David; He laid Himself on the damp earth in the cold night, a Light shining in a dark place, till by the virtue that went out of Him He should erect a Temple worthy of His Name.

II. And lo! in omen of the future, even in His cradle, the rich and wise of the earth seek Him with gold, and frankincense, and myrrh as an offering. Pass a few generations and the whole face of things is changed; the earth is covered with His temples, as it has been for ages. Go where you will, you find the eternal mountains hewn and fashioned into shrines where He may dwell who was an outcast in the days of His flesh. The invisible temple has become visible, and He has made Him a temple, not only out of inanimate things, but of men also as parts of it. Not gold and silver, jewels and fine linen, and skill of man to use them, make the house of God, but worshippers: the souls and bodies of men whom He has redeemed.

III. The temple is greater than the gold, therefore care not though the gold be away; it sanctifies it, therefore cherish the gold while it is present. Christ is with us, though there be no outward show. Where He really places His Name, there be the spot a palace or a cottage it is sacred and glorious. He accepts our gold and our silver, not to honour Himself thereby, but in mercy to us.

J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons,vol. vi., p. 280.

References: Matthew 23:18. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. ix., p. 99. Matthew 23:19. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xiv., No. 831.Matthew 23:22. R. W. Evans, Parochial Sermons,vol. ii., p. 248.