Father, Son, or Spirit?  

It's the Spirit of God.  

And he has a specialty.  

He crafts temples.

First, there was the Garden, the Garden of Eden. When the earth was formless and void--without shape and empty--and darkness was over the surface of the ocean depths, the Spirit of God, like the potter at his wheel, moved across the surface of the waters giving expression to time, space, and matter (Genesis 1:1-2). The Garden--where earth and heaven first met and where God walked with man in the cool of the day--was the centerpiece of the Spirit's initial creative endeavor around temple.

From the cherubim and pomegranates and more, every subsequent temple fashioned of fabric and stone was crafted in the image of the Garden. Even as the Garden encompassed two regions (Genesis 2:10; cf. Revelation 22:1-2)--Eden, where God dwelt, and the Garden, where Adam and Eve lived--so were Tabernacle and Temple divided into two rooms, the Most Holy Place occupied by the Presence of God and the Holy Place where the priests daily ministered. Among other whispers of the Garden later evident in Tabernacle and Temple was their flora and fauna motif, perhaps most evident in the beautiful, golden lampstand, the ancient Menorah, fashioned in the image of a tree: in particular, perhaps, The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Scripture recalls that God placed Adam in the Garden and placed the Garden in his care, charging him to "cultivate it and keep it" (Genesis 2:15). Curiously, this charge, in the Hebrew, is the very commission God would in time give to the Levitical priests who were told to "serve" and to "guard," first, Tabernacle and, later, Temple (Numbers 3:7-8; 8:25-26; 18:5-6; 1 Chronicles 23:32; Ezekiel 44:14). It seems a reasonable assumption that Adam was the first priest of God.

Second, there was the Tabernacle, or Tent of Meeting. Even as Moses received the tables of stone inscribed with the ten commandments on the fiery mountaintop, he also received a pattern, a model, for the design and construction of the Tabernacle (Acts 7:44). The book of Exodus allotted ten verses to the ten commandments while apportioning twenty-six chapters to the building of the Tabernacle. And, for our purposes in this post, the LORD told Moses, "See, I have called by name Bezalel of the tribe of Judah [and later, Oholiab of the tribe of Dan]...I have filled him with the Spirit of God in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all kinds of craftsmanship" (Exodus 31:1-11). Remarkably, the first time then, that a person is said to have been filled with the Spirit of God, it was to prepare him for the creative task of temple building.

The design of the Tabernacle would be the basis for the fixed Temples that followed: Solomon's Temple and Herod's Temple, the Temple of Jesus' day. The Temple, like the Tabernacle and the Garden that preceded them, were places where earth and heaven met, places of prayer, of intercession, of reconciliation (cf. Isaiah 56:7, JPS translation; 1 Kings 8:29-30ff).

Third, there's the Temple of Jesus, conceived of the Holy Spirit. Jesus would be called, according to the announcing angel, "Immanuel," which translated means, God with us (Matthew 1:18-23).

Jesus later challenged his opponents, saying, "Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up." His opponents indignantly countered, "It took forty-six years to build this Temple [Solomon's Temple], and will You raise it up in three days?" "But," John added, Jesus "was speaking of the Temple of His body" (John 2:19-21). God with us. A place where earth and heaven meet. A place of prayer, of intercession, of reconciliation.Temple.

Fourth and finally, there's the Temple of believers. Hear Paul: "Today, God "does not live in temples built by human hands" (Acts 17:24); rather, our "...bodies are Temples of the Holy Spirit" (1 Corinthians 6:19). "For we are...God's building...Don't you know that yourselves are God's Temple and that God's Spirit dwells in your midst?" (1 Corinthians 3:9-16). Again, God with us. A place where earth and heaven meet. A place of prayer, of intercession, of reconciliation. Temple.  

Still today, the Spirit dons the metaphorical beret of an artist, a master craftsman, and he continues to transform ordinary men and women into the image of Jesus who are God with us. People where earth and heaven meet. People of prayer, of intercession, of reconciliation. Temple.  

Paul, wrote, "And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Believers, like Jesus before them, are not merely Temple, but priests (Romans 12:1-2) and sacrifices as well (1 Peter 2:5, 9). Who might you have to become to fill those roles? What do you need, and where will you find it? Based upon 2 Corinthians 3:18, does your "becoming" happen all at once?

What are the advantages of "moveable" temples over the great temples of stone fixed in one location?

How do you need to show up to be God with us? A place of prayer, of intercession, of reconciliation? Temple?