Tuesday, August 27, 2019

James Bannerman on the Church as the Temple of the Holy Spirit, not Individual Christians Merely


Some (mainly Evangelical) critics of the Church claim that, as Christians are said to be the temple of the Holy Spirit (e.g., 1 Cor 3:16-17), this must mean that, in the New Covenant, temple rituals and worship have been abrogated. Of course, this is fallacious as Paul is speaking metaphorically and is also reflective of the “either-or” false dilemma that plagues a lot of Protestant eisegesis. Furthermore, if Christians being said to be the temple of the Holy Spirit exhausts what can be considered a “temple” in the New Covenant, ipso facto the Church cannot be said to be the Temple of the Holy Spirit. Of course, such is absurd, but if errant Protestants who make this claim were to be consistent they would have to jettison their doctrine of inerrancy!

Furthermore, more careful Protestant theologians and authors realise that this is fallacious, too. James Bannerman (1807-1868) in his detailed study of Reformed ecclesiology, wrote the following:

. . .the Church is spoken of in Scripture as the residence or earthly dwelling-place of the Spirit, the Third Person of the glorious Godhead (Rom. viii. 9, 11, 16; 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17, vi. 11, 15-17; Eph. ii. 18, 22, iv. 4. See the Greek in all these passages). It is no doubt true that the Spirit of God dwells in each individual believer, making his soul and body His temple, and glorifying the place of His presence with all heavenly and sanctified graces. But, over and above this, and in a higher sense than can apply to any individual Christian, the Spirit of God makes His dwelling in the Church, enriching that Church with all the fulness of life and power and privilege, which no single believer could receive or contain. As the body of the Son of God, as the earthly dwelling-place of the Spirit of God, the Church more than the Christian—the society more than the individual—is set forth to us as the highest and most glorious embodiment and manifestation of Divine power and grace upon the earth. And it is in reference to the society, and not to the individuals of which it is composed—to the Church and not to its single members—that very much of the language of the Bible refers. (James Bannerman, The Church of Christ: A Treatise on the Nature, Powers, Ordinances, Discipline and Government of the Christian Church, volume 1 [Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1868; repr., Vestavia Hills, Ala.: Solid Ground Christian Books 2009], 3-4)

Just as the Church (the society of believers) is, to a much greater degree, a possessor of a greater endowment of the Holy Spirit without compromising the individual believer from being a temple of the Holy Spirit, the (physical, New Covenant) temple can also be endowed with the Holy Spirit and a God-ordained temple without compromising either the Church or the individuals therein from being a temple of the Holy Spirit in some sense, too. This shows the importance of not always having an “either-or” approach to scriptural interpretation, but the allowance, when context necessitates such, of “both-and.”

On temples in the New Covenant, see, for e.g.: