Saturday, February 19, 2022

Colin Green on Jesus Sending Christians as Temples of the Holy Spirit

  

Sent as Temples

 

Jesus was sending his disciples, spiritually reborn, into the world. HE makes it sound like they were coming from heaven into the world for the first time as newborns, just as he had come from heaven to earth (16:28). Jesus says, “no-one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above.” (John 3:3, NRSV). As Jesus was from heaven, in a sense they are now from heaven too.

 

He was born as a temple. In his case, he was sent into the world, born in human form, “tabernacling” amongst them in the temple of his body. In their case, it was spiritual rebirth as temples. He puts his plan into action after his resurrection:

 

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (John 20:21-22 ESV)

 

And this makes them temples of the Holy Spirit, a community in which the breath of Christ lives. This is the fifth step. Jesus has inducted his disciples into the ideas of the three-in-one God of the temple. (Colin Green, God in 3D: Finding the Trinity in the Bible and Church Fathers [Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf and Stock, 2019], 126)