The Growth of the Garden/Temple
Ephesians 2:19-22

The Feast of St. Simon and St. Jude, 2004

A writer named Rick Williams caught my attention the other day. In an article he said, “My ancestors have been in Virginia for at least eight generations. I, along with three of my six children, have never lived more than ten miles from the spot we were born. Some might call that parochial or provincial – unsophisticated. I’ll take all three labels as a compliment and wear them proudly. Am I snobbish about this? Perhaps a little. But not snobbish in an “I’m better than you” attitude, but rather snobbish in an “I feel sorry for you” attitude. I’m sorry that many Americans don’t have this connection to a particular place or home. They’re missing out. I cannot imagine living anywhere but Virginia. …The American people lose a large part of the joy of life because they do not live for generations in the same place.” [Close quote. “Patriotism” by Rick Williams in Chalcedon Report. Oct. 2004, p. 19.]

Many missionaries would agree with the point. For most, it is difficult to live in a foreign country. Last year a missionary named Ike told a group of us about the ministry of his family in Mexico. He said, “After fourteen years in Mexico, my wife and I have not yet arrived. I still don’t get the jokes. We’re still foreigners.” People who live in different cultures suffer because they miss what is familiar; they miss home. They lack a sense of place, and a sense of belonging. The Apostle Paul throws light on this idea in our epistle lesson for today. He writes, “Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” (Eph. 2:19). On this Feast of SS Simon and Jude, the apostle Paul paints three metaphors for the Church: citizenship in a kingdom, belonging to a family, and a temple that grows. Let’s examine them one at a time and attempt to discover their consequences.

When we look at the context of this Ephesians 2 passage, the “strangers and foreigners” Paul talks about refer to Gentile believers. Foreigners in ancient times were often treated badly. They were suspected of being outlaws or spies. We should bear in mind that the first Christians were all Jews and that Jews as a whole had a rather harsh attitude toward those of other nations.

The Jews usually treated the Gentiles pretty poorly. But according to the Apostle, an important change took place at their conversion and baptism: “Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints...” Jews and Gentiles now belong on equal terms; they are fellow citizens. The racial barriers have come down. Moreover, the citizens of the new creation in Christ are free and secure. “You are no longer strangers and sojourners but citizens…” You no longer wander rootless outside of Christ. You enjoy the stability of being a part of God’s new society. That is what it means to be a citizen of God’s Kingdom.

II. The Church is also a family. The imagery now changes from the political realm to that of an intimate family: you are “members of the household of God.” In Christ Jews and Gentiles are adopted children together in God’s family. Christ’s death and resurrection reconciled both Jews and Gentiles to God as their Father, and to one another as brothers and sisters. In the Roman world of antiquity, to be a member of a household meant refuge and protection. Belonging to a good family meant a sense of identity and privilege. It is this assurance that the apostle wished to provide his Gentile readers, and us. You and I are members of God’s household. The family of God provides identity, security, and a strong sense of belonging.

We tend to take for granted the protection and love of a good home. The home should be a refuge from the external battles of life, and it often is. Few of us can even imagine what it would feel like to be an orphan, abandoned without parents. The ten-year-old David Copperfield described by Charles Dickens is an example. David first lost his father to illness, next his baby brother, and then his mother. They died one after the other. His stepfather hated him and eventually disowned him. Reflecting upon this as an adult, Copperfield writes:

“And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition – apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts – which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write.” [p. 157.]

Something of the orphan-like hopelessness that little David Copperfield experienced plagues people outside of the Church. Because they turn their backs on the fellowship and love of the household of God they look for substitute families to compensate for their spiritual rootlessness. They often seek a replacement for the Church in a gang, in a bar, at work, on a sports team, or in a political campaign, but it doesn’t satisfy. The truth is there is no substitute for the Church of Jesus Christ. If you won’t have the Church for your mother, you can’t have God for your Father. The Church is a family. It has a lineage that goes back through Thomas Cranmer, St. Augustine, St. Paul, Isaiah, Moses, Abraham, Noah to Adam. In Christ, that is your family and your heritage. In the household of God you receive love from your Heavenly Father. Every week you and your brothers and sisters draw up to the table to feast in the heavenly throne-room, and when you come in faith, your Elder Brother, King Jesus, feeds you with His body broken and His blood outpoured. It is in the Church’s sacraments and fellowship and Bible teaching that God graciously sanctifies you, granting you encouragement, strength, and nourishment. Don’t take that for granted.

We must acknowledge that our earthly homes never fully satisfy, not even if we live our entire lives ten miles away from where we were born in Virginia. The Church can’t even promise that kind of satisfaction. The sense of refuge and refreshment we experience in the family of God is one of the finer blessings of earth, but it points to God Himself. He is our home. God alone is our home in an ultimate sense.

III. Let’s now look at the third and last metaphor for the Church we find in our Epistle lesson today. Ephesians 2:20-22 sets it forth. [Read them.]

According to Paul the Church is likened to a temple. The temple in Jerusalem had long served as the focal point of Israel’s identity as the people of God. The Lord’s special presence in worship was centralized in the Temple. Solomon erected the first Temple. It was torn down, and Nehemiah built the next one under King Zerubbabel. Enemies demolished that one, and King Herod constructed the third temple. Now that the kingdom of God had been shifted from Israel to the Church, would the Temple change? Yes. God’s special presence in worship would no longer be centralized in Jerusalem; it would be multi-centralized over the globe. Wherever two or three people were gathered together in the name of Christ Jesus, there the Lord would be in the midst of them (Mt. 18:20).

Furthermore, the new temple would be “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone” (Eph. 2:20). Apparently the cornerstone was an important aspect of buildings in antiquity. The temple in Jerusalem had massive cornerstones. Archaeologists excavated a big stone that measured 38 feet 9 inches in length. [See John Stott, p. 108.] Those builders who set in place the foundation, and lined up the walls gauged everything to the cornerstone.

I once got involved in the construction of a brick church building in Paraguay. The pastor hired a mason who promised us he had a lot of experience. We found out he didn’t. The property was sloped, and it takes skill to set a level foundation on the side of a hill. Sure enough our man did not line up the first row of bricks with the cornerstone. He didn’t even have a level. A week went by and the walls were a couple of feet high before I lent my level to the workers. Close up it looked ok, but from a distance it drooped. The workers tried to rectify the error but even today the building slouches. When St. Paul says that Christ is the chief cornerstone, he means that every brick must be measured, leveled, lined up, and fitted together according to Christ. He is the standard. Christ is the stone upon which the new world is based and from which it proceeds.

The “apostles and prophets” too have their place in the foundation of the Church. According to apostolic succession, the bishops of the Church throughout the centuries derive their ministry from the original apostles. This by no means elevates them above Christ, or Scripture. But the apostles were the most important leaders of the early church.

We should comment on St. Simon and St. Jude on this their feast day. Simon the Zealot was among the Twelve who heard first hand what the Lord Jesus taught. After Christ ascended to Heaven the apostles started their missionary journeys. The most familiar symbol of Simon is a book with a fish on top. This is given to him because he was a great fisher of men, through the power of the Gospel. One tradition claims Simon traveled to Britain. The Romans of Britain condemned his preaching and crucified him in A.D. 61.

St. Jude is a hard apostle to identify. Jude is the same thing as Judas, and there are three Judes in the New Testament. 1.) Judas Iscariot betrayed the Lord. 2.) Jude, the brother of Jesus, was the one who wrote the book of Jude. Those two are different men from Jude the apostle. The apostle we honor today is the Jude Thaddeus. He was the son of James the Great. There was a father-son duo among the Twelve Apostles. Did you know that? Jude Thaddeus is mentioned in Luke 6:16 as the son of James. Remember James and John the sons of Zebedee? Jude is the son of that James, James the Great, which makes him the nephew of St. John, and the grandson of Zebedee. The strongest traditions have him traveling with Bartholomew to Armenia to evangelize that nation. Later he voyaged with St. Simon on various missionary journeys. That is why his emblem depicts a sailboat.

Let’s return to the imagery of the Church as the new temple. The apostle Paul makes a puzzling remark about buildings that grow, as if they were growing boys: “the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.” Do buildings grow? No. They stay the same size. The commentator Leon Morris thinks that Paul accidentally mixed his metaphors. While Paul was describing the Church as a temple he was at the same time thinking of a vine, or a mustard seed, or a loaf of leavened bread.

A better explanation would be that Paul didn’t accidentally mix his metaphors. He was simply proclaiming the biblical doctrine of the temple. What was that? According to Scripture the temple replicated the Garden of Eden. Eden was the first temple, and the construction of Solomon’s temple reflected that garden in many ways. 1 Kings 6-7 describes the interior of the temple, and it includes numerous garden-like carvings and pieces of furniture covered with precious metals. Things such as wood-carved gourds, open flowers, palm trees, pomegranates, lily designs, lamp stands stylized as trees, a laver of water, and let’s not forget the proliferation of precious stones and minerals. Gold and gems and jewelry made the temple and the high priestly garments sparkle with glory.

The idea of identifying the Garden of Eden with the temple may seem far-fetched to some people, but the Bible itself suggests it and Judaism made it a popular tradition. Consider the similarities between Eden and the Temple. Eden was located on a mountain, so was the temple (Ex. 15:17; Ez. 28:14, 16). Cherubim guarded Eden, and Cherubim guarded the Temple (1 Kings 6:29). A river flowed through Eden, and a river was thought to flow out of the temple (Ez. 47:1-12). God was uniquely present in the Garden of Eden, and God is uniquely present in the temple (Genesis 3:8; 2 Sam. 7:6-7). God appointed Adam as a priest over Eden, and He appoints priests over the temple. Eden was adorned with beauty, and the temple was adorned with beauty (2 Chron. 3:6). The entrance of the temple was on the east side, and the so was the entrance to Eden. The comparisons multiply. Just one similarity between Eden and the temple would not make that strong a case for fusing the two, but the accumulation does.

In order to discover why the apostle Paul spoke of the temple growing we need to take a few more steps. The Garden resembled the temple, and the temple resembled the garden and both were copies of Paradise. That is the next step. Eden was a microcosm of Heaven and so was the temple (Ps. 78:69; Heb. 8:5; Rev. 21:1-3). Here is the last piece of the puzzle. The boundaries of the Eden-garden-sanctuary were meant to be extended to encircle the entire world. Due to Adam’s rebellion, the earth, which was planned to become God’s Garden-Temple, had instead become a wilderness of thorns, thistles, sweat, scarcity, pollution, and death. Man was banished from the Garden, and forbidden to enter it again. But that wasn’t the end of the story. The tabernacle and Temple continued the original purpose of Eden. Paradise was to be restored to earth. After the Fall the work would be much harder but the same mandate held. The Israelites were to enlarge the boundaries of the temple until they formed the borders around the whole earth. Isaiah 35 and Ezekiel 34, and 47 bring this out (Gen. 1:28; Is. 35; 55:5; Ez. 34, 47). [I am grateful to G. K. Beale, David Chilton and James Jordan for these insights.]

St. Paul didn’t misspeak when he stated that the Church is a temple that grows in the Lord. He was merely restating and reestablishing the Old Testament vision of universal obedience to the Lord, and an expanding Temple/Garden. How does God advance this cause? Through the organized, congregational prayers, praise, and sacramental celebration of His Church. Eden and the temple will cover the globe. St. John sees that fulfillment in Rev. 21:1-3: “Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth… And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people.”

According to the Bible, the Church is a kingdom, a family, and a garden/temple that grows to cover the earth. What are the implications of these truths?

A. The vision of the garden/temple expanding over the earth means that we beautify our environments. We work to make it happen. We beautify the environment of our worship, our homes and our neighborhoods. Fellowship with God is enhanced when we are surrounded with beauty.

B. The growth of the garden/temple means that we should work for the conversion of all nations. We support missionaries and welcome foreigners, and appreciate the contributions of other cultures because God’s temple expands to redeem them. There are no barriers of race in our church fellowship. All races and tongues and cultures become God’s chosen peoples once they embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ crucified.

C. The growth of the garden/temple motivates us to work for the sanctification of every area of life. Of course salvation begins with the proclamation of God’s Word. It begins by transforming our hearts. We must evangelize and look continually for God’s grace in the sacraments. But we need to have the big picture: God’s redemption restores all of creation (Rom. 8:19-21). The restoration of Eden is an essential aspect of salvation.

D. Lastly, and very importantly, the growth of the garden/temple instills hope. St. Paul states that the temple will grow which means that the Church will grow. It is a promise that fills believers with hope. At present the Church seems small, our society is crumbling, the environment is ugly, sin is pervasive. But Christians are not pessimistic about the long-term outcome. By God’s grace and in His timing, the Church will eventually conquer her enemies. The salvation of Christ will turn back the curse, bring back Edenic conditions, repair personal and social relationships, and bless the earth in every area. The whole earth will be saved, and remade into the Garden of God. “For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Is. 11:9).

Let us pray.

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