You Can Be a Pillar in God’s Temple
by Terry Wane Benton
"He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God. And I will write on him My new name" (Revelation 3:12).
This seems to be a reminder that though the earthly temple in Jerusalem was to be destroyed with not one stone left upon another (Matthew 24), still there is the far greater temple (Ephesians 2:19f) that Jesus built, and the “spiritual stones” that compose this temple are the dedicated Christians (I Peter 2:3-9). We are “living stones” that build up a far greater spiritual house.
In this spiritual temple Jesus can mark us out for high honors like the “pillar” of the earthly temple was notable. West observes, “According to I Kings 7:21, there were two pillars in Solomon’s Temple named Jachin (“He shall establish”), and Boaz (“In Him is strength”). To be a pillar in the Temple of the living God is to enjoy the state of being made, by the grace of God, spiritually established and strong.“ [p.219]. This means you could be honored as a very stabilizing force in God’s house.
The pillars of the earthly temple “went out” when Nebuchadnezzar took them out in 586 BC and would soon be likewise taken down and out in AD 70 by the Romans, but in God’s spiritual temple, we can be such pillars as “shall go out no more.” This “New Jerusalem” in contrast to the old, earthly Jerusalem, is from heaven, not the earth, and such that no man can invade it and take away its honorable stones of living faith.
The High Priest alone wore the holy crown with a headband with these words “Holiness to the Lord” (Exodus 39:30). But every Christian has a chance to have written across his forehead “My new name”. That is the honorable new name for you. Barnabas had the name “Son of Encouragement” given to him by the disciples. He had formerly been known as Joses (Acts 4:36). What a wonderful honor the brethren wrote across his face, so to speak! But when God counts us as very special instruments of strength and stability in the church, what special name would be our designation from Him? That is a wonderfully encouraging thought!
You can be God’s pillar, a Jachin (established and stable), or a Boaz (a source of “strength” for the brethren because you committed yourself to be an “overcomer” of apathy and discouragement). Are you an overcomer? What position in God’s New Jerusalem spiritual temple do you occupy at present? Do you represent the reputation of strength and stability? Or weakness and instability? What would it take to be an “overcomer?”
Let us have ears to hear what the Spirit is trying to get us to think about and become!
