[ACuriousFellow]

We can see immediately in Deuteronomy 12:1-7 that the Lord declared that his people were to have one central place of worship. This command of having a central place of worship would lead to the establishing of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the building of the temple where the ark of the covenant would dwell along with the very presence of God. It was there at the temple that every Israelite was commanded to go for their sacrifices, and it served as a powerful, unifying symbol to the people of God. This immediately brings to mind an encounter Jesus had with a certain Samaritan woman. Near the end of their initial encounter, she makes a particular statement which draws an important response from the Lord in John 4:19-24. Here, Jesus declares that the age where God’s people worshipped in the temple at Jerusalem would come to an end, for the age in which God’s people worshipped in Spirit and in truth was coming. The one place of worship was no longer to be in the city or temple made by man, but the temple made by God. The martyr Stephen also declared this to the Jewish leaders in Acts 7:44-50. Paul declares something similar to the Athenians in Acts 17:22-25. The true, eternal place of worship would not and could not be a temple or city made by men, but rather that which is made by God. Paul makes a pretty solid statement regarding the temple of God in 1 Corinthians 3:10-17. The believers are the temple of God. We see it again in 1 Corinthians 6:17-20. And again in Ephesians 2:17-22. Peter also declared that we were the dwelling place of the Lord in 1 Peter 2:4-5. Likewise, sacrifices made in the temple of Solomon are paralleled by Christ’s sacrifice in a heavenly tabernacle as can be seen in Hebrews 9:11-14. Because of these Spiritual and heavenly realities, our ground of oneness comes not from arbitrary boundaries created by men, but rather the spiritual boundaries established by Christ. “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” (Matthew 18:20).