Dear Associates, Students and Friends:
This month’s articles are titled, “The Corinthian Experience” and “The Pattern of the Temple.” Dr. Ernest L Martin wrote the first in 1978. I wrote the second article.
At first glance the two articles this month are not related except that Paul told the Corinthians that as Christians that their bodies were the Temples of the Holy Spirit,
“Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.”
1 Corinthians 3:16–17
Always understand that a restatement in Scripture (such as above) is deliberate and meaningful. In this case the reason for the repetition is to eliminate any possibility of ambiguity on the part of the Corinthians as to Paul’s strong feelings about moral purity.
The Corinthian Experience
The experience of the Corinthians can be viewed as a foretaste of the reaction by Christians around the world in the end times when “the times [Greek, chronos] of restitution of all things” takes place (Acts 3:21, c.f. Matthew 17:11 and Mark 9:12) before the return of Christ to this world.
When information floods upon the world that the Bible is truthful and reliable in all realms of human experience, people will seek to learn about God and Jesus Christ. They will be honored as never before. It will seem like the time prophesied by Isaiah that, “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9). The world will rejoice and embrace that information which will be studied and distributed to the world by the scholars and scientists. The result will be that the world will acknowledge that God exists and that He has a hand in mankind’s affairs. Indeed that will be the case.
Then all hell will literally break loose. The people of the world shall go and react just like people after the flood reacted to God’s presence, they rose up to do evil with that knowledge. It will be just like the people of Israel did immediately after the Exodus when God rescued them from Pharaoh and revealed Himself to them and covenanted with Israel. It will be just like in the time of Christ’s final days when He raised Lazarus from the dead, the people proclaimed Him King, and then demanded his crucifixion on the tree. The evil in the last days will be worse than before the restitution of all things, even worse than ever before in history. Such will be the reaction of the non-Christians to God’s intervention in world affairs, which will be subtle and gentle at first.
The reactions of most Christians around the world will be like the Corinthian experience of infancy. There will be rejoicing, and great events will occur as Peter spoke at Pentecost, citing the prophecy of Joel,
“... and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.”
Acts 2:17
This sounds similar to the Corinthian experience, initially. Most Christians will be unlearned and untaught in the common-sense understanding of the Bible, the progressive revelation of God’s message to humanity and as a result they will quickly react like the Corinthians with party factions, strife, and immorality. How can we be sure? Look at the 7 churches of Revelation and read what they will be like just before the return of Christ to this earth. 1 They will quickly err from the faith as the churches did toward the end of Paul’s life. 2 Only from a large-scale conversion of new, immature Christians to the truth of Scripture could there be a “falling away” from the truth as Paul wrote to the Thessalonians,
“Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, That you be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first.”
2 Thessalonians 2:1–3
Note that the day of the Lord Jesus Christ will not come until a “falling away” occurs. Understand also that the “falling away” will not come from modern denominational Christianity. It will come from a falling away from truth, not a majority of error mixed with some truth. It will come from a renewed, reenergized Christianity when God brings the “restitution of all things.” Luckily the books of First and Second Corinthians are with us today. Those who read them will benefit — and the wise shall understand.
The Temple “Pattern”
The Bible gives varying details about all of the sanctuaries of God: the Garden of Eden, the Tabernacle of Moses, the Temple of Solomon, the future Temple of Ezekiel and God’s sanctuary in heaven as seen by John in Revelation.
While the design of Solomon’s Temple is not presented in detail, it is clear from the biblical account that Solomon the King built the structure according to a definite plan given to him by his father David. David was given the design specifications “in writing” from the hand of God.
Just as there are “many mansions” and “abodes” in God’s house (the Temple in heaven, John 14:2, 23), so too there are many rooms in the Temple that Solomon built. I trust you will find this study fascinating.
Housekeeping
The article for December will be “The Dislocation of Time in Prophecies” in which Dr. Martin gives a detailed analysis of Isaiah’s Immanuel prophecy. Be sure to ask for it.
As always we thank each of you so much for your help and support. As you know ASK is dependent upon your prayers, contributions and the buying of our books for us to continue teaching and presenting the Gospel of Christ to this world. We need your continued financial support to perform this task. I want to thank you personally (as Dr. Ernest Martin so often expressed) for your free will contributions and prayers.
The information that you make possible is free and available to everyone around the world so that all may know that Christ has made us all free in Him, and that we have no need of Tabernacles, Temples or mediators. We only need Christ as Mediator between God and man. No one — not spirit or human, no matter what his title or position — can substitute for Christ as the one Mediator between God and YOU.
Your recognition and appreciation of God’s grace through your contributions allow us to continue putting out the fascinating and highly relevant teachings from Dr. Martin that make obvious the truths from the full knowledge of God. We greatly appreciate your support.
David W. Sielaff
David@askelm.com
2 Note particularly the phrases in 1 Timothy 6:10, “erred from the faith” (erred in the sense of going astray, being lost) and in 1 Timothy 6:21, “erred concerning the faith” (erred in the sense of turning aside on purpose).
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