God Doesn’t Live in a House

I want to go back to church too, but can we please stop talking about opening up God’s House?

I grew up in the Independent Fundamental Baptist tradition. There are a lot of problems with that tradition, and this one may be considered minor, but it has caused confusion and is simply unbiblical. I am referring to the habit of calling a church building “God’s House.”

As Covid-19 restrictions are being lifted for churches, I recently heard a local pastor excitedly announce how excited he was to be opening up God’s House. Having heard the church building referred to that way my entire life, and having referred to it in that manner myself for much of my life, a couple thoughts came to mind.

First, after these restrictions were put in place (which was not religious persecution by the way, but that’s a topic for another post), I heard many pastors, rightly so, proclaim that the church is not a building, but is the people. Amen! That’s right. The church is the people, and you cannot shut that down.

Now, while celebrating that declaration of truth from so many just a few weeks ago, I was quickly skeptical at their sincerity. I know that many organized churches have huge sums of money tied up in their buildings. Some have multi-million dollar facilities. Most of their programs are centered around their buildings. How were these pastors going to reconcile this truth, that it’s not about the building anyway because the people are the church? I suspected that when the buildings could reopen, these pastors would quickly forget the truth of what they were saying and rush to justify these mammoth facilities and the programs that must be centered around them. I feared that the church being mobilized out in the world, where it belongs, would return to being a social club that is confined to its walls again.

Now, let me say that I do see the need for facilities. There are many things that God would have the church to do that requires a building. But, the point remains that we as the church have missed so much by focusing in the wrong place. The Great Commission tells us to go into the world, not for the world to come to us.

Early on during these restrictions I was having dinner with my wife, brother and father. We have all been heavily involved in ministry at times in our lives. We are all like-minded when it comes to the church’s misplaced focus on buildings. I asked how these pastors that had so quickly pivoted from the building to the people would move back to the building being central when the restrictions would eventually end. My dad said, easy, they just will. And indeed they are doing just that. I guess it’s somewhat out of necessity, they do need those offerings to upkeep those buildings and the best way to get those is to put butts in the seats.

I may be a bit biased about this topic, and showing that some above, but I do believe this is a bad practice for the church and it is not good theology. It causes damage to the regular church goer. I have justified this terminology myself in the past, for many years, but we cannot just assume that regular folks that go to church understand the theological or biblical distinction here and that folks just understand we don’t mean that the building is literally God’s House. I have seen folks fight for physical things inside the church building as if they were fighting for the very gospel itself, and why not, if indeed it is the very dwelling place of God?

Second, not only is using this terminology bad practice and bad theology (#theologymatters), but it is also very unbiblical. God, at one time, did have a house. His Spirit literally dwelt there, in the holy of holies. You can read about the tabernacle (Exodus 25–31, 35–40) and the temple (I Chronicles 28) in these passages and others in the Old Testament. All the specific instructions given by God for these buildings were pointing forward to Jesus. And when Jesus died, God made a definitive statement about the future of “His House.”

And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. -Matthew 27:51

The veil that separated the world from the presence of God was literally unraveled at the death of Jesus. The symbolism here is loud and significant, and just in case anyone didn’t understand what that entailed, God made it crystal clear elsewhere.

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. -I Corinthians 3:16–17

You are God’s temple. You are the house of God. His dwelling place. The Holy Spirit of God literally dwells in the Christian. It cannot be any more biblically clear.

So, please, can we stop calling a building God’s House? It is a big deal. Being biblical is a big deal. So, let’s do that. Let’s be biblical. It matters, even on the minor points.

This scripture has implications more far reaching than just our terminology when referring to the church building. This should affect every aspect of our lives. If this is true, it should change things. So, go, live as if God dwells in you, because He does!

Love one another.