"David found favour with God and asked for the privilege of building a permanent Temple for the God of Jacob. But it was Solomon who actually built it. However, the Most High doesn’t live in temples made by human hands. As the prophet says, 'Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Could you build me a temple as good as that?' asks the Lord. 'Could you build me such a resting place? Didn’t my hands make both heaven and earth?'" (Acts 7:46-50)

On the Mount of Transfiguration, Moses, representing the Law, and Elijah, representing the Prophets, talked with Jesus about his departure, his death, literally: his exodus. The first exodus from slavery in Egypt prefigured the far more important exodus of Jesus from this world which would achieve freedom from slavery to sin and from the devil's prison. It could be said that Moses and Elijah passed the baton on to Jesus, leaving the beloved Son of God to be the substance of which they were mere shadows.

In the same way, Solomon's temple has been eclipsed by the worldwide church, God's new ethnic group, in both an individual and a corporate sense. You and I are temples of the living God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit (John 14:23; 1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16). "Through [the Son] we both [Jew and Gentile] have access to the Father by one Spirit. Consequently, you [Gentiles] are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit" (Eph. 2:18-22).

What struck me most from the passage in Acts, were the words "The Most High doesn’t live in temples made by human hands. 'Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Could you build me a temple as good as that? Could you build me such a resting place? Didn’t my hands make both heaven and earth?'"

Here is what I thought. God made us. We are the work of his hands; fearfully and wonderfully made; the crown of his creation; made in his image; to multiply, to rule over every living creature and to husband and care for God's breath-taking creation which he has entrusted to us. What a magnificent calling! What incredible value God has placed upon us! Then, when we rejected his rule over us and gave our allegiance to his arch enemy, that value never diminished. He paid the price of our redemption with the precious blood of his Son! Now he chooses to make us his resting place; his home; those he has purchased, purified, adopted and accepted; promising never, no never, to cast us out. He has built a temple for himself and that is us! Dare we say, "as good as" heaven and earth!