Temple Restored - Morning Star

4. On what foundation do the church organizations, with their man-made temples, rest? Has Christ, either by word or example. laid such a foundation? Another question: Why did Christ say of the temple of Jerusalem, built at the command of God, that it was to be demolished so that one stone should not rest upon another?

Answer: Jesus himself answers this: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt ye tear it up

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in three days ? But he spake of the temple of his body. When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the Scripture, and the word which Jesus had said."--John 2: 19-22.

The time of the material ministration was past, and the time for the establishment of the kingdom of heaven had come. In order to establish this kingdom a time of preparation was connected with it, during which was to be built the heavenly temple; and by the medium of this the believers were to be prepared for the true condition of the kingdom of God. The family of the faithful was to be united as one heart and one soul by means of this heavenly temple, so that its members could have everything in common and besides be so united with God on the basis of his Word that the things in heaven could be united with the things on earth. (Eph. 1:10.) This was and is the real object of Christ's coming into the world.

The temple of the new covenant, which had before it such an exalted goal, could not therefore consist of dead material, temples made with hands, because such things belong to this world of death. The temple of the new covenant was to be built an habitation of God, in which he as an everlasting Father would live among and associate with his people. This follows from these unimpeachable texts: Acts 4: 32-35; 2 Cor. 6: 14-18; Eph. 2: 19-22; and Heb. 3: 1-6.

The temple upon which Christ and the apostles built was based on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ; and the Word of God united this living temple as a spiritual building, entirely separated from the temple cult of the world. This cult has its temples erected on the foundation of Belial--the same foundation used by the Chaldeans in the erection of the tower of Babel and the city of Babylon--and Belial (meaning Bel is god) is the true god of that development. For this reason Paul asks, "What concord bath Christ with Belial?" adding, `'For ye are the temple of the living God; as God bath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty."-2 Cor. 6:15-18.

This living temple, separated from the world, and having been totally trodden down during the times of the Gentiles, will now be restored in connection with the return of Christ, for he is coming to his temple, by means of which he will establish his governmental throne. The transportation of this temple from the present

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world into the new administrative creation was foreshadowed by Noah's ark when it was transported over the flood and it finally landed as though in a new world. This time there will be a flood of fire through which the temple-ark will be transported. Paul also testifies of this, where he speaks of the living temple as compared with dead temples, saying, "Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day [the day of the Lord] shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is." Then he adds, "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall Gbd destroy: for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."-1 Cor. 3: 13-17.

Within the religious organizations there is a confusion of different conceptions and conditions, and instead of having all things in common, as the apostolic congregation, they permit themselves to be incorporated under the civil laws as spiritual and religious corporations in order to build and support together dead temples that rest on the Baalish foundation. The times of the Gentiles permit this, but when they are concluded by the entrance of the day of the Lord, the fate of the Baalish developments will be similar to that of the works of men destroyed in the flood, or to that of the temple of Jerusalem destroyed in the fire. The Babylonian achievements will be subdued by the great movement of the Messianic kingdom.

5. The minister proclaims a Father's house in heaven where chambers, or rooms, are prepared for the reception of immortal souls liberated from their bodies through death. Does such a dogma rest on the foundation of Christ's doctrine or on the sun god doctrine claiming a heavenly kingdom in the sky?

Answer: The Father's house Christ spoke of to his disciples was not situated in the sky. He himself was the first Son of this house, and we read of this in Hebrews 3:4-6, where it says, "For every house is built by some one; but he having built all things is God. And ]Moses, indeed, was faithful in his whole house, as a servant for a testimony of the things to be spoken; but Christ as a Son over his house, whose house we are, if we should hold fast the confidence and the exultation of the hope."--Emphatic Diaglott.

"Christ as a Son over his [Father's] house, whose house we are." The faithful, built up on the foundation of the Word of God, constitute the Father's house in which Christ as well as the other children were and are born and reared. This house is the one called by the apostle, "an habitation of God through the Spirit" (Eph. 2:22), and "the temple of the living God." (2 Cor. 6: 16.) It is built on earth, not in heaven.

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In John 14: 2, 3, where Christ's speech regarding the house of the Father is recorded, he does not say he will convey them up there, but that "I will come again, and receive you unto myself." When he returns he will naturally come to the earth. It does not state he is to return to heaven again. Peter says in Acts 3: 20, 21, that heaven must receive him "until the times of restitution of all things." It is on earth that such a restitution is to take place. The Bible records no more than two advents of Christ. In order to provide room for the Baalish conception certain things are taken away by its promulgators and other things substituted as best suited to them. Christ issues a warning against such practices in Rev. 22: 18, 19. The consequences will be disastrous.

The expression in 1 Thes. 4:17, that "we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air," is often quoted in support of a journey to heaven. But it only states that they meet the Lord in the air. What takes place after this meeting? He will then come to establish the kingdom, to restore that which we lost through the fall of man, namely, Paradise and everlasting life.

The meaningcontained in the words, "I go to prepare a place for you," implies that he went away from the Father's house for the express purpose of preparing a room of time for the continuation of the preaching of the gospel, in order that the building of faith should have room for coming generations of the children of God, way up to the time of Christ's second coming. It does not state, "I go home," but merely, "I go." The Son of man (Ben Adam), like Adam, belongs to the earth, and it is his kingdom that shall be erected on earth, not in heaven. When he returns he will convey with him the keys of death and of the grave and call forth his joint heirs of the kingdom.--John 5:28, 29.

The minister's sermon concerning rooms in heaven is based on the sun god doctrine inherited from the kingdom of Baal; and it inspires to the worship of Baal instead of Christ. It blinds the people, and the result is that they neither can see nor enter the kingdom of God. The kingdom, which Christ returns to establish on earth, consists during the tarrying time in the promises, and he who understands and believes these promises not only sees but also enters the kingdom of God, which, through Christ's return and through the resurrection, will finally include both the living and the dead who in this time have been actuated by faith and the promises.

When David, the shepherd, went to battle against the armored fighter, Goliath, he found five smooth stones in the brook for his sling. We have now done a similar thing, in order to go to battle against the mighty and well armored giant, who proclaims the

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