Whenever two or three of you come together in My name, I am there with you. (Matthew 18:20 CEV)
We must be completely clear as to what it is
that God is particularly concerned with at this time in the world's history,
and, therefore, what it is that we who are the Lord's children are called unto. The thing that God is doing in this
dispensation is the formation of a spiritual and heavenly Israel. In doing that
He is repeating the laws of the old Israel in a spiritual way. He is following
along the lines of His ways with the old Israel, but now on a heavenly and
not an earthly basis, because, while God's methods may change, His principles are
changeless. He has left the earthly basis of the Old Testament and has moved on
to a heavenly basis in the New Testament. He has moved from the temporal to the
spiritual, and the spiritual is far greater than the temporal...
And that
leads us to that wonderful revelation which we have in
the New Testament - the revelation of Christ and all His
members being made one Temple for God. Christ
is our Temple, and in Him we find all that a temple was
ever intended to be. Oh, how people have gone astray over
this! We go to many places that are called "churches" and
the word is applied to the building. When people pray in
those places they usually say something like this: "We
have come into Thy house today. We are in this house of
God." They are really talking about a building. But we
don't need a building to give God a temple! "Where
two or three are gathered together in My name,
there am I in the midst of them" (Matthew
18:20). People gathered into Jesus Christ constitute the
Temple of God. It is not a special building, but people
who are in Christ Jesus. This is what God is doing in
this dispensation.