BibleProject - A New Spirit-Filled Temple in Acts

Episode Date: September 21, 2026

Spirit of God E10 — After Jesus' resurrection and ascension, the Holy Spirit becomes the primary way Jesus’ presence and power remains with his followers. The book of Acts demonstrates how the Spirit’s coming fulfills the Hebrew Bible’s hope for God to dwell with his people in a new kind of temple. In this episode, Jon and Tim explore how Pentecost marks the beginning of a new Spirit-filled temple community, uniting God's people and continuing Jesus' mission.CHAPTERSRecap of Luke and Setup for Acts (0:00-16:19)A New Temple at Pentecost (16:19-34:04)The Spirit Uniting a Scattered Diaspora (34:04-46:21)Jesus’ Followers as a New Temple in 1 Peter (46:21-1:00:05)OFFICIAL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTView this episode’s official transcript.REFERENCED RESOURCESThe Acts of the Risen Lord Jesus: Luke's Account of God's Unfolding Plan by Alan J. ThompsonCheck out Tim's extensive collection of recommended books here.SHOW MUSIC“Pleasant Places” by Lofi Sunday feat. Yoni Charis“Redeemables” by Lofi Sunday feat. Yoni Charis“Snowflake” by Lofi Sunday feat. Asaph's ArrowsBibleProject theme song by TENTS SHOW CREDITSProduction of today’s episode is by Lindsey Ponder, producer, and Cooper Peltz, managing producer. Tyler Bailey and Aaron Olsen edited today’s episode and provided the sound design and mix. JB Witty writes the show notes. Our host and creative director is Jon Collins, and our lead scholar is Tim Mackie. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Bible Project podcast. We're in a series on the Spirit of God. Last week, we started in the New Testament, looking at how the Holy Spirit empowers Jesus, his life and ministry. By the Spirit, Jesus proclaims the good news of the kingdom. He heals people. He casts out unclean spirits, and he even shares the spirit's power with his followers. Today, we continue by exploring Luke's second volume, The Scroll of Acts. The word spirit appears over 50 times in the book of Acts. It's like the major player. The main way that Jesus's presence stays with and guides Jesus' followers is through the presence of the spirit. At the beginning of Acts, Jesus tells his followers to wait in Jerusalem for the promise of his father a baptism in the Holy Spirit. What he's talking about is the coming of the new creation spirit

that came on Jesus at the baptism. That is coming for his followers, and he calls it a promise, a new unleashing of God's ruach on his covenant people. His followers are waiting in a room, and suddenly a rushing wind fills the whole house. A fire covers each of them,

and then they're filled with the Holy Spirit. Now, this is easy to miss, but this is all temple imagery. This is a great opportunity to see how biblical authors are using hyperlinked imagery and passages to make a really important theological claim. Luke's claim is that the hope of the Hebrew prophets of a new, restored, Eden, temple presence. That's what happened. The people are the temple.

Now, this is all taking place during the Jewish festival called Pentecost. And so there are many Jewish people who live all over the world gathering in Jerusalem. They're exiles who live in other nations and speak foreign languages. And so it's in this moment that the disciples, filled with God's spirit, begin to speak to them in their home languages. And on that day, 3,000 of them put their trust in Jesus as the Messiah. This is Luke's way of describing the restoration of the tribes into one under their messianic king, filled with the spirit, and God's temple being put right in the middle of them.

Peter, in a later letter, calls Jesus the cornerstone, and the followers of Jesus living stones, all built up as a spirit house. This is so foundational, it's setting a new baseline. When I think Holy Spirit, one of the first things I should think of is temple imagery, and that will illuminate all kinds of passages about the Spirit in the New Testament. Today, Tim Mackie and I discuss God's Spirit arriving at Pentecost, creating a new, spirit-filled living temple. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Hey Tim. Hi John. Hello. So we just got done talking about the spirit of God in the gospel of Luke. In the mission of Jesus leading up to his death and

resurrection in Jerusalem. Yeah. The role of the spirit. From his conception to his death and then to his recreation life. So today we'll continue. Yeah, Luke's second volume. Luke part two. Yeah. Luke Acts, is the two-volume work by the same author, and it makes up a third of the New Testament, just in terms of, like, word amount, or page length. So that's a significant contribution to the Bible. It comes from one person. And the reason why I featured Luke, and why we're going to focus on Acts, is that Luke Axe is a retelling first of the story of Jesus that highlights the activity of the Spirit of God more than any of the other Gospel. accounts, like the word spirit occurs more in Luke than Matthew, Mark or John. And then also in Acts, the main way that Jesus's presence stays with and guides Jesus' followers after his resurrection and ascension to his heavenly throne is through the presence of the Spirit. And so

the word spirit appears, I think it's just over 50 times in the book of Acts. It's like the major player on the stage. So that's where we're going to look at in this episode is how the trajectory and role of the spirit in the mission of Jesus then plays a parallel in developing role in the mission of his followers. My main takeaway moving into Luke from the Hebrew Bible was that God's spirit is responsible for all of life. Everything is sustained by God and his spirit. But to be empowered by God's spirit in a special way, what you were calling like 2.0 spirit. Or supercharge. Supercharge. Super boost. Yeah, the super boost. Yeah. That was very rare in the Hebrew Bible and was also a little dangerous or a little bit. Is dangerous the right word? Well, to supercharge a human who has been

given by God the gift of being an image of God, which means having a degree of not full autonomy, but genuine responsibility in God's world to partner with God means that things can go great or things could go bad. And if you have a really capable human being who has that kind of freedom, whoa, high stakes. But examples of that are few. Yeah. Sometimes it goes great. Like in Joseph saving Egypt and Canaan in famine, where Betelel creating symbolic Eden. Sometimes it goes, horribly wrong like a Samson or a Saul figure. Yeah. And so it's rare.

It can go wrong. Can go wrong. So this is the framework of this supercharged, spirit-filled person in the Hebrew Bible. Yeah. We also have a hope from Moses and the prophets that everybody, every Israelite, even all flesh, says Joel, could get the supercharge boost from the spirit. every human, which is exciting and also. Terrifying to imagine.

Yeah, yeah. So with that lens, we move into the New Testament. And we get an account of a bunch of people suddenly getting supercharged, way more than I'm used to having kind of done this tour of the Hebrew Bible looking at the supercharged human. Yeah, Luke tells us about a priest. and then that priest's wife, and then that priest and his wife's baby in the womb,

all getting the super boost. Yeah, you're talking about John the Baptist. And then you get the story of Mary, and she gets the spirit overshadowing her into this moment of conception, which now is a spirit merging with humanity in a new way. And then you've got the life of Jesus, where right out of the gates, he is baptized and the spirit descends on him. Yeah, what gets proclaimed at Jesus' baptism is what has always been true of him

in his eternal relationship to the Father. He is the beloved son of the Father. The Spirit leads him into the wilderness, and then through the Spirit, he begins to heal people. And so we just have the supercharged human. Yeah, he's the one. Bringing new creation. Yeah, he's actually doing it responsibly and wisely in love of God and neighbor, and it just unleashes Eden into the world.

And then the story that really stopped me in my tracks was when we looked at the 70 disciples going out. And how that number 70 was so important to our conversations earlier. Yes. Because when Moses... He's tired of leading Israel by himself. And so God shared. of his Ruach, his spirit, and puts it also on

70 others. Yeah. And then two more. And two surprise more. Yeah. And Joshua, isn't it Joshua, who's a little bit He's like, whoa, who are those two extra guys in the camp that got the spirit too? They're not. Their names aren't enrolled on the list. And then

Moses famously says, oh man, wouldn't it be cool if everyone was supercharged by the spirit? Yeah, yeah. And that becomes this hope that then When Jesus sends out 70, they're filled with the spirit. Well, actually, here, this is great little detail. It doesn't say they're filled with spirit. It says that they're just given authority from Jesus.

Okay. Well, thanks for saying that. I just want to note that. Yeah. But they're given power. A given authority. On loan from Jesus to represent him. And that power lets them, we don't get the details, but they see spiritual powers just fold and give way to them.

People are healed. and evil spiritual presences are cast out from people's lives. And then Jesus just kind of delights in the moment. And he's like, yeah, guys, you are experiencing new creation. He rejoices greatly in the Holy Spirit. So cool. Yeah. And talk to his father.

So this is the Trinitarian moment where they're like, this is what human life is supposed to be like. What a cool story. It's so cool. We talked about then Jesus hanging on the cross. He says, into your hands, I commit my spirits. Yep. Psalm 31.

31. Yep. Which is a Psalm and a moment of death that he can trust that God will sustain his life. Yeah. Or sustain his. Yeah. Yeah. The poet's essentially saying, if I give you my breath, I know you're going to rescue me.

It's a Psalm of Confidence. And then Jesus breathes out his last breath and dies. Yeah. And then on resurrection morning, the tomb is empty, and that causes a lot of puzzlement among his followers. And then they're having a meal in a room, and all of a sudden Jesus is standing there. And they're all of us shocked. And he says, why are you so freaked out? Look, I'm not a, and then he uses the word, Pnevma, I'm not a spirit.

A spirit doesn't have flesh and bone like I have. Yeah. Do you have something to eat? Yeah. So the resurrected Jesus is not now just some ghost, some spirit. Yeah. He has a material mode of existence, but it's also fundamentally different than our mortal flesh and blood, as it were. He has a flesh and bone, but it's now of a resurrection, new creation category, of which he is the only specimen in all creation. That's interesting. Yeah.

We could trace that more, but I'll leave that to the side. Yeah, but what we didn't talk about in our last conversation is what Jesus says after. Okay. In the next moment, at the end of Luke. He takes him on a Bible study through the Torah, prophets, and the Psalms. He says, listen, this is what the Hebrew Bible is about, that the Messiah would suffer, rise again from the dead on the third day, that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be announced in his name to all the nations, starting in Jerusalem. You are my witnesses, you guys.

You ready to rock? Let's go. Let's do this. Oh, wait. Hold on. I'm going to send you the promise of my father. But you are to stay right here in the city until you put on the closing of power from on high. Power from on high. Bible hyperlinked code speech here. Okay. Well, we already talked about how power is very synonymous with spirit in Luke's gospel. From the first appearance of John, that John, the Baptist, in the womb would have the spirit and power of Elijah. Yeah. So the first time the word spirit was used was joined with power and right on through.

You know, in our first Holy Spirit video, we landed on the word energy. Should we have used the word power? Oh. The word power is hard for people. Mm-hmm. Just as a loan word, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. People misuse power so much.

That's right. Yeah. I think that's probably why we avoided it. Because power also does have a neutral sense of like turn on the power. It's just capacity. Yeah. But we also have the word energy. Like I wouldn't say I have energy over you.

Right. It speaks more just of the source. Yeah, the potential. Itself, anyway. Okay. But clothed with power from on high. The word spirit is not used at the end of Luke. What he's talking about is the coming of the new creation spirit that came on Jesus at the baptism,

that empowered him or however we want to talk about that. That is coming for his followers. calls it a promise. There's some promise that my dad made, and it's about to happen. So what he's certainly hyperlinking to is all of those passages that we surveyed in the Hebrew prophets. Okay. So we're talking about Isaiah 32, Joel, chapter 2, Ezekiel 36 and 37, about a new creation, unleashing of God's ruach on his covenant people. That's what my dad promised, and that's what I'm going to send. So stay in Jerusalem until, and then instead of saying the spirit comes, he says, you will put on the clothing of power that is from the skies.

Yeah. Power from the skies. Yeah, it's like a robe. Like a robe. Yeah. You're going to immerse yourself, surround yourself in it. And it's power, heavenly power. So that's how Luke ends. And he's kind of, this is a good example of how he's woven Luke and Acts together, because then Acts, volume 2, begins, and Jesus says something similar after 40 days of hanging out with his disciples, we're told, in Acts chapter 1, and that he was teaching them about the kingdom of God, and then he says, listen, you guys, don't leave Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of my father, which, you know, you heard about from me. John, baptized people with water, y'all are going to be baptized with the Holy Spirit in not many days.

And down in verse 8 of Acts chapter 1, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you to be my witnesses. So now he uses the word spirit joined with power. But he doesn't use the clothing metaphor. That's only at the end of Luke. But it's like a little join of Luke and Acts. The same speech given twice with slightly different language. Okay. Yeah.

So there you go. Luke Acts kind of sets up like it's the passing of the baton, as it were. In other words, the New Testament is registering that whatever they participated in of the work of the Spirit, pre-Jesus' death and resurrection and ascension, was fundamentally different than what they experienced after his death and resurrection and ascension. And Peter even names this in the speech it gives at Pentecost and maybe we should just read the story of Pentecost now. Okay. So Acts chapter 2 begins after that period of waiting.

Jesus said, not many days from now. And we're just told the day of Pentecosta. That just means 50. That's the number of 50 in Creek. The day of 50? Mm-hmm. Which is the second of the three annual pilgrimage feasts that Israelites were invited to make to the temple.

And this is grounded in the ritual laws of the Torah, Exodus, and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy, actually. They're all talked about there. So it's Passover. It's number one. It's number one. Then there's something called the feast of weeks or Pentecost. You count seven times seven weeks after Passover ends. And then on the 50th day.

Okay. That's where you get 50. And that's why it's called. It's 50 days after Passover. That's right. So it's called Chavuot in Hebrew, which just means sevens. Oh. Which was referring to the seven-sevons of weeks afterwards.

And then in Greek, it was referred to as Pentecost? Pentecost, yep. So it's just a Greek name versus a Hebrew name, Shavuot or Pentecost. And then the third one is tabernacles, which is in the fall. That's Sukkot? That's Sukkot, yeah, our tabernacles. So Pentecost, it originated, it's about a spring harvest offering. So it's about the first fruits of your harvests.

So all your early sprouting like plants and grains and you bring the first fruit of those and you say thanks to God and you worship and have a big party to celebrate the harvest that is to come. So that itself is significant. It already is a ritual feast whose symbolism and story is about we are celebrating the taste of the full harvest

that God is going to give us in the weeks and months to come. So that's kind of cool. It's cool. That's important. That feels significant. Just like Passover was significant. That's what I was just thinking. For Jesus.

Jesus already made Passover such a significant moment for his ministry. Yes. And then, in a way, layered a whole new identity to it. Not like changing it, but like deepening it in a new way to represent what he was doing. Yes. And you're saying that was the first pilgrimage feast. And then we get to the second pilgrimage feast, and suddenly there's a whole new layer of meaning and identity being wrapped around it. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, in Exodus 23, it's actually not even called Chavuot Weeks or Pentecost. It's just called the feast of the harvest of the first fruits of your labor from what you sow in the field. So it's just a huge party to say, we just are getting. getting the first sign of the bigger harvest to come, and let's go to the temple, like where heaven meets earth, and have a party. So just like Jesus intentionally chose Passover to load the meaning of his death and resurrection

with all of the Passover meaning, so the Father, Son, and Spirit, chose Pentecost, certainly as a part of this symbolic meaning. It was the first fruits, as it were, because the spirit is not going to come on every single human on planet Earth in the supercharge boost way, but it is going to come on some. Ah, the early harvest. But do for them what God's purposes are for the many.

So now we have the one, and then the few as an image of what God is going to do for the many. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Pentecost. Okay. So we got five words in. Chapter two, when Pentecost had come.

They, that is the disciples of Jesus, were all together in one place. How many people are we supposed to be imagining here? Yeah. I want to say 120. Yeah, so just like a paragraph before in the middle of Acts chapter 1, what we're told is that after Jesus gave a speech and the disciples stayed there in Jerusalem, we're told in Acts 115 that Peter gets up and he talks about this leadership gap that they have because Judas is gone.

So there's 11, and he gives a speech. And then Luke says it was a gathering of about 120 people there. And then that seems to be the crew that's hanging out in one place when you begin Acts chapter 2. So that's a sizable group. Oh, I was going to say that's not a lot of people. Oh, I see. Well, compared to the human population, or how many thousands of people were in Jerusalem. Well, I'm also thinking, like, for how many people Jesus interacted with, heal,

and taught, after everything is said and done, it's 120 people who have gathered. Yeah, that's a good point. Now, they're in Jerusalem. You know, if they were up in Galilee, they could probably wrestle up a few more. But not everybody had the money or ability to take a two-day hike down to Jerusalem for the feast.

Yeah. This is maybe when a basketball team does an away game. Oh, because you're saying Jerusalem's not home court for Jesus. I mean, he'd been many times. times. Yeah. So he knew people around there and he had friends in villages nearby. We know that, but. But home court was Galilee. Home court. Home court was Galilee. Yeah. Okay. At least that's how the gospel's presented. Yeah, that makes sense. And that's where the crowds were constantly around him was up in Galilee. I see. Mm-hmm. And then also, this is after he's been executed. Yeah, got it.

Okay. Suddenly, there came from the sky, even though they're in a room. That's interesting. They're in a room. that has a ceiling but there came from the sky a noise like a violent rushing wind that word rushing

was important to us in Hebrew at least I don't remember the word was in Hebrew it was like a mob oh yes what oh when it rushed on somebody yeah when the spirit rushed there was a Hebrew word

that meant like a yeah yes Hitzliah an army would come down a hill or something. Oh, thanks for that, John. I had forgotten that detail in this moment. So like the sound of A, let's see.

Biaos, violent, strong, forcible. It doesn't occur very often in the New Testament. What's the word in Hebrew that I'm thinking of? No way. John, that's so interesting. Well, whoa, I never, this is so cool. So this word is used in the Septuagint to describe the east wind that God sent to drive back the waters of the Sea of Reeds in the Exodus.

Oh, really? The parting of the waters. Yeah. It's called a strong. But it's usually mighty. It's called a strong east wind. Okay. But that word strong, it's the word Oz in Hebrew, which just means powerful.

But it's rendered in the Septuagint as Bias. And then that's the word Luke chooses to describe the wind spirit coming into that. room. Okay. That's interesting. That's compelling. Cool. That's super interesting. Thanks for that, John. Okay. So there you go. A violent, strong, rushing. When rushing, it's the word Pharaoh, which just means to be carried along, carrying along. Oh, so violent is the word Bayeo. Yep. Rushing is a different word. Rushing just means moving fast. Moving fast. So it's a little bit different than the on rushing of that Hebrew verb. It's Lioch for spirit. But it's a the same basic idea of like sudden, surprising, the sound that comes to my mind that I just made, it's that. I get it.

It comes on. And it did more. It filled the entire house where they were sitting. The noise did? The wind. The wind. The strong, fast-moving wind. And what's interesting, he actually doesn't use the word Pnevma.

he uses a synonym that comes from the same root, Pnois. Okay. But you can hear the Pna. Yeah. And it filled the whole house, and then there appeared, distributed and resting right over the head

of each one of them a tongue of fire. That's the word tongue like human tongue, but then also can be used metaphorically for languages, which is surely the kind of the double meaning it has here. Okay. And then a fire. So you've got wind, strong, filling a house, fire, and resting on top of. So this is Luke's version of giving us low-hanging fruit for hyperlinks.

He's bringing a whole bunch of hyperlink scenes together. Yeah. We just traced down one. The strong wind related to the wind that parted the waters. But fire resting on top of and then a house being. filled up with the wind and a holy peddhvma is another hyperlink. What's the filling of the house hyperlink? Well, let me ask you, just if I just said it's low-hanging fruit, then I guess you

kind of have to be a little bit of a Bible nerd to know it. Well, my guess is the filling the temple. So the glory cloud filling the temple? Yeah, so exactly. First, the tabernacle. So Exodus. Sorry, the tabernacle. Exodus chapter 40.

Yes. The glory cloud is first mentioned following the Israelites out of Egypt on the night of Passover. And it's said to be a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day. So Exodus 40, the cloud, covered over the tent of meeting. This Exodus 40, verse 34. And then the glory, like the physical manifestation of the presence of Yahweh, filled up the tabernacle. And then the narrator says,

oh yeah, dear readers, you should know, the cloud was over the tabernacle by day, and at night it turned into fire. That's X's 40, verse 38. And so now that fire cloud hovers over the tabernacle. Yeah. So it's both filling and it's covering over.

And then you can turn to kings, or Chronicles. I'm looking here at the Chronicles version of the day Solomon's temple is completed. And he gives this long seven-part prayer and holds two seven-day feast to celebrate the finishing. And then when he finished praying, this is Second Chronicles, chapter 7, verse 1. When he finished praying, the fire came down from the sky. And it consumed up all the offerings and sacrifices, and the glory of Yahweh filled up that house.

And then it goes on to repeat it multiple times. So fire from the sky filling up the house. So between these two stories, the only thing you don't have in either of these is wind. Oh. But you have wind from the parting of the seas in Exodus, and what was it that was going ahead of Israel as the waters parted? Didn't Luke already do kind of a literary move to show that spirit and then the glory cloud were kind of the same thing? Oh, yes. It was Mary's womb.

And Mary's womb. Yeah. Oh, the overshadow. That's right, because that term refers to. to the cloud. Yep, to the cloud, yeah. The fire cloud. Yep.

And then that's what the spirit does. Yeah, cool. So the fire cloud is the spirit, overshadowing, filling Mary's womb to create a body for the son of God, as it were, out of Mary's flesh. And then here's the same spirit now filling up the house and coming to rest over each of the people. So there it is right there.

You have cloud covering, glory, filling the tabernacle and fire. Okay. So this is a great opportunity to see how biblical authors are using hyperlinked imagery and passages to make a really important theological claim. But it's implicit. Like the reader has to connect the hyperlinks and then meditate and draw the conclusion themselves. What's great is we have the Apostle Paul, who will have explicitly draw the conclusion for us.

Okay. Later, but it's good to just do the work ourselves for the moment. Yeah. What's he trying to communicate by saying a group of people had a violent, rushing wind, come over them, filling the house, covering each one of them with fire? And then they are filled up with the Holy Spirit. Yeah. Yeah, the house is a reference to the tabernacle. Or temple.

Or temple. And that's God's presence. his spirit filling that house. However, it was only a select few, actually really just one, who was allowed into the Holy Holies of that house. Yeah, right. Yes, the High priest. High priest.

In terms of the most holy place. Right. Yeah, yeah. And do we get a story of God's fiery presence on the priest? Only to kill two of them. Yikes, yeah. When they bring strange fire. When they bring their own fire in.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, there's that. And we also had the story in Luke 1 where Miriam is filled with God's spirit and in a way referenced as a tabernacle of sorts. Yeah. So you already kind of had that moment of like, oh, a person can be. A person can, yeah, be a kind of tent. A tent. Yeah.

Which God's spirit could fill. That's right. And the purpose of the tent was so that God could. dwell among Israel, be with them. That's right. The tent is an image of Eden, which is the image of God's heavenly presence, meeting earthly dimension of humans.

We often talked about the crisis of the tent in that if God's presence is going to live among you, that's good, but it's also very dangerous. And so all these purity laws and all of these rituals to help Israel come to terms with, the reality of the transcendent, infinite, holy God living in their midst. Yes. And for a normal Israelite, they can get close, but they can't fully participate in the reality.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So the radical claim, which again isn't Luke saying this is so radical, it totally separates the Jesus movement from its Israelite roots. The radical claim, is that the hope of Moses and the prophets for the Spirit of the Messiah to come upon the many. That's what's happening. Yeah. Moses is hope.

That's right. But what's fascinating is he's using the language of the hoped-for filling of the renewed, restored temple in Jerusalem. He's using that language and imagery to describe what is happening to the house that they're in.

Because when the violent rushing wind fills the house, You're like, oh yeah. It's like the house is the temple. Okay, right. But then the fire and the spirit comes over each person, and then the spirit fills each person. So it's almost like the people become the house. We didn't read that verse, and they were all filled with the holy. Yeah, they were filled with the holy penevma and began to speak in other tongues.

So the wind fills the house. The fire covers over each person, and then the spirit fills the people. So it's like they're a house within the house. Yeah. House is the word for temple, often the house of the Lord. So it's sort of like a double layering of the temple imagery here. And the people are the temple in this equation. Or each one of them is a temple.

Together they are a temple. Together they are a temple. All as one in the house. The house that's filled. So on one layer, they are the temple, a collective temple. That's a human. But then each one of them becomes... Wait, that's a human?

Ah. Well, as a collective whole... They are like a group of humans, a sampling of humanity being filled up with the divine breath. And then each one of them. Individually. Yeah. So we're drilling down here, but Luke's claim is that the hope of the Hebrew prophets of a new, restored, Eden, temple presence where heaven meets earth, that's what happened after seven times seven days after Jesus' resurrection. When we looked at the prophets and they talked about a new spirit, you're saying there's also discussion of the temple being refilled with God's spirit in a new way.

I just didn't look at those. It's great. Here, let's just quick turn to one. So here I'm going to follow the lead from a New Testament scholar, Alan Thompson, in this excellent book on Acts called The Acts of the risen Lord Jesus. He argues that Luke's language in Acts chapter two and following is Spanish. specifically hyperlinking to Ezekiel chapters 36 and 37 for Ezekiel's restoration hopes. Okay. And Ezekiel 37 begins with the valley of dry bones, with Ezekiel in this vision of seeing like, not just corpses, but corpses where all the flesh is rotted away.

Yeah. Just dry bones in the valley. And God tells them to speak a word of hope to the bones and the spirit, both. recreates flesh on these bones, and then they're just sitting there lifeless, like God formed the clay, into a human form, but then had to do a second step,

which is filling with his breath. Filling them with his breath. And so the breath fills the bones, and then they stand up. That's the first part of Ezekiel 37. The second half of Ezekiel 37 feels like a different dream he's having, where he says,

hey, Ezekiel, get two sticks, right on one stick, Judah. And right on the other stick, Joseph, and the tribes of Israel. So he's referring to the severed brotherhood of the split tribes of the southern and northern kingdom, which is a huge tragedy in the ideal of Israel as a new humanity. So he says, take those sticks, one stick that's Judah, one stick that's the other tribes, and make them into one. Okay.

And you kind of like... Amend it. Yeah. So think of Eden about the two becoming one. Oh, yeah. The one became two, but the whole idea is that then the two covenant together to become one. So Ezekiel says, that's what I did. I got a stick for Joseph, that is the tribes of Israel, and then I got a stick for Judah, and I made them one.

You're like, what does that mean? You just... Tape them together? Yeah, that's what my kids would do. Get, like, scotch tape. Yeah. I'm thinking of like those artisan

carpenters that make those beautiful notches where they could take like two pieces of wood and join them Yeah just perfectly Yeah Yeah Okay there you go

You could have done that Carving out Yeah Yep something He did something To make the two one And then God says It's like a sign act

Ezekiel did lots of these You know He laid down on the ground For a long time He ate weird food as a symbol. So what's this symbol all about? And God tells him in verse 21, I'm going to take the sons of Israel from among all the nations where they've gone. Like he's talking about the scattering from the Babylonian exile. Oh, and from the Assyrian exile, 150 years for that of the northern

tribes. And I'm going to gather them from every side and bring them back into their land. And I'm going to make them one nation in their land on the mountains of Israel and one king will be a king over them. No longer two nations, no longer divided. They won't defile themselves with idols anymore or any of their sins and transgressions. So he's referring to the whole train wreck of the covenant that led up to the exile. I'm going to rescue them from their dwelling places where they've sinned. I'm going to wash them clean, like a ritual washing. They will be my people, all be their God. That's new covenant language. My servant David will be their king, they will have one shepherd over them. And they're going to follow

the covenant. They're going to walk in my commands and my statutes and ordinances and live here in the land. I'll make a covenant of peace with them at eternal covenant. And I'm going to set my holy place, my sanctuary, in the middle of them forever. So that's interesting. That's the tabernacle. Yeah. Yeah. It's the word McDosh, so literally my holy dwelling. and my dwelling place will be with them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. And then all the nations will know that I'm Yahweh, who makes Israel holy, when my holy place is in the middle of them forever.

So Ezekiel draws together the resurrection of an Israel, on the other side of exile, with the many scattered tribes becoming unified again, and being filled with the breath, having a king from the line of David and then God's holy temple being in the middle of them. All of that is one hope in Ezekiel's mind. And he specifically, throughout Ezekiel,

but especially in these chapters, uses the phrase the entire house of Israel, the whole house of Israel, talking about all the tribes back together again. And so, again, this is Alan Thompson's work who signaled this to me. He says, isn't it interesting that right in Peter's Pentecost speech, when he's talking about what's happening, what he says is let the entire house of Israel recognize what's going on here. We haven't read that yet, right?

No, actually, here, so let me go back to Acts 2 and show you some things. So after the Spirit fills them up, they start speaking with different languages. And it's the word tongues again. Okay. And what Luke tells us is they start speaking and people start hearing in their own languages the mighty acts of God, the majestic deeds of Yahweh, of the Lord, which is Hebrew Bible speak for retelling the story of the Exodus and the deliverance, provision through the wilderness, and then God defending them from the Canaanite oppressors when they entered into the land.

These are the mighty deeds of Yalai. But now they have another thing to add to the list. Which is Jesus enacting all of that. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And his way.

And then Luke pauses to say, hey, let me give you a rundown of all the people in languages and groups that were there. This Acts 2, verse 5. There were Jewish people in Jerusalem, devout, really devoted like Israelites, from every nation under heaven. And so this crowd came together. They were bewildered, but they were all hearing people speak in their own language. So it's very important. These are all Israelites who were there. But they're scattered.

They're from the diaspora. And then they say, how are we hearing them each in our own language? And then they are saying, Luke provides for us a list of 15 places that they're from. It's a long list. Parsians and Medes and Elamites. people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Capodokia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphalia, Egypt, Libya, Cyrene, Rome, both Jews and converts to Jews, Cretans, and Arabs. So Alan Thompson gives this great map, which just gives a cool map. Yeah, totally.

And basically, he's just drawn a full circle around Jerusalem. Okay. And it's a description of the scattering. So what Thompson's argument is, is this is Luke's way of describing Ezekiel's hope. The fulfillment of Ezekiel's hope. Yeah, the restoration of the tribes into one under their messianic king, filled with the spirit, a spirit of resurrection.

Yeah. Of life from the dead. And the shepherd is Jesus. It's Jesus, yeah. It's the making of a new covenant bond between God and Israel and God's temple being put right in the middle of them. Like in them. Yeah.

Yeah. So maybe the surprise is that the temple is not a building. It's not physical. Or it's not, it is physical. It's not an architectural building. Yeah, it's not a building. Yeah. That's right.

Now, that wasn't foreshadowed in the Hebrew Bible. That it wouldn't be a building? Yeah. Genuine surprise. Yeah. Yes. On one level, yes. And I'm taking a deep breath here because there's a lot of layers to how we might address that question.

Because in one sense, the temple was and is a image or a symbol of something bigger than itself. The blueprint that Moses got was something physical that he could create, but it represented something real in the sky as that he experienced. Yeah, it is an architectural symbol. and not just a symbol in terms of like a memorial, but an actual incarnation of a heaven on earth spot. But it's also the case from Genesis 1 that human beings are themselves

a meeting of heaven and earth, divine and human. Right. So in a way, it's not a surprise. Look at Genesis 1 and 2. That's right, where the divine breath meeting the clay and, well, actually, here we go. Is it a shocker? that the fulfillment of Israel's hopes could be a group of people filled with the divine glory,

as opposed to a building. Or maybe both could stand alongside each other as symbols. What's interesting is in these early chapters of Acts, the people hang in Jerusalem, and Luke tells us that they are constantly going to the temple. It's really interesting. In Acts chapter 2, the Pentecost narrative, concludes was saying, day by day, after this like 3,000 new converts to the way of Jesus come into the fold, we're told day by day they continued with one mind in the temple and sharing meals from house to house.

Acts chapter 3 begins with Peter and John going up to the temple for the hour of prayer. So they didn't reject the temple. Right. It was more like, what better place to go to celebrate? The new human temple being formed, then go to the Jerusalem temple. And that continues on. And until Luke begins to highlight, it is the temple leaders in Jerusalem that begin. They're the first group to be hostile to the followers of Jesus.

And that hostility culminates in the murder of Stephen in Acts chapter 7. So maybe I just want to say, I need to do more thinking. about the human temple versus architectural temple. Yeah. And whether those are complementary realities, they came to be viewed as exclusive realities. Like, in later generations of the Jesus movement, the destruction of the temple was viewed as, you know,

the passing away of a deficient or that the temple was less than, rejecting the temple. Like now that Pentecosts come, the temples... You don't need that symbol. Right. And you don't find that rhetoric in acts. Right at the beginning, you see them just embracing, like, we are the temple. Also, let's go to the temple.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So let me just signal two moments here where then this really helps explain how the apostles begin to talk about communities of Jesus in their letters. One is in Peter. Peter's the one who gives the Pentecost sermon. So what about when Peter is writing a letter that we call one Peter, first Peter. And he's not writing it to Jewish people living in Jerusalem. He's writing it to house churches

throughout Asia Minor that we call Turkey, mostly is where that territory is today. And he registers that he's writing to a mixed audience because he's constantly making comments that are inclusive of non-Israelites in the letter. And what he says in First Peter chapter two, that you all are drawing near to the Lord Jesus, who is a living rock. He's a rock, a stone, that's alive. You're like, well, that's cool.

He was rejected by humans, but he was chosen and precious in the eyes of God. So a reference here to his crucifixion and implying his resurrection, right? Because if he was rejected by humans but chosen by God, whatever they did when they rejected,

him that was reversed by God. And he's alive. He's a living stone, not a dead stone. So that's Jesus, who you come to. And you yourselves are living rocks. You're a bunch of nice carved rocks into stones. You are being built up as a spirit house to be a holy priesthood so that you can offer up spirit sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus. Jesus, the Messiah. That's a potent image right there. Yeah. You're hyphenating the spirit house.

What's happening in the late? Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, this is nerdy Greek grammar. Pnevmatikos. One word. Well, no, an icos panamoticos, a spiritual house. Okay. It's technically an adverb.

Okay. But when you put the ool on the spirit, in English that just sends our minds and directions that are not helpful. When I think of a spiritual house, what I think of is an immaterial house that exists in some immaterial realm. Okay. It's not a physical house, it's a spiritual house. Right. What he means is a house that is filled up with and sustained by the Spirit of God.

I like the hyphenation spirit house. Okay. A house of the Spirit. Okay. Even though it's not technically... Technically, grammatically correct. So in our English translations is being built up as a spiritual house to offer up spiritual sacrifices. But by spiritual, what he means is empowered by, filled up by, sustained by the Spirit, the Holy Spirit.

So you are a Holy Spirit house and you're a priesthood and you're offering up Holy Spirit empowered sacrifices. So you're both the house and the people who serve in the house offering up. sacrifices and offerings that are not animals. And the sacrifices were the opportunity for the many to participate in God's presence. Yeah, as an act of surrender to say thank you. Yeah. Or I'm sorry. Not to appease a God saying, I need something, but as a gift from God to enact in order to

run here. Yep, that's right. Yeah. So he's depicting Jesus as a stone. and then y'all are living stones. So he's the living stone, you're the living stones. It's the one and the many. And the stone, because he's building towards this metaphor?

Yeah, yes, yeah. We're going to find out right now why he uses the word stone. So the Messiah is a stone. You are messianic stones being built up into that new temple and the priesthood in the temple and offering these sacrifices as the priesthood in the temple. because Peter says it stands right there in scripture

quote and he quotes from what we know is Isaiah 28 where Isaiah says look I'm going to lay down in Zion a stone a chosen and precious cornerstone and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame

so now we know like oh that's why he's calling Jesus the stone and it's chosen and precious. It's the foundation of a new building. That's what a cornerstone is. And then there's all these people who are going to trust in that foundation stone,

those who trust in him, who are going to share in the building that God is building. You can see he's unpacking this cool scriptural image from Isaiah. This seems like an example then of the Hebrew Bible thinking of the temple as something more than the temple. That's a wonderful point. Excellent example. Yeah.

That's why I took a deep breath when you asked that question. Because there are really important analogies and moves towards a human temple in the Hebrew Bible, but they tend to be implicit and subtle. What's also interesting then is that this passage in Isaiah 28 wasn't just a important to early Christians. It was important to the Bible nerds who went down and built. Did the see scroll people? Yeah, this kind of like retreat center. Which makes sense because they were rejecting the... Exactly. The tabernet. Yeah. Yeah. Many of them were people who staffed the priesthood up in Jerusalem and they left because they thought that Herod's temple, which is the temple,

the apostles are like hanging out in. Was too corrupt. Was corrupted. And so in one scroll, even, a scroll called the rule of the community, where they describe themselves, how they talk about themselves. They describe themselves as a council founded on truth, built on truth, to be an eternal planting, a holy house, and the foundation of a holy of holies for Aaron and his sons. Okay. Yeah. Taranneagle. Yeah. So, founded on truth. So not like the corrupt version. That's their cornerstone. Yeah. We're a community built on truth. And it's the architectural language there.

An eternal planting, notice the Eden language right there, planting of a garden. A sacred house. It's the word McDash, where it comes right from Ezekiel there. A sacred house for Israel and then the foundation of a priesthood. So this is one of their own prayers or literature? Ah, this is in the opening paragraph where it comes from a scroll that's a handbook for new members of the community. If you want to join the community, here's how you do it, and here's what you're joining. Okay. So this is a self-description of how they would talk about themselves. Yeah. So here's a group of really dedicated Jerusalem, devoted Jews, many of them priests, and they have no problems talking about themselves as the new temple of Ezekiel.

there you go. So we could go on into the Apostle Paul in Paul's letter to the Corinthians there's a place where he talks about y'all Corinthians are the temple of God. This is 1st Corinthians 3. Y'all are the temple of God and uses that as an argument to say

so stop letting the church split and divide because you're dividing up the body. But then he also, in 1st Corinthians 6, can target a number of young men in the church who have been going to temple festivals that get a little too rowdy where there's a lot of wine and temple prostitutes come

and they have sex with these sex workers in the temples and he's like, don't you know that you, singular, each of you, singular, your body is a temple for the Holy Spirit. So he can use that temple imagery communally and individually and as an ethical to have a moral force to that argument.

Like, live as if you are a place where heaven meets earth. So it's a very foundational image for talking about the church and individual Christians is temple language. And it's all about Pentecost as the fulfillment of the hope of the prophets.

The spirit and the temple. I don't know. It's just one of the things where this is so foundational that it's just setting a new baseline. When I think Holy Spirit, one of the first things I should think of is temple imagery, temple language,

and that that will illuminate all kinds of passages about the Spirit in the New Testament. That's the basic thing I wanted to show you. It's great. And to say. This is wonderful. Well, thank you.

And then where to next? Oh, yes. Okay. So we're going to survey different themes connected to the Spirit in the New Testament, and then always showing links to how it brings Hebrew Bible stuff to a fulfillment. So temple, we just did temple. We could have sessioned a lot more text, but we have the basic idea there.

The next thing I want to do is about how spirit, language, and imagery in the New Testament is closely associated with the word body. And it's kind of connected to what we were just talking about, how the temple had an analogy to the human body. as being something that's earthly, but filled up with heavenly spirit. So the temple is a building, filled up with heavenly spirit, but the imagery of God's spirit

filling up a body to create the body of the Messiah. That's a fundamental image in the New Testament. And into that theme fits the whole conversation about spiritual gifts. That's such a popular conversation topic today. So that'll be a...

be part of the body. We're going to talk about spiritual gifts, but I had a light bulb moment a number of years ago to realize that whole thing about spiritual gifts actually fits under what I think is the even more foundational idea,

which is about the church as the body of the Messiah. So the spirit, the body, and the gifts of the spirit. That's where we should go next. Thanks for listening to this episode of Bible Project podcast. Next week, we continue in the New Testament

and explore God's people through a new metaphor. Instead of being a living building, let's talk about all the people united together as one body. Where do you get the idea of a body being filled up with a spirit so it can do the stuff that God called it to do?

This is like page two of Genesis. There's a whole moment that pauses the story to meditate on a body being filled up with breath. Bible Project is a crowdfunded organization and we exist to help people experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. Everything that we create is free because of the generous support, thousands of people just like you. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us.

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