LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW - Brock University

26 LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW IX
Christ. A reading of Hebrews 6-9 reveals how temple worship was fulfilled
and abolished in the incarnation of the Messiah. Jesus inaugurated the new
order (Hebrews 9:8-15). The rending of the curtain on Good Friday signified
the fulfilment of Old Testament temple worship. The temple was no longer
thought of in terms of a building but as a Person—the Messiah (Matthew
12:6; John 2:19). The temple was thought of in terms of His Body—the
Church (I Peter 2:4-5; II Cor. 6:16)—and as individual members of that
Body (I Corinthians 3:16-17; 6:19). When “the Word became flesh and
made his dwelling [‘tabernacled’] among us” (John 1:14) the temple, the
ceremonial law, and the Levitical priesthood became obsolete to the
Christian disciple. Matthew 18:20 is a plain rejection of the Jewish
understanding of worship for, on the one hand, the presence of the incarnate
Lord replaced the cultic presence of God in the temple, and on the other
hand, the requirement of at least ten persons for Jewish worship was
abandoned. 5 After a time the Christian came to the realisation that he
did not have a significant reason to worship at the temple or observe
the ceremonial law. But the Christian had no holy place which had
been particularly chosen by God as His place of visitation. The
Christian simply knew Christ had promised He would be present
wherever two or three gathered in His name around the Word and the
Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Thus, an elaborate
building, set aside for the worship of God, was of little importance to
them. The ordinary house became the setting for the gathering of
Christ’s “temples” as they gathered around His holy Table in the
presence of the Word to receive the Word.
When we study Luke/Acts we see a movement away from the temple to
the household. John H. Elliott 6 observes that, whereas the Gospel of Luke
opens (Luke 1:5-23) and closes (Luke 24:50-53) with scenes in the temple,
the opening chapter of Acts has the disciples in a house (Acts 1:12-14) and
concludes with Paul’s house confinement in Rome (Acts 28:30-31). He also
observes that within the first eight chapters of Acts the scene shifts with
regularity between the household, where the believers gather for worship
and hospitality, and the temple, which had become a centre of bankrupt
politics and religious control. In his article, “Temple versus Household in
Luke-Acts,” John Elliott writes:
5 See Ferdinand Hahn, The Worship of the Early Church, trans. David E. Green
(Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1973) 46.
6 John Elliott, “Temple versus Household in Luke/Acts”, in Jerome H. Neyrey, ed., The
Social World of Luke-Acts (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991) 225-26. See also John Elliott,
A Home for the Homeless (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1981) 193-94.