Temple

Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.

1 Corinthians 15:49

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The command from God to build the tabernacle may seem to some a scriptural oddity. Moses is told to make no graven image of anything in heaven, nor earth, nor under the earth, then immediately the prophet is told to make something; a tabernacle, a house of the Lord. With the word from God, the people begin their craft. Intricate, ornate and intensely specific, each object is created by the word of God and the work of man and finally, when the tabernacle is completed, the glory of the Lord descends there. As time unfolds, the tabernacle blooms into the temple and again, once the stones are set and the priests begin offering sacrifices, and "the glory of the Lord fills the house of the Lord." But even this was not the last temple- not the true temple- for when St John was given the vision and the veil of the heavens lifted, there was yet another temple; a heavenly temple to which that on earth was only a mirror. The tabernacle is an icon made of linen; the temple an icon of stone.

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The physical matter can indeed become a house of the Lord, but only in as much as it mirrors the heavenly reality. Yet, it is not only its likeness to the temple in heaven that allows it to become a conduit of the divine, but its likeness to the Cornerstone- Christ. If Christ can deify the stones of the temple by their likeness to Him, what becomes of the Word made flesh, when the perfect Image of God is made incarnate? The once broken image in man can become something new.

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There are many words to describe this becoming; salvation, deification, glorification. That the glory of God can dwell in matter at all is a mystery, but moreso in man. What is this glory that is refracted in all creation and permeated these holy places entirely? How can the deified man, as St Maximus wrote, love and cleave to God through the beautiful things He created? How is it that Christ's completed work and the Spirit's constant stirring can transfigure man? It is the radiance shining from the Son through all things. It is grace upon grace.

(Part 10 of 14 of Mimetic Reality series)