Ezra 1, Big Idea 3

3) God provides spiritual wealth for His people. The world is not enough! (1:2)

The Israelites received a bunch of gold and silver; however this was so that the temple would be a worthy location for the presence of God. It was not for them to be wealthy. Furthermore, notice how they were not delivered in order to follow their own desires. God delivered them in order to commission them to rebuild His Temple – the place where He would meet with them, and they would worship Him.

A few things should be noted.

First, we don’t have such a place in the New Covenant. There is not a single place where we must go to be in the presence of God. We are more blessed – we have Him constantly in the temples of our bodies. Paul writes, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16 – the “you” is plural, indicating that the body of believers is the new Temple where God dwells); “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?” (1 Corinthians 6:19 – this one is singular). Jesus also referred to His own body as a temple in John 2:19, which makes sense, seeing as how Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit (see Luke 4:1, 14, 18, for example)

Second, just as the temple was adorned with gold and silver, so ought our bodies to be adorned with righteousness. Paul finishes this thought in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20: “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” See also Colossians 3:9-10, 12-13: “…seeing that you put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator…. Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another, and…forgiving each other.” We are to be adorned – not with gold and silver, but with Christ! “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing” (Ephesians 1:3). How blessed we are to have the substance of the New Covenant and not that foreshadowing of the Old!

Lastly, our true spiritual richness given by God is the adornment of the new man that God so desires to give us. Ephesians 3:16-17 says, “According to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” Notice that this is not so that we can be made much of, but that we can see the glory of God and honor Him: “But God, being rich in mercy…made us alive together with Christ…and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4, 5, 6-7). Just as the Old Temple is for worship, so the New Temple of our bodies is meant for worship. God seeks to glorify Himself in us (Ephesians 1:6).