Echoes of grace and mercy reverberate throughout God’s creation. The flower outside your doorstep shouts of the bountiful grace of God, each petal a symphony declaring praise to the God who delights in creating beautiful things for his people to enjoy. The baby crying from the next room over in the middle of the night, a powerful crescendo of the mercy of God who gives life, breath, and being to all things, upholding us by his power.
To every man declaring the absence of the presence of God, God offers the surprising rejoinder of his creation crying out the Maker’s praise. This symphonic orchestra that is God’s creation is impossible to miss; those who cannot hear it have been deafened to it (Rom 1:18–23). But even then, like a cheap pair of noise canceling headphones, the proverbial fingers in their ears cannot permanently block out the music of the spheres. Indelible marks of the Creator and his creation’s chorus of praise break through like waves crashing through the port of a moored ship.
As we listen for God’s symphonic orchestra in creation, we hear the echoes and patterns of our Creator wherever we turn. The world itself, created as a cosmic temple, sings out to the God who made it, testifying of his mercy and grace. Much like Tolkien’s Ilúvatar, whose creation of the Ainur led to a song so beautiful that Arda burst into existence, everything in the natural and supernatural realms declare his praise. Maltbie D. Babcock was right in his classic 1901 hymn,
This is my Father’s world,
And to my listening ears
All nature sings, and round me rings
The music of the spheres.
Within this cosmic temple which God artistically crafted, several micro-cosmic temples appear. These micro-cosmic temples are threefold: the state, the church, and the home. Each, when functioning rightly and ordered properly, serves as another place of worship for the Triune God wherein the occupants direct their gazes and praises towards the Lord.
The Pattern of the Cosmic Temple
When theologians today speak of the whole cosmos as a temple, they mean that God intentionally designed the universe in such a way that it reflects the makings and workings of his heavenly temple. The simplest way to see this is to compare God’s creation of the cosmos with the temple he instructed Moses to build. Both bear a three-fold structure in their design. The temple consists of (1) the outer court, (2) the holy place, and (3) the holy of holies. The cosmos (i.e., the universe) consists of (1) the earth, (2) the sky, and (3) the heavens. (The sea, existing apart from the land, is not part of the sanctuary proper.) All of this reflects the sacred space in which God dwells and indicates that God’s intention is to not merely watch or advise his creation on the earth from a distant and remote place but to actually indwell the earth with his creation.
In several different places, God states that his glory is going to cover the earth as the water covers the sea (Is 11:9; Hab 2:14). When the angel announces the incarnation of Jesus, God reveals his intentions in an even more explicit way: “‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel’ (which means, God with us)” (Matt 1:23).
God intends to occupy this earth as his dwelling. It is his already. He rules over it. But the fullness of his occupation is not yet clear to all of creation. So, as Jesus, the Incarnate Son of God, sits enthroned at the Father’s right hand in heaven, it is the Father’s good pleasure to make the earth his footstool (Ps 110:1; 1 Cor 15:25; Heb 10:13). God is making known his occupancy in his cosmic temple.
What means does God presently use to achieve these ends? His people on earth, created as his image and acting as his cult statues (if you will excuse the almost vulgar language) to reflect his glory to creation. While all mankind is created in the image of God, this imaging forth of God’s glory is most fully accomplished through both the dominion mandate (Gen 1:28) and the great commission (Matt 28:18–20), both of which God has instructed his people to obey. As these two commandments are kept, the earth is redeemed from the curse of sin (Rom 8:19–21) and with humanity joins together in a chorus of praise towards the Lord. Isaiah 55:12–13 reveals this delightful symphony in a dramatic way:
For you shall go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
shall break forth into singing,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall make a name for the Lord,
an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.
This cosmos, as God’s temple, will be filled with his glory and become an explosion of coordinated song to worship his glorious name. Earth itself will become his permanent residence when heaven finishes pervading the earth and Christ returns to a world made ready to welcome him. The wonderful proclamation of Revelation 21:3 is, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”
With this cosmic temple in view and God’s grand design understood, we can begin to move from the macrocosm of the sacred space (the universe as cosmic temple) to one of the three microcosms: the home as a microcosmic temple.
The Home as a Microcosmic Temple
The trifold nature of outer court, holy place, and holy of holies finds a corresponding layout in the home when we consider (1) the yard/porch, (2) the inner sanctum of foyers, halls, kitchens, and dens, and then (3) the most sacred place in the home, which is the bedroom. If the cosmic temple reflects God’s heavenly sacred space, then our homes must serve as microcosms of that same sacred space.
Corresponding to the outer courtyard of the temple, the yard/porch of the home is the place of welcome and invitation. The courtyard was the place of fellowship for the Israelites, a place wherein they could gather to offer sacrifices, worship the Lord, and hear the teachings of the Lord from his word. It was the part of the temple wherein God would welcome both his people and the nations to enter into covenant with him. The courtyard was an invitation to worship, a place filled with the rituals of sacrificial animals slaughtered, blood poured out, oils and grains offered, songs sung, peace offerings given and eaten together in fellowship with both offerer and priest, and the word taught. This created a distinct pattern of mercy and grace wherein the sound of God’s holiness permeated all. If our homes are to reflect this (which they must), then the first step is for our yards and porches to become meeting spaces.
Perhaps the closest parallel would be the backyard barbecue where family, friends, and neighbors are invited to join us on our land, to participate in our lives, and to feast alongside us, sharing in our food in a time of joyful fellowship and worship before the Lord. The noise of exuberant laughter, cheerful stories, corporate singing, and shared delight ought to rise up in the air like the smoke from searing steaks or the smell of a burning lamb, a pleasing aroma in the nostrils of our Lord.
Hospitality must be shown to familiar friends and unknown strangers alike, for this is the example our Lord sets for us in his own sacred space (Is 56:6–8):
And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord,
to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord,
and to be his servants,
everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it,
and holds fast my covenant—
these I will bring to my holy mountain,
and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house shall be called a house of prayer
for all peoples.”
The Lord God,
who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares,
“I will gather yet others to him
besides those already gathered.”
From the yard and porch, we enter into the foyers, halls, and main living spaces of the home. We may draw a line here between these open areas and the holy place of the temple. The holy place was the abode of the priests in which they performed their daily intercessory rituals. There the lamps would be tended to and kept burning, the showbread would be changed, and the incense would be burned. Herein were symbolized God’s light and sight (lamps), God’s communion and provision (showbread), and God’s invitation into his presence (incense).
Every home must be tended to in a peculiar way. Cleaned, well-lit, and well-stocked, each home becomes a symbol of these same three things: God’s light, God’s communion and provision, and God’s personal welcome and invitation. When our homes are maintained in this way, both our families and our guests become recipients of the wonderful and blessed reminder that our God is with us. With Joshua and a host of others we declare to all, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Josh 24:15).
The candle burning in the kitchen, or the fireplace stocked with burning logs, permeating the air with a fragrant aroma alongside its warmth and light, is a declaration that our God permeates our lives, promising to never leave nor forsake us (Heb 13:5). A home bursting with light and life points us to the Lord of light himself, and to Jesus who is “the light of the world” (Jn 8:12). He both lights our path and sees us as we truly are (Ps 119:105; Heb 4:13).
A well-stocked pantry, like the manna that was provided from heaven and then specially preserved within the ark of the covenant, reminds us both of the God who provides our every need (Phil 4:19) as well as his perfect Son who is our Bread of Life (Jn 6:35). A table spread with savory meats, bitter herbs, sweet desserts, and flowing wine, like the fresh showbread placed every Sabbath in the temple, alongside the drinking vessels (Ex 25:29; Num 4:7), reminds us that we are in covenant with our God. While twelve loaves were placed to represent the twelve tribes of Israel, and these loaves placed before the seven eyes of the lampstand to represent the covenant between God and his people, the food on our tables acts in much the same way; God provides for us because we are his covenant children. Every time we sit with family and friends at the table, breaking bread and dining together, we remember and renew the covenant with our God.
Incense in the temple symbolized the prayers of the people of God ascending through that place of earthly worship and into his presence. A fragrant candle continually burning in the home reminds us likewise to pray without ceasing. We are reminded that the Lord invites us into his dwelling, into the holy of holies, to commune with him. In fact, the high priest would carry incense into the holy of holies as he prepared to stand in the presence of God in this most sacred of spaces (Lev 16:13; Heb 9:4; Rev 8:3).
Like the priest receiving the invitation from the Lord to stand in his presence in the holy of holies, we are reminded of the husband and wife, inviting one another to stand in their own sacred space together. The holy of holies of the home is the bedroom. This room of the home is sealed off from the stranger, foreigner, and even the invited guest. It is reserved only for the husband and wife, just as the holy of holies was counted as the special place where only God dwelled. The high priest could enter but only once a year, and only then with a blood sacrifice before the Lord.
The love between a husband and wife, shared in the sacred space of their bedroom, finds expression through the pen of Solomon. Just as the superlative is used to describe the “holy of holies,” it is likewise used to describe the beauty of covenant love in the title of Solomon’s “Song of Songs.”
The lovers in Song of Songs 1:2 reflect on a love that is “better than wine” before speaking of the fragrant anointing oils poured out like those oils poured out before the Lord in his temple. When the lovers describe their couch, they call it “green” with beams of cedar and rafters of pine above (1:16–17). The temple was furnished similarly with cedar paneling from floors to ceiling (1 Ki 6:15). The “green” of the couch calls our attention back to the garden of Eden, the first temple where God dwelled with his people, where the first man and woman dwelt, naked and unashamed, being made one flesh in the presence of God (Gen 2:23–25).
Solomon describes a wife’s yearning for her husband in Song of Songs 3:1–5: “When I found him whom my soul loves,” she says, “I held him, and would not let him go until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her who conceived me” (Song 3:4). When the groom comes to meet his wife, he comes from the wilderness “like columns of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all the fragrant powders of a merchant” (3:6). Why does Solomon mention these parallels with the temple and the sacrifices offered there? Because the marriage covenant and conjugal union become acts of worship before the Lord. God intentionally designed marriage and sex to symbolize the union of God with his people (Eph 5:31–32), therefore becoming inseparably linked with the worship of God.
Psalm 29:9 reminds us that those in God’s temple must cry out, “Glory!” Is this not the very same thing the man is crying out in Song of Songs as he admires the beauty of his wife? “You have captivated my heart, my sister, my bride; you have captivated my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace” (4:9), he declares, praising the beauty of his beloved. He praises the very God who made her an object of pure delight and a mirror of God’s own glory. At the same time, he is also representing the same God who delights in the beauty of his own bride. Song of Songs acts as both a depiction of the love between husband and wife and a depiction of the love between Christ and his bride, the church: “For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your sons marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you” (Is 62:5). When the wife praises the beauty of her husband, she is declaring God’s glory too: “My beloved is radiant and ruddy, distinguished among ten thousand” she says, “His mouth is most sweet, and he is altogether desirable” (Song 5:10, 16). She, like her husband, is glorifying her lover and thus glorifying the God who made them. Simultaneously, she represents the church, praising her husband (Christ) for his glorious beauty.
Within the holy of holies dwelt the ark of the covenant along with the mercy seat. A furnished bedroom typically consists of dressers and a bed. We ought not to be ashamed to regard the conjugal union of husband and wife as a form of worship before the Lord. Private, yes, and sacred, the union of husband and wife in sex. But it is symbolic of the union we now enjoy with Christ as members of his body and parallel also to the priest entering that sacred space.
But the holy of holies, which was sealed off from the rest of the temple, changed significantly when Christ died. At that moment of his death, the curtain that separated the common people from this most sacred and holy space was torn in two, top to bottom, by God himself (Matt 27:51). Not only did this signify the opening of God’s dwelling place to all mankind, but it also symbolized the permeation of the world with God’s glory. God has always been omnipresent, but ever since the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, he has been advancing his kingdom and transforming sinners into saints and beloved children.
The bedroom operates in a similar capacity. When conjugal rights are fulfilled in this most sacred space, and the two join as one flesh just as God now joins us to Christ as one body, children are conceived. Once birthed, our children become tangible reminders of God’s covenant purposes. Just as God’s glory rushed out from the tearing of the veil, now God’s covenant people cover the earth through the union of husband and wife in the sacred bedroom. While the bedroom always served in this capacity in ancient Israel, the torn veil reminds us that just as the gospel is sent forth to the world and access to the presence of God opened to all who would be made his children, so the bedroom now serves this function more fully across the world.
God’s covenant people are no longer geographically limited to the nation of Israel but instead cover the earth, birthing more covenant children through their union. Indeed, procreation and the bearing of covenant children are at the core of the dominion mandate: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen 1:28). When God’s covenant people are fruitful, they create covenant children to further take dominion of the earth. The great commission finds fulfillment here too because the discipling of the nations, baptism, and instruction in God’s word all begin at home with covenant children (Matt 28:19–20). In turn, these covenant children go forth to create more covenant children, thus continuing in their obedience and fulfillment of both the dominion mandate and the great commission, cultivating more homes to act as microcosms of the temple.
From this sacred space in the home bursts forth more music within the spheres. Every coo, cry, shout, and laugh is a testimony and tangible reminder that this earth is the Lord’s, and so too are our homes. They are his microcosmic temples wherein his name is made known and his praise declared.
Jacob Tanner is the pastor of Christ Keystone Church in Mifflinburg, PA, and is the author of several books, including Resist Tyrants, Obey God: Lessons Learned from the Life and Times of John Knox, Wait and Hope: Puritan Wisdom for Joyful Suffering, and The Tinker’s Progress: The Life and Times of John Bunyan. With a deep love for Scripture and the Puritans, he also teaches on apologetics, logic, church history, and theology. He is married to his wife, Kayla, and they have two sons.