The Pulpit Commentary — Leviticus — Section 264

HOMILETICS. Vers. 33-53.-On uncleanness in houses. There are two metaphors commonly used in Holy Scripture for designating God's covenant people. They a.re (1) God's household ; (2) God's house. I. GoD's HOUSEHOLD. As the l1ousehold of God the Father," of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named" (Eph. ill. 15), they are the members ;of that august brotherhood gathered together in Christ, of which God himself is the spiritual Father, into which all that a.re adopted in Christ a.re incorporated, ceasing to be "strangers and foreigners," a.nd becoming "fellow-citizens with the saints a.nd of the household of God" (Eph. ii. 19). II. GoD's HOUSE. The representation that God's people form his house is of a. more singular character, and less capable of bring immediately grasped. It is even more commonly employed than the other. In the Epistle to the Corinthians, we read of Christians, that is, the collective body of Christians, being "God's temple" (1 Cor. iii. 16); "for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, a.nd walk in them ; and I will be their God, a.nd they shall be my people" (2 Cor. vi. 16). In the Epistle to the Ephesians, St. Paul dwells at length on the idea. of the Christian Church being built up of living stones into a temple for God's Spirit: "Ye a.re built upon the foundation of the apostles a.nd prophets, Jesus Christ being himself the chief comer stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: in whom ye also a.re builded together for a.n habitation of God through the Spirit" (Eph. ii. 20-22). And in the Epistle to Timothy, he speak.a of" the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Tim. iii. 15). Similarly, the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, having described Christ" a.s a. Son over his own house," continues," whose house are we" (Heb. iii. 6); a.nd St. Peter writes, "Ye also, as lively stones, a.re built up a spiritual house" (1 Pet. ii. 3). Just as God's Spirit dwells within the heart of each individual Christian, so, a.nd in a. more special manner, he dwells within the Church, his house not being ma.de by hands, or constituted of wood e.nd stone, but of the spirits of those who form the Church. III. GoD'e HOUSE MAY NEVER BE DESTROYED, BUT IT MAY BE DEFILED. "Upon this rock" (that is, upon himself as confessed by St. Peter), "I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt. xvi. 18). But though not destructible by the power of evi I, it may yet be defiled. "If e.ny man defile the temple of Gorl, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are" (1 Cor. iii. 17). That which defiles God's house is unrighteousness e.nd falsehood, just as physical and ceremonial uncleanness defiles the camp (Dent. xxiii. 12). If the latter be allowed to continue in the camp, God will symbolically "turn away" from CB. XIV. 88-67.] THE BOOK OF LEVITIOUS. 22!)