God’s Favorite Temple

by Carl Diener

When one looks at the ruins of ancient Greece, Rome, or Egypt, the buildings that remain are the best structures – the ones that have stood the test of time. Many of these were temples built for a god to inhabit. Man has always wanted to be in close proximity to the divine. The best of mankind’s skills through the ages went into the building of these edifices. Even in the Christian age the best in art and architecture went into the building of a place for God. Some of these churches built in the middle ages took 20 years to build. The riches of nations went into these structures so that people could have the gods or God with us.

Carl Diener

The ancient Roman architect and philosopher Vitruvius made this observation: “Namque non potest aedis ulla sine symmetria atque proportione rationem habere compositionis, nisi uti ad homines bene figurati membrorum habuerit exactam rationem. “ Translated from the Latin it means this: “ For without symmetry and proportion no temple can have a regular plan; that is, it must have an exact proportion worked out after the fashion of the members of a finely shaped human body.”

Hundreds of years later the great artist and mathematician Leonardo da Vinci created one of the most famous drawings in the world to illustrate Vitruvius’s theory for all to see. This was his Vitruvian Man. The proportions are marked out, all of them examples of the divine or golden ratio. If one looks closely at the drawing, he will see them: elbow to the armpit 1/8^th the mans height, bottom of the chin to the nose is 1/3 of the face. They are all perfect whole number proportions. These are the proportions that we find pleasing to the eye. All through history man has been building temples to the gods in this way. Vitruvious was the first to discover this and Leonardo was the first to use his artistic and mathematical genius to draw it out. The fact is that Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing the “Vitruvian Man” proves that the human body is proportioned according to geometry and mathematics. It displays the divine proportion set out by Vitruvius for building the perfect temple to house a god or gods. One professor from Oxford University in England, Martin Kemp, put it this way: “When you lay out your design of what looks to be the perfect temple with appealing symmetry that involves geometric design, the ghost of the perfect Vitruvan Man can be found in it.” Leonardo expressed the belief that the human body was God’s highest form, his greatest creation. These are the proportions that we find in Ezekiel’s temple laid out in his description found in the Old Testament.

Well, by now one might be wondering what is the point in this discussion of perfect architecture, temples, and the human body. It was all necessary to lay the ground work for an essential revelation, a mystery that is made known to us in Christ. One can see hints of it throughout scripture. God never cared to live in temples of wood and stone. In Isaiah he says, “Where is the house you will build for me?” He then leaves a clue in the next verse that speaks of a man, a human being “of contrite heart… “ Men have been building temples that were but shadows of the perfect temple all along. The perfect temple is the proportions of a man. It had been God’s plan all along. No longer Holy Spirit with you, or on you, but, “He will be in you.” Jesus said,”Know you not that your bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost?” You see when the day of Pentecost came, Holy Spirit could not wait to take possession of His ultimate temple, our bodies. Like a rushing wind He came, sending those he filled with Himself to stagger out on the street totally drunk with a love and power they had never before experienced. I think it might be possible that Adam was not the perfect man that many preachers say in this one condition – the Holy Spirit was not in Adam. It’s possible that although God walked with him in part of the day, but Christ brought the ultimate fulfillment – “Christ in you the hope of Glory.”

You, believer, are the perfect man. You are complete in him  and He is IN you. His Spirit is in you. When the last temple of God was destroyed in 70 A.D. the Romans, under Titus, actually tried to save it. The Romans loved great architecture. However, a Roman soldier had cast a single torch into the door of the temple just before Titus and his elite guard could get there. In his own words, Titus described a conflagration of supernatural proportion that caught from that single torch. He stood in shock, remarking, it was as if the God of the Jews was aiding in the destruction of His own temple. Well, I believe He was. After all, He had finally come to his perfect resting place – inside of us.

In Leonardo’s drawing of the Vetruvian man, we see that the center of the geometry is the center of the belly. The navel is the center compass point. Jesus said that river of the Spirit would flow from the center of your being. Look at the temple of Ezekiel, folks, what do you see flowing through that temple?  We see the prophetic picture of His temple – your body… Out of it flows a river of life flowing with living water and wherever it goes it brings life. Folks, we have to get the revelation of who we are and what we carry.  We need to understand that that same flowing river that Zeek wrote about prophetically is flowing out of us… We need to see ourselves as he sees us – His perfect dwelling place.