(ThyBlackMan.com) Back when I attended institutional churches, I would sing a song called “Let Us Go Into the House of the Lord.” Although this song has a wonderful melody, the more I learn about Jesus Christ & the New Covenant, the less sense that song makes. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not dissing those who sing it, but the lyrics reflect the Old Covenant rather than the New Covenant. What do I mean?
Well, during the Old Covenant worship revolved around the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, where the Israelites offered up sacrifices & so on. It is in this context that king David wrote “I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD.” (Psalm 122:1) David rejoiced about attending a man-made temple, which was the House of the Lord during the Old Covenant.
During the Old Covenant, the glory of God would fall upon the Jewish temple & fill the building with His presence, signifying that this was indeed His house. 
But as many of us know, what should have been a house of prayer eventually became a den of thieves. The Levitical priests began withholding the tithes and offerings, corrupt sacrifices were offered up, & the money-changers charged the poor exorbitant prices for animal sacrifices. Not to mention, the Pharisees who ran the Jewish temple were teaching false traditions and commandments of men as if they were doctrines of God. They turned a center of worship into a center of commerce, idolatry, and apostate Judaism.
In Matthew 24, while the disciples observed the beauty of the Jewish temple & its buildings, Christ prophesied that one day the Jewish temple and its buildings would be destroyed. Why? Because Christ the Lamb of God had come, to offer up Himself as the Perfect sacrifice for sin, so the Jewish temple with its corrupt priests & imperfect sacrifices would no longer be needed. The time had come for the Old Covenant to be rendered obsolete.
After Christ’s resurrection on the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit fell upon Believers, officiating Christ’s followers as the house of the Lord. Then around 70 A.D. God used the Romans to destroy the Jewish temple, because a better Temple (the Body of Christ) had come.
Many people today speak of church-buildings as “the house of the Lord” or “the Sanctuary,” but they are speaking from an Old Covenant mindset. In the New Covenant, followers of Christ are the house of the Lord. We are are the Sanctuary or Temple of God — not that building down the street with the steeple, pews, & the pulpit.
1st Peter 3:5 says that we are “lively stones, being built up as a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” In the Old Covenant, the Israelites offered up sacrifices through sinful priests at the Jewish temple, but in the New Covenant we arethe living sacrifices offered up through our Eternal High Priest Jesus Christ (Romans 12:1).
People who speak of “going to church for worship” remind me of the Samaritan woman in John 4: “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” Then Christ responded, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem…Yet a time is coming & has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit & truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, & his worshipers must worship in spirit & in truth.” (John 4:20-21, 23-24)
Like the Samaritan woman, many people today are focused on external factors such as places of worship. But Jesus made it clear that in the New Covenant, places of worship no longer have spiritual significance. It is not where you worship that is the issue, but rather the nature of your worship. Many Christians today seem to believe that attending a church-building for “worship” is one of the primary characteristics of a true worshiper. Yet Jesus rebukes this false belief. He said that worshiping the Father in Spirit and truth is what makes you a true worshiper.
If you are a born-again Christian, then you are the house of the Lord, and true worship is a lifestyle. It is not an act that you perform in a church-building falsely called “the house of God.”
Staff Writer; Evelyn Marie
