Raised for His House

Today we see two cities and two counsels. One is the city of intrigue, fear, and self-preserving wisdom: Absalom listens, plots, and delays; men hide in a well to save the Lord’s anointed; Ahithophel’s counsel, though sharp, ends in death. The other is the city shown by God: measured, ordered, holy, a dwelling prepared by the Lord. Between them stands the apostolic word: once we walked in disobedience, but now in Christ we are made alive and built together into a habitation of God.

This means that salvation is not merely escape from wrath, nor bare pardon without amendment. God does not raise the dead in order to leave them wandering. He raises them to place them in His commonwealth, His household, His temple. As Chrysostom says, “He raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in heavenly places. Ephesians 2:6” Yet those who are raised with Christ must not take counsel with Absalom’s house. The baptized must renounce double-mindedness, secret ambition, and the wisdom that serves itself while speaking fair words.

Ezekiel’s measured temple teaches order, boundaries, and reverence. The Church is not a heap of living stones cast down at random. We are fitted together. Therefore let each one ask not only, Have I believed? but also, Am I living as a stone in God’s house—keeping peace, speaking truth, praying faithfully, bearing another’s burden, and turning from the old corruption? For the Lord who makes alive also measures His sanctuary. He grants mercy freely, but He does not call us to a careless life.