John Howe

The blessed God has laid the platform and the foundations of his temple, as it was to be restored and set up again among men, in and by that great Emmanuel, his own Son made flesh… an incarnate God among men, and a Man inhabited by all the fullness of God.. a most perfect temple…”God with us.”
Here [in Christ] were met together man that could die, and God that could overcome death; man that might suffer, and God that could give sufficient value to those sufferings; sufficient to atone to the offended Majesty, and procure that life might be diffused…to all that should unite with him, whereby they might become living stones,  joined to that living cornerstone–a spiritual temple, again capable of that divine presence which they had aforfeited and whereof they were forsaken.
God was to have the first and leading part in reconciliations, as man has in disagreements.
—John Howe “The Living Temple”

Here [in Christ] is the fairest representation that ever thi world had or that could be had, of this most delectable object. The Divine holiness incarnate did never shine so bright. And we may easily apprehend the great advantage of having so lively and perfect a model set before us of what we are to design and aim at. Rules and precepts could never have afforded so full a description or have furnished us with so perfect an idea.
Look steadily to Jesus, “with open face” behold the gory of the Word, and be “changed from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord” (II Cor. 3:18).
Truth is the means of holiness (John 17:17)… We have this practical truth not only exhibited in aphorisms and maxims in the Word, but we have it exemplified in the life of Christ. And when the great renovating work is to be done, the old man to be put off, the new man to be put o n, the spirit of our m ind to be renewed, our business is to learn Christ and the truth as it i in Jesus. (Eph. 4:20-24)
—John Howe “The Living Temple”

Without union with Christ, no man can have either his righteousness or his indwelling Spirit. Nor can they be separable… it is an unsupposable thing, that one should be God’s temple enlivened and animated by his own Spirit, and yet be under remaining guilt and liable every moment to his consuming wrath. Or, that he could be any whit the better to have all his former guilt taken off and still be “dead in trespasses and sins.”
–John Howe “The Living Temple”

That admirable goodness of God, which shows itself in raising up temples in this vile world by the Spirit of Emmanuel, claims our subordinate co-operation as under-builders of this structure (Phil. 2:12, 13)
The whole work of faith–that entire work necessary to be wrought upon the soul of man in order to his future felicity, and that by God’s own power–is called the fulfilling or satisfying, the good pleasure of his goodness (II Thess. 1:11). Oh the plentitude of satisfaction which our blessed Lord takes in the fulfilling  of the good pleasure of his goodness, when the methods are complied with, according whereto he puts forth his power for effecting such a work!
—John Howe “the Living Temple.”

Consider what punishment a sinner was, by the violated law of works and nature, liable to in this world or in the world to come. And what of this [punishment] is remitted in virtue of the Redeemer’s sacrifice and covenant. He was liable to whatsoever miseries in this life God should please to inflict, to temporal death, and to a state of misery hereafter. [But] Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, that blessing might come upon us… that we might receive the promise of the Spirit (Gal. 3:13, 14).
“Repent, be baptized, for the remission of sins, and receive the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:38). The great promise of the gospel covenant is that of the gift of the Holy Ghost. It does not promise you wealth, or ease or riches, or honours. But it promises you that God will no longer be a stranger to you, refuse your converse, withhold the Spirit from you. Your souls shall no longer lie waste and desolate… By the remission of sin the bar is removed, and nothing can hinder the Holy Ghost from entering to take possession of your souls, as his own temple and dwelling place.
—John Howe, “The Living Temple”

Adore the grace that returns him to us, and inclined him to take that strange course…to repair his forlorn temple, and fill this desolate, forsaken world with the joyful sound of those glad tidings, “The tabernacle of God is with men!
Our discourse must here proceed by these steps, to show: 1. That mankind has universally revolted, and been in a state of apostasy from God; 2. That hereby the temple of God in man has been generally made waste and desolate; 3. That he has laid both the new foundation and the platform of his present temple in Immanuel, God with us, his own incarnate Son, who rebuilds, beautifies, furnishes, inhabits it, and orders all its concernments.
That that have read the sacred volume cannot be ignorant that all flesh have corrupted their way; that the great God, looking down from heaven,..has only the unpleasing prospect before his eyes of universal depravation and defection….This was not the first state of man, but he is degenerated into it from a former and better state…Even many who have never conversed with those sacred records have no less clearly discovered their sense of man’s present evil state…How far he has swerved from what he was is easy conjecturable by comparing him with the measures which show what he should be…We neither are, nor do what we should!
Man is corrupted from his primitive integrity, and become a depraved and degenerate thing…By this degeneracy, the temple of the living God among men became waste and desolate uninhabitable or unfit for his blessed presence…The divine image [is] now defaced and torn down ….Instead of a temple, man is a cage of every unclean and hurtful thing…full of unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, envy, murder…How repugnant, in all respects, to the holy, pure, benign, merciful nature of God! How remote from the imitation of his Maker!
Thus is the true image of God torn down from his own temple, and become the temple of a false God, dedicated to that abominable idol, self.
It is no wonder that the blessed God absents himself and is become a stranger to this once beloved mansion….The stately ruins are ever visible to every eye and bear this doleful inscription: Here God once dwelt…The lamps are extinct and the altar overturned; the light and love are now vanished…the golden candlestick is displaced to make room for the throne of the prince of darkness…Look upon the fragments…the yet legible precepts that relate to practice…engraven by the finger of God, and how they now lie torn and scattered…The truth which is after godliness is not so much disbelieved, as hated, held in unrighteousness…The faded glory, the darkness, the disorder, the impurity, the decayed state…too plainly show the great inhabitant is gone.
When God left his temple, he did not consume it …Whatsoever was necessary [for its restoration] is designed and done at his own dear expense–his only begotten Son most freely consenting with him …sustaining the weight and burden of this great undertaking.
—John Howe “The Living Temple”

The Holy Spirit is given to this purpose of restoring the temple of God with men …under a two-fold notion: as a builder and an inhabitant.
Till this blessed Spirit be given the temple of God is everywhere in ruin. Therefore, he cannot dwell till he build, and he builds that he may dwell (1 Cor 3:9, 16)…This temple, being a living thing, the very building and formation of it is …generating. And because it is to be again raised up out of a former ruinous state wherein it lay dead and buried in its own ruins, this new production is regeneration…This new birth must be by the Spirit.(Eph 2:19-22)
—John Howe “The Living Temple”

The Son of God, by consent with the Father, acts as a plenipotentiary and sovereign, quickening whom he will. The Spirit, by consent with him, breathes where it wills—as the wind—in order to the vital production of temples, or for regeneration.
For the purpose of inhabiting this temple, when by regeneration it is thus built and prepared, the Redeemer gives the Spirit…It is a thing full of wonder that he should be so far concerned in our affairs: to be incarnate for us, to be made a sacrifice for us, that he might have it in his power to give the Spirit, having become a curse for us, that he might be capable of conferring blessing upon us.
—John Howe “The Living Temple.”

The blessed God has laid the platform and the foundation of his temple, as it was to be restored and set up again among men, in and by that great Emmanuel, his own Son, made flesh… an incarnate God… a most perfect Temple….”God with us.”
Here [in Christ] were met together man that could die, and God that could overcome death; man that might suffer, and God that could give sufficient value to those sufferings; sufficient to atone the offended Majesty, and procure that life might be diffused…to all that should unite with him, whereby they might become living stones, joined to that living cornerstone–a spiritual temple, again capable of that divine presence which they had forfeited and where they were forsaken.
God was to have the first and leading part in reconcilations, as man has in disagreements.
—John Howe

God is, and is conversable with men, or is such as is capable and apt to receive worship from men, and impart blessedness to them. [But] a cloud and darkness are now drawn over the world of mankind And thought it still be very easily discernible that God is, it is yet more difficult to attain to so distinct apprehensions what he is, as are necessary to our conversing with him. Against this difficulty, he has afforded a gracious relief—that is, he has provided there should be a more express discovery of him extant among men, that can be collected by their observations upon this world. The case was such with man [now as great a stranger to God] as to require a written revelation of his nature and will. We have it in those Scriptures…the Word of God.
—John Howe “The Living Temple”

The sacrifice of him who was man was suitable to the offence of man; and of him who was God, was equal to the wrong done to God…The profanation of the former temple was expiated by the immolation of the new …Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law (Gal. 3:13), being made a curse for us …Emmanuel was first made a personal temple, then a sacrifice.
–John Howe “The Living Temple”

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Adore that grace that returns him to us, and inclined him to take that strange course…to repair his forlorn temple, and fill this desolate, forsaken world with the joyful sound of those glad tidings, “The tabernacle of God is with men.”
—John Howe “The Living Temple.”

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Can there be any converse between God and men? How can it not be? How strange that there is not more! That he has not a temple in every human breast, replenished with his vital presence! That there are nothing but ruins and desolation to be found, where one would expect a fabric worthy of God, and an indwelling Deity!
–John Howe “The Living Temple”

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When that first evangelical promise was collaterally and implicitly given (Gen. 3:15), wrapt up in the threatening of the serpent—that the woman’s seed should break his head—it could mean no less than that he who should afterwards in the fullness of time become her seed and be born of a woman should redeem us from under the curse and turn it…upon himself. It was therefore also plain that no breath of holy, divine influence was ever to touch the spirit of man, had it not been for the Redeemer’s interposition and undertaking.
–John Howe “The Living Temple”

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The sacrifice of him who was man was suitable to the offence of man; and of him who was God, was equal to the wrong done to God…The profonation of the former temple was expiated by the immolation of the new…Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law (Gal. 3:13), being made a curse for us.. Emmanuel was first made a personal temple, then a sacrifice.
—John Howe

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What sort of temple are we to be? Not of wood and stone…but temples by self-dedication,  
separating ourselves to that purpose…[So we] render back to God His own temple, most  
willingly, not merely from an apprehension of his right, but as overcome by his love.
—John Howe
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