In Him the whole building is fitted together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
Parallel translations
- WEB in whom the whole building, fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord;
- KJV In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:
- NKJV in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord,
- NASB in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord,
- NLT We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
In Christ the whole building is joined together and grows into a holy temple. It pictures the church as God's living, growing temple.
Overview
Paul develops the building image: 'in whom the whole building, fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.' The church is a living, expanding structure, joined and held together by Christ. It is no ordinary building but a 'holy temple,' the dwelling place of God, fulfilling what the Jerusalem temple foreshadowed.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- 1 Cor 3:16–17Do you not know that you yourselves are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
- 1 Cor 3:9For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.
- 2 Cor 6:16What agreement can exist between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be My people.”
- Eph 4:13–16until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, as we mature to the full measure of the stature of Christ.
- Heb 3:3–4For Jesus has been counted worthy of greater glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself.
- 1 Kgs 6:7The temple was constructed using finished stones cut at the quarry, so that no hammer or chisel or any other iron tool was heard in the temple while it was being built.
- Exod 26:1–37“You are to construct the tabernacle itself with ten curtains of finely spun linen, each with blue, purple, and scarlet yarn, and cherubim skillfully worked into them.
- Ezek 42:12And corresponding to the doors of the chambers that were facing south, there was a door in front of the walkway that was parallel to the wall extending eastward.
- Ps 93:5Your testimonies are fully confirmed; holiness adorns Your house, O LORD, for all the days to come.
- Ezek 40:1–42In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month—in the fourteenth year after Jerusalem had been struck down—on that very day the hand of the LORD was upon me, and He took me there.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Every spiritual blessing is 'in Christ,' the head over all things for the church, in whom Jew and Gentile are made one new man by his blood.
How Ephesians 2:21 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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