SKENE 12(a): 'cheiropoietos' 1

At this point (v. 48), Stephen – or Luke – introduces another important NT word which is worth a brief study of its own. Having mentioned the building of God’s ‘house’ by Solomon, he immediately adds “but the Most High does not live (‘katoiko’) in houses made by human hands”, and then quotes in support of this statement Isaiah 66. 1-2: “The heaven is my throne, the earth my footstool: what kind of house (‘oikos’) will you build for me ? --- Is it not my hand which has made all these ?” The single Greek word translated ‘made by human hands’ is ‘cheiropoietos’, a compound adjective formed from ‘cheir’, ‘a hand’, and the verb ‘poio’, to ‘make’. This word occurs six times in the NT, and it also has a negative version, which occurs three times, ‘acheiropoietos’. Two of the uses of the positive form (though each used in a negative context) occur in Hebrews 9, and so we have encountered them already. In each instance, the contrast is being made between the earthly, ‘man-made’ sanctuary in the Tabernacle, and the heavenly sanctuary in which Christ, as High Priest, offered to God the blood of his own sacrifice. Paul uses both versions of the word, once each, to refer to circumcision – in the same chapter, 2, and the same verse, 11, of two different letters. He tells the Ephesians to “remember that you, gentiles by birth, and called the ‘uncircumcision’ by the so-called ‘circumcision’, the circumcision performed on the flesh by human hands, were once far from Christ”; and he tells the Colossians that “in Christ also you were circumcised with a circumcision ‘not-performed-by-human-hand’”. In each case, he is making the contrast between the physical rite of circumcision required by Mosaic law, and ‘spiritual circumcision’, the shedding of the old nature (‘the flesh’) in “the circumcision of Christ”. This for the Christian is symbolized by baptism, a contrast implicit in Ephesians but clearly stated in Colossians 2. 11-12. The subject of circumcision is not directly relevant to our study, but these verses show that the two versions of our word are used to make a similar distinction to that made in Hebrews 9: there, between the earthly and the heavenly, here, between the physical and the spiritual. Three of the remaining four occurrences of these two words are particularly helpful, since they point forward to uses of ‘skene’ that we will be examining later, but which I will trail briefly here. Paul uses ‘acheiropoietos’ on one other occasion: 2 Corinthians 5.1. In the latter part of chapter 4 Paul describes the stress and suffering he endures in his apostolic ministry to the churches, but these, he says, are “light and momentary troubles” compared with “the eternal glory” to come (4.17, NIV). Then, once again, he makes a distinction of the kind we have seen twice already: “we do not look at what can be seen, but what cannot be seen” – not the earthly but the heavenly, not the physical but the spiritual. Chapter 5 then begins: “For we know that if this earthly tent (‘skenos’, a variant form of ‘skene’) which is our home (‘oikos’) is taken down, we have a home from God, an eternal home in the heavens, not-made-by-human-hands”. This introduces us to the NT use of the tent as a metaphor of the human body, our mobile (some more than others !) but essentially temporary home on earth – a metaphor that is a pointed reminder that we are all ‘strangers and pilgrims’ making our nomadic way through the ‘wilderness of this world’. Our other ‘foreshadowing’ comes in Mark 14.58, the other verse in the NT which contains both the positive and negative forms of the word. At Jesus’ trial, some false witnesses testified that “we heard him saying, ‘ I will destroy (or ‘take down’, the same word as the one used by Paul in our last verse) this temple built-by-human-hands, and within three days I will build another, not-made-by-human-hands’”. This refers to John 2.19: Jesus has thrown out the money-changers and merchants from the Temple, and is then asked by the Jews for a sign to validate his authority for acting in this way. He replies: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up”. The word ‘destroy’ here is the simple ‘luo’ rather than its compound ‘kataluo’ which we have seen in our two previous examples; and the verb ‘egeiro’, to ‘raise up’, is regularly used of the raising of Jesus from the dead (e.g. Matt 27. 63, 64; 28. 6,7). Clearly, Jesus is talking here of his resurrection, the ultimate sign of his divine authority, so that “this temple” refers to his physical human body which on the third day would be raised from the tomb as a resurrection body, ‘not-made-with-human-hands’. The human body is not only a tent, but can also become a temple, as we shall see.