"19So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit."
Ephesians 2:19-22
The words in 21 'all the building fitly framed together' speak of the individual members slotted into the building, in much the same way as Peter speaks in his first epistle of living stones being built up a spiritual house (1 Peter 2:4ff). Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians 3:9ff is much the same: 'Ye are God's building … I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon … other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ' And, significantly, Paul goes on to speak in that passage of 'the temple of God', indwelt by the Spirit. Both in Peter and in Paul, of course, the church is thought of as a company of people: the 'living stones' are men and women, not materials, and the temple, where God the Spirit dwells, is a people, not a place.
This idea of a 'building of God' as a description of the church is but one of a number of different metaphors used in Scripture - others are 'the body of Christ', 'the bride of Christ', 'the congregation of the Lord', all of them having significant insights to give us, but this is a rich and significant one that we have here, and it merits some further thinking about it.
To speak, as we have done, of the 'raw material' from which God builds His Church is already to have entered this particular metaphor's imagery, and it is natural for us to go on to extend that imagery now. There are certain important implications inherent in the idea of a 'building of God', and two in particular need to be looked at, both of them present in the over-all picture given in the Scriptures. First of all there is the idea of the building in process of construction, and secondly there is the idea of the building completed. The latter is referred to later in Ephesians, in 5:27, in the concept of 'a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing' - an eschatological reference, properly belonging to the thought of the Church triumphant. We will deal with that passage later in our studies, when we get to chapter 5.