The word, “CHURCH” – only 3 uses in the Gospels, in 2 verses: Matt 16:18 & 18:17

ecclesia = “called out”, an assembly, could be a mob

“TEMPLE”:

e.g., Jesus clears the temple

When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple …

Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

Then the Jews said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?”

But He was speaking of the temple of His body. (John 2:15, 19-21)

We can see the symbolic intent here.

Also, Hebrews, chapters 7-10, on the TABERNACLE and its rituals:

For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. (Hebrews 10:1, see also 8:4-6; 9:9,11,23,24)

And EZEKIEL’s TEMPLE

“Son of man, describe the temple to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities; and let them measure the pattern. And if they are ashamed of all that they have done, make known to them the design of the temple and its arrangement, its exits and its entrances, its entire design and all its ordinances, all its forms and all its laws. Write it down in their sight, so that they may keep its whole design and all its ordinances, and perform them.” (Ezekiel 43:10,11)

Why would the dimensions of the temple lead to any improvement upon the situation?

See also Micah 6:8 and Isaiah 1:15-17

The church, as found in our teachings

… is where good and truth are present

Heavenly Secrets, 3379 – For Churches are not Churches on account of their being called such and of their confessing the Lord’s name, but on account of the good and truth of faith that exist in them. Good and truth of faith themselves are what make a Church, indeed they are the Church, for present within the good and truth of faith there is the Lord, and where the Lord is, there is the Church also.

Luke 2 – the presentation at the temple. The recognition of the Lord by that which is truly of the church.

Simeon and Anna – what is good and true

… is where the Lord is present, in what belongs to Him (and the Lord alone is the whole of the church).

Heavenly Secrets,  10125 – Not that those people regarded in themselves constitute the Church, only the Lord present with them does so. Nor therefore do the angels regarded in themselves constitute heaven, only the Lord present with them. For the Lord does not dwell in anything that is a person’s or an angel’s own, only in what is His with them.

Heavenly Secrets, 4292 – If the individual person in particular were not the Church, no Church in general could exist. The expression Church is used in everyday language to describe a congregation in general; but each member of the congregation must be a Church if that greater Church is to exist.

… is where the Word is.

(Owes its existence to the Word, its quality determined by a person’s understanding of the Word.)

Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, 78 – The Lord is present with us when we read the Word; but he is united to us only when we understand what is true from the Word and only in proportion to that understanding; and to the extent that the Lord is united to us the church is within us.

Charity is its essential quality. Everyone who leads a good life is a church

Heavenly Secrets, 6637.e – everyone who leads a good life, in charity and faith, is a Church, and is a kingdom of the Lord. He is for that reason also called a temple, and a house of God too. Those who are Churches individually, no matter how remote from one another they may be, constitute one Church collectively.

From internal things not external

Heavenly Secrets, 4831 – For a Church is not a Church by virtue of its externals, that is, of its religious observances, but by virtue of its internals; for these are the essential realities, the externals merely forms expressing those realities. (and 10436.2)

Read Swedenborg at: www.newchristianbiblestudy.org