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The Three Temples

3 Comments / Blog, Home Bulletin, My Blog / Christopher Peppler

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I referred to the 70 AD destruction of the temple in my previous article, ‘Are These the End of the Days?’ and indicated that I wanted to write about this – so here goes.

The Future Jerusalem Temple

Dispensationalism usually includes the concept of a new Millennial Temple in Jerusalem.

The idea here is that a new Jewish temple in Jerusalem will be one of the last ‘signs’ preceding the second coming of Christ and his subsequent one thousand year rule on earth. The teaching is that Jesus will come ‘in the air’ to collect his saints, will then defeat the devil and his demonic and human armies in the battle of Armageddon, and then take up residence in the Jerusalem temple while we all remain in heaven for a thousand years.

The biblical warrant given for this belief is Matthew 24:15 and 2 Thessalonians 1-12. I do not agree with this particular end-time doctrine, and I will tell you why.

The Three Temples in Scripture

King Solomon built the first temple in Jerusalem according to the plans that God had given his father David. When the temple was dedicated in about 1003 BC the glory of the Lord filled it as a sign of his presence there (1 Kings 8:10-11).

However, some 400 years later the prophet Ezekiel had a vision of the glory of the Lord departing from the Temple (Ezekiel 10:18). Not long after that, Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylonia removed the holy artifacts from the temple and then later destroyed it.

When the Jews returned from exile in Babylonia, they started to rebuild the temple, but this was only fully completed in 20 BC by King Herod. It was not the same as the original temple and God’s glory was not there until 9AD. When Jesus was 12 years old, he spent time in the Temple with the teachers of Israel. The glory of God had returned to the temple, but only briefly and infrequently. Why?

Because the glory of God was now embodied in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ – He, not Herod’s building, was the true Second Temple.

In 30 AD, Jesus died on the cross, resurrected, and ascended, but a short while later the Third Temple came into being. Just 10 days after Jesus ascended into heaven the Holy Spirit birthed the church. No fancy building, no choirs and instruments, just 120 fervent disciples of Jesus. He came like a mighty fire and wind and filled every person gathered with his powerful presence.

From that moment onwards, the church has been the place of the presence of God, the Third Temple; and by ‘church’, I mean every gathering of believers anywhere on earth at any time during the last 2,000 years.

‘Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him, the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit’ (Ephesians 2:19-22).

So then, the First Temple was built by Solomon, the Second Temple was the body of Jesus Christ on earth, and the Third Temple is the church. What then is the Millennium Temple of which people speak?

Dispensationalist Theology

The whole idea of a physical end-time temple is a product of dispensationalist theory. Those who hold to this theology weave together several texts to make the case for a third physical temple:

They take Matthew 24:15 as a proof text in the assumption that Jesus was referring to something other than Herod’s Temple. However, the evidence points to the discourse of Matthew 24 as referring to the Jerusalem temple of Herod just before its destruction in 70 AD. The Roman General Titus, after a long siege of Jerusalem, occupied the Temple and shortly thereafter leveled and burned it to the ground. Titus, who later became Caesar, stood in the holy temple with his soldiers and Roman emblems and ensigns. His soldiers rampaged through the city killing everyone they could. In the end, a large number of Jews fled to the Temple in the hopes of finding safety, but the soldiers overwhelmed and slaughtered them. The Roman historian (an ex Israeli) General) Josephus recorded that the bodies were piled up in a huge heap in the temple with the blood flowing in a flood over its floors. What an abomination! What Desolation! The pagan desecration of the Temple and the ‘sacrifice’ of thousands of humans where the blood of sheep used to be spilled for the sanctification of the nation.
A second dispensationalist idea is that if Jesus is going to return to reign on earth for a thousand years then he must surely have a temple from which to operate. Many years ago, I went to a conference in Jerusalem organised by dispensationalist Christian businesspersons. The main speaker told us that we should all convert our currencies into Scheckel because in the (soon coming) millennium the Jewish currency would be the only medium of exchange in the entire world! When Jesus returns, he will require neither a temple nor a currency.

The House of Cards

The whole dispensationalist end-time scenario collapses like a house of cards because of its incorrect assumptions. It assumes that Jesus will come again not only for a second but also for a third time – once in the air to catch up the church (The Rapture) and again after the battle of Armageddon to reside on earth for a thousand years. However, Jesus said nothing about coming again twice!

A second assumption is that Jesus was referring to an end-time temple when responding to his disciples’ question about when Herod’s temple would be destroyed (Matthew 24). While his teaching contains patterns and principles applicable to all ages, his description of the destruction of the temple perfectly fits the 70 AD sacking by the Romans. This took place exactly one Jewish traditional generation after he made his statement just as he said it would (Matthew 24:34).

A third assumption is that the six verses in the book of Revelation that describe a ‘Millennium’ (Revelation 20:1-6) refer to a literal 1,000 years and not a symbolic representation of the church age. This is quite an assumption in the light of the almost entirely symbolic nature of the book of Revelation. If you want to read my views on this subject then you can get the book ‘Revelation in the Light of the Stars’ HERE or read the summary of my commentary on Revelation 20:1-6 HERE.

While on the subject of the book of Revelation, this is how John describes an aspect of the New Jerusalem (a depiction of the New HeavenEarth): Revelation 21:22,

‘I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.’

I mention this here because I believe that Jesus will come again just one more time. When he does, he will first gather the believers still on earth to join the multitude that is already with him, deal with Satan, judge the nations, and establish a new merger of Heaven and Earth that I call HeavenEarth. There will be no need for a temple or anything like today’s church in this new realm because Jesus will be tangibly and eternally among his people, both spiritual and physical.

What this all Means to Us.

So, instead of looking for a new temple in Jerusalem, let us rather look for the second coming of Jesus on the clouds with great glory.

Until he comes again, we are the Temple on earth, and the place of his presence.

As his word went out from Jerusalem, and then though the person of Jesus Christ, so it now goes out from the church. As the temple was the House of Prayer, so now is the church. All this will be the case until Jesus comes again.

The church is important. The church is the Temple of God made with living stones…us, and we have the great privilege of being the place of his presence in this age.

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The Golden Altar of Prayer

Here is a biblical riddle: “When and why did the Altar of Incense in the Tabernacle move?” The answer will intrigue and encourage you.

Revelation Chapter Eight marks the start of Part Three of the book. Each part covers the period between the first and second comings of Christ, but from different perspectives and with varying levels of detail. Part Two started with the throne in Heaven with God seated on it, and Part Three also starts in the heavenly throne room.

An angel offers incense on a golden altar which stands before the throne. The resultant fragrant smoke is depicted as mingling with the prayers of the saints (Revelation 8:1-5). I wrote in a previous post about how the layout and furniture of the Tabernacle of Moses was a three-dimensional model of the multi-dimensional reality of heaven pictured here in the book of Revelation. The Golden Incense Altar was located in the Inner Court of the Tabernacle, the Holy Place, along with the Menorah and the Table of Shewbread, but here in Revelation it is pictured as standing before the throne… it seems to have moved!

Hebrews 9:2-4 contains a description of the Tabernacle that reads as follows: ‘A tabernacle was set up. In its first room were the lampstand, the table and the consecrated bread; this was called the Holy Place. Behind the second curtain was a room called the Most Holy Place, which had the golden altar of incense and the gold-covered ark of the covenant’. Now, if you read the original description of the Tabernacle that Moses constructed, (Exodus 30) you will note that the incense altar was located in the Inner Court, not the Holy of Holies. What is happening here? Is the description in Hebrews incorrect? But no, wait a minute, the Bible is inspired and trustworthy is it not? So there must be an explanation for the moving Incense Altar.

The Holy of Holies contained just once item: The golden Ark of the Covenant, a representation of the throne of God. The room next to it, the Holy Place/Inner Court contained the table, the Menorah, and the Incense Altar. A thick curtain separated the two rooms and only the High Priest was allowed past this curtain, once a year, to present the blood of the atonement sacrifice before the Ark of the Covenant. Later, Solomon built the Jerusalem Temple according to the same pattern as the Tabernacle, but Matthew records that when Jesus died on the cross, as an atonement for the sins of all humanity, ‘the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom’ (Matthew 27:51). The author of Hebrews explains this by setting out the wonderful fact that, because of what Jesus has done, we who believe, can enter into the very presence of God; he writes, ‘Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith…’ (Hebrews 10:19-22). This is why this same author describes the Golden Incense Altar as located inside the Holy of Holies before the throne of God. You see, as is clear from the contexts of both Exodus 30 and Revelation 8, this altar represents prayer and worship. There is no curtain of separation between us and God anymore, and we can therefore approach Him freely in prayer and worship! Hebrews 4:16 makes this absolutely clear when the author declares, ‘Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need’.

The Golden Incense Altar has moved because Jesus ‘rearranged the furniture’ to represent a new reality – no longer are we cut off from God by sin, but in Christ Jesus we have access to Almighty God!

In Revelation 8 the particular prayer requests of the saints receive a dramatic response… but I will write about this in my next post.

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