Is There a Scripture Agains Building the Tmple in Israel
"The fourth dimension is coming when information technology volition no longer affair whether you worship the Male parent on this mount or in Jerusalem. The Male parent is looking for true worshippers, those that worship Him in Spirit Truth." –Jesus in John iv:21-24
The Temple Jesus taught in was destroyed in 70 Advert and was never rebuilt. For Orthodox and conservative Jews, the Temple in Jerusalem is central to their religion and coincides with their beliefs in the Messiah. The 3rd Temple is the 1 withal to be congenital, and many modern Jews long for it, peculiarly since returning to the "Promised State" after WWII.
Muslims at present control that role of the city, still, and much of the Jewish homeland is disputed betwixt Jews and Muslims. The Third Temple is much debated. But what almost Christians? What does the New Testament have to say about the 3rd Temple?
Where Is the Third Temple in the Bible?
When Judah and Jerusalem fell to Babylon and Solomon's Temple destroyed, Ezekiel has a vision of the Temple rebuilt in his book (Ch. 40-42). He describes the size and layout of this new Temple and explains how the celebrity of God comes to that Temple (Ch. 43).
In his book, Ezra builds the second Temple and restores worship in Jerusalem. However, the 2nd Temple is not the one seen by Ezekiel in his vision. The two are vastly different. Again, the visible glory was absent at the dedication of the second Temple.
A contemporary of Ezekiel, Daniel Ch. 8 talks about the restoration of worship in Jerusalem along with an anti-Christ figure that perverts that worship. This was written before the building of the 2nd Temple and also has connections to the Messianic ideas in Daniel'southward writings.
In the Gospels, several things happen at the second Temple. Jesus spoke of his own body as the Temple of God (John 2:19, Mark 14:58), telling the Jews that if they tore information technology down, He would build it again in iii days, which was crazy talk to them, merely Jesus was talking well-nigh His own death and resurrection. Jesus also "cleanses" the Temple, notably the Outer Courtroom in possibly two separate events (John 2:xiii-sixteen, Matthew 21). Jesus also taught regularly in the Outer Court of the Temple where all people could meet (Jew, Gentile, male, female, old, young, people with disabilities, everyone).
The only other actual, physical Temple spoken of in the New Testament is in Revelation 21 within the vision of the New Heaven and the New Globe, a place which is both a Temple and the City of God.
The short answer is that nowhere exercise we see a concrete Third Temple being built on this World.
Unless we're talking almost something unlike. Something higher and more glorious. The New Attestation does talk about that.
Is the Third Temple Literal or Symbolic?
It is neither and both.
The Old Attestation prophesied of a Messiah that would be Rex. Was that literal or symbolic? Jesus didn't hold an actual worldly championship of Rex, or Loftier Priest equally Hebrews describes. Does that hateful he didn't fulfill the Davidic Messianic prophecies? Or that He's not a Great High Priest? Of course not. On the reverse, he fulfilled those prophecies in a Kingdom of Heaven sense and enlarged the fulfillment past making it bigger and more consummate. Eternal.
The Messianic prophecies were rooted in the physical line of Judah, but Jesus became a King forever in the eternal Kingdom of God. The bang-up confession before Pilate was that His Kingdom was not of this globe.
So why would we make a physical Tertiary Temple necessary? There is plenty in the New Testament to clearly explain that the Temple Christ has congenital (and is building) is an eternal one in the people of God.
Jesus died and was raised over again, His resurrected torso shown to others, all in 3 days. The Church is called His Trunk with Jesus equally the source and head of the Church (Ephesians 4:15-xvi). Jesus likewise taught in the Gospels that when someone says that God is in a specific place, they shouldn't go. The Kingdom of God is within those that follow Jesus (Luke 17:21).
The woman at the well tried to start a religious argument with Jesus nearly which mountain was right to worship at (Samaria or Jerusalem), which were two unlike religious views and temples. Jesus' answer? God isn't worshipped in a place. He's Spirit and looking for those who would worship in Spirit Truth.
When Jesus died, the veil that separated the people from the Holy of Holies was torn in two, from the tiptop to the bottom (Matthew 27:51), signifying that the separation and division of the old system was washed. Also, the Apostle Paul writes that Jesus put the Law, the Former Covenant, to death on that cross (Colossians 2:14). The Temple system was part of that covenant. We are of the New Covenant.
"Firm" is some other word for temple, and the reborn people of God are called His house, congenital up together as living stones (1 Peter ii:four-6), where Jesus is also described every bit the Living Stone, the Cornerstone of a firm that was rejected by humanity just used by God to build his "business firm." Nosotros are stones, non bricks, each a unlike shape only made of the same textile, fitted together by God.
Information technology is common in Scripture to talk about people as types of stones. Each tribe of Israel is symbolized by jewels in the breastplate of the High Priest (Exodus 28). Jesus is now the High Priest (Hebrews 4:14-16). The apostles and prophets are spoken of every bit stones in the foundation of the city of God Ephesians 2:20. God's righteous people are called jewels in Malachi three:17.
If the Church is His House, then did he signify it with the same purpose of the Temple?
On the day of Pentecost, He marked the people of God with flames of fire (Acts 2:3, similar the Tabernacle, Solomon'due south Temple, and Mount Sinai in Exodus 19:eighteen). Christians house the presence of God within them like the Holy of Holies. Where two or more than are gathered together in His proper noun, the presence of God exists (Matthew eighteen:xx), conspicuously showing there is no need for a concrete building.
In Revelation 21, while John is shown the New Jerusalem on the New Heaven/World, which is a city, garden, and Temple, a loud voice from the Throne of God says, "Wait, God'southward habitation is now among his people! He will alive with them, and they will be his people. God himself volition exist with them. He will wipe every tear from their optics, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever."
From Scripture and prophecy, from the very throne of God, we have the declaration. God'southward home, his house, his city, and the temple is now with His people. He lives with them, inside them fifty-fifty now through the indwelling Holy Spirit.
What Is the Purpose of The Temple?
To start, nosotros must become back to the original Tabernacle built past Moses in the wilderness. Since they were traveling tribes, God had them build a tent for a place of worship, where people would meet with God, priests would perform rituals God expected from them, and the Israelites would assemble as a people. The Tabernacle was supernaturally marked at its inception every bit God'due south appointed place (Exodus 33:9).
The centerpiece of the Tabernacle was the Holy of Holies, where they placed the Ark of the Covenant that held the manifest presence of God backside a thick veil.
After the time of the Judges came the fourth dimension of the Kings offset with Saul and so David. David had moved the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, the new capital of Israel, and wanted to build a permanent home. God fabricated clear He didn't need one (two Samuel 7), but the task was handed down to David's son, Solomon, to build the Temple.
David gave Solomon the instructions, and Solomon congenital the Temple which had a construction similar to the Tabernacle in its divided sections and the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies. The Temple also served the same purpose of housing God's presence and being the identify where Israel had fellowship with God and worshipped Him. God again marked his pleasance with the Temple through a supernatural manifestation (2 Chronicles 7).
The Second Temple served the same purpose of the place to run across with God, fellowship with, and worship Him.
Much of the Old Covenant rituals require a Tabernacle or Temple to exist consequent with God's Police, referred to every bit the Mosaic or Old Covenant. The Third Temple would give the Jews a cardinal location in one case over again to worship and fully proceed God's covenant with them. For the Jews who believe that the devastation of the Temple was a punishment for their sin and rebellion, the Third Temple would be a sign of redemption in conjunction with the coming Messiah.
Photograph Credit: © Getty Images/arkira
What Happened to the First Two Temples?
Solomon's Temple was built in grand BC and destroyed by Babylon in 586 BC. As part of the downfall of Israel and then Judah, the Ark of the Covenant was already gone. The Old Testament doesn't requite the details of when or who took the Ark, just it was perchance stolen by the Egyptians or even Babylon.
Later Babylon barbarous and the Farsi Empire rose to power, the Male monarch of Persia immune the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the wall and the Temple. The book of Nehemiah is the narrative of rebuilding the wall; Ezra gives the story of constructing the 2d Temple, which took from 538-515 BC. While there was great sorrow and rejoicing at the rebuilding of the Temple, there was no supernatural manifestation by God to put his marking on the Second Temple (Ezra vi).
The Ark was either never found or constitute and not restored. King Herod, a Roman political puppet, added onto the second Temple in 37 BC, enlarging it. When Jesus was born, there was no Ark of the Covenant and therefore no manifest presence of God in the Second Temple.
The 2d Temple was destroyed in 70 AD during the Roman Empire. It has never been rebuilt. A single stretch of the wall remains, and people phone call information technology the Wailing Wall today because of the sadness and grief over the destruction of the Temple and the lack of a fundamental place to worship God for the Jews.
What does this mean for u.s.?
We are the place where people can meet God. Scripture gives the states the commission to preach, to minister, to dear, and to reach out to others. The mission is to go ourselves, non to invite people to a edifice, just to bring the Temple (the Church) to a lost and dying globe by getting involved in the hurting and the chaos of others.
Moses came downward from the mountain with his face up shining from his time in the presence of God. The people were frightened and begged him to comprehend his face. Which he did.
Paul, yet, says that we aren't like that. We interact in the world with "unveiled faces," the glory of God shining from within u.s.a. to bless others (two Corinthians 3:18).
Every bit individuals and among two or 3, nosotros bring the Christ, the anointing, to others, the very Holy of Holies to those that demand to run across there is a better life, an eternal life, a Father who loves them more than they ever thought possible. Amazing things happen when nosotros alive that mission.
I get it. We don't feel very glorious almost of the fourth dimension. Mayhap none of the time. But the Truth isn't dependent on how we feel but in the Give-and-take of God. We were born from Sky to give people the hope of Heaven on globe.
That's good news. The Gospel for everyone.
Photo Credit: © Getty Images/TonyBaggett
This article is part of our larger Stop Times Resource Library. Learn more about the rapture, the anti-christ, bible prophecy and the tribulation with articles that explain Biblical truths. You do not need to fear or worry virtually the time to come!
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Is There a Scripture Agains Building the Tmple in Israel
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