Temple
The five temples in the Bible deserving special mention are Solomon’s great temple, Ezekiel’s temple, Zerubbabel’s reconstructed temple, Herod’s renovated temple, and God’s human temple. Each of these temples is important because God’s presence was there in a special way that went beyond the general understanding that God is omnipresent (everywhere). Yet we should not assume that God ever limited his presence to a human structure. The temple buildings in the Bible were not places where God lived but places where God was willing to meet people who gathered to worship.
Solomon’s Temple
Both King David and his son Solomon were involved in building the magnificent temple in Jerusalem. Second Samuel 7:2 records David’s first mention of the idea for a temple: “So the king said to the prophet Nathan, ‘Look, I’m living in a house made of cedar, while the ark of God remains in the tent.’ ” But God reserved the task of building the temple for David’s son Solomon.
By all indications, Solomon’s temple was one of the wonders of the world when it was finished around 950 BC. So strong was the identification between Jerusalem, the temple, and God, that generations of Jews could not imagine the city ever being conquered or the temple destroyed. But that is exactly what happened when Israel moved progressively away from true worship. That magnificent structure was destroyed by the Babylonians around 590 BC.
Ezekiel’s Temple
The prophet Ezekiel described in great detail a temple revealed to him in a vision (Ezek. 41–44). To the Jewish exiles, it pictured a time of complete restoration, a time when God would return to his people.
Ezekiel’s temple vision has been interpreted in four main ways: (1) It is the intended building plan for the temple Zerubbabel should have built in 520–515 BC. Because of disobedience (Ezek. 43:2–10), it was never followed. (2) It pictures a literal temple that will be built during the millennial reign of Christ. (3) It symbolizes the true worship of God by the Christian church now. (4) It symbolizes the future and eternal reign of God when his presence and blessing fill the earth.
Whatever interpretation is true, it clearly is a vision of God’s final and perfect kingdom.
The Rebuilt Temple
Seventy years after the fall of Judah, Zerubbabel led a large group of displaced Jews back from Babylon with the purpose of rebuilding Jerusalem and the temple. Although this rebuilt temple was considered inferior to the previous one (Hag. 2:3), and even though it also suffered desecration at times, it remained a symbol to God’s people that he had not abandoned them.
About twenty years before Jesus was born, King Herod began a massive renovation of the temple in Jerusalem. Work was going on throughout Jesus’ life, though the building he and his disciples visited many times was certainly an impressive structure. In many ways it reawakened belief in many Jewish people that God was again present in his temple and would not let any harm come to it. Herod’s temple was demolished in AD 70 by the Romans.
As important and beautiful as the temple was, the greater spiritual truth is that Jesus’ death and resurrection made all those rituals obsolete. Now each individual believer is a temple of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus and the Temple
The idea of temple takes on special and personal significance in the New Testament. Jesus was presented at the temple by his parents (Luke 2:22–24). Temple visits became an annual pilgrimage. By twelve years of age, Jesus was calling the temple “my Father’s house” (Luke 2:49; see vv. 41–52). As an adult, Jesus cleansed the temple courts twice (Matt. 21:12–13; John 2:13–16) and grieved over his knowledge that it would be destroyed along with Jerusalem (Luke 19:41–44). But after the first cleansing, Jesus used the word temple to talk about himself: “Jesus replied, ‘Tear down this temple, and I’ll rebuild it in three days.’ . . . The temple Jesus spoke about was his own body. After he came back to life, his disciples remembered that he had said this. So they believed the Scripture and this statement that Jesus had made” (John 2:19, 21–22). Jesus was God’s presence among his people, the true temple of which the physical temple was a sign.
The shift in understanding worship as not being limited to a physical location was highlighted in Jesus’ conversation with the woman at the well (John 4). She wanted to talk about legitimate locations for worship; he pointed to the crucial reality of a relationship with God: “true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth” (John 4:23).
While the followers of Jesus spent a lot of time in the temple after Jesus’ resurrection, the shift continued away from the temple as a place to the temple as a people. Paul made this very personal when he wrote, “Don’t you know that you [this is a plural you] are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him because God’s temple is holy. You are that holy temple!” (1 Cor. 3:16–17; see also 2 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 2:21).
The symbol of the temple became complete in the prophetic picture in John’s vision of the New Jerusalem in Revelation. Ultimately, John reported, a physical temple will not be necessary. As he looked at the New Jerusalem, he noticed a significant feature absent: “I did not see any temple in it, because the Lord God Almighty and the lamb are its temple” (Rev. 21:22). In its earliest form, the temple symbolized God’s willingness to live among his people; in its later understanding, the temple became a forward-looking picture of a time when a visible building would no longer be required as a reminder of God’s presence.
Key Verse
But the temple Jesus spoke about was his own body. After he came back to life, his disciples remembered that he had said this. So they believed the Scripture and this statement that Jesus had made. (John 2:21–22)