PASTOR’S PERSPECTIVE: “Destroy This Temple…and I will raise it up…forever!”
By: Ron Woodrum
We read in the Bible that David wanted to build a house for God. God allowed him to build a palace for himself. David, a man after God’s own heart wanted to build God a house. God allowed him to purchase the land for the Temple, but did not allow him to build it. Instead, God allowed his son, Solomon to have the privilege of building God a permanent dwelling place on earth-the first Jewish Temple. Even though God made it plain that a “house made with human hands could not contain him”-He chose to accommodate Himself and display all of His glory in that first Temple. You can read in Scripture about the awesome Temple that Solomon built and you can read of the awesome time when the glory of God came to fill the Temple (II Chronicles 7). Then if you get the chance to read I Kings 10 you can read about the time the Queen of Sheba came to visit Solomon. She came to see his Kingdom…to see his palace…to test his wisdom. But the Scriptures tell us that when she saw the Temple that he had built for Yahweh the LORD…the glory of it literally “took her breath away”. She honored Solomon with a gift of gold that allowed him to add golden pillars to the temple. That Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. Ezekiel saw a vision of the Shekinah glory of God departing the Temple gradually in chapters 9-10-11. Then the Temple was looted and destroyed. Zerubbabel and Joshua rebuilt the second Jewish Temple…finishing it in 516 B. C. It was not as glorious. God realized that both Priests and People saw that this Temple was inferior to that of Solomon. We read about this in Haggai 2:3-9. Listen to these words: “Who is left among you that saw the House of the Lord in its first glory? And how do you see it now? Is it not, in your eyes in comparison…as nothing? Be strong Oh Zerubbabel. Be strong Oh Joshua. Be strong all ye people of the land. For I am with you…The Desire of the Nations shall come and I will fill this house with glory. The glory of the latter house shall be greater than the glory of the former!” Herod the Great…to make up for the hatred the Jews felt for him because of his madness, was known as a great builder. In 14 B.C. He began to remodel the Second Jewish Temple. This remodel continued on until 63 A.D. At the beginning of Jesus ministry he cleansed the Temple. When asked about a sign that he had the authority to do that. He told them the sign would be that when they destroyed the Temple…He would raise it up in three days! They went nuts! This Temple had been in the process now for 46 years of hard construction labor. How could it be rebuilt in three days! Of course He was referring to the genuine Temple-of His body-the “real dwelling place of God on earth” during the days of His flesh! As great as that Temple was now…it was inferior in every way. According to the Jewish Temple historian Alfred Edersheim, in his book The Temple, it did not have the original Ark of the Covenant; The Tablets of the Law; Aaron’s Rod that Budded; The Pot of Manna; or was there evidence of the continual fire of the Shekinah glory of God in that Temple. Jesus honored the Temple with His presence. He taught there. He was the Desire of the Nations that Haggai had prophesied and His Presence in the Incarnation made the glory of the inferior Temple greater than that of Solomon’s Temple. But because the nation rejected Him, He rejected them, and He would call out a New People…called His Church…and they would be the New Temple of God. (See Matt. 16:18; Ephesians 2:19-22; I Peter 2:4-8). In the Old Testament God had a Temple for His People. In the New Testament God had a People for his Temple! The Jews destroyed Jesus on the Cross! They destroyed the real Temple of the Presence of God in the body and person of Jesus. God raised it up in three days. Soon the Temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed by Titus in A.D. 70. Josephus and Tacitus tell us of a vision at that time that appeared to be armies of heaven surrounding Jerusalem in the clouds, and a loud voice saying…”the gods are leaving the Temple”. Josephus saw that as the Glory of the Presence of God leaving before the Romans pillaged away the gold and the furniture of the Temple and used it to build the Coliseum, which was done by 79 A.D. God’s presence was then incarnate in the Church of Jesus Christ, The Living Temple of the Lord, made up of believing Jews and Gentiles, all a part of the Family of God! Peter is giving believers the assurance that even if the Romans or anybody else decides to physically destroy this Temple, that we have a Living Hope and Inheritance In Heaven that is Eternal and Indestructible! He said, in so many words…“Destroy This Temple and God will Raise it up forever…in Heaven”! That is what we see in the New Jerusalem with the names of the Twelve Tribes and the names of the Twelve Apostles, and with all of our names forever written in the Lamb’s Book of Life! Well Glory!
Soon all the Living Stones of the New Temple were being destroyed. Paul was beheaded. Peter crucified upside down. Thomas slain with a spear in India; Simon, the brother of Jude crucified in Egypt. Mark died in flames; Bartholomew beaten with clubs, crucified, and beheaded! Philip stoned; James stoned by a mob, and then killed by a blow to the head; Andrew crucified too. Jerome said, “There is no day of the year unto which the number of five thousand martyrs cannot be ascribed”. Foxes Book of Martyrs says, “Whatsoever the cruelness of man’s invention could devise for punishment was practiced against Christians…scourgings, drawings, tearings, stonings, burnings, gibbets, gallows, lions, tossing upon horns of bulls! Notwithstanding all these continual persecutions and horrible punishments, The Church daily increased…watered plenteously by the blood of the saints!”
There is a letter explaining this to the Church and the pagan world. It is the Letter to Diogenes (150 A.D.-200 A.D.) This is what it says: “Christians love all men, but all men persecute them! Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but enrich the many; They are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their answer to insult. For their good they receive punishment, but even then they rejoice, as though they were receiving the gift of life. They are attacked by Jews as aliens; They are persecuted by the Romans and the Greeks, yet no one can explain this hatred. Such is the Christians’ divinely appointed function, from which he is not permitted to excuse himself”. All I can add to that is the words of the writer of Hebrews…”The world was not worthy of them!” (Heb. 11:38). The Temple Destroyed becomes the Temple Eternal! See God’s Glory In His Temple…The Church!