Should Christian Historians Have More Notice?

Daryl Hart has an interesting post summarizing an ongoing discussion among Christian historians lamenting their lack of visibility among the American faithful. They note that C.S. Lewis, an Anglican who has been deceased for over half a century, has far greater visibility and influence among American Christians than do any -- or perhaps the aggregate of all -- American historians and question why that is the case. Hart, himself a distinguished historian, concludes sardonically after quoting theologian Todd Billings discussing the tendency of pastors to neglect their theology even at times when it would be most useful:

"And if pastors have trouble using their theological training profitably for pastoral ministry, why do historians even think their academic skills, while good and valuable, rival those of people who minister God’s word and bring to bear on ordinary human existence reflection on God’s ways?"

"Again, historians may need to recognize why evangelical readers and audiences value pastors and theologians more than those who teach history — because God matters more than the Civil War."

Be that as it may, one might note that with regard to this discussion that the comparison to Lewis is not entirely appropriate. Though Lewis was certainly a scholar of repute, the work for which he is remembered by American evangelicals is not his academic work or even relevant to his academic field. Most American evangelicals who have admired Lewis for his Chronicles of Narnia or Mere Christianity probably know that he was a professor of literature at Oxford, but they have little, if any, awareness of his specialty in medieval literature. American historians writing mostly for academic audiences interested in their specialty are not likely to have the same popular acclaim.

There are both legitimate and illegitimate reasons for the growing chasm between Christian popular and academic worlds. Among the illegitimate is the latent anti-intellectualism that has always characterized American evangelicalism and that tamps down evangelical interest in subjects such as history, even the history related to evangelicals' own faith.

However, it should be noted that Christians sometimes do show an interest in history; yet, when they do so, their most popular choices of historical guides is almost uniformly bad. Thus, American church goers helped make  bestsellers of Eric Metaxas awful biographies of Luther and Bonhoeffer while ignoring far better accounts of the lives of these men. Even worse, evangelicals, especially in the south, have made a hero of David Barton, a self-described historian whose repudiated published work and public statements (see also here and here)make it hard to figure out if he is a half-wit or a charlatan. In spite of Barton's poor reputation, he has had tremendous influence among the Christian right and claims to have influenced several state legislatures and boards of education. For my own review of Barton's presentations at a home school conference, see here, here, here, and here.

Much of Christian anti-intellectualism unfortunately is self-perpetuating, as congregants with understandings of the faith that are divorced from serious reflection flock toward ministers who will give them the same. Many ministers are more likely to have recently read something on church marketing than anything remotely rigorous, and this shows up in the content of the worship experiences that they lead. While this has popular appeal, the self-perpetuating is arguably also self-defeating. While the American public may not have significant intellectual interests, those that shape the culture more often do, and Christians that complain about cultural elitists have abandoned that demographic.

I noted that many of the historians lamenting their lack of influence also placed that lament in a political context, and that is also a mistake. An academic desiring a wider audience for the purpose of directly shaping political attitudes is the wrong approach. Those who desire to read will often find good writers, but they will often reject those they perceive as looking down on their choices.

Just a Random Thought about Funerals

When I was in my early 20's, I had a friend in college who was among the speakers at his wife's funeral. Today, I saw a bit of the video of George W. Bush eulogizing his father. Of course, I have known others that have done this during the intervening years.

I respect those that can and wish to do this. Speaking only for myself, the last thing I would want to do is to stand up and talk at the funeral of someone I was close to. Of course, from my pastoral days I have presided over many funerals, but I have never done this for a close family member. If I were asked to do so, I would have to decline. I would be thankful for a pastor that could deliver the word of God, as well as for any other family that would desire to deliver a sort of eulogy that I could not do.

Checking Politics at the Church House Door

Back in the summer, a survey released by Lifeway Research, which is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, indicated that the majority (57%) of Protestant churchgoers under age 50 prefer to attend church with those that agree with them politically. Given that wise pastors may have preferred to avoid any mention of partisan politics in the months leading up to the midterm elections, that survey may have been filed in a drawer somewhere. Now that this year's elections are in the rear view mirror, and normal people are not yet thinking about 2020, it may be a good time for pastors to pull that story out and reflect on the fact that it means that a large percentage of active church members are effectively denying an important element of the fruit of the gospel.

Of course, it is not news that most people attend church with others that tend to hold similar opinions, as most churches draw from communities that tend to be at least somewhat homogenous in terms of socio-economic status and mindset. However, to say that something tends to be the case is different from saying that it is the way that we prefer things to be.

In the New Testament, questions of political affiliation are not really addressed because it was not a matter of concern to the churches. However, unity in the midst of other social and ethnic questions was important, and the Apostle Paul in particular emphasized that whatever differences there may have been among church members were minimized by their common belief in and experience of Christ.

Thus, we find in his letter to the Ephesians an emphasis on the fact that God had created a single church composed of both Jews and Gentiles, meaning that long standing causes of separation between these groups had been obliterated by the cross of Christ. Instead of differences, they were united into one body, one temple, sharing one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. To separate over lesser matters was not to be considered given the momentous things that they now shared in common.

So, it is -- or should be -- with Christians who differ politically but who are together in Christ, united to him and to one another in faith. The Lutheran pastor Rod Rosenbladt has told a magnificent story about parishioners (one a veteran, the other an anti-war activist) during the Vietnam era who nearly came to blows in the parking lot of the church but who threw their arms around one another in Christian love having entered worship and come together to the Lord's table. This is as it should be. The Bible does not have enough clear information to bind our consciences on all matters of political philosophy and tactics, but it does tell us enough to unite us in Christian faith. Our differences should not have to be abandoned or papered over in order to recognize our common faith in Christ.

Paul warned the early Galatian Christians against heeding the teaching of those that would require them to be circumcised before being acknowledged as Christians. In our day, circumcision is not at issue, but one may wonder at some churches that seem to indicate that Republican (or Democratic, depending on the church) fidelity is an essential element to a sure testimony of Christian faith. Indeed, years ago when it became publicly known that a famous, politically liberal actress had been attending an evangelical congregation, I heard Christians wondering whether this would mean that she had experienced a political conversion, as well.

Of course, such thinking is all wrong. I have my own political opinions, and like everyone else I think that my own are more correct than those who disagree with me. My goal is that my political beliefs would be consistent with my Christian faith, but I recognize my own limitations in sorting that out and see that a fellow Christian may come to different views. Most importantly, conversion to faith in Christ doesn't require the seeker to accept Burke (or Rousseau) as his political philosopher. It is faith in Christ alone that saves.

It cannot be ignored that Christians have frequently failed abysmally at this. In the United States, the racial divide has been more unfortunate than the political one, and not a small number of churches that send money to Africa and other parts of the world for the conversion of people there have embarrassing racial restrictions as part of their own sordid congregational histories. Fortunately, a number of churches and denominations have publicly changed their views and repented in recent years, though it would be a mistake that this problem is now in our rear view mirrors.

Who should we prefer to attend church with? Christ is building his church out of every tongue and tribe and nation, and all who come our way to unite around God's word and sacrament should be welcome among his people.

Temple Study Table of Contents

I. The Temple of Hope

II. The Cosmic Temple

III. The Garden Temple

IV. Transitional Temples: the Patriarchal Altars

V. Babel's Temple

VI. The Mobile Temple

VII. The Proffered Temple, Deferred

VIII. Solomon's Temple

IX. Temple 2.0

X. Looking Again at Ezekiel's Temple

XI. A Pause to Ruminate on the Temple Study

XII. Christ the Temple in John's Gospel

XIII. The Doomed Temple

XIV. The Church as Temple

XV. The Expanding Temple

XVI. The Temple of Antichrist

XVII. The Heavenly Temple

XVIII. The Eternal Temple: the New Jerusalem

XIX. Wrapping up my Temple Project

Wrapping up my Temple Project

Since August, I have slowly rolled out a series of posts developing the temple as a primary, central theme for understanding the story set forth in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. I enjoy these kinds of studies and have found that many Christians have not come across quite this sort of approach. Most Bible study groups or sermon series in the evangelical portion of American Christianity either are oriented toward study through Bible books or topical studies that focus more on systematizing the information rather than showing the progression of it over the course of the biblical story. It is common nowadays to focus more on contemporary problems rather than on biblical content for addressing them. While those approaches that address Scripture contextually are valid, I believe that what we have done in this study adds an additional dimension, particularly when the approach is framed with a Christ centered interpretive framework for developing the biblical drama.

To use a metaphor I first heard from Kim Riddlebarger, this approach to biblical doctrine can be a valuable way of providing the puzzle box lid to Christians. In theory, it is possible to put together a jigsaw puzzle after throwing away the box, but it is much more difficult to do it that way. Yet, that is comparable to what we often ask Christians to do. Having the picture on the box lid provides guidance as the person putting together the puzzle works over the various pieces and sections. It gives a coherent picture of the whole rather than just a bunch of parts. Most Christians would benefit from being able to understand the Bible in that way.

So, what does this say about the task of preaching? Would I argue that pulpit ministry should provide an expanded version of what we have done with this study, with additional consideration for application?

I would answer both yes and no.

First, I would say that a few years ago when I was not a pastor but was doing a bit of supply preaching, I greatly enjoyed preaching these sorts of sermons that presented the grand scope of the biblical story. As my enjoyment, of course, is not of paramount importance, I hope also that Christ was glorified and that God's people benefited. However, being a pastor is a different function from being someone that occasionally fills a pulpit. The pastor who stands before his congregation nearly every week must dig into the details of biblical texts and books, making sure to teach and apply more detailed material to the needs of a particular congregation. That being the case, I would suggest that a certain amount of teaching should take on the grand scope of the biblical story, even as the pastor digs into the details of what the Bible tells us about what we believe and how we live.

Having said that, even in doing the detailed work of pastoral preaching, it is important for the minister to keep the bigger biblical story in view. There are pastors that seem to understand expository preaching as something that focuses only on the immediate context, but surely that is deficient. Whatever text of Scripture a minister takes up, he should remain aware of where it fits into the overall scheme of the biblical story. The minister should also keep in mind that every single Sunday his task is to preach Christ. Every Sunday, without force or without it seeming as something tacked on at the end. Whatever the overall subject, Christ is to be preached every Sunday. To paraphrase something I read this week -- I can't remember where or I would credit the source -- if the minister preaches something that could have been done by a Jewish rabbi or a Muslim cleric or by Dr. Phil, he has not preached a Christian sermon. Whatever the minister's subject, it is set forth in the light of the person and work of Christ, by which we see all things. Doing this requires that the pastor understand the context and grammar of his actual passage, but it also requires understanding and appreciation of the overall biblical story and where the text fits into it.

It has been said that every important subject of the Bible finds its beginnings in the first three chapters of Genesis. We saw that with regard to our temple study, and there are many other key subjects that could be developed similarly. Of course, one begins with the big headings of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation, but under each of those topics there are subtopics which are hinted at in those opening chapters and then developed over the course of the biblical revelation. The pastor who would preach biblically to his people must understand that, and he should occasionally demonstrate it explicitly to help his congregants understand it. To let the Bible dictate our content should drive us to preach Christ.

For, look at the puzzle lid, and one may see a temple, but look more closely and you will see a cross and an empty tomb.

The Eternal Temple: the New Jerusalem

In Revelation 21, the Apostle John writes that he saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven." He then describes this holy city as a "bride adorned for her husband," terminology evoking thoughts of the church as the bride of Christ, and as "the dwelling place of God," words which make one think of a tabernacle or temple. Subsequently, in a passage beginning in verse 8 and extending through the first five verses of chapter 22, this temple will be described as both a massive structural temple and as a garden yielding fruit and through which flows the river of life. The reader may recall that Paul mixes imagery in the same way in I Corinthians 3. In all of this, we begin to see all of the Bible's temple imagery, from the beginning of Genesis through both the Old and New Testament come into focus. Given the powerful symbolism and typological fulfillment here, one hardly knows whether to cry or laugh when interpreters ignore it and seek out some sort of physicality for future fulfillment.

What, then, is it all about?

There are many descriptors of the new Jerusalem that claim our attention, but to see what we are being taught here, we should focus on the overall shape of the city: it is an enormous cube -- more than 1,300 miles each in length, width, and height. What is the significance of its shape as a cube? In the temple, the only portion of the structure that was a cube was the Holy of Holies, that inner sanctum of God's presence where only the high priest could enter once annually following very strict processes. No uncleanness could enter the Holy of Holies. Now, with the new Jerusalem, the entire city, the place where all of God's people dwell, is a Holy of Holies. How can that be? The redemptive work of Christ is complete, all of God's people have been washed by the blood of the Lamb, and all sin has been done away with. Now, the entire temple of God's presence is opened to all of Christ's redeemed. For those who know the weight of their sin and long to be released from its guilt, power, and presence, this is a breathtaking vision including all of God's people.

The temple is so huge because it encompasses a great company of people out of every corner of the earth. When God placed his first priest within the initial temple, he told him to "fill the earth," but Adam failed at that task, as did everyone else before Christ, the Second Adam, who succeeded where Adam failed, and who has extended his temple to the ends of the earth.

Because the last chapters of the Bible take us back to the first, it is not surprising that much of the imagery reappears. The tree of life, from which man lost access in Genesis 3, is seen again in Revelation 22. The Garden of Eden was characterized by its rivers of water (as was the giant temple envisioned in Ezekiel 47, and in Revelation 22 we find the River of the water of life flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. Similarly, the Garden temple was associated with precious minerals, as were the tabernacle and Solomon's temple, and there is a similar focus regarding the holy city in Revelation 21. That the New Jerusalem represents the triumph of Christ in behalf of all of his people is seen by the fact that both the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 apostles are named on the structure.

Fans of the cinematic version of The Lord of the Rings trilogy will recall that the movies conclude where they began -- looking at the strange entrance of a hobbit hole. More remarkably, the apocalyptic vision of Revelation concludes by taking us back to the beginning. In Genesis, God had created a temple, and man had ruined it by his sin. In the person of God's Son, all things have been made new.

That, in a nutshell, is the story of the Bible.

The Heavenly Temple

We have already said that Old Testament temple typology pointed to Jesus Christ and to his church as its antitypes. There is a third antitype found in the book of Hebrews, that of the heavenly temple. As stated before, the fact of multiple referents should not be regarded as contradictory. Rather, we should recognize that the shadows and types of the Old Testament are multifaceted, though they all ultimately point up to the person and work of Christ.

The Letter to the Hebrews has no stated author, and I can agree with Origen's sentiment that only God knows who wrote it. The general epistle is written to Jewish believers in Christ who seem to have been under some pressure to forsake Christianity and return to their pre-Christian Jewish faith. In response, the author points to the dangers of abandoning Christ, with an emphasis on the superiority of Christ to everything found in the Old Covenant. Thus, the Son of God was superior to all created beings, offered to us a greater salvation that was not known to the angels, was greater than Moses, offered a greater Sabbath rest, was a greater high priest after a superior order, offered a greater sacrifice, and spoke of a greater covenant that made the old one obsolete.

Having said that -- I just raced through Hebrews, so please pardon me if I left something out -- the writer also says that Christ ministers in our behalf in a greater tabernacle, described as "the true tent" (Heb. 8:2, referring to a tabernacle). Having described the work of the priests at the temple, the writer proceeds to say that those priests "serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, 'See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain'" (Heb. 85-6. This and all other quotes are taken from the ESV). Heb. 9:11 refers to this as a "greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), and Heb. 9:24 says that "Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf." The following verses emphasize that Christ is not offering sacrifices, as his once and for all offering of himself sufficed to put away sin. Rather, he is at this heavenly tabernacle before the throne of the Father mediating in our behalf.

All of this is an elaboration, in light of the Christ event, on the brief statement by God to Moses at Mount Sinai found in Exodus 25:40. In the midst of providing Moses instructions regarding the construction of the tabernacle and its furnishings, God says to Moses, "And see that you make them after the pattern for them, which is being shown you on the mountain." Thus, what Moses was to build was based on a heavenly "pattern" that he was shown.

I should note that this provides an understanding of the relationship between the earthly temples and tabernacle and various realities presented under the New Covenant that is consistent with the mode of interpretation that we have been using throughout the study. The tendency of many is to see physical structures as "the real ones," with any attempt to think of them as types or analogies  pointing to spiritual realities being dismissed as not taking the text seriously. However, the author of Hebrews clearly declares that the tabernacle -- and by inference in describing ongoing priestly functions, the temple -- was a physical copy of a heavenly reality that is the site of Christ's greater ministerial work. This is neither liberalism nor some form of Gnosticism pitting physical against spiritual truth; rather it is sound biblical exegesis affirming that God provided us with physical patterns pointing to profound truths regarding the person and work of Christ in our behalf. If such Christ centered, Christ honoring redemptively centered teaching of Scripture is called liberalism, may we have more of that kind of liberalism.

As of now, I intend two more posts in this study: the first looking at Revelation 21 and 22 and the other providing a post-mortem on how this should be -- and should not be -- reflected in the teaching of churches.

The Temple of Antichrist

Though the Apostle Paul had spent only a relatively brief period in Thessalonica before his de facto eviction by the civil authorities, he must have spent a fair amount of time talking about the return of Christ. This is not surprising, as suffering Christians find hope in the promise of the Lord's return, and the Thessalonians experienced persecution from the start. Nonetheless, the Thessalonians must have been confused about this teaching, as Paul spends much of I and II Thessalonians reiterating and correcting understanding of the second coming.

Thus, in II Thessalonians 2 Paul tells his readers that they should not be deceived by false teachers claiming that the day of the Lord had already come. This could not be true, because "the man of lawlessness," a phrase usually thought to refer to the Antichrist, has not arrived on the scene. Because Paul says that this figure "takes his seat in the temple," proclaiming himself to be God and receiving worship, some Christians argue that the passage requires a rebuilding of the Jewish temple in order for the Antichrist to conduct these blasphemous acts. While one might hesitate to be dogmatic about this, it seems to this writer to be an unlikely interpretation.

Perhaps I should start by providing my understanding of who the Antichrist is as presented in the Bible. I do regard this language as referring ultimately to an individual who will become known near the end of the age; however, the Bible also emphasizes that the spirit of anti-Christ can be found throughout the period between Christ's two advents. Thus, Paul says in our present passage that "the mystery of lawlessness is already at work," and in I John the Bible says that "many Antichrists have come" (2:18, ESV). Thus, while an end times Antichrist will prominently personify evil opposition to God, that person simply rolls up a set of characteristics seen throughout the age. As such, it is appropriate to differentiate between a persistent spirit of Antichrist and an end of the age personification of Antichrist.

Importantly, to speak of the spirit of Antichrist is not the same as decrying every form of evil: specific characteristics are associated with that evil, among them being explicit public opposition to God and harmful influence inside the church. Thus, when John writes about the many Antichrists he references in I John 2, he makes clear that their work is manifested in the departure of members who had been deceived from the church. That seems to be also what Paul has in mind in II Thessalonians 2: Antichrist had set himself up as an object of worship actually in the visible church.

Besides this contextual backdrop, there are other reasons for thinking that the reference to the "temple" in II Thessalonians 2 does not refer to a Jewish temple, but to the church. First, as we have concluded throughout this study, there does not seem to be any compelling reason outside of this passage for thinking that Solomon's temple will be rebuilt. More significantly, as we have seen from my two previous posts, Paul is in the habit of speaking of the temple in terms of the church. Those factors, combined with the emphasis to be found in this passage and in I John, seem to point toward an engagement of an influential figure of ghastly evil who manages to deceive even many within the visible body. Let those of us who think we stand take heed, lest we fall.

Without knowing who that man of sin will be at the end of the age, it is not hard to see precursors of his activity. Certainly, throughout history great evil has been done in the name of Christ's church. While we can say contra Christ's enemies that such is not the whole story, neither should we pretend that the devil has not done his work there. This is why Christians must compassionately, but clearly, point out and root out evil in the church.

The Expanding Temple

Ephesians is the most exuberant of Paul's letters. In it, he not only expresses the nature of individual salvation (Eph. 2:8-10), but he also describes the common experience of Jews and Gentiles in being saved out of sin (notice the interplay of the second and third person pronouns in 2:1-3) and united into one body.

That Gentiles would be united into one body (see 3:4, where Paul uses the body metaphor along with other descriptors) with Jews is considered by the Apostle to be remarkable, and he does not hold back his sense of exhilaration that God has given him a role in this. He says that God has privileged him by making known this "mystery" not previously revealed to prior generations, but now has been given to "the least of all the saints" by "the gift of God's grace" that in fact demonstrates "the manifold wisdom of God." Already in chapter 2 he has mixed multiple metaphors in describing what God is doing with Jews and Gentiles: union in a common body, sharing in a common inheritance, fellow citizens of one kingdom, members of a common family, and indwelt by the same Spirit. Along with these, Paul also says that Jew and Gentile have been united into a singular temple.

In fact, Paul uses temple imagery both with regard to what God has delivered the Gentiles from and what he has delivered them to. Thus, beginning with 2:11 Paul described the vast chasm that separated Gentiles not only from Jews but also from any eternal hope. Gentiles had been separated from Israel and the covenants of promise; they were "without hope and without God in the world." Thus, they were alienated from both God and from God's people. However, Paul writes, Christ had brought those who had been far off "near by the blood of Christ" so that now they were near both to Christ and to one another. In giving visible expression to this sudden change of spiritual position, Paul then writes that Christ "has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility...." (all quotations are from the ESV).

The "dividing wall" that Paul mentioned had explicit reference to a wall at that time still standing in Jerusalem. Herod's renovation of the temple included an outer court of the gentiles that non-Jews could enter, but signage on the "dividing wall" (to use Paul's phrase) warned Gentiles that to cross into the interior temple area would result in the death of the transgressor. Thus, in the temple of the time, a literal wall gave literal expression to the division between Jew and Gentile, and Paul declared that Christ by his death had broken down that wall so that in the church Jew and Gentile would be joined together.

In fact, Jew and Gentile were now joined together in a new temple of Christ, which is described beginning with 2:20. Christ himself is the cornerstone of the temple, which is built "on the foundation of the apostles and prophets." Paul stretches the building metaphor a bit, as he does not want to give the impression the temple is static, so he says that it "grows into a holy temple of the Lord .... a dwelling place for God by the Spirit."

The notion of a continually growing temple may seem strange until we remember that it is consistent with both the beginning and the end of the Bible. With regard to man's original temple home , God commissioned Adam to "fill the earth." In Revelation 21, the New Jerusalem is of massive size and, as with the temple Paul talks about here, is described as explicitly including both Jew and Gentile, the saints under the Old Covenant and under the New. As we will see in a future post, Revelation 21 expresses about the end times temple what Paul says in Ephesians 2 has begun. The temple is being enlarged because Christ has succeeded and his gospel is spreading through all of the earth.

God had given Adam the commission to fill the earth by expanding the Edenic temple. Adam failed. However, the second Adam, Christ Jesus, succeeded where Adam failed, and his temple is expanding to all languages and tribes and people and nations, making of them "a kingdom and priests to our God" (Rev. 5:9-10).

It is no wonder that Paul was exuberant. Indeed, all of God's people may bow to worship before our great Savior.

The Church as Temple

The burden of this series of blog posts has been to demonstrate the centrality of the temple theme across all of Scripture from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22. As a significant part of that development, it has been emphasized that Old Testament manifestations of this theme point typologically to Jesus Christ. With the next few posts, we will shift gears a bit to show a second area of fulfillment in the church of Jesus Christ.

To say that the temple points typologically to both Christ and his church may strike some readers at first blush as contradictory. Am I arguing for too much in applying temple typology to both? In response, I would suggest the following:

1. As we have seen, Old Testament typology is Christocentric and multifaceted. Thus, while this study has emphasized Christ as the fulfillment of the temple type, it has also been mentioned that he is the fulfillment of the priesthood (Hebrews in particular lays this out) and is, of course, the fulfillment of the sacrificial system administered by the priests. Thus, Christ is temple, priest, and sacrifice. This is not a contradiction; rather, it simply points to the way that all that preceded Christ points toward him.

2. That Old Testament temple typology pointing to Christ would also point to his church seems natural when one realizes the inseparable connection between Christ and his church. Western individualism has produced many great results, but it has led to unbiblical views of the church and has impoverished Christians thereby. I fear that we do not take nearly seriously enough the various metaphors used to describe the essential unity between Christ and his church: head and body, cornerstone and structure, bride and groom. Note that the connection between Christ and church is essential (not optional) with regard to each of these: a bride is not one by definition without a groom. A stone that is not part of an overall structure becomes nothing more than a cut rock. A body part severed from the body is something grotesque, and so is a Christian severed from the visible church and its Savior. American individualism has distorted this biblical understanding.

Thus, the church is described as a building filled with the presence of God (thus, a temple) -- in the next post we will look at Ephesians 2, which is my favorite amplification of this theme. Given that I want to keep this post short, we will look briefly at how this is developed in I Corinthians 3. The Corinthian church had fallen into various cliques, with different ones claiming allegiance to various leaders. In response, Paul points out that these leaders were not competitors for the affections of believers, but that each one had been used by God for the building up of the church. In making this argument, Paul begins by viewing the church as a garden: "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.... For we are God's field, God's building" (I Cor. 3:6,9 ESV).

It is interesting to see what Paul did there: "God's field, God's building." Having used the garden theme, he shifts to a structural one. In the following verses, he turns to the structure: "... like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it." Interestingly, he refers to precious stones as a part of this structure.

Why does the mind of Paul move seamlessly from gardening to building? It is because he understands the Old Testament temples found from the Garden of Eden through the building of Solomon's temple and its successor, and he is connecting that flow of thought to the church. Nor is Paul isolated in this. Revelation 21 and 22 will describe the final temple in similar though more expansive terms: a structure constituted by precious stones that comes down from heaven in Revelation 21 and accompanied by an agrarian description at the opening of Revelation 22.

Returning to I Corinthians 4, Paul writes, "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?" This is not about individuals; it is the church.

The Doomed Temple

In an earlier post, I described how the early chapters in particular of Matthew's Gospel drew parallels between the life of Jesus and the history of Israel, making the point that Israel typologically represented Christ. Given that the primary theme of this series is the temple, I thought I would return to Matthew's Gospel to show what he records about this theme.

In Matthew 12:6, Jesus, speaking of himself, tells the Pharisees that "something greater than the temple is here." Understanding the grand significance of the temple in the history and worship of Israel, this is an audacious claim that could only be described as megalomania unless Jesus is, in fact, the Son of God. Certainly, no mere human or simple great teacher could make such a claim about himself.

However, we should turn to Matthew 21 to see the extraordinary teaching of Jesus regarding his authority over the temple and his coming as the true temple.

The chapter begins with Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem, which is followed by his going to the temple. Arriving there, he exercises authority over it by both cleansing it -- overturning the tables of the money changers, to whom he quotes scripture designating them as thieves -- and welcoming the blind and lame, to whom he brings healing. Thus, Jesus exercises the authority to determine both who is excluded and who is included in proper temple worship.

Following the cleansing of the temple, we find a hungry Jesus coming across a fig tree in early bloom that turns out to have no fruit. Discovering the lack of figs, Jesus pronounces a curse on the tree, which immediately begins to whither. Those who imagine that Jesus out of anger needlessly pronounced a curse on the tree miss the point of the story, which is subsequently amplified by Jesus in his conversation with the disciples the next day. The cursing of the fig tree occurred on the same day that Jesus cleansed the temple, pronouncing that those in it had reduced a "house of prayer" to a "den of thieves." The fig tree provided a physical picture of what the temple had become, a place of pretentious claims that provided no actual food.

Thus, when Peter expressed further surprise about the rapid withering of the fig tree, Jesus had more to say: "If you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, 'Be taken up and thrown into the sea, it will happen.'"

This mountain. Which mountain? The temple mount.

Often we look at this passage and see it as teaching something about the power of prayer, which, of course, it does. But there is more here. The reference to "this mountain" as a matter of potential, even prayerful, destruction, shows a radical indifference to the relationship between the continuation of the temple and the true worship of God. A prayer, in faith, to cast the temple mount into the sea (presumably the Dead Sea) is something that could be answered affirmatively by God.

The chapter closes with the parable of the tenants, which is directed against the leaders of Israel, who had rejected the prophets and were now rejecting the son of the owner of the vineyard. Jesus again uses temple imagery, quoting from Psalm 118 that the rejected stone would become the cornerstone of a new temple. Jesus was applying this to himself.

Less than a week later, Jesus would be crucified through the efforts of these leaders and would be raised from the dead by the power of God. Having fulfilled all of the Scripture regarding the temple standing in Jerusalem, its priesthood, and its sacrifices, Jesus stood alone as the true temple, the true priest, and the once and all sacrifice for sin. Thus, the temple that would stand for another 35 years in Jerusalem, was obsolete. It was no longer a faithful temple offering required sacrifices. It was a pagan temple offering sacrifices that failed to acknowledge that Christ had made his once and for all sacrifice for sin.

The temple was doomed, a point that Jesus again made at the start of Matthew 24, and the Romans would execute that judgment a generation later.

Christ the Temple in John's Gospel

More than any other of the Gospel writers, John alludes to the temple theme as it relates to Jesus Christ. I have referenced some of this in prior posts, but I will pull together briefly in this post the way that John draws attention to this theme.

The Gospel opens with connections to the first chapter of Genesis ("In the beginning" followed by references to the Word as the agent of creation and as the source of all life). As we pointed out in an earlier post, Genesis 1 portrays God as constructing his temple and appointing his priests. More explicitly, John boldly pulls in the temple theme at verse 14, where he says that "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." As is pointed out by many commenters on this text, the word translated "dwelt" is not the usual one that would be expected to convey this idea. The word contains the idea of pitching a tent. Some go so far as to translate it "tabernacled," which makes for a rather ugly English verb. That said, the verse continues, "...and we have seen his glory...." The combination of the idea of pitching a tent with the reference to witnessing divine glory clearly alludes to Exodus 40:33-34, where Moses finishes the work of tabernacle construction and "the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle." Of interest, the theme of glory becomes prominent throughout John's Gospel. Perhaps counterintuitively, John frequently associates Jesus' glory with his humiliation and suffering.

At the end of John 1, Jesus has a conversation with his new disciple Nathaniel, in which Christ promises that "you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man." This is a reference by which Jesus associates himself with Genesis 28 and Jacob's vision of a ladder from heaven. The dream resulted in Jacob receiving from God a reaffirmation of the promises made to Abraham. In response, Jacob built an altar and named the place Bethel, which means house of God.

In John 2, Jesus claims authority over the temple by cleansing it, driving out the money changers. Following that event, in verse 19 Jesus explicitly refers to himself as a temple, declaring, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."

In John 4, Jesus tells the Samaritan woman at the well that if she asks he would give her "living water....a spring of water welling up to eternal life." This associates Jesus with the river that emerges from the temple in Ezekiel 47 and becomes a spring of life that enlivens the Dead Sea. Jesus proceeds to tell her, beginning with verse 21, that because he has come, that true worship is not determined by the location of a physical mountain (including the temple mount in Jerusalem) but has been reoriented by the coming of the Messiah.

Finally (for purposes of this post), in John 7 at the Feast of Tabernacles Jesus again associated himself with the temple, crying out, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'" Though Jesus cites Scripture as a background source for this saying, he is not actually quoting any statement from the Old Testament. However, once again, his listeners would have caught the clear reference to the living water of Ezekiel 47.

Cumulatively, these statements and citations provide an impressive testimony to the reality of Jesus as the true temple who had come.

A Pause to Ruminate on the Temple Study

In exchanges with readers of this blog and in personal conversations about the way the Bible unveils the temple theme, even many mature Christians have said that they were learning things that they had never come across before, both with regard to the relationship between Solomon's temple and the creation account of Genesis 1-3 and also to the fulfillment of the temple motif in the person and work of Jesus Christ. These conversations have not been surprising to me, as much of it was new to me when I began studying this about 5 years ago. Once the material was introduced to me, its presence in the Scripture became so obvious that I was disappointed that I had missed it before, and I also wondered that I had never come across it with various teachers and pastors in the past.

If that ignorance on my part was isolated to a single subject -- and to me -- that might not mean much; however, I fear it is indicative of a larger failure of the church with regard to the Old Testament. If I may be provocative, I will suggest that the typical evangelical and reformed approach to the Old Testament often leads to the same results for which Jesus criticized the Pharisees -- and his hesitant to believe disciples. Jesus pointed to a different way of reading the Old Testament that is consistent with the way we have developed thoughts regarding the temple.

Thus, though the Pharisees were regarded in their day as experts on their Bibles (the Old Testament to Christians), Jesus inveighed against their ignorance, telling them that they searched the Scriptures "because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life....Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” (Jn 5:39ff.). Jesus here is declaring a close connection between Old Testament teaching and his incarnation that fails to translate to the way that it is taught in many evangelical pulpits and Sunday School classes. Yet, this is also the way that Jesus consistently taught, with Luke explaining that Jesus addressed the depression and doubt of the disciples on their way to Emmaus by opening the Scriptures and pointing to how they showed forth Christ's sufferings and resurrection. This is also the way Christians used the Old Testament throughout the book of Acts.

Even entire Gospels are structured in this way. Thus, Matthew's gospel is organized such as to point to Jesus as the fulfillment of the true Israel by emphasizing the parallels between the life of Jesus and the history of the nation. Thus, chapter 1 begins with a genealogy that shows Jesus as descending from Abraham. In chapter 2, he goes down to Egypt, just as Israel, and is called out by God (words from Hosea are cited as prophetic of this typology). In chapter 3, he is delivered through the waters of baptism (Israel, the Red Sea), and in chapter 4 he experiences his own wandering in the wilderness, succeeding in overcoming Satan where Israel -- and Adam in Eden before them -- had failed. Following this, Jesus announces that the Kingdom is at hand, and he takes his disciples to a Mountain. Unlike Moses, who delivered the 10 Commandments from Mount Sinai, Jesus pronounced blessings -- the beatitudes -- before explaining what life would look like in a kingdom founded by the One who had come to fulfill the Law.

All of this is to say that the New Testament looks at the Old in a Christ-centered way, or to use current terminology, in a redemptive-historical sort of way. This means that the progress of the history of redemption is the dominant theme of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and reading the Bible properly requires that the interpreter keep the history of redemption motif in mind at all times. We read the Old Testament in light of the Christ event, and we should not read it in a way that neglects to take note of the fact that the Messiah has come.

Most of us, I fear, were not taught to read the Bible in this way. We probably learned to link the Old Testament sacrificial system to the crucifixion, but if we got much beyond that we did better than most. The study that we have done of the temple is just one aspect of an interpretive approach that can be taken to many other Old Testament ideas, themes and events. Doing this enriches our understanding of the person and work of Christ. The coming of Jesus was not a sudden surprise in the biblical story: it is the point of the whole thing from the start. Understanding this opens up grand vistas in our reading of the biblical accounts while also affirming both the unity and diversity of Scripture.

Please don't misunderstand: this is not to say that when we read our Bibles we find Jesus in every passage of Scripture. You don't need to try to find Jesus under every bush. However, most of us would benefit from learning to think about the Old Testament in the way that Jesus and the New Testament writers did.

A few months ago, a prominent evangelical pastor made waves with statements that modern Christians need to "unhitch" the Old Testament from their faith -- he seemed to buy into the caricature that the Old Testament is a dark, legalistic story. While it is easy to focus on his misunderstanding of the Old Testament, I was most struck by his utter ignorance of the New. Nearly every passage of the New Testament has roots in the Old, and to "unhitch" Christianity from the Old Testament, correctly understood, is to lose Christianity altogether. I am saddened that his sheep have such an incompetent shepherd.

While that pastor's prominence makes his situation sad and pathetic, many of us that sit in pews have also been taught only truncated understandings of the Old Testament. For pastors to teach it -- and congregants to learn it -- in a Christ centered, redemptive historical way is a great need of our day.

By the way, I should give credit where credit is due. Much of my understanding of this temple theme follows the thought of Greg Beale, whose The Temple and the Church's Mission was a great eye opener to me. Anyone that has read Beale will see his influence in what I have written. Biblical theologians such as Geerhardus Vos and Meredith Kline have also helped in the development of my thinking. These, of course, are all serious theologians. I am just a scribbler.

Looking again at Ezekiel's Temple

The first post of this series on the temple motif in the Bible looked at the lengthy description of Ezekiel's temple vision in chapters 40 through 48. That post pointed out that many modern Christians look forward to the literal rebuilding of that temple as part of some future millennial kingdom. However, the study we have engaged in suggests a different way of understanding Ezekiel's vision, and internal cues from the Ezekiel text provide further reasons for not looking for a future building of what Ezekiel describes.

This study has repeatedly pointed out the relationship of Old Testament temple building to God's covenant making activity with his people and ultimately with the coming of the true temple, Jesus Christ. Thus, while the focus has been on Old Testament passages and events, we have looked forward to New Testament passages and themes that point to Christ (and the church) as the fulfillment of Old Testament temple building activity. Thus, the tabernacle and Jerusalem temples provide the types; Christ is the anti-type fulfilling what the type pointed to. Since the fulfillment has come, it is difficult to understand why an end times temple envisioned by Ezekiel would be constructed when the fulfillment toward which these temples point has already come. To look for a newly built temple of biblical prophesy has the effect of ignoring the person and work of Christ.

Of course, some people dislike this form of "spiritualizing" the biblical text and call instead for a more literal one, but I plead not guilty. The problem is not that other interpreters are more literal; the problem is that they misunderstand what the true temple is. This author is not spiritualizing when he points to Christ as the true temple fulfilling the biblical types -- that is the literal rendering of the New Testament. Christ is the real temple -- the Old Testament buildings are the allegorical types. Reading it in the opposite way fails to see the pattern of promise and fulfillment between the Old Testament and New and, again, thematically diminishes the fundamental importance of the work of Christ.

This way of looking at Ezekiel's temple is confirmed by the most likely reading of Ezekiel's text itself. It should be noted that Ezekiel has a vision of a massive fully formed temple. It is a vision, and unlike the building projects for the tabernacle or Solomon's temple, there are no instructions for how it would be brought about. The measurements of the temple are so grand as to be geographically impossible. While it is true, as some argue, that God could alter the geography, that seems to miss the implications of the text. It is not that geography can be changed; geography is irrelevant to the vision. Thus, looking beyond the temple itself to the surrounding area, the division of the land described by Ezekiel is accomplished through drawing straight lines on a map. This differs markedly from the division of the land at the time of the conquest of Canaan, which required careful descriptions of squiggly lines based on the locations of mountains, rivers, and villages. All of this geographic detail is irrelevant to Ezekiel's vision, because Ezekiel's vision is typological prophecy, not literal construction.

That being the case, it is not hard to understand the symbolism involved in Ezekiel's temple. I won't take the time to go through all of these elements, but a few examples should suffice. The massive size of the temple points to an expanded role and people, a theme associated with temples going all of the way back to the Garden of Eden and that will also mark the final garden temple of Revelation 21. The purpose of massive walls in the ancient world was to keep out intruders, and in a temple context the point would be safety from defilement.

Ezekiel 47 has one of the most significant passages -- and most loved by this blogger -- of symbolic import. A small trickle of water emerges from underneath the temple, pointing to its divine origin and nature. It flows eastward, growing into a mighty river that ultimately plunges into the Dead Sea, bringing life giving power to that Sea, which becomes a body full of life -- without destroying the natural bounty associated with its minerals. If the association with the coming and life giving accomplishment of Christ are not clear from this passage alone, they become clear when they are alluded to (without directly quoting) by Jesus himself in the water passages of John 4 and John 7. To think that Ezekiel 47 awaits some literal future fulfillment removes the majestic fulfillment that has already been found in the Lord Jesus Christ.

My next post will provide some summary comments regarding this approach to reading the Old Testament, then we will move toward a consideration of some New Testament temple passages.

Temple 2.0

Solomon's magnificent temple was destroyed by the Babylonians along with the rest of the city of Jerusalem. While the Old Testament theocracy would never be restored, God did promise that 70 years later that the city would begin to be rebuilt and the people restored from exile. Part of that would involve the construction of a new temple.

The rebuilding of the walled city was an arduous task, and it is perhaps understandable that work on the temple was deferred, but at some point the delays indicated that priorities were misaligned, and through the prophet Haggai God chastised the people for giving considerable effort to building their houses while neglecting the house of God.

For those of advanced years that could remember when Solomon's temple had stood, the idea of recreating it may have seemed daunting for the people and resources that remained. Yet, to them God gave a promise that the glory of the latter house (the second temple) would be greater than the former.

In physical terms, this did not prove true, but careful consideration of the promises associated with Haggai's text will show that the glory referred to was not about the magnificence of the physical structure. Even the use of the word "glory" should point the reader in a different direction. How is "glory" used with regard to the other structures that predated the second temple?

When Moses and the people completed the tabernacle in Exodus 40, the glory of God in the form of a great cloud of smoke and fire filled the dwelling. When Solomon dedicated the temple upon its completion, the same appearance of the glory of God occurred. However, with the completion of the second temple there was no comparable physical manifestation of the glory of God recorded.

At least, no exactly comparable manifestation. However, a greater presence of God's glory would come to the second temple, when the true temple would come, the Word that became flesh and pitched his tent among us.  With the arrival of Christ, one temple toward which all of the Old Testament structures had pointed had arrived in veiled glory. Though veiled by human flesh, it should be noted that Christ fulfilled not only the intention of the temple type -- he was the true temple -- but also of the priesthood -- he was the true high priest -- and the sacrificial system -- all of the sacrifices pointed ultimately to him.  How did the glory of the second temple exceed what had come before? It was to that temple that the true temple, the true high priest, the true propitiatory sacrifice would come.

This is also the reason that the destruction of the second temple in 70 A.D. did not result in the building of a third, because Christ's coming and triumph rendered all of the typological markers of the Old Covenant obsolete. There was no need for a new temple, new priesthood, or further sacrifices, because the fulfillment of all of these had come.

All of this brings us back to a consideration of the subject that this study began with: Ezekiel's temple vision. That will be the subject of the next post.

Solomon's Temple

The multitude of readers (likely counted on one hand) eagerly awaiting the next dispatch in this blog series on the temple are no doubt perturbed that a bit of time has elapsed since my previous post. Nonetheless, I confess to a certain amount of indecision as to how to approach this portion of the study. Obviously, there is a lot of detail given in II Kings and II Chronicles to preparations for, the building of, and the dedication of what came to be known to us in shorthand as Solomon's temple, and one could write numerous posts -- or an entire book -- on this subject alone. This has been done by others. That said, my approach up until now has been to provide the broad sweep of the biblical story, and with some reluctance I have decided that I will continue that approach here.

In an earlier post, I described the patriarchal altars in Genesis as transitional structures standing between the creational accounts and the construction of the tabernacle at Mount Sinai. I emphasized that the idea of transitional shouldn't cause one to think that they are unimportant. Somewhat similarly, but perhaps more surprisingly, I will also describe Solomon's temple as transitional on multiple levels. It provides a transition between the earlier tabernacle and the later coming of the true temple, Christ himself. It also provides a transition between descriptions of the cosmic and Edenic temples described in the opening chapters of the Bible and the description in Hebrews of the heavenly temple not made with hands, which provides the ultimate pattern for all biblical descriptions of faithful temples. Finally, it also provides a transitional structure connecting, once again, those temples in the opening of Genesis with the final temple, the New Jerusalem, that descends from heaven in Revelation 21 and 22.

This may seem confusing because it challenges our ordinary way of thinking about what is literal. If my analysis is correct, then Christ is the true temple, and Solomon's temple is an allegorical -- or better, typological -- depiction of Christ. Our tendency is to think the reverse, with the physical being the literal and anything else the "spiritual" or "symbolic" interpretation. However, the New Testament seems to take the opposite approach. Solomon's temple is the typological one pointing to the greater realities fulfilled in and through the arrival of Christ, who tabernacled among us, rebuilt the temple that men destroyed in three days, and mediates in our behalf in the heavenly temple,  sweeping us into a new kingdom that ultimately will need no physical temple because Christ is there.

All of that briefly speaks to how Solomon's temple looks forward to the New Testament, but, as stated before, it points back to creation as well. In an earlier post, I justified my description of Genesis 1 as an account of temple building by pointing to the ways that Solomon's temple incorporated cosmic imagery into its design. In short, the three sections of the temple structure depicted the physical earth, the visible heavens, and the invisible heavens where only God and his angels dwell. The account of Solomon's temple adds many other features pointing back to the creation accounts. The clothing worn by its priests also presented a comparable threefold structure pointing to creation. It is also a matter of significance that the temple building refers back to the creation account through repetitions of the use of the number seven which hearken back to the seven days of creation and rest. Thus, the building of the temple took seven years, was dedicated in the seventh month in a festival that extended for seven days. There is more that can be said about this, but I will stop there.

Throughout the book of Exodus and the remaining Pentatuechal accounts of Israel's wilderness wanderings, God's glory as depicted by a great cloud of fire and smoke guided them. When the tabernacle was completed in Exodus 40, that great, massive cloud descended and filled the tabernacle with the glory of God. In the same manner, the glory of God filled the temple at Solomon's dedication. John 1 uses the same language, telling us that the Word pitched his tent among us, and "we beheld his glory, as the only begotten of the Father...." This begins a theme of Jesus' glory that is perhaps an underappreciated feature of John's Gospel. The connections from early biblical history through the temple and to Christ run deep.

While Solomon's temple, in contrast to the movable tabernacle, was regarded as permanent, it would in fact be destroyed by the Babylonians. At the end of the exile, a second temple would be built. The rebuilding will be the subject of the next post.

The Proffered Temple, Deferred

In II Samuel 7, King David made what seemed to be an extraordinary offer to the prophet Nathan, and it is understandable that the prophet immediately accepted the proposal that a temple would be built by the king. However, over night Nathan received guidance from the Lord that compelled a change of mind.

It seemed like an ideal time for David to take on this project. In II Samuel 5 he was finally recognized as the king of all Israel, having worked carefully to overcome the opposition of the northern tribes. At the end of that same chapter he decisively defeated the Philistines, thus reducing hostility from Israel's primary external threat. He followed that victory by bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, thus uniting the city as both the seat of government and the center of the worship of God. For centuries Israel had languished under the uneven rule of various judges and King Saul. Finally, everything seemed to be coming together. When David expressed regret that he lived in a fine house while the Ark of the Covenant moved about beneath a tent, he expressed a theme that would later be picked up by the prophet Haggai, who called for the post-exilic Israelites to repent of doing the same.

Yet, God told David that it was not time to build a temple.

It is common for modern preachers on this text to note the ongoing warfare associated with David and to focus on that theme as the reason for the temple being delayed to be built by Solomon. While this is not mentioned by either David or Nathan in II Samuel 7, it is stated as a reason later by Solomon, but it nonetheless is a mistake to stop there when thinking about reasons for the delay.

Why did God not let David build him a house? Why was Solomon's temple not David's temple?

It seems that the primary reason is that God delayed the building of the temple in order to prioritize the covenant that God was making with David in this episode. It is important to remember that all of the faithful temple building activity that we have looked at (in Genesis and Exodus) has been associated with covenant making and confirmation between God and his people. Now, David wanted to build a house for God, but temple building of this magnitude would be associated with a similarly magnificent covenant. David's request was to build a house for the Lord who could not be contained by all of the heavens, but God now initiated a covenant of a different nature. Rather than have David build a house for him, God would build a house for David. What would be the nature of this house? David's "house" would be a "throne...established forever."

This was a gracious covenant that God would fulfill even though David's descendants would "commit iniquity." In fact, there is a dual fulfillment in this covenant. Temporally, David would father King Solomon, and Solomon and his heirs would reign from Jerusalem for hundreds of years. However, hundreds of years does not equal forever, and ultimately the theocracy would fall in judgment from God for the nation's sins. However, the promises to David are ultimately fulfilled in his descendent and Lord, Jesus Christ, who would ultimately come and who now reigns over his kingdom, and who one day will reign in all of his glory. Because Jesus Christ unites the offices of priest and king (and prophet, though that is the subject of another post) he fulfills so much of what is looked forward to in the Davidic texts. He would be the King who reigns eternally on David's throne. He is the priest who offered himself as a sacrifice for our sins and who continually makes intercession for us. He also is the fulfillment of the typology of the temple, with Jesus promising that those who destroyed his body could not prevent his temple from being raised three days later. Because the true temple came in the person of Christ, that which was then standing became unnecessary and obsolete, so that a prayer in faith to remove "this mountain" could now be heard and answered by the Father.

All of this and more is wrapped up in the covenant promise made to David. Having promised to build David a house, God would then let Solomon build one for him.

The Mobile Temple

I have always been amused that churches, including the great Metropolitan Tabernacle in London once pastored by Charles Spurgeon, choose to use the term "tabernacle" in their names. While there is nothing wrong in using such a name, the term in the Bible signified a movable structure of light construction, making them very different from modern permanent church structures. Nonetheless, it should be acknowledged that the tabernacle was for a time a central place for worship and the special presence of God that also has a typological connection to the coming of Christ. In those senses, the use of the term suggests important imagery.

Nearly all of the last 15 chapters of the Book of Exodus is devoted to instructions regarding the building of the temple, its furnishings, and the garb of the priests that would perform functions within it and the actual construction. That the two sections  of instructive material and the actual construction are broken up by chapters dealing with Israel's sin of worshipping a golden calf is no accident. As with other temple activity we looked at through Genesis, which was always associated with covenant making, the building of the tabernacle is associated with God's confirmation of his covenant with Israel through Moses in Exodus 24. Thus, the insertion of the golden calf story makes poignant God's determination through the tabernacle to continue to uphold his covenant with Israel in the face of their early breach. God would continue to dwell among them and lead them.

As we have discussed before, the temple theme of God's special presence among his people that works its way through all of Scripture helps explain the extraordinary amount of attention given to it. Just as many Christians struggle to find importance in the Bible's extensive genealogies, which among other things demonstrate the important point that Christianity claims to be a revealed religion based on God's dealings with man in human history (as opposed to a philosophically developed ideology apart from historical context), many also struggle to make it through these lengthy construction program descriptions. After all, the account of the building of the tabernacle takes up nearly as much space as the entire description of how the Israelites got from Egypt to Mount Sinai, and lengthy descriptions will be found again when it comes to the planning and construction of Solomon's temple, the building of the second temple, and the description of Ezekiel's end times temple. While these can be challenging sections to read for many of us, it needs to be noted that these are passages moving forward an important biblical theme that ultimately finds its way into typological fulfillment in Jesus Christ, as well as in the church found in the New Testament. Thus, as said before, these temple building episodes carry forward a story with important New Testament significance.

Without going further into all of the details of tabernacle construction -- something which I would nonetheless encourage you to look at -- I would like to illustrate how this is true. Many Christians have not seen modelled solid teaching that molds together the New and Old Testaments (what did Jesus mean when he told the Pharisees that if they really knew the Scripture that they would know it was about him?), but the things that we have been studying find their way into the New Testament understanding of the Christ event. Exodus concludes with the completion of the tabernacle, with an emphasis in the closing verses of Moses beholding the glory of God when the work is finalized. This provides a good time for us to pause and note that just as Genesis began with the building of a temple and includes stories of the building of altars. Exodus closes with the completion of the tabernacle. Thus, this is an enormous and often under appreciated theme of the first two books of the Bible.

At least that is the way the Apostle John sees it when he opens his Gospel. In John 1:1, the apostle mirrors the language of Genesis 1 (In the beginning...). Genesis 1 emphasizes God's speech by which all was created. John 1 speaks of God's Word, who is also viewed as the agent of creation, and which is seen as also both God and being with God. This is an important Trinitarian text, with the Word being the second person of the Trinity present at creation. In making this connection, John is also connecting the creation of Genesis 1 with the new creation that comes through Jesus Christ.

While John does not explicitly talk about a temple theme with his Genesis 1 language, it does not take him long to get there. In verse 18, John says that the Word "became flesh and dwelt among us." The word translated "dwelt" is not the usual one that we might have expected, and it has the idea of pitching a tent, thus suggesting a tabernacle theme associated with the coming of Jesus into the world. Just in case we would miss it otherwise, John's next phrase makes clear what he has in mind: "and we beheld his glory...." John's language intentionally conveys language from Exodus 40, where Moses finishes the work of the tabernacle and beholds the glory of God. John's message is clear: the special presence of God once associated with the tabernacle -- and later associated with the temple -- is now manifested in the personal presence of Jesus Christ. Of note, near the end of John 1, Jesus himself extends this claim in his conversation with Nathaniel, as Jesus associates himself with Jacob's dream of a ladder descending from heaven, an event that had resulted in Jacob building an altar.

While there is much more that could be said about the building of the tabernacle and other matters in the Pentateuch, with the next post I intend to move the study forward. We will begin to look at the work of David and Solomon in building the temple at Jerusalem.

Babel's Temple

In the last post, we looked at the small scale temples, or altars, built by Noah and the patriarchs, describing them for purposes of this study as structures representing a transitional phase of temple building connecting the garden temple of Eden and the future construction of the tabernacle and Jerusalem temple by national Israel. Of course, the children of Abraham were not the only temple builders in the ancient world. During the history of Israel, the Bible will describe numerous pagan shrines, some built by non-Israelites and others constructed by apostate Jews. Genesis describes prominently one such false temple, that created on the plains of Shinar in Genesis 11.

While the confusion of languages at Babel is widely known both among Christians and non-Christians, it can be argued that the church does not give sufficient attention to this story. Of note, the attempt at temple building at Babel and the resulting divine judgment is the only event elaborated on during the extended period of time between the end of Noah's life and the call of Abram. That might indicate its importance to the overall progression of the biblical narrative.

The account, Scripture's first mention of Babel, opens a theme that will continue over the course of the rest of Scripture -- the rivalry between God's people and the city of man, represented either literally as Babylon or using the Babylonian metaphor. Of  course, it would be the Babylonians that would one day overthrow Jerusalem and destroy Solomon's temple. During the time of Jewish exile, a young Jew named Daniel would declare to the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar that the Babylonian empire was in fact great -- represented in a vision by a head of gold -- but that it was also time limited, in contrast to the kingdom of God that would come and be established forever. Babylon did in fact cease to exist as an empire, but the metaphor continues in the New Testament, ultimately with the book of Revelation describing a contest pitting Babylon against God, with Christ the ultimate and final victor.

Returning to the Genesis 11 text, the story at Babel describes a gathered humanity in rebellion against God. God had given Noah a commission consistent with the prior one to Adam to fill the earth, but the people at Babel engaged in construction for the purpose of avoiding dispersal. Rather, they determined to build a tower into heaven that would provide a location from which they would summon God down to their temple to meet them. Note that in all of this, there is a determination to follow man made, man centered religion, in opposition to revealed religion and divine purposes. Human beings often imagine that we can worship God any way that we want, but the repudiation of the temple builders at Babel, as well as the meticulous instructions that God gives with regard to the tabernacle and the temple, reminds us that God is the Lord of worship. The God who is worshipped in spirit is also worshipped in truth, and that means that he determines the means and the manner of worship that is acceptable to him.

In Sumerian, the name "Babel" means "gateway of God," but in Genesis 11 we find God coming down not in response to a summons, but in mockery of their effort. God arrives in judgment, stopping the construction, confusing their language, and dispersing them. The further result of God's judgment on these people in Genesis 11 leads next to God's starting again with the call of Abram and the announcement of a covenant with him in Genesis 12.

Of note, in calling Abram, God promises freely by his grace what man by his rebellion against God failed to achieve by his temple building at Babel. Note the parallels in the text of Genesis 11 and 12 – they wanted to build for themselves a city, but God promised to give to Abram a country; they wanted to make a name for themselves, but God would make Abram’s name great; they feared dispersal, but God promised to bless the whole earth through Abram. What man could not do in rebellion against God, God gave to his people out of his grace.

Finally, one should not talk about the confusion of languages at Babel without also pondering the reversal ultimately promised for the age to come, which will be characterized by the completion of God's temple, the New Jerusalem, but also was prefigured at the dawn of the new covenant period during Pentecost immediately following the ascension of Christ. At Pentecost, God descended to the temple area in Jerusalem in power bringing salvation. The parallels and contrasts with the Babel event are interesting:

a.       At Babel, the people gathered at a temple under construction in rebellion and God came down in judgment; In Acts chapter 2, the people had gathered at the temple, and God came down in salvation.

b.       At Babel God confused their language in an announcement of judgment; at Pentecost God united their language in order to announce the Gospel.

c.      At Babel, the judgment resulted in confusion that led to disharmony; at Pentecost, the union of languages also caused confusion, but it led to the receipt of the promise.

d.       At Babel the people were scattered in judgment; at Pentecost, the people were scattered to fulfill the Great Commission and to fill the earth with the presence of God by spreading the Gospel.

Of course, during the present age, the availability of more widespread translation notwithstanding, multiplicity of human languages continues to create difficulties for the human race. Christians share in those difficulties, and for now we sing our Redeemer's praise in a many tongues. Nonetheless, the day will come when in one tongue and one voice all of God's people will  join as one in a nobler, sweeter song, rejoicing in Christ's power to save. In that day, Christ's temple will have been made holy and complete.

Transitional Temples: the Patriarchal Altars

In my last two posts, we looked at the first three chapters of Genesis, where God is depicted as creating a cosmic temple and then placing Adam and Eve in a miniature version of that temple. In the remaining 47 chapters of Genesis, we find Noah and the patriarchs engaged in altar building. These altars should be regarded as transitional structures connecting the earlier Edenic temple with the tabernacle and the Jewish temple that would come later. Ultimately, we find further connections with the New Testament.

When I say that this is a period of transition, that should not lead one to regard either the persons involved or the structures themselves as unimportant. Certainly, Noah's place at the head of a new creation emerging out of the waters of the flood must be regarded as critical, and the patriarchs are featured prominently two millenia later in the pages of the New Testament, with, among other references, Jesus making use of the popular designation of the Lord as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Nonetheless, Noah built an altar at a time and place where it was only him and his family, and the patriarchs lived at a point in time when God's covenant people consisted of an extended nomadic family. In that regard, it is perhaps suggestive of their priorities that they are described on occasion of living in tents while building more permanent sanctuary structures in what was then a pagan land inhabited by Canaanites.

So, what is it about these structures that would lead one to see them as transitional temples between Eden and the tabernacle and temple. Generally, it can be noted that these were places of worship and fellowship with God, which is consistent with activities at those other places. Sometimes, though not always, offerings to God are described as being presented.

More specifically and poignantly, the connection between the Edenic temple and these altars can be seen in that the commission delivered to Adam and Eve to fill the earth at the end of Genesis 1 is reaffirmed in connection with each depiction of altar construction. Thus, Noah's building of an altar at the end of Genesis 8 is connected with the command of God at the start of Genesis 9 repeating the command to Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, thus expanding the boundaries in which God's people dwell and worship. This is followed by God's covenant with Noah that the world will not again be destroyed by water, with a self-declaratory curse (the bow is pointed heavenward) if that promise is broken.

Of interest, following Noah, the repetition of the commission as delivered to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob takes the form not of a command, but of a promise. Thus, Abraham is not commanded to multiply and fill the earth, but rather he is promised a great host of descendants and that through his seed all of the earth will be blessed, a promise ultimately fulfilled with the coming of Christ. In response, Abraham builds two altars in Genesis 12, and he and his son and grandson each build additional altars when God's covenant promise is reiterated at later points.

In this way, the  altars look back to Edenic activity prior to the Fall, as well as forward to the building of the tabernacle and temple, as well as to New Testament depictions of the fulfillment of Old Testament temple typology.

In the next post, we will take a brief side trip to contrast this temple building to an example of sanctuary construction condemned by God. Between the time of Noah and Abraham, there was an attempt to build a temple on the plains of Shinar. It didn't go well.

The Garden Temple

In my previous post, I argued that Genesis 1 describes God creating a cosmic temple, with the visible and invisible creation being a temple designed and built by God ex nihilo (out of nothing). In this post I will make the point that God placed the first humans, Adam and Eve, into a miniaturized version of that temple.

It is common knowledge among both religious and nonreligious people that the Bible presents the first human habitat as being a paradise named the Garden of Eden; however, not many would think of this abode as a temple. Nonetheless, both obvious and more complex data from the text tells us that is exactly where God had placed them -- and what they ultimately forfeited. Understanding this opens up many windows to comprehending the rest of the Bible, both the Old Testament and the New.

The most obvious reason for thinking of the Garden of Eden as a temple is that it is the place that Adam and Eve met with God for fellowship and worship. At the end of Genesis 1, we are told that God made the first pair of humans in the divine image. Whatever else is implied by that phrase, which appears majestically in what is the first poem in the Bible, it signifies that Adam and Eve were created for covenant fellowship with their maker. God gives to this first couple a covenant command that enunciates the first statement of the Great Commission -- they are to be fruitful and multiply and "fill the earth." This signifies that while they would be placed in their initial home, their responsibility is not only to keep it, but to expand its borders to fill the earth. Of course, they failed in this responsibility, but I will later contend that the massive temple structures of Ezekiel 40-48 and Revelation 21 demonstrate that Jesus Christ would ultimately succeed where Adam had failed.

As a further note, I would point out that while some refer to the command of Genesis 1 as being a "cultural mandate," a phrase that has led to far reaching triumphalistic misinterpretations of Christian duty, I find it more accurate and helpful to think of it as a pre-Fall statement of the Great Commission.

Turning back to the temple theme, there are numerous additional reasons for thinking of the Garden of Eden as a miniaturized temple. Of course, everything that I said about the cosmic temple of Genesis 1 mirroring the threefold structure of the Jerusalem temple would also apply to the observational knowledge of Adam and Eve. There are numerous other associations with later temples:

1. The Garden of Eden opens to the east (that is where an angel was stationed to guard it from re-entry after the Fall). The Jerusalem temple also opened to the East.

2. Genesis 2 describes at length four rivers that water the Garden, and the association of rivers with temples is a common biblical theme. Psalm 46:4 declares, "There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High" (ESV). The Ezekiel temple includes a description of a river that flows from underneath it toward the east, flowing as a life giving river into the Dead Sea, and Jesus made reference to that imagery with regard to himself on two occasions in John's Gospel. Revelation 22 describes the Garden temple of the future age as having a "river of life" flowing through it

3. Along with the rivers, the Garden of Eden is described as having an array of extravagant and expensive minerals. The New Jerusalem, the temple described in Revelation 21, also is described in this way.

4. Adam is instructed to "work and keep" the Garden  words that have an agricultural tone. However, it is significant that everywhere else in the Pentateuch that the Hebrew words translated here are used in close proximinity (within 15 words), they always describe the duties of priests. Thus, Adam as keeper of the garden is also being commissioned as priest of this early temple.

Adam and Eve were given a probationary covenant of works not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The curse for eating would be death; by implication, the reward for obeying the covenant would be eternal life for Adam and his posterity. Adam, having failed his duty to keep the Garden cleansed, joined with his wife in succumbing to the temptations of the serpent, was evicted  from the garden temple, and brought death and ruin to himself and to his posterity.

God could have left Adam and Eve in that state, but along with curses God provided a gracious covenant to the fallen couple. God would not allow the seeds of the woman and the serpent to remain friends in opposition to God; rather, he would put enmity between Eve's seed and the serpent's. Ultimately, the seed of the serpent would bruise the heel of the seed of the woman; but, the woman's seed would deal a crushing blow to the head of the serpent. Here, the pronoun switches to the singular and is a vague but discernable reference to the ultimate seed of the woman, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thus, the remainder of the Bible would be about God's gracious dealings with his people in order to redeem and reclaim that which Adam had lost in this garden temple. One day, the true temple would come, and much of the future temple imagery we find in the Old Testament will point to the true temple, the Word that would become flesh and pitch his tent among us.