The Temple of Hope

I want to spend some time writing a series of posts on a subject that I came across a few years ago and that thoroughly reoriented my way of reading and understanding Scripture. I am writing in the hope that this study will have similar value for others.

Much of the writing of the prophet Ezekiel is dark, with the writer expounding and demonstrating in various ways the judgment that was descending upon Judah and other nations. That is not to say that Ezekiel's prophecies are without hope. In fact, the final nine chapters of the book are full of hope, though the long passage has been difficult to understand for both Jewish and Christian readers. Chapters 40 through 48 describe a vision of a massive end times temple.

The enormous scale of the temple structure that Ezekiel describes makes it impossible to recreate in the geographical confines of Jerusalem. The Temple Institute, a Jewish organization committed to and making preparations to rebuild the ancient temple, acknowledges the difficulty:

"Many aspects of the Temple described by Ezekiel are difficult to comprehend, since that vision contains elements of prophetic insight which, in our generation, we do not have the spiritual or intellectual capacity to understand. For example, according to the prophecy of Ezekiel, the structure of the Third Temple will necessitate vast topographical changes in the environs of the Jerusalem. This Temple will differ drastically in size from its predecessors. According to Ezekiel's measurements, the new Temple will be so large that it will occupy the entire area of the city of Jerusalem."

In spite of these difficulties, many Christians look toward a future literal building of this temple. They typically place the construction of it in a future millennium following the return of Christ, presumably accompanied by an altered geography of Israel that will make the structure possible. This interpretation is problematic for a number of reasons that I will outline in a future post, and I will also offer in the future an explanation as to why I believe that Ezekiel's temple vision is to be understood symbolically.

For now, though, I want to respond to one important objection to a spiritual or symbolic understanding of Ezekiel's vision, for this response provides a key to the study that I am about to commence. That objection is this:

If Ezekiel is not envisioning something that God will literally bring to pass, why does the Bible provide so much detail (nine chapters worth!) of this future temple?

The answer: Ezekiel's lengthy exposition is appropriate and a valuable gift to us from God because it illuminates a theme that dominates the Bible from the first page to the last. That is to say, the entire Bible is about God's temple presence among his people. It is the subject of Genesis 1 (I realize that I will need to explain that), and it is the subject of Revelation 22. What God uses to introduce and conclude the Bible is also a key subject of the entire body of Scripture, both Old Testament and New.

Once you understand that, it opens the door to understanding the progress of scriptural revelation in exciting ways. Understanding this theme will reorient the way that the Bible is read.

My next post will address the first chapter of Genesis, which describes God building his cosmological temple.