Transcript & Slides: The Living Temple

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The Living Temple
By David Feddes

This saying of Jesus, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it again," was something that his disciples remembered later and realized how important it was. But Jesus' enemies seized on that saying right away, and they brought it up again and again. They brought it up at his trial. “And some stood up and bore false witness against him, saying, ‘We heard him say, “I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.”’” (Mark 14:57-58) You say, well, why were those false witnesses? He said something about destroying a temple and then building it again. Yes, but he never said he would destroy the temple made with hands and build another not made with hands. They're adding to what Jesus said and they're changing their story on it. But they remembered he'd said something about a temple going down and rising again.

When Jesus was on the cross, that was one of the things they mocked him with. “Those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, ‘Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!’” (Mark 15:29-30) You can't really build many temples when you're hanging there dying, can you? That was the reasoning they had.

But notice that this saying about destroying the temple and raising it up again was something that echoed in the minds of his enemies and then later also was very important in the minds of his friends. So I want to focus on this destroying of the temple and rebuilding of it, and Jesus' actions when he entered into the temple and threw out the money changers and the people who were selling animals.

What was the temple all about?

Temple is where:

• Heaven and earth connect.
• God comes near.
• God’s glory is revealed.
• Sacrifice deals with sins.
• God’s reign is celebrated.
• All nations seek God.
• Death will be destroyed.

The temple was where heaven and earth connect. The temple in Jerusalem was the very center of the earth where God and humanity connected, where heaven and earth intersected and overlapped. 

It was the place where God comes near. 

The temple was the place where God's glory is revealed. In one sense, the glory of the Lord fills the whole earth. But in another sense, for every Jewish person who truly loved God, they would echo David in Psalm 27. He said, "One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple" (Psalm 27:4).

Their desire was to meet with God, and people who loved God knew that the temple was supremely the place for doing that. Whether it was the tent of the tabernacle earlier or the more solid and permanent temple that was built, it was the place where heaven and earth connected, where God comes near, where God reveals his glory, and people go to gaze upon his beauty. 

It was the place where sacrifice deals with sins, where sinners could come and find that God accepted them, where sacrifices were offered and God would promise his forgiveness of the people's sins.

The temple was a place where God's reign is celebrated. The temple and tabernacle were very closely connected with the rule that God exercised over Israel and with the kings whom God appointed over Israel. 

The temple was meant to be a place where all nations seek God. The temple was a magnet for the nations, a display of God's glory at the center of Israel so that other nations would be drawn. "In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as chief among the mountains" (Isaiah 2:2), and nations will come to it and say, "Let us listen to the God of Jacob; we will walk in his ways." And there were many such prophecies.

God's people saw the temple as the place where death will be destroyed. "On this mountain the Lord will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces" (Isaiah 25:7–8). God would do this on the mountain of the Lord's temple.

So if you were a lover of God, whether you were a Jewish person or one of those people from the nations who had come to believe the God of Israel, this temple was a tremendous place, filled with a long history and great memory, as well as with expectations and hopes. The temple was a huge deal.

Glory in a cloud

Remember what happened when the temple was dedicated, and when the tabernacle that came before it was dedicated. The glory, the Shekinah, the shining brightness of God's glory, the flame, came down. "The cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle" (Exodus 40:34).  After the temple was built, where David had collected the materials and then Solomon and the people working with him had built the temple, what happened? "A cloud filled the house of the Lord… the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord" (1 Kings 8:10-11). This brightness, this cloud of glory, would come upon this place of worship and show that God was truly there in a special way.

Keep this in mind when you read about a strange event in the life of Jesus, the Transfiguration. Jesus appearance changed and dazzling light shone from him. You might think it's kind of odd that Jesus lit up like a light bulb. But here's what's happening: the glory of God is coming down on the true temple of God. Just as the Shekinah, the glory and the brightness, descended on the tabernacle in the time of Moses and descended on the temple in the time of Solomon, so when the living temple comes, the brightness descends upon him.

"Jesus was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light... behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, 'This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him'" (Matthew 17:2,5). Now the cloud of the glory comes not on a a tent, not on a building, but on a man. 

Ultimate tabernacle/temple

Jesus is the temple where heaven and earth meet. He is where God comes near and reveals his glory. He is the one where sacrifice deals with sin. He is the one who brings the reign of God's kingship into the world. He is the one in whom all nations can seek and find God. His body is the place where death is destroyed. Jesus Christ is the living temple. "The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14).

So when Jesus says, "Destroy this temple," the temple he is talking about now is the temple of his own body, of the Word of the living God made flesh. He is the ultimate tabernacle, the ultimate temple.

You remember his conversation with the Samaritan woman at a well. “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you're going to worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. A time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:21–24). Jesus is the temple where people worship in spirit and in truth, not at a temple in Samaria, not even at the temple in Jerusalem, but in Jesus Christ.

New Testament scholar N. T. Wright observes that when Jesus claims to forgive sins, he's actually talking like a temple: "When Jesus declares that someone's sins are forgiven, there are mutterings about his doing so." They say, “Who but God can forgive sins?” They understand that Jesus is speaking like God. But they also know that when God does forgive sin, when he says, “Your sins are forgiven,” it is done by priests in the temple after certain sacrifices have been made. You can't just go around telling anybody anywhere their sins are forgiven. That is temple business. As N. T. Wright say, "How does God normally forgive sins within Israel? Why, through the temple and the sacrifices that take place there. Jesus seems to be claiming that God is doing, up close and personal through him, something you'd normally expect to happen at the Temple." So Jesus is talking like he's a temple. He's the one where the sacrifices are made and the forgiveness is announced.

Shutting Down the temple

Jesus goes into the temple and shuts it down. They can't offer sacrifices because he's driving out the people selling animals. They can't do business as usual in the temple. What's going on?

Jesus the fulfillment: he is what the temple and tabernacle were pointing to. And now that he's here, the temple is not needed anymore. The temple pointed forward to the ultimate reality of God with us in his glory and with his sacrifice. When the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, the temple was no longer needed. The sign was replaced by the reality. Once you have the reality, you don't need the sign anymore. Part of Jesus shutting down the temple is saying, “The reality is here. The sign isn't needed anymore.”

But there's more to it than that. The temple was not functioning as a great sign of what God would do in Christ. The temple had become a spiritual disaster. When Jesus shut down the temple, it was a prophetic action announcing not just fulfillment but judgment. The temple was no longer doing its job. The temple was in the wrong hands, and it stood for the wrong things. Jesus said in this passage, “Do not make my Father’s house a house of trade” (John 2:16). In another description of the cleansing of the temple, he says, “You have made it a den of robbers” (Mark 11:17), a robbers’ roost.

House of trade, robber's roost

• Annas Marketing and Banking Corporation
• Department of Debt: records & foreclosures
• Regional Office for Cooperation with Rome
• Members-Only Club for Jewish Segregation and Superiority
• Non-Prophet Fund for Priestly Prosperity
• Sadducee Theological Seminary for Denial of Angels and Resurrection

Here’s some background of what’s going on in the temple at the time. Annas, the old godfather of the religion business in Israel, is running the show. He was high priest. Then five of his sons were high priests, taking turns. And then his son-in-law Caiaphas is high priest. And behind it all is shadowy old Annas, pulling all the strings, and his family is calling all the shots.

You've got the Annas Marketing and Banking Corporation. They're marketing all kinds of stuff right in the temple and raking in the profits. They're running a banking and currency exchange right there in the temple. It would be considered unholy if you did not offer the proper kind of animal, so “we will sell you the proper kind of animal.” And it would be unholy to come into the temple area and try to purchase things with anything but a good Israelite shekel, so “we’ll take the money that you brought and we’ll change it into shekels, and yeah, we will take a little profit out of the deal too.” So they have an excellent business going there.

Another thing that happens in the temple is that it has become the Department of Debt. It is the place where they store all the records of who owes something. So if you're poor and up to your eyeballs in debt, the temple is where they track what you owe. 

Forty years after Jesus' death and resurrection, there was a huge rebellion and the people took over the temple. What was the first thing they did? They burned all the records of the debts. So that gives you a sense of how a lot of poor people felt about the temple at the time. It was where they were storing the records of what all the poor people owed to all the rich people, and of all the foreclosures and who was claiming property and so on. The temple had become the central institution for injustice and ripping people off.

It was also the Regional Office for Cooperation with Rome. The Roman rulers worked with the chief priests of Israel to manage things and run the show in Jerusalem. The priests were basically puppet rulers. But puppet rulers aren't popular. The puppet rulers always have to say, “We're not really in league with the foreign occupiers. We're really part of you. We have to work with the Romans, but we're really Jewish people.”

They tried to play it both ways, and did so quite successfully. It's quite a trick when you're one of those chief priests and you're running the Regional Office for Cooperation with Rome, and at the same time you're running the Members-Only Club for Jewish Segregation and Superiority. The chief priests played both sides of the street. They would work with the Romans and get a lot of money from them, and they were always backed by Roman power. And at the same time, they'd say, “We don't let Romans in our temple.”Even at the trial of Jesus, those priests wouldn't go into Pilate’s palace. He had to come out, because they might be "defiled" by going into his palace. They could rig a nighttime trial and railroad Jesus to crucifixion, but it would make them unholy if they went into a Gentile dwelling!

The temple comes to stand for Jewish exclusiveness. It's supposed to be a house of prayer for all nations, where many peoples will come and say, “Come, let's go to the house of the Lord, the house of the God of Jacob. He'll teach us his ways that we may walk in his paths” (Isaiah 2:3). But instead, they fill up the court of the nations, the court of the Gentiles, with all of their marketing businesses.

They operated that Non-Prophet Fund for Priestly Prosperity. Non-Prophet is not a misspelling. I don’t mean non-profit; I mean it was non-prophet. They did not listen to the prophets of God at all.

And that brings us to the final item about the people running the temple. This was the Sadducee Theological Seminary for Denial of Angels and Resurrection. The Sadducees, a group to which all the high priests belonged, did not believe in resurrection. They did not believe in angels. They also did not believe that the prophets were Scripture. They said the only Scriptures are the books of Moses. According to the Sadducees, what the Jews called the Former Prophets, the history of the kings, was not actually the Word of God. And the Prophets, whether from Isaiah or Amos or Micah, any of those prophets, that wasn't really the Word of God either. You could see why they didn’t want to accept those prophets, who often spoke against ripping people off and against phony baloney religion. At any rate, they were the Non-Prophet Fund for Priestly Prosperity, and they were the Sadducee Theological Seminary for Denial of Angels and Resurrection.

There were still some people coming to the temple who loved the Lord. A widow would go there and put her last penny into the treasury. Then the Sadducees would come along, scoop out the treasury, and build a fancier mansion. Jesus said, “You've made my Father's house into a house of trade." He was saying, "You've made it into a robber’s roost, a place where the prophets are rejected, where liars are in power, where they deny all that God has revealed. And so it's got to be shut down, not just because what it was pointing to has now been fulfilled by the reality, but also because this is a mess."

"And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, 'Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!' And Jesus said to him, 'Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down'" (Mark 13:1-2).

At the time of Jesus’ death,  the curtain in the temple was torn from top to bottom. At one level, that symbolized full access into the Holy of Holies in the house of God. But at another level, it also symbolized that the whole sacrificial system was over. No longer would you count on priests to go in there and make you right with God—that’s over now. Within a generation, the temple had been destroyed by Rome. Jesus announced the doom of the temple, and it was indeed destroyed. He shut it down for one day as a prophetic sign to the people that he was closing it down. And eventually the temple was destroyed, permanently shut down.

King and temple

It's important to recognize the connection between king and temple. We've looked at Jesus as King of the Jews and of some previous rulers of the Jews. David and Solomon built God's temple. David collected a lot of the wealth, and Solomon actually supervised the project. 

Whenever you read about some of the very best kings of Judah after that, they’re involved in setting things right with the temple again. Hezekiah, that great and godly king, helped restore and cleanse and put the temple right again. Josiah, another godly king, did the same thing later on.

After that temple was destroyed, God eventually brought his people back their land. The ruler at that time was a descendant of David named Zerubbabel. He helped to supervise the rebuilding of the temple. So there's this connection between a king and the temple.

164 years before Jesus' birth, Judah the Hammer, Judas Maccabeus, led a campaign against occupying invaders, led by Antiochus Epiphanes, who had claimed to be God. After a victorious three-year campaign for freedom, what did the people do? They cleansed the temple with the shouting of hosannas, the waving of palm branches, and the lighting of the sacred lamp. Hanukkah is still celebrated by Jewish people today. Again, we see a connection between political leaders who help set things right in the temple and the status of the temple.

Herod the Great tried to place himself in the line of rulers who restored the temple. He repulsed Parthian invaders, and then he made the temple bigger and fancier and more splendid than ever. But Herod himself was a murderous and horrible man. But hey, at least he got the temple looking good. That's the temple that was standing at the time Jesus comes in and shuts down business as usual.

Jesus isn't like those other kings. Remember how they would build or cleanse or renew or fix up or replenish the temple? Well, Jesus didn’t do that. He did not renew the temple. He didn’t rebuild the temple. He replaced the temple. He declared it doomed. He shut it down. And he made himself the temple. That’s what he's talking about when he says that his own body now is the temple.

The living temple: Jesus Christ

• Heaven and earth connect.
• God comes near.
• God’s glory is revealed.
• Sacrifice deals with sins.
• God’s reign is celebrated.
• All nations seek God.
• Death is destroyed.

Jesus is the living temple. He’s the one where heaven and earth connect, where God comes close to us, where God’s glory is revealed in the shining of the brightness of the Shekinah glory. His body is what God prepared for him as the sacrifice for our sins, to do what those animal sacrifices never really could do anyway. They could only point. His sacrifice was the place where God’s reign is celebrated. Christ’s coming near is the kingdom of God coming near. When Jesus is announcing his gospel and healing people, he is bringing the kingdom of God, the reign of God, near. Jesus is the one who invites all nations and sends his people out to all nations to make disciples for him.

His crucified and risen body is where death is destroyed. Remember Isaiah's prophecy: “On this mountain the Lord will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations. He will swallow up death forever and wipe away the tears” (Isaiah 25:7–8). Mount Zion, the mountain of Jerusalem, is where Jesus was condemned and where he was crucified and where he rose again.

Jesus Christ, the living temple, means all that the temple ever meant to Israel, and far more. When Jesus said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I’ll raise it up again,” he was speaking about the temple of his body. His resurrection fulfilled that great prophecy of his. The Scriptures reveal that Jesus is the living temple. 

You are God’s temple

“Body of Christ” can mean Jesus’ physical body and himself replacing the temple, but in the Scriptures the “Body of Christ” can also refer to the people of God. God's people are God's temple. “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple” (1 Corinthians 3:16–17). Here it’s speaking of "you" in the plural. God’s people together are his temple. 

The Bible also speaks to individual believers in its call to handle your bodies in a pure and godly way: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20). Jesus’ body is the living temple, but your own body is intended now to also be a living temple of God's Holy Spirit.

God's people, each one individually and all together, are are God’s temple: “You are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by his Spirit” (Ephesians 2:19–22).

If the temple was the center of the earth where the glory of God dwelt, just think of what it means: God's people are the center of the earth, the place where the action is, the place where heaven and earth connect, where the kingdom of God advances, the place where God is at home.

“As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house [a temple], to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:4–5). You, together with other believers, are stones in a spiritual house. You are to be offering sacrifices, not the same sacrifice to pay for sins that Jesus offered, but you’re offering spiritual sacrifices of the love of your heart and the obedience of your life to God.

“If you're insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you” (1 Peter 4:14). The Shekinah, the shining glory of God that came upon tabernacle or temple, the glory that came upon Jesus in his transfiguration, that same glory comes on you by the Holy Spirit. When you face opposition, when you go through hard times for Christ, you may say, “What’s so glorious about that?” But the Bible says, “The Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.”

Remember the story of Stephen? He was attacked for proclaiming the gospel, and he was surrounded by a hostile mob. As he began to speak, those who saw him could see that his face was like the face of an angel (Acts 6:15). After he told them about Christ, he said, ““I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God" (Acts 7:56). He could see God's glory, and the splendor of God's glory was shining even from his face. He was like the tabernacle and temple of old, where the brightness of God's glory rested.

Previous to that, on Pentecost, the people were praying in an upper room, and the glory came upon them. The flame of God came down as a tongue of fire on the head of each one. It was the same glory that had come down on the tabernacle and temple, the same glory that lit up Jesus at his Transfiguration, and now that glory came upon believers.

"We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Jesus, in replacing the temple with his own body, did not intend just to make himself the only temple. In one sense, he himself is the living temple. He is that supreme connection between heaven and earth, between God and man. But he wants the glory that comes from him to shine from us too.

The temple of Jesus' body was destroyed and rose again. The same happens to the temple of his people. “We know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Corinthians 5:1). The one whose temple/body was destroyed and raised it up again in three days is going to take our tent when it’s destroyed and raise it up as an eternal house in the heavens.

We praise God for what he has done in Jesus Christ, but also for what he is doing in us. Jesus Christ is the living temple who replaced all other temples, and he is the one who makes us the living temple of the Holy Spirit.

Brothers and sisters, I hope you can understand at least some of this. The most important things are not the historical details about Judah the Hammer or Herod, though such facts can help us understand what’s going on in the Scriptures. But main thing to understand is the glory! The glory of God, the reality of God in the person of Jesus Christ. The glory that comes upon his people and that dwells in them. The kingship of God, the reign of Jesus Christ, the sense that Christ is taking charge right now in you and in all that you touch, and the sense that the Shekinah and the tongues of fire are still with us today, and that the shining of God’s face can shine from our faces too. Then you begin to understand what it is to know Jesus, the living temple, and to be a living temple.

Prayer

Dear Father, we love you and we seek your face. Help us truly to know Christ as our temple, the meeting place between heaven and earth, the place where we’re made right with you and where we find your glory. As we recall your sacrifice, Lord Jesus, wash away all our sins and help us to receive your pardon. Remove the distance between us and you, that we may draw near and be united to you. Shine upon us the brightness of your face, that we may rejoice in your glory and reflect that glory in our own faces, in our own lives, that we may be the people you call us to be. For Jesus’ sake, Amen.

 

The Living Temple
By David Feddes
Slide Contents

¹³ The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴ In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. ¹⁵ And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶ And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.” ¹⁷ His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

¹⁸ So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” ¹⁹ Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” ²⁰ The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” ²¹ But he was speaking about the temple of his body. ²² When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

Words recalled but twisted

And some stood up and bore false witness against him, saying, “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.’” (Mark 14:57-58)

Those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!” (Mark 15:29-30)

Temple is where:

• Heaven and earth connect.
• God comes near.
• God’s glory is revealed.
• Sacrifice deals with sins.
• God’s reign is celebrated.
• All nations seek God.
• Death will be destroyed.

Glory in a cloud

Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. (Exodus 40:34)

A cloud filled the house of the Lord… the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord. (1 Kings 8:10-11)

Jesus was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light… behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” (Matthew 17:2,5)

Ultimate tabernacle/temple

The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14).

“Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” … The temple he had spoken of was his body (John 2:19, 21).

A new kind of temple

“Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem… a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.” (John 4:21-23).

Talking like a temple

When Jesus declares that someone’s sins are forgiven, there are mutterings about his doing so… How does God normally forgive sins within Israel? Why, through the Temple and the sacrifices that take place there. Jesus seems to be claiming that God is doing, up close and personal through him, something that you’d normally expect to happen at the Temple. (N. T. Wright)

Shutting Down the temple

• Fulfillment: The temple pointed forward to the ultimate reality of God with us in glory and sacrifice. When the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, the temple was no longer needed. The sign was replaced by the reality.
• Judgment: The temple was in the wrong hands and stood for the wrong things.

House of trade, robber's roost

• Annas Marketing and Banking Corporation
• Department of Debt: records & foreclosures
• Regional Office for Cooperation with Rome
• Members-Only Club for Jewish Segregation and Superiority
• Non-Prophet Fund for Priestly Prosperity
• Sadducee Theological Seminary for Denial of Angels and Resurrection

Doomed Temple

And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” (Mark 13:1-2)

The curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. (Matt 27:51)

Rome destroyed the temple in 70 A.D.


King and temple

• David and Solomon built God’s temple
• Good rulers renewed or rebuilt temple:
  • Hezekiah
  • Josiah
  • Zerubbabel

Judah the Hammer 

• Led three-year campaign against foreign occupation
• Cleansed temple in 164 B.C. amid waving branches
• Still celebrated at Hanukkah

Herod the Great 

• Declared King of Judea in 40 B.C.
• Led three year campaign against Parthian invaders
• Rebuilt the temple and dedicated it

King of the Jews

Jesus didn’t renew or rebuild the temple; he replaced it. He declared it doomed, shut it down, and made himself the temple.

The living temple: Jesus Christ

• Heaven and earth connect.
• God comes near.
• God’s glory is revealed.
• Sacrifice deals with sins.
• God’s reign is celebrated.
• All nations seek God.
• Death is destroyed.

“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”… he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

You are God’s temple

Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple. (1 Cor 3:16-17)

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. (1 Cor 6:19-20)

You are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22)

House, sacrifice, glory

As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ… If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. (1 Peter 4:4-5, 14)

Shining with glory; destroyed and rebuilt

We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. (2 Cor. 3:18)

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (2 Cor. 5:1)