Slides: The Living Temple

The Living Temple
by David Feddes

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)

Glory in a cloud

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 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 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 4:14)

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)