One major theological theme that is interwoven all throughout Scripture is “temple”. Jesus gives incredible insight in how we are to view the temple both in the Old Testament and in the future. To understand the significance of the temple, it is important to understand God’s presence in the Garden of Eden in Genesis and God’s presence in the coming the new heaven and new earth announced in Revelation 21.
The whole purpose of the temple is God dwelling with his people. The tent, the tabernacle, the temple are all symbolic images where God comes and dwells among His people. Before the tabernacle was constructed, God met with Moses in a temporary tent of meeting. The Tent of Meeting was where God’s presence moved to after He gave Moses the ten commandments at Sinai. The tabernacle was the precursor of the temple during most of the period between the formation of Israel, at Sinai, and its final establishment in the Promised Land in the early period of the monarchy.[1]
Throughout the narrative of Scripture leading up to the inauguration of Jesus, we see God desiring to dwell and live amongst his people. The biblical authors from Moses through Ezekiel and Haggai to John of Patmos never describe a complete temple but offer a vision of what the temple was to be: the locus of the presence of God.[2] God’s presence is first seen dwelling amongst Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.
Due to Adam and Eve’s rebellion and falling into temptation, the harmony they once experienced in the presence of God is now fractured. This leads to the first time in human history that God approached humans, and they were afraid and hid (Gen 3:8-10). Ever since the fall with Adam and Eve, the harmony once experienced with God has been fractured. Humanity was pushed out of the Garden and pushed out of the dwelling place of the Lord due to sin. The storyline of the Bible moves east of Eden from Adam and Eve.
One of the greatest expressions of God’s love was to give man free will, a choice. John Steinbeck writes, “But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.”[3] Steinbeck could not be righter. People throughout the storyline of Scripture have been faced with the choice to live in communion with God, but despite their wrestling God has always desired to dwell amongst them.
The tent of meeting is established after the exodus, and it shows God’s heart to again dwell amongst his people (Ex 33:7-10). This leads to the constructing of the tabernacle. The book of Exodus really depicts God’s desire to live in harmony with his people. Moses encounters God in the burning bush, and then later at Mt. Sinai (Exodus 3; 19). Then God comes down to live amongst the people in the instructions and establishing of the Tabernacle (25-40). The tabernacle would serve as a portable Garden of Eden for the people to know God through personal experience and to have a close relationship with God (25-31).
The book of Exodus is where the glory of the Lord fills the tabernacle (40:34-38). It is in the book of Exodus we begin to see God come to earth to begin to have close relationship with humanity. Tim Mackie describes this book as, “the epitome of salvation. It defines salvation from the story of Exodus.”[4] Exodus not only shows God’s deliverance of Israel from Pharaoh in Egypt, but it also sets the stage for the messianic king, Jesus, to deliver his people from their sins and conquer the devil, the ultimate evil tyrant (Matt. 1:21; 12:28).[5] Mackie even indicates that the Exodus story is an archetype story of God's redemption.
The Exodus story is super foundational to tracing the theological theme of the temple throughout Scripture. L. Michael Morales states, “In sum, through the exodus deliverance the nations were to know YHWH as the maker of heaven and earth who had re-created a new humanity (Israel) in order to fulfil his original purpose, opening a way for humanity to dwell in his Presence. Under the shadow of the Babylonian tower the nations scattered in exile would behold a wonder: Israel redeemed to dwell with God.”[6] The people of God move from having a personal experience with God in the tabernacle to experiencing him in the temple.
The temple of Jerusalem came about due to the centralized worship that happened there. The annual pilgrimages to the temple were occasions of great sentiment and the chief joy of life (Is. 30:29; 35:10; Psalm 42:1-4; 43:3-4; 84:1-2; 122:1-9; 137:6).[7] At this time, to go to Jerusalem would be to go where God is. In short, Jerusalem became the type of the final and universal salvation of the eschatological age (Is 2:2-4; Mic 4:1-3; Zech 14:16-19).[8] The temple was vital to Jerusalem.
One could imagine the heartbreak when the temple is destroyed and the Jews that were exiled into Babylon. When the temple was destroyed in 587 bc the hope of a new temple became central to eschatology.[9] The temple served as redemption and atonement for the people of God. The Israelites did not only hope for a restored nation but also a new temple where God would dwell again amongst his people. So, God’s presence is desiring to dwell amongst his people in the tent of meeting, the tabernacle, and the temple. God’s presence dwelled in all of these with the exception of the third temple after exile. The glory of God does not come back to the temple. Something is missing.
Jesus radically changed salvation history for not just the Jews, but for the rest of humanity. Jesus and his disciples travel to Jerusalem to observe the Passover. In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money (John 2:14). This is an epic scene where Jesus made whips out of chords, kicked everyone out of the temple courts, overturned tables, communicating his frustration that they turned his Father’s house into a house of trade (John 2:15-16). This statement was very authoritative, Jesus was alluding to his deity.
Turning the outer courts into a market effectively prevented worship for non-Jewish people.[10] The Christian reader knows that what Jesus was about to do through the death, burial, and resurrection was usher in a new salvation for all people. The Jewish leaders essentially asked him, “Who do you think you are!?” when they said, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” (John 2:18). Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” (John 2:19). This statement is so profound because it foreshadows Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus is speaking of his body as the temple, meaning that his body was God’s dwelling place (2:21).
In Ephesians, Paul says we are being built up into the true temple, the dwelling of God in the Spirit. This theme of the temple or place where God’s spirit dwells can be traced from the garden all the way through the book of Acts. After the resurrection, Jesus taught his disciples about God’s kingdom for forty days (Acts 1:3) and then he was “taken up” to heaven (Acts 1:2, 11). In Acts 1:1–2 it reads, “In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up...” The small but important word began signals that Jesus’s ascension does not mark the cessation but the continuation of his work as Lord and Messiah.[11] It is God’s presence restored through Christ that makes us the indwelling of God.
There is this idea that Peter unpacks using extensive old testament imagery to show that New Testament believers (both Jew and Gentile) are in fact a new ‘people of God’ who have come to possess all the blessings of Old Testament Israel but in far greater measure.[12] It is this idea of abiding in Christ together as the new temple of God (1 Peter 2:4-6). Forty days after Christ’s body was resurrected, Jesus and His disciples went up to Mount Olivet where Jesus promised them that the Holy Spirit would come to give them strength and power in being witnesses to all nations for God's glory (John 7:33-65).
Jesus ascended to heaven and then sent the promised Holy Spirit to dwell amongst his people. Again, there is a rich theme throughout scripture where God is desiring to dwell amongst his people and have close relationship. Peter refers to New Testament believers as living stones being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:5). Christ is the cornerstone of the temple in this metaphor (Matt 21:42–44; 1 Cor 3:10–15). This would lead to the believer being a living temple in Christ. This is the Bible’s vision for the church, mini temples, not a building but people.
At the end of the biblical story, there is not a new physical temple, but rather a new cosmic temple just like Genesis chapter 1.[13] Revelation 21 reveals what this new heaven and new earth will be like, and this new temple will not need a building because through Jesus, all of creation will be the place where God rests and rules with his people. The last chapter of Revelation describes this new type of temple as a “garden city” (Rev 22:1-6, 12-20).
Eden has been restored. Though, it is better than the Garden of Eden, because humanity will be whole and complete. Central to this “Garden City”, is the worship people bring to God and the Lamb (Rev. 21:24–26). T. Desmond Alexander makes a brilliant observation that a distinguishing mark of a city is its great population:
In the beginning the garden of Eden has only two human residents and is clearly not a city. But as the human population increases through time, Eden has the potential to become a great metropolis. . . . In Genesis 1–2 the impression is conveyed that the boundaries of the garden will expand outward as the human population increases. This emphasis upon filling the earth points toward a large population, appropriate for a city.[14] Eden has been restored. Though, it is better than the Garden of Eden, because humanity will be whole and complete. This is how the Bible comes to the end with God dwelling with his uncountable people in a holy city (Rev 21-22; 22:1-3).
Biblical theology really gives itself to understanding themes that run across the narrative of Scripture. When we understand the intent of the biblical authors and see things how they did, it gives us a greater shape as we look at the entirety of Scripture. In fact, James Hamilton would argue that’s what biblical theology is: “the attempt to understand and embrace the interpretive perspective of the biblical authors.”[15] I find themes like the temple helpful in reading the Bible as one unified story that ultimately leads to Jesus.
[1] Walter A. Elwell and Barry J. Beitzel, “Tabernacle, Temple,” Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 2015.
[2] Anthony J. Petrotta, “Temple,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology, electronic ed., Baker Reference Library (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1996), 759.
[3] John Steinbeck, East of Eden (London: Penguin Books Ltd, 2017).
[4] “Overview: Exodus Ch. 1 -18,” YouTube (The Bible Project), accessed February 1, 2020
[5] Elmer Martens, God’s Design: A Focus on Old Testament Theology, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994).
[6] L. Michael Morales, Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: a Biblical Theology of the Book of Leviticus (Downers Grove, IL: Apollos, InterVarsity Press, 2015)
[7] T. Desmond. Alexander and Brian S. Rosner, New Dictionary of Biblical Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 807.
[8] Ibid., 807.
[9] Ibid., 806.
[10] John D. Barry et al., Faithlife Study Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016), Jn 2:16.
[11] “More Than an Afterthought: Six Reasons Jesus's Ascension Matters,” Desiring God, April 12, 2020, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/more-than-an-afterthought-six-reasons-jesuss-ascension-matters)
[12] Wayne A. Grudem, 1 Peter: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 17, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 103.
[13] Tim Mackie and Jon Collins, “Temple” (BibleProject, September 5, 2019).
[14] T. Desmond Alexander, The City of God and the Goal of Creation (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 20-21.
[15] Justin Dillehay, “How the 'City' Theme Opens Better Biblical Views,” The Gospel Coalition, April 20, 2018, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/reviews/city-god-goal-creation/)