The Temple of God must be measured. It stands in the holy city,1 Jerusalem.2 In the Bible the Temple is holy to God, an enclosed area surrounded by walls that is dedicated to Him. ‘Holy’ meaning: separated from the rest. Now that the earth is going to be taken to Him, and now that the judgments are being meted out on the incorrigibly hardened and rebellious nations, to cleanse the world of them – and the believers are experiencing these disasters as trials and tribulations – the first area to be taken possession of by Him is the Temple. He is taking full control over it. Even before the Lord Jesus appears in Glory, His Kingship is proclaimed—under the seventh trumpet.3 This is not yet the public, theocratic Kingship from Jerusalem over the peoples, the nations and the states of this world. That will be coming next. He already has all power and authority in Heaven and on earth,4 sitting at the Father’s right hand.5 All the democracies or dictatorships, republics or kingdoms, any other political system on earth that does not serve Him and is hostile towards Him is in effect ‘illegitimate’ and ‘illegal’. In spite of the disasters that have befallen them under the seals and the six trumpets, the godless, rebellious and hardened remnant of the nations still does not want to have anything to do with the Lord and His rightful Kingship over the nations of this world. They hate it. They always and they always will.
The ‘measuring’ is establishing the demarcation lines, the boundaries of an area, and the checking and imposition of the rightful standard. This ‘Temple-area’, the ‘Temple-square’ is the first part on earth the Lord takes for Himself. And as His Kingship will be revealed on earth, He starts with the Temple. Divine government, true Theocracy, with their high moral standards will spread out from the Temple throughout the whole world. John is allowed to take possession of the inner part of the Temple, to claim it on Christ’s behalf, as a kind of judicial act. A prophetic claim. It is in fact even a kind of ‘constitutional’ act. Does this ‘Temple’ refer to a literal Temple in Jerusalem, or are we to think of the Heavenly Temple of God?6 Is the Church of Christ not also called the Temple of God?7 Are not even individual believers a Temple of God? “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s Temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s Temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s Temple is sacred, and you are that Temple.”…”Do you not know that your bodies are Temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” What agreement is there between the Temple of God and idols? For we are the Temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be My people.”8
There are four explanations: about ’… measure the Temple of God.”
First of all, some people claim that a piece of Jewish apocalyptic tradition from before the year 70 AD (when the Temple was destroyed) has crept into this text. It is said that this tradition prophesied that, even if the Roman legions were to conquer the City of Jerusalem, the Holy of Holies would be spared. However, history makes it clear that the whole of the Temple was destroyed by the Roman soldiers, including the Holy of Holies, and so there is no reason for John to include this train of thought in his book.
The second explanation says that there will be a literal restoration of the Promised Land of Israel and of the Jewish people in the land of Israel, and that then the Temple will be rebuilt on the Temple Mount, in the heart of Jerusalem. They claim that in that future rebuild Temple the antichrist will be worshipped as a ‘god’ as described in 2 Thessalonians 2.9
The third explanation looks at it from a more spiritual perspective and sees this ‘Temple of God’ as the Church, its individual members to be found as a true remnant within the various churches, congregations and denominations of true, Bible-believing Christians, as expounded in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 and 6:19. Or even as ‘Christianity’ or ‘Christendom’ at large. They say that Paul when he mentions in his writings the word ‘Temple’, he never refers to the Temple-building in the heart of Jerusalem. So in this view, the spirit of ‘anti-Christ’ will enter into and “sit” in Christianity and will take over even Christian theology, doctrine, teaching and preaching – preparing the way for ‘anti-Christ’. A humanistic gospel, a gospel in the name of ‘Man’, fitting the humanistic political trends of those days.
The fourth explanation sees this Temple as part of the spiritual restoration of the nationally restored Jewish people, returning to their faith in the God of Israel. We will continue in the spirit of these last three explanations in the upcoming days.
• Pursuing ‘Christian politics’ in the present world is an extraordinary good thing, but it will never be able to be more than good Christian works for the time being. Christian politics can provide good examples – ‘signs of the Kingdom’ – showing a foretaste of the situation when one-day, the Lord Himself will reign on planet earth. These good examples are like small pockets of light in a surrounding dark world. They are pointing to the ultimate reality of the Kingdom of ‘peace and righteousness’ that will come when the King will come, and never more than ‘signposts’ pointing towards that future Kingdom on earth. If ever ‘man’ will be able to realize a worldwide kingdom of peace prosperity and righteousness on earth, it will be the kingdom of the anti-Christ.
Bible References:
1.Revelation 11:2 2.Isaiah 48:2 3.Revelation 11:15–19 4.Matthew 18:18 5.Acts 2:25, 33–34, 7:55–56; Luke 20:42; Mark 16:19; Matthew 26:64; Romans 8:34; Ephesians 1:20; 6.Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 1:3, 13, 10:12; 1 Peter 3:22 7.Revelation 11:19 8.Ephesians 2:19–22 9.1 Corinthians 3:16-17, 6:19; 2 Corinthians 6:16 NIV 1984 10.2 Thessalonians 2:3–4
