What is the Temple of God? Literally, it was the Temple that Solomon built in Jerusalem of course. That Temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians in 587 BC. A new, much smaller Temple was later built by King Zerubbabel2 and Joshua, the High Priest, who was symbolically crowned king by Zechariah3.
This second Temple was later tremendously enlarged and made much more beautiful by King Herod. He started building it in 19 BC and completed it in 12 BC, but the whole project was only fully completed in 64 AD. The Jewish revolt in 66 (two years later!) brought the Roman legions who, under the command of Vespasian and later Titus, completely destroyed this Temple when they conquered Jerusalem in 70 AD.
Not a single stone would be left on another, the Lord Jesus said.4 And it turned out exactly as the Lord prophesied.
What is the Temple of God now? The Greek word used here is ‘naos’, which is used with reference to the holiest part of a Temple, which only the priests were allowed to enter. Whenever this word ‘Temple’ is used in the Book of Revelation it refers to the celestial sanctuary, where God is,5 except in Revelation 11:1–2, where it possibly refers to a new Temple that is yet to be built in Jerusalem.
Overcomers, those who are victorious, of course cannot become literal pillars in that Temple however! They are to become pillars before God and His throne in His celestial Temple, just as they were pillars in God’s house on earth, the Church, like James, Cephas and John.6 Paul writes: “…recognizing the Grace that had been given to me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship…” There they were ‘living stones’;7 soon they will be pillars in the Temple in the Heavenly Jerusalem, Revelation 21:2-3! Their fellowship with the Most High will never again be severed.
They will be given a triple new name. Christ will write this on him or her—the Name of His Father, and the name of the Lamb’s bride (for that is the new Jerusalem8), that will descend from God to earth one day), and His new name.9
The victors in Pergamum themselves received a new name; those in Philadelphia are going to bear Christ’s new name. What is this name? No one knows what it is. That is the secret of the bridegroom with His bride.
I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever10—even when there is no more Temple,11 be- cause God will be all in all.12 This fellowship with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ starts here and it continues into eternity. We become children of the Heavenly Jerusalem. ‘But the Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother’, Paul writes.13
• Seen in this light it is sometimes difficult to explain what the meaning of the ‘Temple of God’ is, in the verses where this expression is used. Does it refer to the ‘Temple of God’ in which the lawless one, the son of perdition, who exalts himself above everything that is called God or is worshiped, sets himself up, proclaiming himself to be God?14
• Or does this perhaps mean that Antichrist will be entering into the Church, into Christianity at large, bringing a humanistic Gospel claiming that man is divine, like Satan told Eve in Genesis 3:5? Does Paul mean that the ‘House of God’, the ‘Temple’, God’s dwelling15 in the Spirit is the Church?
• Paul in his writings when using the word ‘Temple’ never refers to that building in Jerusalem. Your body is a Temple, he says in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17. Together you as believers are a Temple in which God is present by the Holy Spirit. ‘We are the Temple of the living God’, he says in 2 Corinthians 6:16. You, the true Church, is the ‘Temple of the living God’, he says.
• So what does he mean in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 “Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the ‘Temple of God’, displaying himself as being God.”? Is it a literal, rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem? Or is it Christianity at large? So that Christianity, the Church, will become an apostate Church? Or is it both, when the spirit of lawlessness will have infiltrated a large part of God’s Church on earth, and conquered restored Judaism in Israel and finds its expression in a small rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem?
• My personal opinion is that Paul is referring to the Church in the end-times. Whatever the case may be: the true Church of Jesus may know that no one will snatch them from His hand.16
Bible References:
1.NASB 2.Matthew 1:12; Luke 3:27 3.Zechariah 6:9–14 4.Luke 21:5–6, 20–24 5.See Revelation 7:15, 11:1, 2, 19, 14:15 and 17, 15:5, 6 and 8, 16:1 and 17, and 21:22 6.Galatians 2:8-10 7.1 Peter 2:5 8.Revelation 21:9–10 9. Revelation 2:17; Isaiah 62:2, 65:15 10.Psalm 23:6; John 12:26 11.Revelation 21:22 12.1 Corinthians 15:28 13.Galatians 4:26 14.2 Thessalonians 2:3–4 15. Ephesians 2:21–22 16. John 10:28–29
