506: The Temple | Tim Henderson

Introduction

All right, you guys, do me a favor and bust out your phones and point your camera at that QR code if you don't mind. I understand that a couple of you read the e-news, and if you did, you might have noticed that this week I had an essay in there, a brief little introduction to a podcast put out by Preston and Jackie Hill Perry, and it's brilliant, you guys, it's so good. This will take you to that, and you don't need to start listening to it right now. But in about 28 minutes, you could start listening to it.

You guys, what they're doing in this particular podcast is having a conversation with a guest of theirs about Charlie Kirk's murder, and it's so good, it's just so, so good. When we did our special Sunday school a few weeks ago, my whole purpose in that was to really champion having dialogues about disagreements, and the conversation that these guys have models, the biblical principles of how to do that as well as literally anything I have ever seen. It's so well done.

So I hope that you might watch that, you know, hopefully it's in your phone now, you can at your own time, just watch it. It's probably an hour and change. It's brilliant, it's really wonderful, and I think it's just one more thing that we can use as a tool to help ourselves grow as a community that's just skillful about dialoguing about disagreements. So I hope you'll do that.

The Context of the Passage

All right, so last week, Sloop gave us the next chunk in our long, long series, and like gospel of John, and he was in, he got the beginning of chapter two, which is all about Jesus turning water into wine. I loved that message, wherever you are, Sloop, where'd you go, bro? There you are. I loved there's so many insights, things that I've been reading this for a long time, that I didn't see, that I didn't know, right? About like the seven days of creation being replayed, and just how this wedding points to the future wedding, it was so fun.

This passage that I get is the second half of chapter two, and the emotional tone is very different from the passage that Dave had, right? Dave's was about a wedding, and it's celebration, and it's joy, and it's free-flowing wine, and mine is different, all right? So just strap in. We're going to be the second half of John chapter two. Let's just, we'll take it as it comes, and we'll see what happens.

In verse 13, it says,

The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

Okay? So it's Passover. This is an incredibly significant holiday for the Jews, and Jesus goes into this festival seemingly hoping for a celebration. Passover is about freedom from bondage, and so what you might expect is people celebrating the reality that they've been set free from slavery. But instead what he finds is people that are enslaved in a new kind of bondage, and he's super unhappy about it, okay?

What's going on is the hundreds of thousands of people are traveling to Jerusalem, they're coming from very, very far away. When they come, sacrifices like sacrificing a sheep, the Passover lamb, is a big part of what they do. But because they've traveled from a long distance, and it's difficult to travel with these animals to sacrifice, what they tend to do is just bring money with the intention to buy their animals once they get there.

They're coming from a long distance, they've got to exchange their foreign currency for local currency, and they've got to buy a sheep. But the people who know they're coming have set the exchange rates unjustly, they've set the prices of these animals unreasonably high, and so the whole thing is just turned into a great big ripoff.

And Jesus knows people are coming to worship, but they're being robbed. So he kind of flips out basically, and in verse 14 it says,

In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and money changers sitting there, and making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen, and he poured out the coins of the money changers, and he overturned their tables.

Now, obviously this is a paradigm shift to have sweet and gentle Jesus chasing people around with a homemade whip, right? And so that is what tends to capture our attention in this scene, right? The weird thing going on is this whip, but I just want to persuade you, the whip is not the strangest part of this story. The weirdest thing is not what Jesus does, it's what he says, okay? It's even more important than what he does is what he says, okay?

You could imagine that the money changers and the sheep salesmen are mad, right? They're being accused. They're losing money. Their whole system is getting flipped upside down. And so they challenge Jesus, and basically what they're asking is,

What gives you the right?

It's like, "Who do you think you are?" Right? "When comes your authority to flip this thing all over?" They're super hot about it, right? And Jesus responds, I like the way the NIV records Jesus' response a little better than the ESV, because I think it clarifies the real meaning of his words. What that has them saying is, what miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this, right? And then Jesus gives this super weird, but pretty famous answer. He says,

"Destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up."

To which these salesmen say,

"It has taken 46 years to build this temple. Will you raise it up in three days?"

So what he says is, "Destroy this temple, and in three days, I will build it." When he says that, destroy this temple, and I’ll rebuild it. What do they think he is talking about when he says this? The temple. He says the temple. He means the temple. He says the building. He means the building, right? That's a very reasonable thing to conclude, but it's mistaken. That's not what he means, okay?

In order to understand what he actually means, though, to really understand the import of this quizzical answer, we're going to have to go back and do a long form survey of what the temple really is, because of the time that Jesus says, "Destroy this temple," and I'll rebuild it in three days, there have been five different things that have been the temple for Israel, okay? So what's the first one? What is the earliest first original temple? You guys know? Oh, good, okay, but wrong. Tabernacles two, one earlier. What is the first and earlier than the tabernacle temple? The Garden of Eden. It is the Garden of Eden.

And when I say that, I'm not being cute, I'm not just trying to be funny about this. It's literally the first temple, okay? The temple is the place, with so many clues, but I'll give you this, that the temple is the place where Adam and Eve walked with God, and that's what a temple is. It is where heaven meets earth. It is where the boundaries draw thin. It is where God meets with man. Adam had a job in that garden, maybe you remember this? It was to cultivate and to keep it, right? Adam's job is to cultivate and to keep.

Curiously, the priests had a job, and that was to serve and guard in their temple. Now what's not obvious to us, because the Bible translates this into two different words, is those were exactly the same pair of words. If we all spoke Hebrew, and we probably should be grateful that we don't, because that would be difficult, the words are Abad and Samar, that the language used to describe what the priests are to do is directly drawn from the language about what Adam was to do in his garden, in his temple.

In Ezekiel 28, if you skip forward into the story, you'll find this man wearing, he's a priest, he's obviously a priest, he's wearing this breastplate with all these jewels on it, these gems that represent the twelve tribes of Israel, and he is placed in the garden of Eden, because he was a priest in the garden, because the garden was a temple. There's the lampstand. I should have made a picture of this, I didn't think of it in time, but if you can picture like in the temple, if you've ever seen any images of this, and you see this lampstand as this post, and it kind of branches out, and the lights kind of stick up, can you see this? It's a weird looking lamp, what it's meant to be, it's a stylized representation of a tree, and not just any tree, that is the tree of life, and the reason the tree of life is in the temple is because the temple is pointing back to the garden, which was the original temple.

Not only that, there's a ton of horticultural artifacts that show up in the later temples. If you go back and you read 1 Kings 6 and 7, and you read the description of this, you're going to find that thing is decorated with pomegranates, palm trees, flowers, and cherubim, all of which are artifacts of the garden. The garden is the first in the original temple, and it is also, and maybe this is more anywhere where it should have started, the garden is the place where the very first sacrifice was ever offered.

Do you recall, Adam and Eve were told, "If you eat this fruit, you're going to die." They ate the fruit, and they didn't die, but somebody else did. Do you remember what does God cover them with when they eat the fruit? There's animal skins, there's only one way to get an animal skin that animals got to die, right? The first garden, the garden was the first temple, and all the later temples are simply pointing back to that. But the problem was you guys, they lost it.

The garden was where God meets man, where heaven touches earth, where the sacrifices are offered, but they got kicked out of their garden. They lost their temple, and they were forced to wander, right? Now, eventually, they're wandering coalesces in this very specific thing, and while they are wandering, they are instructed to build a new temple, and what was that called? That's the tabernacle, right? The tabernacle is a tent, right? It is a great, big, heavy, massive tent. You would not want to take it on the Appalachian Trail. It's just so, so big, but it's still a tent, right? It is a portable, transportable, temporary temple, and it was the place where God would meet with man.

It's where Moses would meet with them. That's where the sacrifices were offered, right? And it was this place where that relationship was maintained. Eventually, they end up settling in the land, right? It takes a while, roaming around on the wilderness for 40 years with this tabernacle. The tabernacle continues to serve them as a monarchy begins, but eventually, they build a more permanent temple out of stone, right? David wanted to build it, but God says, "No, no, no, no, you will not build me a house. I'm going to build you a house," right? And then who does? Who is the builder of the first stone temple? It's all right. And you guys, this is a huge deal for them. This temple is the center of their worship. It is where God meets with them. It's where the sacrifices are offered, it's where heaven draws near, and it was their favorite place. It was the most important place, it was a holy place. But eventually, just like they lost the garden, they lost the first temple, they lose this one too.

We've talked about this a number of times because it was such a massive ordeal, but in 586 BC, God sends in the Babylonians, and Babylon comes in and he just wipes them out. He doesn't just wipe out the people, but he wipes out the temple. Everything chronicles describes the eradication of the temple, and it says that they set fire to God's temple, and they broke down the wall of Jerusalem, they burned all the palaces and destroyed everything of value there.

You guys, this event, the destruction of the temple, the blowing up of Jerusalem, once you get, there's these primary judgments, the fall and the flood and Babel, and this is all just kind of the chaos of these three things. But once you get past those principal, destructive moments in Genesis, it is all the way until 586 that we get the next massive, massive, massive thing. There are difficulties in between, but you guys, this is the Holocaust, it is Pearl Harbor, it is September 11th, it is the pinnacle moment of judgment.

All the prophets are either anticipating it, living in it, or pointing back to it. It is the big thing. And the terrible thing about it is it is where they lost once again the temple. God had taken all of his wrath against their sin, and he poured it out and destroyed this temple. And then, for 70 years after it happens, they're sitting in it, they're sitting in the misery of this judgment and this loss and wondering, is it over? Are we done?

Most of that Ezekiel, who was a prophet of that time, he begins to dream of another temple, a replacement temple. He talks about it a lot, he kind of, he goes on and on and on. If you've ever been doing through the Bible in a year program and you get to Ezekiel 40, you probably felt like, my goodness, all right, he just goes on and on and on. So some of that is admittedly a little bit dry, but by the time he gets to chapter 47, it becomes so unbelievably important. And I would suggest to you that Ezekiel 47 is probably one of the top 10 most important chapters in the Old Testament. He's describing not just the temple, not just the sanctuary, but this seemingly magical river that flows out of it.

Do you remember what's strange about the river? The particular odd quality it has, it gets bigger, right? It starts off ankle deep and it goes knee deep and the waist deep and then you can't pass it. It's like, well, where's the water coming from? This is not the way rivers work, okay? Here's what he says in Ezekiel 47, Ezekiel speaking about an angel,

"Then he led me back to the bank of the river, and as I went back, I saw on the bank of the river very many trees and on the one side and on the other, and wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish. For this water goes there, that the waters of the sea may become fresh, so everything will live where the river goes. And on the banks, on both sides of the river, they will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month because the water for them flows from the sanctuary, that is the temple. Their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing."

Ezekiel saw that there will be a temple whose water turns the salt water fresh, whose water causes every living thing to thrive, whose the very leaves of the trees that grow in this water will be for the healing of the nations, right? But here's what you've got to know, it's just a vision. He was seeing it, but he didn't build it, and in fact to this day that has never been built. And so, do you know what they do next? Can you guess what they're going to do? They build a temple, right? We had the garden, that was one, we had the tabernacle, that's two, we have Solomon's, that's three. We have Ezekiel's temple that wasn't built, that's four, and then they make another stone temple. Do you remember who did this one? So Rubabel. If you ever had to use that word in your kid in Sunday school, the Rubabel builds the temple. But there's a curious thing. Do you know what the old men did when they see the new temple, the second temple? They cried, right? It's a funny, it's a confusing scene. Look at, if it's Ezra three, I think I probably made a slide for you, I did. Okay. But many of the older priests and the Levites and the family heads who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundations of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. No one could distinguish the sound or the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise, and the sound was heard far away. It is confusing. You might think, well, maybe they're just weeping for joy. I don't think they are. I think what it is is the old guys realized, the young guys are excited, hey, we've got a temple. The old guys were like, they knew it was not very glorious, and it was certainly not what Ezekiel had prophesied, right? In fact, had got comments on this, who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now, does it not seem like nothing? It was a disappointment. Where is Ezekiel's temple? Because this sure as heck does not seem like it.

So that's the five things, the garden, the tabernacle, Solomon's temple, Ezekiel's temple that never gets built, and then Zerubbabel's kind of math temple. And where Jesus is saying these words, we're living in the era of this one, this Zerubbabel's temple with a significant difference that Herod had renovated and rebuilt it completely. Some people would think of Herod's as like a third temple, but it was really just a massive renovation of Zerubbabel's temple, right? And if you've ever heard the phrase, maybe you haven't, I don't know, if you have second temple Judaism, this is the one they're talking about, the Zerubbabel slash Herod temple.

And that is where Jesus is standing when he says, destroy this temple, and I'll rebuild it in three days. That's our history that gets us there, okay? So the temple, each of these temples, all of these temples are the place where God meets man. The temple is the place where heaven touches earth, the temple is the place where sin is atoned for by death.

Jesus’ Declaration and Its Meaning

And now finally, back to John 2, Jesus says,

"Destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days."

I don't know if you realize that those are sensitive words. Maybe it'd be better to say that they are insensitive words, for they knew what it was like to have your temple destroyed. It would be a little bit like standing in front of like the rebuilt World Trade Center and say, "Knock down these towers, and I'll build them in three days," right? It would actually be worse than that, but there is a sense when he talks about destroying a temple, that's not just some idle random thing to say. It is imbued with an enormous amount of meaning and pain.

And what Jesus is reminding them is that once upon a time, their sin led to the destruction of a temple, 600 years earlier. Their temple was obliterated and set on fire because of their rebellion. What Jesus is saying is, your sin is going to destroy another temple, but this time the temple is going to rebuild itself because this time, the temple is me.

You guys, he is the temple. Jesus is the glorious one. He is the temple to which every one of the former temple's point. He is the fulfillment of the garden with its life, giving joy. He is the fulfillment of the tabernacle. I can't remember if we made much of this when we were beginning in John 1, but that passage here says that Jesus came and dwelt among us. Do you know that it literally says that he came and tabernacled? Have you heard of this? He came and tabernacled among us.

He is the traveling temple that comes to be with his people. He is the temple that was destroyed because of his people's rebellion. And he is the fulfillment of Ezekiel's great temple. It is in him that the water grows sweet. It is to him that the crowds come together. It is from him that the Spirit who brings life and healing flows.

He has Jesus cleared the temple so that he could reveal the temple because he is the temple. He is saying, "I am the temple, and God is going to judge your wickedness once again, but this time, this time, the wrath will fall on me." And when he says these words, when he says, "I am the temple," the signature of this, the meaning of this is so pregnant. It's captured.

The vibe of this is captured in the series that many of you watch and love called The Chosen, not this actual scene. And the scene that I want to show you is not itself canonical, but it is brilliant. There's a moment in the Chosen where the writers of this have done a masterful job of extracting out this idea that Jesus is the fulfillment. He is the point of basically everything in the Old Testament.

So this scene doesn't actually occur in the scriptures, but the theology of it and the import of it is just so on point. So take a look at this interaction where Jesus is having a similarly tense exchange about the claims he makes about himself.

You are a false prophet. That is why the thing to say, "Jesus, maybe we should leave."
That's right. His friend.
You cannot be involved.
You know what the Lord knows is. We are all his friends, Eren. We cannot say things like this. Jesus, stand up at once. Rabbi, please. Rabbi, come with Jesus in me. We will leave, and you can all continue to serve.
Rabbi Benjamin has asserted false prophecy, and I cannot argue.
You said you saw the miracle. He's saying only he can say this. He did not use those words. It's what I meant.
Jesus, you're not helping. Stop.
He's saying we are not the Holy Ones chosen. Now he did not say that. In words.
It's a book of Moses, but the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name, that I have not commanded him to speak, that same prophet shall die.
Rabbi Benjamin, I beg of you, not this, Nazareth.
It's my Jesus, they are going to.
Jesus, if you do not renounce your words, we will have no choice but to follow the law of Moses.

I am the law of Moses, I am the temple. Jesus, he knows exactly who he is. He is the giver of the law of Moses. He is the God that the law of Moses reveals. He is the keeper of the law of Moses. He will suffer the curse of the law of Moses. He is the entire thing. And he is the temple to which all temples point.

The Church as the Temple

We have seen the garden, the tabernacle, Solomon's temple, Ezekiel's temple that never gets built. It's a removable temple that was kind of a letdown. And then Jesus, who fulfills the temple. But there are actually two more, we're only up to six.

Second Corinthians 6:16 says,

"For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said, I will live with them and walk among them. I will be their God and they will be my temple."

You guys, he is the temple. And if you are hidden in him, then you also are temple. You are where God dwells by his Holy Spirit. He describes our union to him as being so close as that of a head to a body, of a husband to a wife, as a vine to a branch. He is the temple. And if we are united to him, then we become temple.

The Final Temple in Revelation

And then finally, the eighth, the final temple of which I am aware is in Revelation. Give me two more minutes, okay? Does anybody know, anybody remember the dimensions of the new Jerusalem when it comes down to the earth?

It is 12,000 Stadia-wide, 12,000 Stadia-long, or deep, what do you call that, in 12,000 Stadia-high, what's 1,400 miles, okay? 1,400 miles by 1,400 miles, that is a huge city, okay? That would be like everything with the Mississippi to the East Coast is one giant city. It's humongous. But that's just the two dimensions. The third dimension makes zero sense, okay? The city is 1,400 miles tall, okay? I looked this up, so if you know this, then you're weird.

But do you know how high the International Space Station is, like what's the altitude of that sucker as it orbits the earth? It's 250 miles off the sea level, okay? 250 miles to International Space Station. This city goes 1,400 miles up, okay? What in the world is he trying to say? What does that even mean? The atmosphere is like 50 miles thick, okay? What it means is this, everything in the Old Testament is a symbol, I'm sorry, everything in Revelation is a symbol drawn from the Old Testament. Every line of that thing is harkening back to something in the Old Testament.

It is a cube. It's 1,400 miles by 1,400 miles by 1,400 miles. There is exactly one cube in the Old Testament. What is it? The Holy of Holies. When the city comes, and it's this bizarre shape, what John is revealing to us is that when the city comes, it will be the temple. It will be the Holy of Holies, right?

It's a giant cube because it won't really be a temple because everything will be temple. Or we will be with him at last. Listen to how John wraps up this story in Revelation 21:22:

"I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God, the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of a sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb."

Then the angel showed me,

The river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city.
On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

Do you hear that Ezekiel 47 chapter right there? I'm telling you, it's one of the most important chapters in the Old Testament, right? But this time, this river, this magical river that brings life and healing and leaves and fruit and life. That's not flowing from a building, for the temple is the Lord and the Lamb. For the day is coming, they will all be His, and we will be His.

You guys, the one to whom the temple points, the one to whom all of the temple's points, has come. He's come to unite us to Himself that we might be temple, for the day is coming that all will be temple. And that is why Jesus cleared the temple. It's why He had the authority to clear the temple. In fact, remember the question that Jews asked Him to set this entire thing up. It was,

"Why do you have the authority to clear the temple?"

And His answer was,

"Because I am the temple."

It is all fulfilled in Him. One man fulfilled every major image in the Old Testament that all point to Him. One man fulfilled every story. He is the protagonist of every narrative. It all finds its completion in Him. One man kept the law and endured its curse in our stead and for our good. One man was destroyed to satisfy the wrath of God. He is the temple, and history finds its fulfillment in Him.

It was in His zeal for the Father that He got their attention so that He could reveal and pronounce that it is all fulfilled in Him. Amen?

Conclusion

Jesus, who is like you? Who could possibly bring a thousand strands together and to one ultimate purpose? You are the temple of the garden. You are the one for whom we were made and where joy is found. You are the one who suffered destruction to save us. You are the one who keeps the law. You are everything we need.

And Lord, I pray for those that are here today that have never really clicked for them how great you are—that history finds its culmination in you, that all things were created by you and for you, that we ourselves might live in you. Would you open their eyes to see how great and how beautiful and how good you are? Would you turn their hearts from worthless things that they might worship you? We love you, and men.