REV WILLEM GLASSHOUWER

Preparations for the rebuilding of the temple today are in full swing in all kinds of Jewish organisations. Among the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in the Qumran caves in 1952 was a copper scroll, which interpreters maintain lists 64 places where temple treasures are hidden or buried. Rabbi Goren insists that temple treasures are hidden deep under the Temple Mount. These treasures may even include the Ark of the Covenant, hidden since the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC.

The Institute of Talmudic Studies has already published more than 25 books about a new temple. The Temple Faithful regularly try to lay the cornerstone for the new temple, but are hindered by the Israeli authorities. A large number of Israelis with the appropriate genealogy are being instructed in priestly duties in yeshivas (Jewish schools of learning). The Temple Institute has woven the prescribed priestly garments. Funds have been earmarked for the temple. When the time comes, the building can be erected very quickly.

Many Prophetic Scenarios
Some expositors maintain that the new temple could even be built within a period of eight months. In support of this, they say that the Bible teaches that a future Antichrist’ will reign for seven years.

Shortly after he comes to power, he will stop the ongoing sacrifices, and desecrate the temple. Daniel says: “…Then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to him: ‘How long will it take for the vision to be fulfilled—the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, the rebellion that causes desolation, and the surrender of the sanctuary and of the host that will be trampled underfoot?’ He said to me, ‘It will take 2,300 evenings and mornings; then the sanctuary will be re-consecrated…’” (Daniel 8:13-14) So for about six years and four months this temple will be desecrated.

Add eight months for the building of this temple, and one gets seven years. But this can only be the case if the start of the building of the new temple coincides with the rise of Antichrist.

Could this possibly be the temple to which the Lord Jesus referred when He mentioned the abomination that causes desolation standing in the holy place (Matthew 24:15; Daniel 9:2, 11:31, 12:11)? A temple in which sometime during this “week” (a period of seven years?), a prince, a ruler, will put an end to the revived practice of sacrifice and grain offerings, Daniel 9:27? Various scenarios can be thought of. Consent for the building of this temple could be part of a seven-year agreement, a peace treaty, which this “prince” might conclude with Israel. Were such a seven-year pact ever to be made, the temple could be rebuilt in eight months and the sacrifices resumed. Of course, the preparations for the actual building of this temple would take much longer; but even today people in Israel are already at work to prepare for the rebuilding of the temple.

How might such an agreement with a world leader come about?
Again, many scenarios are feasible. It might be the ending to a war that has taken place. The war might be one in which the Islamic world fought, or tried to fight with Israel. Prophecies still unfulfilled speak of an alliance of all the surrounding nations against Israel, (Psalm 83:1-8) and of the sudden destruction of Damascus (in Syria, Isaiah 17:1-3). Egypt will one day tremble for what the hand of the Lord will do to them through tiny Judah, Isaiah 19:16-17. Ezekiel 38-39 speak of an invasion from the north by Gog (the leader of Russia?) along with the allies mentioned in Ezekiel 38:5-6, who may be identified as Iran, Afghanistan, Libya, Turkey, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Iraq. Syria, Egypt and Jordan are not mentioned in the list so it may be that devastating battles had already taken place. Whatever the details of the case, the final peace agreement might include an agreement that will make the rebuilding of the Jewish temple a real possibility.

Where might this new temple be built? Could it be between the two mosques on the Temple Mount, as a symbol of the brotherhood of religions? Would it have the approval of the Christian world? Could the Temple Mount and the Islamic, Christian, and Jewish holy places in Jerusalem be placed under an International Religious Committee installed by the United Nations and placed under the rotating chairmanship of a Jew, a Muslim and a Christian? Anything is feasible. One can imagine many possible scenarios. An earthquake, or bombs dropped on the mosques in a future war in the Middle East, might do the trick to even remove the two mosques.

Paul says that the Antichrist will reveal himself in a temple and claim to be a god, 2 Thessalonians 2:4. John says that the outer court of the temple will be trodden under foot by the Gentiles (Revelation 11:2) for 42 months. But John also refers to this temple as a temple of God in which true prayer takes place, Revelation 11:1. Jesus, Paul, and John all speak about a temple. But do they mean a literal temple?

Or do they mean the Church? Jews hope and pray for the rebuilding of the temple in order to revive the heart of the Jewish religion. But it may well be that such a temple will then quickly be desecrated by the man of sin, a man who wants to be like God. That was the temptation presented by Satan in the first book of the Bible. “You will be like God,” he said, “when you disobey God’s instructions.” The final revelation of Satan is in this man of perdition, the Antichrist, who sets himself upon the throne of God in the temple. It is impossible to imagine a greater abomination in the Holy Place than this one.

But does this necessarily refer to a literally rebuilt temple? By the way, is there a spiritual lesson here for the Christian Church, even before
these prophetic words might literally be fulfilled? Sometimes in the New Testament the Church is called a temple, or a spiritual house, or a body. We have seen the rise of humanistic theology in the Christian Church, whereby everything revolves around man considering himself to be a god in the depth of his inner being. Man, who thinks that because of the divine spark within he is like god, and therefore wants to decide for himself about good and evil without recourse to any outside authority. Is not this a kind of fulfillment of these prophecies?

Is Christianity already engaged in a kind of idolatry: worshipping man, rather than God? Where that is the case, she will end up being part of the false church of the end-time.

Another possible interpretation of the passage in Matthew 24:15 is that we may not have to wait for a literal temple to be rebuilt in Jerusalem and then defiled by a historic figure, the Antichrist. Maybe the “abomination that causes desolation” is already there. Islam rules in the holy place. Jesus did not use the word “temple” but spoke of the “holy place,” which could well be Mount Zion itself. Hatred and violence against the Jews (and Christians) are preached in the Islamic mosques on Mount Zion—hatred and violence that could eventually lead to more and more destruction. Hatred that might lead one day to a “jihad” (holy war) against Israel, a war so powerful and destructive that Jesus advises the Jews to flee in his eschatological preaching on the Mount of Olives (Matthew 24).

The desecration of this possible third temple (when you stick to the literal scenario) will cease when the Messiah himself (Jesus Christ) finally appears. Then the Holy Place will be properly restored, Daniel 8:14. Sometimes I think, “The more people are starting to talk about the rebuilding of the temple, the closer we come to the return of Christ!”

The Temple of Ezekiel
The second temple of Zerubbabel was enlarged and embellished by Herod the Great, so much so that Herod’s structure is sometimes called the third temple. Could a ‘third’ temple even lead to a ‘fourth’ temple in the same way? That seems not to be the case. The next temple, the last and final one as described in Ezekiel 40 to 48, describes a temple complex that will exist after Gog and his allies are defeated on the mountains of Israel. Their defeat is described in Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39. A possible ‘third’ temple of the Antichrist apparently exists only briefly and will probably be destroyed in the final battle and earthquakes around Jerusalem. If it is ever built, it will be merely that will eventually probably go up in smoke, like Bar Kochba’s temple.

Depending on whether or not one believes in a literal ‘third’ Temple to be built in order that Antichrist can sit in it, the final temple of Ezekiel will either be the ‘fourth’ temple—or the ‘third.’ This seems to be located in a different place to the third temple. Some even claim that this one will not even be on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, but far outside the actual city, near Shiloh where the tabernacle stood for 400 years. Zechariah says that Jerusalem will continue to be in its own place (Zechariah 12:6), but the area to the south will become a plain (Zechariah 14:10) while the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains and will be raised above the hills (Isaiah 2:2).

These details mean that the geography in and around Jerusalem will probably change. The Mount of Olives will split in two, Zechariah 14:4. Jerusalem will be hit by an earthquake (Revelation 11:13) but in the end it will be an open place (Zechariah 2:4-5), no protective walls of any sort will be needed because there will be peace. The Prince of Peace will be there. No matter how dark history may yet become for the world and for the Middle East, Israel is on the way to her rest. He will come to give her rest. And the Lord will have his resting-place there forever, Psalm 132:14.

Just as Israel is on the way to her rest centred on an earthly Jerusalem, so the Church is on her way to rest in the heavenly Jerusalem, Hebrews 12:22-24. But one day that heavenly Jerusalem will descend to earth, when a new heaven and a new earth are formed, where righteousness will dwell (2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21-22:5). One can only speculate about the relationship between the two Jerusalems in the messianic kingdom of peace, (Revelation 20:1-10; Zechariah 14:8-21).

What we can be sure of is that ultimately God will be Jesus! (Revelation 22:20; 1 Corinthians 16:22)

No New Temple?
The final question is whether the evidence offered above is sufficient to necessitate the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem before Jesus returns. Can the texts of Jesus’ discourse about the last days, the letters of Paul, and John’s revelation of Jesus Christ be spiritually interpreted? Is it possible that the concept of a temple refers to the Church, a Christendom governed by anti-Christian thinking, like the “goddess of reason” who was worshipped in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris during the French Revolution? It certainly is possible. It is necessary to examine these passages for spiritual lessons too. But such lessons do not preclude a literal rebuilding of the temple. So many prophecies have been fulfilled literally since Israel’s restoration to the Promised Land in the last century that such a thing should not surprise us at all, regardless of the problems it poses for Christian theology.

Moreover, realising that the new temple that may be built in Jerusalem will quickly be defiled also offers us a personal spiritual lesson. We, too, need to be on the alert lest our bodies, which are the temples of the Holy Spirit, be desecrated by excessive alcohol, or drugs, or gluttony and obesity, or by exhausting ourselves through a lack of proper rest, or excessive stress, or bitterness, or other sins of the flesh. And the Church, which is our spiritual home, can also be filled with anti-Christian theology and philosophies that centre on fallen man. We are all called to be watchmen on the walls—both on the walls of the earthly Jerusalem, and on the walls of the Church. Like Ezra and Nehemiah and their men when they were rebuilding the city of Jerusalem and the temple, we need to keep watch both in prayer and by concrete action.