Meditations in Matthew 27—Rebuilding the Temple

In Matthew 27 we have reached the zenith of prophetic revelation. Here, Jesus offers “one sacrifice for sins forever” (Heb 10:12a NKJV) in the “last days” (Heb 1:2) of the Mosaic age. After his resurrection in Matthew 28, Jesus “sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool” (Heb 10:12b–13 NKJV). This is his messianic age reign. 

The crucifixion is the hinge on which all prophecy turns. At this pivotal moment, the apostate Jews mocked Jesus as he hung on the cross:

Those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads and saying, “You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” (Matt 27:39–40 NKJV; emphasis added)

This post will make two points. Jesus had promised to destroy the Temple. He had also promised to rebuild it.

The Temple’s Destruction

Jesus’s conflict with the apostate Jews centered on the Temple’s destruction. “The temple was the singular point on which Israel fixed its national hopes and from which it derived its national identity. The temple was the balance on which Israel’s fortunes hung.”¹ If Jesus destroyed the Temple, he would destroy Israel.

Jesus had threatened the Temple from the start of his ministry. In “probably A.D. 27,”² Jesus cleansed the Temple for the first time (John 2:13–16). 

Then His disciples remembered that the prophets had written, “Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.” So the Jews answered and said to Him, “What sign do You show to us, since You do these things?”

Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 

Then the Jews said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?” But He was speaking of the temple of His body. Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said. (John 2:17–22 NKJV; emphasis added)

Jesus’s casting out of the money changers set the tone for the rest of his ministry. 

This conflict came to the forefront at the end of Jesus’s ministry. On Tuesday of Passion Week (AD 30), he witnessed against the Temple. He told the Jews, “See! Your house (i.e., the Temple) is left to you desolate” (Matt 23:38 NKJV). This desolation would occur in their generation (Matt 23:36). 

Later that day, Jesus amplified his Temple message. In the prelude to his Olivet Discourse, he said, “Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (Matt 24:2 NKJV). 

The disciples understood the significance of this event. It would mark the end of the Mosaic age (Matt 24:3). Jesus said this would happen in their generation (Matt 24:34). 

Jesus’s stance regarding the Temple was at the center of the Jew’s case against him at his trial. Two false witnesses testified, “This fellow said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days’” (Matt 26:61 NKJV). They said, “We heard Him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands’” (Mark 14:58 NKJV). 

The Jews convicted Jesus and crucified him because he threatened their Temple. 

After Jesus’s resurrection, the Jews continued to persecute his followers for the same reason. They produced false witnesses against Stephen, a deacon in the early church. These witnesses said, “This man does not cease to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law; for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place (i.e., Jerusalem and the Temple) and change the customs which Moses delivered to us” (Acts 6:13–14 NKJV). 

Stephen lost his life for the same “crime” Jesus had committed. They both had predicted God’s judgment of the Temple.

The consciousness of the Temple’s coming destruction was at the heart of Christian life in the early church. These Christians knew God’s wrath had come upon the Jews to the uttermost (1 Thess 2:16).

The Temple was still standing in their day. But the Apostles taught them it was “symbolic for the present time (i.e., the Mosaic age) in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered … until the time of reformation (Heb 9:9–10 NKJV). 

In a little while, Jesus would return to destroy the Temple and establish the new-age reformation (Heb 10:37).

Rebuilding the Temple

All Christians believe in the rebuilding of the Temple.³ We recognize that the Olivet Discourse “is not simply about the Temple’s destruction; it also concerns its replacement.”⁴ “If the old order was on its way out, that meant that a new order, a new temple, was on its way in.”⁵

But we disagree regarding how God will rebuild the Temple. Some sincere Christians believe the Jews will rebuild the physical Temple with God’s blessings. Jesus will then reign from there during the millennium.

Inmillennialism says this is an error that results from inaccurate prophetic models. These models make a logical deduction. The “great tribulation” is in our future. During that time, the daily sacrifices will cease (e.g., Dan 12:11). These sacrifices require a physical Temple. Therefore, a third Temple must stand to allow the fulfillment of this prophecy. At some point, God will allow the Jews to build it.

This deduction arises from a mistake. Jesus placed the “great tribulation” in his generation (Matt 24:21, 34). The daily sacrifices ceased in AD 70, just as he predicted. There is no Scriptural promise for the rebuilding of a physical Temple. Animal sacrifices will not resume with God’s blessing in the future.

What did Jesus mean when he promised to rebuild the Temple? To answer, we must remember a key point. “He was speaking of the temple of His body. Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said” (John 2:21–22 NKJV). 

“Persuaded that Jesus Christ was risen and that the Spirit had been poured out on the Church, the first Christians interpreted these events as proof positive that God would indeed complete the final temple at the end of the ages, but—in distinction from surrounding Judaism—that this final rebuilding was now taking place within history.”⁶

The new Temple comprises more than Jesus’s physical body. It is his spiritual body, the local church. Paul told the Corinthians that they were now the Temple of God. He said, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are (1 Cor 3:16–17 NKJV; emphasis added). 

While encouraging this church to live holy lives, Paul says, 

And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell in them And walk among them. I will be their God, And they shall be My people.” Therefore “Come out from among them And be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, And I will receive you.” “I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the LORD Almighty.” (2 Cor 6:16–18 NKJV)

Christians are members of God’s rebuilt Temple. That is why Peter said, “you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Pet 2:5 NKJV). Jesus left the Jews’ house desolate (Matt 23:38). But, he erected another house/Temple—his church (cp. 1 Tim 3:5, 15).

The early Christians believed the Old Testament prophets had foreseen this messianic-age Temple. After Peter and Paul had given reports to the church at Jerusalem about their Gentile converts, 

James answered, saying, “Men and brethren, listen to me: Simon has declared how God at the first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written: ‘After this I will return And will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down; I will rebuild its ruins, And I will set it up; So that the rest of mankind may seek the LORD, Even all the Gentiles who are called by My name, Says the LORD who does all these things.’” (Acts 15:13–17 NKJV)

The messianic-age church is the rebuilt Temple of God. This is the only understanding that accounts for what Jesus said to the churches in Revelation. “He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God (Rev 3:12 NKJV). Living saints make poor pillars in physical temples, but they make wonderful pillars in the spiritual Temple!

The Jews will not build a physical Temple with God’s blessing. God has already built the spiritual Temple through Christ’s resurrection. He is now adding living stones to it. 

The eschatological—“last days”—Temple is a present spiritual reality!

Conclusion

Our prophetic model matters. It should lead us to appreciate what God has done regarding the Temple. The physical Temple’s destruction formed the heart of Jesus’s conflict with the apostate Jews. Its destruction was necessary to establish Christ’s messianic-age kingdom.

Some prophetic models encourage a longing for a rebuilt physical Temple. Only when it is completed, they say, will God’s redemptive plan for the Jews move forward. This perverts God’s plan. God has destroyed the physical Temple and replaced it with the true Temple it symbolized.

We misunderstand the gospel if we misunderstand this transition. God’s aim for our (messianic) age is not to prepare for the rebuilding of the physical Temple. It is to complete construction on the final Temple already in existence. This will happen when he puts the last “living stone” in its place.

1. Nicholas Perrin, Jesus the Temple (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010), 8.
2. A. T. Robertson, A Harmony of the Gospels for Students of the Life of Christ (New York: Harper, 1922), 25.
3. The image in this post is The Descent from the Cross by Peter Paul Rubens  (1577–1640). This file (here) is in the public domain (PD-US).
4. Peter W. L. Walker, Jesus and the Holy City: New Testament Perspectives on Jerusalem (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans, 1996), 9.
5. Perrin, Jesus the Temple, 37.
6. Perrin, Jesus the Temple, 49.