“Christ the Temple”
(Matthew 24:1-8, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, June 8, 2008)
Matthew 24:1-8 Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. 2 But he answered them, "You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down." 3 As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?" 4 And Jesus answered them, "See that no one leads you astray. 5 For many will come in my name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and they will lead many astray. 6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.
Introduction – The story of the temple
Everyone knows that there is a God. Romans 1 tells us that. Everyone knows that the beauty and order of this world had to have a starting point, and the starting point could not have been nothing. Nothing cannot produce something. The starting point actually has to be someone rather than an inanimate something, because intelligence is required in order to produce a world of such great complexity. Human beings are a wonder. We long for something more. At least in some sense, we long for communion with this Being that we reason must exist. The story of the temple is an answer to that longing in man.
Temple is the place where God dwells with man. This is the place where He chooses to make Himself known to us. It is first a place in heaven where God dwells. The Lord is in His holy temple. In that heavenly sanctuary He hears the cries of His people. Power goes out from there and changes things here. God authorized the building of an earthly moving tabernacle, and then later a stationary temple on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, according to a heavenly pattern. God made it a place of assembly, a place of peace with God. The Lord showed us what communion with Him costs by making it a place of animal sacrifice, ultimately fulfilled in the blood of a perfect Substitute who would take away our sin and make peace for us with God. The temple was a place of praise, because when there is peace with God through a perfect sacrifice, the people will be restored to the right posture of worshippers who have the privilege of being in the presence of One who is very far above them. They worship in His temple not by compulsion, but by delight.
The story of “temple” is complex and varied. Let me give you some of the high points. It moves from God’s eternal dwelling in the heavens, to the Garden of Eden, to the Ark of Noah, to the tabernacle moving through the wilderness, to the building on the top of Mount Zion, to the vision of Ezekiel when in exile in Babylon of a glorious new temple in a new Jerusalem, to the gathering of God’s worshipping people during the New Covenant, and ultimately to the descending of an eternal heavenly dwelling of God upon a gloriously new heaven and earth with no more sin. The story of the temple is the story of the Bible. The story of the temple is the story of the longing of man to be with God, and the determination of God to glorify His holy Name by answering that longing.
The death of the temple (1-2)
You don’t have to look long at a rendering of Jerusalem from the time of Jesus in order to see the obvious point that, despite all the other interesting and impressive places in the city (the fortress of Antonia, the Hasmonean Palace, the Hippodrome, the Theater, even Herod’s Palace), the Old Testament temple towered above them all by far. I had never even heard about some of the other places that I just mentioned until I began to prepare this message. Have you ever heard of the Hippodrome? It was built like a Roman circus as a place for chariot races. I don’t know if Jesus ever went to the Hippodrome or to the Jerusalem Theater, but I know that He went to the temple.
You did not have to be religious to be impressed with the temple. Anyone new to Jerusalem and just walking around the city would have said, “Wow! What is that!” The disciples had been to the temple. All men were commanded to come to the temple at least three times pre year for the most important festivals. It was impressive to look at. The position of it on the highest point and the towering structure above all the other smaller buildings, the wall, the courts, the open space on the inside that would have drawn you in to the main building itself, all these were impressive. Nonetheless we tend to say nothing about the familiar, even when the familiar is amazing. Yet the disciples do say something about it. Like everything else that happens between Matthew 21 and the end of this gospel this must be for a reason. There is not one detail in this last week before the cross and the resurrection of Christ that is accidental. They brought up the wonder of the temple because Jesus has something to say about the destruction of this great building. Jesus says in verse 2 literally, “There shall not be left here stone upon stone.”
In the temple there was a curtain separating the Most Holy Place from the rest of the temple. Only the High Priest could go into that area behind the curtain, only once per year, and only with blood. In just a few days something amazing is going to happen and that curtain of the temple will be torn in two from top to bottom. Less than forty years after this point the temple will be destroyed by the Romans, and their will be a complete cessation of the entire Old Testament sacrificial system. It is not as if people today don’t care about the area today. In 2007 some rabbis entered the Temple Mount, which is not allowed by the chief religious authorities in Israel today. An editorial in one newspaper criticized these rabbis of “knowingly and irresponsibly bringing a burning torch closer to the most flammable hill in the Middle East.” Are people interested in the Temple Mount even today? Most definitely, though the temple in Jerusalem “died” as a living structure nearly two thousand years ago, just as Jesus had said.
When will these things be… the sign of the end of the age? (3)
When the disciples hear the Lord speak about the death of the temple, they have two questions. They may think that they only have one, but the chapter that follows is the answer to two questions. The first is, “When will these things be?” meaning the death of the temple. The second is, “What will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?” They seem to connect the return of Christ with the end of the age. It is a fact that when our Lord returns, one age will be over and a new age will have fully come. Though the destruction of the temple may seem less important to us, you can be sure that it is very important to them. This event will also mark the ending of an age. The Old Covenant system of the Law with all the rules of animal sacrifice will be finished when it is no longer possible to do temple worship, that is, when the temple itself is gone.
See that no one leads you astray (4-5)
We will spend several weeks looking at the Lord’s answer to these two questions. He begins by warning His disciples about false Christs. The disciples are primarily interested in the temple. His answer is first about the Christ or Messiah. This is interesting, because we know that the true Christ is the new Temple. There will be those who will try to present themselves as the Messiah. They will be leading people astray. They will not be the true dwelling place of God. They are imposters, and there will be many of them. By speaking about many false Christs that will lead many astray, we have some indication that there will be enough time for that prediction to happen. In other words, this is not going to be all over until there have been many false Christs, and this succession of varied liars each needs enough time to lead many people astray. That has proven to take time. The warning for the disciples is that they need to be careful not to be among those who are led astray by these false Messiah figures.
The birth of the new temple (6-8)
There will also be wars, rumors of wars, nations coming and going, famines, and earthquakes happening in various places. If you consider these events, you are right to conclude that such things normally take time as well. The point that Christ is making here is that these things are NOT the sign of His return. It is amazing that so many people have seen these as revelatory signs of the return of Christ, when He says here very directly that while these things must take place, “the end is not yet.” They are called here “birth pains” and we need to pay attention to them.
Since the beginning of the New Testament era there have been many earthquakes, wars, and famines. This tells us that we have been through a long period of birth pains. A woman has labor pains when a child is about to be born. The child that Jesus speaks of is the coming age of resurrection. Jesus is saying here that we will be feeling the birth pains of that coming new age until a new Day is finally born. That birth will not fully happen until Christ returns.
That coming day is the day of a new Temple. Jesus came as the new Temple of God full of the Holy Spirit, and we are the new temple of God in Him, for we too are said to be a place where God’s Spirit dwells. Ezekiel spoke of a coming future temple where a river would flow out from that place. In the middle of one of the feasts Jesus went up into the old temple and began teaching. He cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” (John 7:38) The Apostle John goes on to add this, “Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” Have you received this gift?
At the end of the Bible we are told of a new glorious temple/city. This is what John says in Revelation 21:22. “And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.” Jesus is the Temple. The temple had to die, and He did that for us. In John 2:19 Jesus said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” When Jesus died, it was an announcement of the death of the Old Testament system, but it was also the death of the One who was full of the presence of God without measure. When the Temple died a new Temple in Him began to be born with His resurrection. You absolutely need to be part of that Temple. Don’t let yourself get too distracted by the Hippodrome. You need to be born spiritually now. That’s why you’re feeling those birth pains.
Questions for meditation and discussion:
1. Why would the disciples of Jesus be pointing out the temple to Him? What makes it so impressive?
2. What is going to happen to the temple? When will that happen?
3. What were the disciples’ two questions? Did they know that they were asking two questions?
4. How does Jesus’ begin to answer their questions? Why does He start with these points?
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