In this series of blogs, we’ve set out to answer tricky questions raised by the ongoing conflict in Israel. The large majority of Israel’s population are, of course, ethnically Jewish. But many people don’t realize that Israel has a sizable Arab minority of 21%.
Virtually all ethnic Jews living in Israel consider themselves religiously Jewish – at least in a broad sense. However, roughly half are secular Jews, engaging in little or no religious activity. The other half generally observe Jewish religious practices such as Sabbath-keeping, fasting on Yom Kippur & following Jewish dietary laws. This latter group would include Orthodox & Ultra-Orthodox Jews, which account for 22% of Israeli Jews.
Last week we saw how the Apostle Paul developed two distinct categories under the title of “Israel.” The first group was “Israel according to the flesh,” ethnic Jews who are the physical descendants of Jacob. But in light of the resurrection, Paul recognized that God had dramatically redefined Israel. The true people of God now consist of all people who have given their allegiance to Jesus the Messiah.
Paul suffered great anguish when he reflected on the plight of unbelieving Jews. They had rejected their rightful king and forsaken their covenant God. Unless they experienced a dramatic change of heart, they would face certain wrath.
Many modern Christians struggle to grasp these realities. They seem to be under the impression that God has two functioning covenants, one with the church and another with ethnic Israel. Every time there’s turmoil in the Middle East, this crowd gets to talking about the possibility of Israel being restored to her former glory under Kings David and Solomon. There’s even anticipation of the Jewish Temple being rebuilt, and the Old Testament sacrifices reestablished.
Such talk ought to be anathema to Christians. Paul (& the other New Testament writers) makes it crystal clear that for both Jews and Gentiles, there is only one covenant & one route to salvation – through loyalty to Jesus. The Jewish temple is now wholly irrelevant to the purposes of God.
The first Jewish temple was completed by King Solomon in about 950 BC. This magnificent edifice stood as the beating heart of the nation of Israel for almost 400 years. The temple was razed and burned to the ground in 586 BC when King Nebuchadnezzar & the Babylonian armies destroyed Jerusalem. Many of the Jews who survived this calamity were thrust into exile in Babylon.
In 539 BC, Cyrus the Great, the king of Persia, conquered the city of Babylon; the Babylonian realm was then incorporated into the Persian Empire.
The book of Ezra recounts how “the LORD moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation.” The monarch announced: “The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Anyone of his people…let him go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the LORD, the God of Israel.” Ezra records that over forty thousand Jews took this opportunity to return to their ancestral homeland.
The Jews who returned from exile faced substantial hardship. Led by a man named Zerubbabel, they ultimately succeeded in rebuilding the temple in 515 BC. But Ezra makes it clear that this second temple was much less grand than Solomon’s original.
Centuries later, in 20 BC, Herod the Great revealed his plans to essentially rebuild the temple. The king endeavored to produce a structure of unsurpassed beauty and brilliance and in this effort he apparently succeeded. Herod hired 10,000 men to expeditiously construct the new temple, which was completed in only a year and a half. (Somewhat confusingly, historians refer to both Zerubbabel’s temple and Herod’s temple as “the second temple.”)
Moreover, Herod greatly enlarged the surrounding temple plaza, which would eventually cover 36 acres! Work on the Temple Mount would continue even long after Herod’s death in 4 BC.
Herod’s temple became one of wonders of the ancient world. The historian Josephus described it in this way: “The exterior of the building lacked nothing that could astound either mind or eye…to approaching strangers it appeared from a distance like a snow-clad mountain; for all that was not over laid with gold was of purest white.”
Like most all visitors, Jesus’ disciples were dazzled by the temple. One of them exclaimed, “Look teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!”
The Lord Jesus, however, did not share this enthusiasm. In his eyes, God’s anger was bearing down upon Israel. Jesus memorably prophesied: “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” He indicated that this cataclysmic event would transpire within a generation.
The seething resentment the Jews felt against the Romans culminated in 66 AD with the outbreak of the Great Jewish Revolt. The Roman general Vespasian led four legions against the rebels. His armies scored a number of victories and drove the Jews back to Jerusalem. When Vespasian departed for Rome to become emperor, he left his son Titus in command of the Roman forces, which subsequently laid siege to Jerusalem. In 70 AD, the Romans breached the walls and entered the city. The legions completely demolished the temple, thoroughly vindicating Jesus’ dark prophecy.
In 692 AD, Muslim conquerors erected the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount. This shrine remains to this day, exactly where the temple stood. The bronze dome covers a stone which, according to tradition, is the very place where Abraham nearly sacrificed his son Isaac (or Ishmael in the Muslim tradition). It is also said that the stone was the place where God began to create the world and formed Adam the first human being. Muslims believe that this was the site from which the prophet Muhammad ascended into heaven.
Today, the Western Wall is considered the holiest site in Judaism. This wall was never part of the temple itself. Rather, it’s the remnant of the massive retaining wall constructed by Herod two millennia ago, supporting the southwestern portion of the temple plaza. Jews pray at the Western Wall because of its close proximity to the former temple. Fascinatingly, Orthodox Jews are forbidden from entering the Temple Mount itself, lest they accidentally tread upon the place where the holy of holies once stood!
What should Christians think about this whole subject? For a thousand years, the temple was central to the life of God’s people. The Old Testament describes how the Shekinah – the glorious presence of the one true God – came to dwell in the temple, living among the people of Israel. The creator was said to be enthroned just above the ark of the covenant in the holy of holies. From here God governed the entire cosmos! The temple was also the place of sacrifice, where Israel might make atonement for her sins and receive God’s forgiveness.
The first Christians firmly believed that everything that the temple did and stood for had been fulfilled by the person of Jesus the Messiah. The temple was the place of God’s presence. For Christians, Jesus is the true embodiment of the living God; he is the place of God’s presence.
The prelude of John’s gospel explicitly equates Jesus with the divine logos – the Word which was with God and was God. John writes, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only who came from the Father.”
When John speaks of the Word “dwelling among us,” he uses precisely the same language Israel used to speak of God dwelling in the temple. Likewise, when describing the glory of Jesus, John uses exactly the same language used in the Old Testament to portray the glorious presence of God.
This presence manifested itself as a pillar of cloud and fire when God led the children of Israel out of Egypt. Eventually, the divine presence came to rest in Solomon’s temple: “The Glory of the LORD filled the temple. The priests could not enter the temple of the LORD because the glory of the LORD filled it.”
It must have been amazing for Israel to witness God’s glory descend upon the temple. Yet for all its beauty and power, the temple has been far, far surpassed by the person of Jesus.
