Temple Special

 

Psalm 132:13 NASB “For the LORD has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His habitation.” Here Zion doesn’t simply refer to the temple mount, it probably stands for all of Israel. The word “Zion” can refer at different times and different places to either the old city of David or the temple mount, but it emphasises the fact that God desires it for a dwelling place.

 

Psalm 87:2 NASB “The LORD loves the gates of Zion More than all the {other} dwelling places of Jacob.” When you come to Jerusalem there is a realisation that this is where the Shekinah was. This is where God dwelt among men, both in terms of the Old Testament and in terms of the New Testament with the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

1 Kings 8:1 NASB “Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the fathers’ {households} of the sons of Israel, to King Solomon in Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of the LORD from the city of David, which is Zion.”

 

From the very beginning God creates Adam and Eve and places them in the garden, and what does he do? On a daily basis he comes and spends time with His creatures. He walks with them. Genesis 3:8, just after they sinned, NASB “They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day …” This was presented as normal procedure. God would come every day and spend time teaching, talking; they had the presence of God in the garden. The next verse we come to that teaches us something about this is Genesis 6:3 NASB “Then the LORD said, ‘My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years’.” This immediately precedes the flood. There is an interesting word here that is usually translated in the KJV and NKJV as “strive.” The word “Spirit” is simply a reference to Himself, it is not a technical term here for the Holy Spirit. The Hebrew word that is translated “strive” here was a hapax legomena, a word that is only used one time in all of the Hebrew Old Testament. The translators basically guessed at what that meant and it led people to guess that it had to do with an antagonistic relationship. But that is not what is going on there. The modern discoveries of cognate languages indicates that the core meaning of the root of this word has to do with abide. It is very likely that the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, stayed in the garden of Eden. There was the presence of God in the garden of Eden throughout the entire period up to the flood. This is why there was no delegation of human government to man until after the flood. Who was adjudicating criminality prior to the flood? God at the garden of Eden. There was a guard posted around the garden of Eden but man would meet with God there for the judicial decisions. God was still present but he was going to leave at the time of that judgment. He will return with relationship to His special people, Israel, and this occurred in Exodus chapter 40 when the tabernacle was built. The word tabernacle means a dwelling place. Exodus 40:34, 35 NASB “Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.” So there was this visible presence of God and that is usually referred to as the Shekinah, derived from the Hebrew word shaken meaning to dwell. It is not used in the Old Testament, it is a term that was developed by the Rabbis after the Jews returned from the Babylonian captivity to refer to this dwelling presence of God earlier in the Old Testament. The word comes over into the Greek as skene [skhnh], the word that we find in John 1:14.

 

There are basically four periods of history related to the tabernacle and the temple in the Old Testament. The first was the tabernacle which was constructed after that first year after the exodus. The first temple is built by Solomon and this is dedicated in 966 BC, and that is referred to as the first temple period. Then there was the seventy-year captivity, after which there is a return in 536 and the second temple is constructed and dedicated in 516 BC. That is the second temple, the Zerubbabel temple. This entire period is referred to as the second temple period, even though there were two different temples, the Zerubbabel temple and then its reconstruction by Herod which was finished about AD 64.

 

When the first temple was built Solomon dedicated it. 1 Kings 8:10, 11 NASB “It happened that when the priests came from the holy place, the cloud filled the house of the LORD, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD.” This is the starting point and the presence of the Lord is there until Ezekiel sees the glory depart from the temple. Ezekiel 9:3 NASBThen the glory of the God of Israel went up from the cherub on which it had been, to the threshold of the temple… [10:4] Then the glory of the LORD went up from the cherub to the threshold of the temple, and the temple was filled with the cloud and the court was filled with the brightness of the glory of the LORD…. [11:23] The glory of the LORD went up from the midst of the city and stood over the mountain which is east of the city.”

 

The next time we have the dwelling presence in John 1:14 NASB “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt [skhnh/tabernacled] among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” So there was the dwelling presence of God again with His people in the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was crucified, resurrected, ascended and this was followed by the sending of the Holy Spirit. With the indwelling of the Holy Spirit we also have again the presence of God dwelling with His people. 1 Corinthians 3:16 NASB “Do you not know that you are a temple of God and {that} the Spirit of God dwells in you?” Then if we trace this all the way out to Revelation 22, in the new heavens and new earth God the Father will take up His dwelling with us. So there is this theme that runs all the way through. There is the temple of the Old Testament, the temple of the believer’s body, and then in the future millennial kingdom there will be the millennial temple that will be built.