What is the significance of the temple in relation to Jesus' teachings and actions? What is the intention of a temple? Where is the temple today? When Jesus died on the cross, the curtain was torn in the temple, what does that mean?
Looking at Jesus and the Temple
By Tanja Tuovinen
Sometimes, it takes a long time to build something significant, like a city, a house, or even a temple. As the saying goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day!” The destruction of beautiful, prestigious buildings can be unimaginable and disappointing, especially when caused by natural disasters or other sudden events. Nature is wild and often untamable, with rough waves crashing on the beach or land during a cyclone or tsunami. Jesus, who once calmed a storm, also shocked the Jewish priests at the temple in Jerusalem with His remark: “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” (John 2:19)
The priests were astounded. Their thoughts and conversations might have sounded like this: “What is Jesus talking about? Doesn’t He know how much thought and energy went into building the temple? All the instructions that God Himself gave about it, and how much time it took! Why get rid of it? How dare He say that about our holy place! God lives there. Does He not know that?”
God’s house is a house of prayer, a house of worship and a place where you can freely come and worship God to be in His presence. Like Psalms, 84:10 says, “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere.” God doesn’t mind what nationality you are; all are welcome in the house of the Lord to worship Him.
The four Gospels record Jesus going to the temple and rebuking the disorder He witnessed there. (Matthew 21:12-17; Mark 11:27-33; Luke 19:45-20:8; John 2:13-25) The first three accounts line up with the story of Jesus’ passion, yet the Gospel of John’s account could be at the beginning of His ministry, making it possible that there could have been two times that this incident occurred.[1]
Jesus spoke with authority about the temple to the chief priests, who intended to kill Him. He knew the temple was meant for prayer, worship, and displaying the glory of God. However, Jesus saw that the temple had become corrupted by the tricks of the trade. People came to worship God and to have their ritual of obtaining a faultless Passover lamb. Yet, the temple workers were taking advantage of them by adding extra costs, like surcharges, to get the best and finest lamb for Passover.
Jesus was furious! He rebuked what was happening in the temple and the priests who knew the law. “In Jesus’ view, the temple has become an excessively commercial enterprise, not a place of worship and prayer.”[2]
Yet Jesus was the lamb of God, the perfect lamb of God who would pay the sacrifice for sin once and for all. John the Baptist said about Jesus, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29)
When Jesus cleared the temple of the things He could not stand, He was confronted by the priests who asked, “Why do you have the authority to do this?” Jesus responded, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” (John 2:19). The priests were expecting proof of Jesus’ “messianic authority” and couldn’t grasp why He gave such a response, which seemed like a riddle. [3] They couldn’t imagine that the temple, which God had instructed them to build centuries before, would be destroyed. It stood beautifully and significantly in front of them, representing their faith. They wondered, “Why destroy it? Beautiful buildings should stay standing. How can they even be destroyed?”
What Jesus had said about the temple turned against Him, as the Jewish religious leaders used this as a reason to arrest Jesus and bring him on trial, which would eventually lead him to the cross.
We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with human hands and in three days will build another, not made with hands.’
(Mark 14:58)
The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for false evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death. But they did not find any, though many false witnesses came forward. Finally, two came forward and declared, “This fellow said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days.’
(Matthew 26:59-61)
No one understood what Jesus meant about destroying and rebuilding the temple in three days. It was only in the aftermath of Jesus’ death and resurrection that the Gospel writer of John was able to say what Jesus meant, the temple he was telling the priests about was his body.[4]
But did this sound like Jesus when He was rebuking and angry at the temple? Scholars say Jesus “was revealing as much of God on this occasion as he did at Calvary.”[5] “Christ’s anger was rooted in his reaction against the religious irreverence of the Jews toward God the Father.”[6] Jesus wasn’t happy about how the people were being ripped off just because they wanted to worship God, and He viewed the state of the temple as not representing respect and devotion to God’s glory.
In the same way that Solomon first built the temple and brought the ark of the covenant into it, God’s glory also came in.[7] “When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of the Lord. And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled his temple.” 1 Kings 8:10-11 The temple was meant for God’s glory to be present, “To glorify God was the very purpose of the temple.”[8] Jesus did not witness a house of prayer, worship, or a place where God’s glory was welcome.
The time that Jesus was at the temple was during Passover, when many Jewish people came to the temple. This included people who had physical ailments and children.[9] The Gospel of Matthew records that Jesus was healing the people who were blind and those who could not walk and that the children were singing, “Hosanna to the Son of David” (Matthew 21-14-15).
While Jesus was dying on the cross, people insulted Him and mocked His claim to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, questioning how He could do that now as He was dying (Matthew 27:39). Jesus was not only suffering physically but also enduring emotional abuse from the crowd. Little did they know what was happening. When the earth started shaking and darkness fell, even nature seemed to cry out, and things must have changed for them. “It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two” (Luke 23:44-45). The tearing of the curtain symbolized that there was now no barrier when approaching God, and the temple’s center had moved to the hearts of people.[10] Christians are the temple of God, where the Holy Spirit lives and dwells, as the following Scriptures state:
Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?
(1 Corinthians 3:16)
Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
(1 Corinthians 6:19-20)
God’s glory dwells in Christians. We are imitators of our Lord Jesus Christ, serving as the temple of the Lord. Is your temple a house of prayer and worship? The Jewish priests didn’t understand what Jesus meant when He spoke of the temple being destroyed. Jesus was referring to His body, which would bleed and die on the cross. Jesus is the Holy place, the Holy God. Jesus, who was nailed to the cross, buried, and entered death for the sake of sinful humanity, was the temple that had been destroyed. Yet, there was a rebuilding, as Jesus had victory over death and was raised to life. His body was resurrected. Jesus is our most Holy place, God is our center of worship, and His Spirit lives inside every Christian believer. As a Christian, you have the Spirit of the living God inside you. You reflect His glory, and people will see God’s light within you.
[1] Robert H. Mounce, Matthew, Understanding the Bible Commentary Ser (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1990), 152.
[2] Darrell L. Bock, Luke: The NIV Application Commentary from Biblical Text–to Contemporary Life, The NIV Application Commentary Series (Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan Pub. House, 1996), 500.
[3] J. Ramsey Michaels, John, Understanding the Bible Commentary Ser (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1989), 50.
[4] Michaels, 51.
[5] R. Kent Hughes, John (ESV Edition): That You May Believe, Preaching the Word (Wheaton: Crossway, 2014).
[6] Hughes.
[7] Hughes.
[8] Hughes.
[9] Mounce, Matthew.
[10] NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible: Follow God’s Redemptive Plan as It Unfolds throughout Scripture [Previously Published as NIV Zondervan Study Bible] (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2018), 1881.
