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The Glory Of The Temple
The Glory Of The Temple
Solomon's temple was an object of beauty. The stones, the wood work, the gold overlay; all of this produced a temple that was the glory of the kingdom. The Babylonians utterly destroyed it and carted many of the people into captivity for 70 years. A few that were very young would have remembered what the temple look liked. Many of them taken in the last group would have left Judea in 586. Haggai was preaching around 516. Thus one would have had to been 70 plus years old to have lived while Solomon's temple was standing.
Apparently there were some. As they saw the new temple being built they wept. "Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes?" (Haggai 2:3). There simply was no comparison to the glory of the first temple. Of course, being new to all of this, the young people cheered and shouted for joy at the sight of such a temple. Same temple, differing viewpoints, differing emotions.
God speaks to the people: "For thus says the Lord of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts" (Haggai 2:6-7).
This temple went through troublesome times with Antiochus Epiphanes profaning it and offering a pig on its altar. It was then closed and eventually cleansed and reopened during the Maccabean wars a hundred years before Jesus. Herod the great then began a remodel job on it to try and restore its glory. The disciples were impressed with the outcome of the remodel job. "Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple" (Matthew 24:1). Jesus then foretells the coming destruction of this temple by the Romans which took place in AD 70.
There is no physical temple in Jerusalem anymore. What happened to the promise of Haggai concerning a temple more glorious than Solomon's? Jesus built it.
Paul wrote: "So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit" (Ephesians 2:19-22). The church IS the temple of God.
Again Paul wrote: "Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16). Here the 'you' is plural and speaks not of the individual Christian's body, but the body of Christ, the church. Paul therefore could warn Christians about participating in any worship of idols saying: "What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people" (2 Corinthians 6:16).
The glory of THIS temple is greater than the physical glory of Solomon's temple. We as God's people show forth the very glory of God. We are said to be "like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 2:5).
As God's temple, let us glorify God in all that we do. "So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31).
Hugh DeLong
