Our Forever Temple

Children's Lesson (click here)

I. The Topic is Temples

Did you know the largest temple in the world is 403 acres in size? That's over 300 football fields connected together in a giant rectangle. That temple is known as Angkor Wat. It is a Hindu-Buddhist temple complex located in northern Cambodia. Originally this temple was the site of Hindu worship to the god Vishnu. Later it was rededicated to Buddhist ancestor worship.

As most of you know, temples are something we find all over the world, and throughout history. Temples have played a key part in almost every religion that has ever existed. Even today, right here in the Valley of the Sun, you will find 18 different physical temples, representing four different religions. So what is a temple? A temple is a place where men and women believe they will meet the divine. A sacred space where God or gods are believed to dwell; where people have a kind of special access to the eternal, often thru things like priests and offerings. 

This morning, I want us to listen to a conversation about temples that Jesus had 2000 years ago with the Jewish religious leaders in Jerusalem. We find that conversation preserved in John 2.

II. The Passage: “I Will Raise It Up” (2:13-22)

Turn to that chapter in your Bible or pull that up on your Bible app. I've also printed the passage out for you on the inside of the bulletin flap. John 2, verses 13-22. The incident described in this passage took place very early in the ministry of Jesus. Listen to how John describes it...

The Passover of the Jews was at hand [just as it right now, Passover having begun last night], and Jesus went up to Jerusalem [from his home in northern Israel]. [14] In the temple [the Jewish temple in that city] he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. [15] And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. [16] And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” [17] His disciples remembered that it was written [in Psalm 69], “Zeal for your house will consume me.” [18] So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” [19] Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” [20] The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” [21] But he was speaking about the temple of his body. [22] When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

So as I talked about last July when we studied this passage, like a prophet from the OT Jesus is doing three things here in regard to his Jewish audience. He is 1) getting their attention, 2) sending a message, and 3) declaring his authority. Ultimately, I'd recommend listening to that message (website/YouTube) if you want to learn more about this first cleansing of the Jerusalem temple court. As I asked in that message, “Was Jesus looking to simply reform Temple worship? No. As he would tell a Samaritan woman two chapters later, “the hour is coming” when Temple worship will be irrelevant. In fact, Jesus explained how “the hour is coming, and is now here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth,” regardless of location (4:23).”

But the part of the text that I want us to focus on this morning is found in verses 18-22. Look again at how Jesus responded to their demand for a sign; a sign that would confirm his identity as a prophet of God. This is verse 19. What sign will they be given? “Jesus answered them, 'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.'” So what temple is Jesus referring to here? Well, we know it was a much smaller temple than Angkor Wat. Was he referring to the temple in Jerusalem? (v. 14) No. That is of course the setting for this conversation, and it's what the Jews assumed he was talking about. But no, that's not the temple to which Jesus is referring.

Jesus, as he explains in verse 21, was referring to the temple of his... body. But that leads to a second question: how was his body a temple? Was it a temple in a health/diet/fitness kind of way? “I've started to treating my body like a temple, so I will no longer desecrate it with things like Twinkies and cigarettes and MSG.” Is that what Jesus had in mind? I don't think so.

Maybe Jesus was thinking about his body in a 1 Corinthians 6:19 kind of way; that is, thinking as someone who is a temple of the Holy Spirit? I don't think that's right either. Scripture says that during his ministry Jesus was “full of” the Spirit (Luke 4:1), and “anointed” with the Spirit (Acts 10:38), and in certain places, the Holy Spirit is said to be the Spirit of Jesus (Acts 16:7; Romans 8:9; 1 Peter 1:11). But we never read that the Spirit was dwelling in Jesus in the same way he does in believers. So again... why does Jesus refer to his body in verse 19 as a temple? 

I think the answer is found in the previous chapter. Look back at John 1. In John 1, verse 1, we read that “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And then, several lines down in verse 14, we find this stunning statement: “And the [that] Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory...”. Do you understand the implication there? Jesus Christ is where men and women meet the divine. Jesus Christ is that sacred space where God dwells; where people have special access to the eternal. How? Why? Because his body is the temple; it's how the perfect priest offered up the perfect sacrifice.

Do we get some sense of that offering in our main passage? Yes, as the story unfolds in the Gospel of John, we come to see the significance of the language Jesus used in v. 19, specifically the word "destroy". “Jesus answered them, 'Destroy this temple...'”. He knew that's exactly what would happen three years later. The same men who were demanding a sign in John 2... would be demanding his death in John 19. And that demand led directly to his crucifixion. Listen to how the book of Hebrews explains what was really happening on the cross where Jesus died...

Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, [from Ps. 40] “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’” When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. (Hebrews 10:5-13)

So just as I mentioned earlier, the sacrifices of the Jewish temple were coming to an end. Here's why: on the cross, Jesus offered a sacrifice from sin that powerfully and perfectly dealt with sin, once for all time. Though his enemies succeeded in destroying the temple of his body on the cross, God wonderfully used their destructive intentions to accomplishing his life-giving plan.

But here's what I want to emphasize in light of John 2:19. Here's what I believe God wants us to see clearly in light of Jesus' words: though that temple was destroyed on the cross, the Word, the Son, would raise it up again on the third day. As Jesus would later say in John 10...

I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, [15] just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep... For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. [18] No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again...

III. We Worship by Faith Alone

Friends, think about what all this means for us. That temple, a temple unlike any other temple in human history, that temple is now an eternal temple. Though death leveled that temple on Good Friday, God rebuilt it on Easter! You see, because of that perfect priest and perfect sacrifice, Jesus Christ can rightly be called the perfect temple. That means if you're searching for the divine, if you're looking for the ultimate sacred space, if you understand the incomparable value of special access to the eternal, then come worship with me at that temple. There is no temple in this Valley, there is no temple on this planet, that can provide you with the spiritual access Jesus Christ makes possible. And because of Easter, because of his resurrection from the dead, that rebuilt... that raised up temple will stand for all eternity. That's Good News!

And we know none of this was a fluke, right? The final verse in our passage confirms that. John writes in v. 22: “When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this [that he would rebuild that temple], and they believed the Scripture [Psalm 69:9] and the word that Jesus had spoken.” Jesus not only knew the horrible fate that awaited him, but he also knew how he would use their rejection to bring about such beautiful acceptance; how he would use their tearing down to eternally build up; their reviling hatred would lead to a display of his unrivaled love; and he would use their sin against him... to put away sin once and for all.

So... how can you worship forever in the eternal temple that is Jesus? How can I enjoy eternal access to life with the God who made me, and who loves more than anyone ever could? We worship simply by faith. There are no candles to light or incense to burn. There are no rituals to rehearse or oaths to take. There are no idols to bow before or mantras to chant. There is no offering to make. Jesus has done it all. That's why in the Gospel of John, chapter 19, verse 30, we read that while on the cross, Christ's final words before his death were simply, “It is finished.”

So if Jesus has done it all, how then do I respond? I respond by trusting that, according to God, all I must do is believe that Jesus did it all. I love how Dane Ortlund puts in his small booklet, “It is Finished”: “Jesus Christ’s final words, hanging upon that cross, were: “It is finished” (John 19:30). What does that mean? It means that when Jesus Christ showed up twenty centuries ago, he had not come to start a new religion. He had come to end all religion. Religion is about what we do for God. The message of Jesus... is about what God has done for us. Religion hands us a stack of bills to pay. The gospel hands us a blank check.”

So whether a person's temple is adorned with Hindu deities or Mormon art, or... their temple is the temple of human achievement, or the temple of political devotion, or the temple of nature, or the temple of the almighty dollar, no temple or sacred space in this world can bring people like us to a God like God. Only Jesus can do that. His resurrection proves that. There are not many temples where God can be worshiped. There is only one. And his name is Jesus.