Eph 2:19 So then you are no longer foreigners and noncitizens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household, 2:20 because you have been built32 on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,33 with Christ Jesus himself as34 the cornerstone.35 2:21 In him36 the whole building,37 being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, 2:22 in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
[7]
The dictionary definition of temple is "an edifice [i.e., building] for religious exercises"[1]. Since Paul does not likely have in mind stacking Christian bodies into a literal work of civil engineering, we may assume his usage here is metaphorical. This study will trace the development of this metaphor throughout scripture, beginning with the literal temples of Biblical Israel and ending with the eschatological implications of Paul's temple metaphor.
Israel's first "temple" of sorts was the tabernacle, which was actually an elaborate tent. Moses was shown the blueprints for the tabernacle in visions (Exo 25:9, 40, Num 8:4, see also Heb 8:5). To see the sort of detail that Moses was shown and communicated to Israel, see Exo 26:1-6 and Exo 29:1-14. We'll be returning to these descriptions below.
The tabernacle traveled with Israel in the wilderness. Once they settled in the land, the tabernacle was kept at Shiloh (Jos 18:1). Eventually, a more formal temple was built there (1Sa 1:9), which was eventually destroyed (Jer 7:12-14).
Solomon's temple is the most famous. It is the first one built in Jerusalem, and so is often called the First Temple, although as we saw above, there was an earlier one in Shiloh. This temple stood throughout the existence of Judah and Israel until it was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC.
Ezekiel's temple is not an actual temple that was ever built. Instead it is a temple that Ezekiel saw in a vision (Eze 40-48). The question that drives interpretation of this passage is "Is this passage a prophecy that has not yet been fulfilled?" Dispensationalists argue that Ezekiel's temple is a temple to be build after the rapture and will function during the Millennial rule of Christ[3]. This is the wrong question because the passage is not predictive, but rather prescriptive. Compare Eze 40:2, 5 with the tabernacle and how Moses was shown its blueprint in visions above. It is no different for Ezekiel. Ezekiel is prophesying during the Babylonian exile and is giving Israel a blueprint for a new temple to be built when they return to the land of Israel from the exile. That the actual temple they built didn't follow this design is not relevant to this understanding. We can compare the details of Ezekiel's temple (Eze 41, Eze 43:13-27) with the descriptions of the tabernacle above to see these parallels more fully.
If Solomon's temple is the so-called "First Temple", the temple built when Israel returned from exile (Ezr 6:15) is called the "Second Temple". It was remodeled by Herod the Great in Jesus time (John 2:20) and stood until it was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.
The Samaritans had a temple on Mount Gerizim, but it had been destroyed by Jesus' time.[4][5][6]
Jesus predicted the future irrelevance of physical temples. When Jesus was speaking to the Samaritan women, he told her, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem" (John 4:21, NET). "This mountain" refers to Mt. Gerizm, where the Samaritans had a temple at one tme. The reference to the mountain and Jerusalem are metonyms for the temples built there. He goes on to say, "But a time is coming—and now is here—when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such people to be his worshipers."
But Jesus said things even more radical than that the literal temples would become irrelevant. He called himself the temple! When he drove the sellers out of the temple, he told everyone "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again" (John 2:19) which John explains that "Jesus was speaking about the temple of his body." (John 2:21).
Jesus also appropriates language used to describe Ezekiel's temple to describe his own mission. See Ezekiel 47:1-12. The river that flows from the temple, starting as a trickle and growing to be a great river in the space of a few thousand feet, is obviously not literal. This is normal procedure for visions in scripture. The images in a vision are nearly always symbolic. For some examples, see:
When Jesus was talking to the Samaritan woman, he offers her living water that will yield eternal life (John 4:10-14). The water of Ezekiel's temple comes from Jesus.
The key to understand what Jesus means by calling himself the temple is to realize that the literal buildings of the past were actually a foreshadowing of Jesus. The technical terminology is that they were a "type" and Jesus is the "antitype". Hebrews 10:1-18 explains this in detail. In offering his life, he supplanted the temple and its sacrifices in about AD 30. Then shortly afterwards, the temple was destroyed and sacrifices brought to an end, in 70 AD.
Heb 10:1For the law possesses a shadow of the good things to come but not the reality itself, and is therefore completely unable, by the same sacrifices offered continually, year after year, to perfect those who come to worship. 10:2For otherwise would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers would have been purified once for all and so have no further consciousness of sin? 10:3But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year after year. 10:4For the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sins. 10:5So when he came into the world, he said,
“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me.
10:6“Whole burnt offerings and sin-offerings you took no delight in.
10:7“Then I said, ‘Here I am: I have come—it is written of me in the scroll of the book—to do your will, O God.’”10:8When he says above, “Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sin-offerings you did not desire nor did you take delight in them” (which are offered according to the law), 10:9then he says, “Here I am: I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first to establish the second. 10:10By his will we have been made holy through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. 10:11And every priest stands day after day serving and offering the same sacrifices again and again—sacrifices that can never take away sins. 10:12But when this priest had offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, he sat down at the right hand of God, 10:13where he is now waiting until his enemies are made a footstool for his feet. 10:14For by one offering he has perfected for all time those who are made holy. 10:15And the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us, for after saying, 10:16“This is the covenant that I will establish with them after those days, says the Lord. I will put my laws on their hearts and I will inscribe them on their minds,” 10:17then he says, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no longer.” 10:18Now where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.
This is in line with the prophecy in Daniel 9:20-27 written five centuries earlier of the end of the sacrifice at the end of 70 weeks, which is symbolic of a 490 year period (a day for a year - a symbolism that also occurs in Ezekiel 4:5-6). Revelation 21:22 makes the connection even more explicit. Referring to the New Jerusalem, "Now I saw no temple in the city, because the Lord God, the All-Powerful, and the Lamb [meaning Jesus] are its temple."
Paul builds on the metaphor of Jesus as a temple to include the whole church, through which Jesus works. It is no coincidence that Paul also uses the metaphor of the church as the body of Christ in the same letters as he uses the metaphor of the temple. The two are parallel concepts. Note the following especially:
1 Co 6:15
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!1 Co 12:12For just as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body—though many—are one body, so too is Christ. 12:13For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body. Whether we are Jews or Greeks or slaves or free we were all made to drink of the one Spirit. 12:14For in fact the body is not a single member, but many. 12:15If the foot says, “Since I am not a hand, I am not part of the body,” it does not lose its membership in the body because of that. 12:16And if the ear says, “Since I am not an eye, I am not part of the body,” it does not lose its membership in the body because of that. 12:17If the whole body were an eye, what part would do the hearing? If the whole were an ear, what part would do the smelling? 12:18But as a matter of fact, God has placed each of the members in the body just as he decided. 12:19If they were all the same member, where would the body be? 12:20So now there are many members, but one body. 12:21The eye cannot say to the hand, “I do not need you,” nor in turn can the head say to the foot, “I do not need you.” 12:22On the contrary, those members that seem to be weaker are essential, 12:23and those members we consider less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our unpresentable members are clothed with dignity, 12:24but our presentable members do not need this. Instead, God has blended together the body, giving greater honor to the lesser member, 12:25so that there may be no division in the body, but the members may have mutual concern for one another. 12:26If one member suffers, everyone suffers with it. If a member is honored, all rejoice with it.
1 Co 12:27
Now you are Christ’s body, and each of you is a member of it. 12:28And God has placed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, gifts of healing, helps, gifts of leadership, different kinds of tongues.2 Co 4:8
We are experiencing trouble on every side, but are not crushed; we are perplexed, but not driven to despair; 4:9 we are persecuted, but not abandoned; we are knocked down, but not destroyed, 4:10 always carrying around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our body.Eph 1:22 And God put all things under Christ’s feet, and he gave him to the church as head over all things. 1:23 Now the church is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Eph 4:11 It was he who gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 4:12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, that is, to build up the body of Christ, 4:13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God—a mature person, attaining to the measure of Christ’s full stature.
Col 1:24
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and I fill up—for the sake of his body, the church—what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ.
Now in the temple metaphor, we have several parallels:
1 Co 3:16
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? 3:17 If someone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, which is what you are.1 Co 6:19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 6:20 For you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God with your body.
1 Co 9:13Do you not know that those providing services in the temple eat food from the temple, those who serve at the altar receive a part of the offerings? 9:14In the same way the Lord commanded those proclaiming the gospel to receive their living by the gospel.
2 Co 6:16And what mutual agreement does the temple of God have with idols? For we are the temple of the living God, just as God said, “I will live in them and will walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
Eph 2:19So then you are no longer foreigners and noncitizens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household, 2:20because you have been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. 2:21In him the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, 2:22in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
The Dispensational expectation of a future eschatological temple with sin offerings and other sacrifices is wrong. As the author of Hebrews says,
Heb 10:18Now where there is forgiveness of these [sins and lawless deeds], there is no longer any offering for sin.
The temples and sacrifices prior to Jesus Christ's death and resurrection were merely foreshadowings of His incarnation and sacrifice. They were the types, but now the antitype as come, rendering them obsolete. Consider how awesome the responsibility to be part of "a holy temple in the Lord", to be "a dwelling place of God in the Spirit." We are the eschatological temple, and even our most private sins profane that temple. Let us instead work diligently to complete the temple and so glorify God.
[1] Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.
[2] See http://vulcan/jgj/Religion/Essays/Eschatology/EzekielTemple.html
for a more detailed study on Ezekiel's temple.
[3] See any Dispensational commentary, such as Expositor's.
[4] "Gerizim, Mount" in Anchor Bible Dictionary.
[5] Josephus, Antiquities 11.8.2, 4.
[6] 2 Macc. 5:23, 6:2
[7] All scripture quotatons are from the NET translation (http://www.netbible.com).