The Temple of God in the Great Tribulation - Glenn Conjurske

The Temple of God in the Great Tribulation

by Glenn Conjurske

“Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.” (II Thes. 2:4). When the antichrist proclaims himself as God and demands the worship of the whole world, it will be “in the TEMPLE OF GOD” that he does so. If the man of sin were manifested today, where is that “temple of God” in which he would seat himself to “show himself that he is God”? It does not exist. There is no such “temple of God” on the earth today. The only temple of God which exists during the present dispensation is “a spiritual house,” built up of “living stones” (I Pet. 2:5). “Ye are God’s building.” (I Cor. 3:9). “Ye are the temple of the living God.” (II Cor. 6:16). Thus at the outset of this inquiry we meet with the dispensational difference between Israel and the church. Israel had a temple. The church is a temple. Israel had a priesthood. The church is a priesthood.

Now the “temple of God” into which the antichrist shall come is certainly not the church of God. To suppose that it is will immediately involve us in difficulties, some of them insuperable. To begin with, this is a so-called spiritual interpretation, and it will oblige us to spiritualize everything involved, including the man of sin himself. This was the view of what is called “historic post-tribulationism”—-a misnomer, for men who did not believe in a tribulation cannot fairly be called post-tribulationists. They were non-tribulationists. To them the temple of God was the church of God. The antichrist was the papacy. The “prince that shall come” was Christ, not antichrist. But even if we could grant that all of this spiritualizing of Scripture was admissible, yet we must insist that the “temple of God” in II Thes. 2:4 cannot be the church. First, the “temple of God” in this verse is the naov” of God—-not the whole temple, but the sanctuary—-not the whole building, but the holy place alone. This alone is designated as the naov”. Now supposing this “spiritual” interpretation to be the true one. Suppose “the MAN of sin, the SON of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth HIMSELF above all that is called God or is worshipped, so that HE as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing HIMSELF that HE is God”—-suppose this is no individual man at all, but the church of Rome, or the papacy. The temple of God must then of course be the church of the present dispensation. But could Paul—-could the Spirit of God—-be so careless as to represent the papacy as occupying the naov”—-the holy place of the church? Surely if this is what had been meant, they—-Paul and the Holy Spirit, I mean—-would have said “the temple”—-the iJerovn—-the whole building, outer court and all, and not “the sanctuary.”

But more. Matthew 24 speaks of the same event, saying in verses 15 & 16, “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, …then let them which be in Judæa flee into the mountains.” If this is the church, and the abomination of desolation the papacy, what has Judæa to do with the subject? And why would he tell them to pray that their flight be not on the sabbath? The church has nothing more to do with the sabbath than it has with Judæa—-John Calvin, John Knox, and John Wesley notwithstanding. The presence of the sabbath in this place is a sure indication of the change of dispensation which must take place before this scripture can be fulfilled. The “holy place” in Matt. 24:15 is not the church. Nothing of the kind. Daniel’s vision of the seventy weeks (where alone he speaks of the abomination of desolation) concerns “thy people and thy holy city” (Dan. 9:24)—-that is, the Jews and Jerusalem. “The holy place” of Matt. 24 is “the sanctuary” of II Thes. 2:4, and it is in Judæa. It is the holy place in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, and nothing other. Many post-tribulationists will grant this, without, however, apprehending the significance of it.

But again, we face the fact that at the present time there is no “temple of God” in Jerusalem—-no “temple of God” into which the antichrist could intrude himself, were he to come to power today. To begin with, there is no Jewish temple at all today. The temple was destroyed in 70 A.D., and has never been rebuilt. The Jews are no doubt ready to build it, and will doubtless do so in short order when the times comes. But observe, if they were to build it now, and begin and finish in a day, it would not be the temple of God. So long as the church of God remains on the earth, the church of God is “the temple of God”—-and there will be no other.

But to the proof of this. Let us stand back, and view the whole ground. So long as the Jewish economy was in force, it would have been simply preposterous to say to a mixed company of Jew and Gentile, “Ye are the temple of God.” Before such a thing could be, there must of necessity be a change of dispensation. Or, as Paul speaks in Heb. 7:12, “For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law.” No company of “living stones” could have occupied the place of “the temple of God,” until that change of dispensation took place. Likewise, therefore (obviously) before the Jewish temple in Jerusalem can again be called “the temple of God,” there must of necessity be another change of dispensation. This, of course, ought to be expected by all who are “tribulationists” of any sort—-by all, that is, who believe in a future literal fulfilment of Daniel’s seventieth week. Those seventy weeks were determined upon Daniel’s people and Daniel’s holy city (Dan. 9:24), and have nothing to do with the church. It is no more intelligent to thrust the church into the seventieth week than it would have been impossible to thrust it into the first sixty-nine. The sixty-ninth week ended before the church began, and the church will end before the seventieth week begins.

To any who acknowledge the distinction between Israel and the church, the proof that the sixty-ninth week ended before the church began is simple and sure. “Unto the Messiah the prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks”—-or sixty-nine weeks (Dan. 9:25). “And AFTER the threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off.” (Dan 9:26, Heb.). The sixty-ninth week, then, ended BEFORE the death of Christ, and so before the formation of the church, which is the “one new man,” made of Jew and Gentile, consequent upon the taking away of the law at the cross (Eph. 2). What then of the seventieth week? Either Messiah was cut off during the seventieth week (in which case the seventieth week must be “spiritualized”—-though the first sixty-nine weeks were certainly literal), or else there is a break in time between the sixty-ninth and seventieth weeks, and the seventieth week remains yet to be fulfilled. But since all “tribulationists” take the latter position, I need not insist upon it. What I do insist upon, though, is that as there was of necessity a change of dispensation between the sixty-ninth week and the formation of the church, so there is also of necessity a change of dispensation between the completion of the church and the fulfillment of the seventieth week.

Now where is “the temple of God” in all of this? The sixty-ninth week ended, as we have shown, BEFORE the death of Christ. Sir Robert Anderson has demonstrated by minute calculations that the sixty-ninth week ended on the very day of Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem—-the very day in which Christ beheld the city, and wept over it, and said, “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in THIS THY DAY, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are HID FROM THINE EYES.” (Luke 19:42). With proving Sir Robert’s position I have nothing to do. It has never been disproved, and for my present purpose it will suffice to say that the most able champion of post-tribulationism, Alexander Reese, endorses it, calling Anderson’s book (The Coming Prince) “one of the most brilliant, sane, and helpful works ever issued on unfulfilled prophecy,” and saying, “I think it was a true instinct that led Sir R. Anderson to choose our Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem as the day on which the prophecy `unto Messiah the prince’ (Dan ix.25; Luke xix.37-8) and the sixty-nine weeks were fulfilled.”

Now what effect had this day upon “the temple of God”? Much every way! On the day of his triumphal entry (or the day following, if we assume Mark’s account to be chronological rather than Matthew’s), “Jesus went into the TEMPLE OF GOD, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple,” &c. (Matt. 21:12). But see the great change one or two days afterwards: “Behold YOUR house left unto YOU desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” (Matt. 23:38-39). What was yesterday “the temple of God” is now “YOUR house,” and “left unto YOU”—-by God, obviously—-“desolate.” And this is immediately followed with, “And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple” (Matt. 24:1)—-surely a symbolic action in this place. And if the Jews build another temple today or tomorrow, it will not be “the temple of God.” God has his temple on the earth in the church of God, and he will not own another while the church remains.

Nevertheless, the very pronouncement of God’s rejection of the Jews’ temple contains an intimation of a future restoration: “Ye shall not see me until ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” The blindness which has happened to Israel is only “UNTIL the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.” (Rom. 11:25). The church will be completed, and removed from the earth, and God will again own the Jewish temple as “the temple of God.” This we see in Rev. 11:1, which is the first time the Jewish temple is called “the temple of God” after Matt. 21:12. It says, “And there was given me a reed like unto a rod, and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the TEMPLE OF GOD, and the altar, and them that worship therein.” The measuring of the temple—-the sanctuary, by the way, the same as in II Thes. 2:4, and the outer court is explicitly excluded in Rev. 11:2—-the measuring of the temple signifies the Lord’s owning of it once more as his.

When does this owning take place? Apparently as the first thing after the coming change of dispensation. For mark well, John has covered the ground of the tribulation once in Revelation chapters 6-10 (all but the final judgements which proceed from the seventh trumpet, and even that in anticipation, in 10:7), and as the last thing before this measuring of the temple he is told, “Thou must prophesy again.” (Rev. 10:11). He thereupon goes over the ground again, this time in a different manner, giving more place to the personages involved than to the events—-and the first thing in this second prophecy is the measuring of the temple. This is before the testimony of the two witnesses, which occupies 1260 days, and corresponds (as I believe, with many others) to the first half of the seventieth week.

What then? Does this imply that this temple must be standing before the rapture of the church? Not at all, for we do not know for certain that the seventieth week must begin as soon as the church is removed from the earth. There was a short period of time after the sixty-ninth week ended before Messiah was cut off, and another short period before the church was formed. And a short period is all that will be necessarily required for the Jews to raise their temple. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have reared hundreds of temples by volunteer labor—-substantial buildings, too—-in a few days’ time. They built one in the town in which I live in just four days, just two months ago. The Jews may build their temple while the church remains, and they may not. One thing we may say with certainty is that, if they do, it will not be the temple of God so long as the church remains on earth. But when the church is taken up from the earth, God will again own that temple, and it will be “the temple of God” into which the antichrist will intrude to proclaim himself to be God. But between the present time and that time, there must of necessity be a change of dispensation. The temple then present will not be the church of God, but the temple of the Jews in Jerusalem. And of course, the saints then present will not be the church, but Israel and Jewish proselytes.

Glenn Conjurske