And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night.”-Exodus 13:21
From the dividing of the Red Sea to the time the Babylonian captivity, God would make his presence known by appearing in a pillar of cloud during the day and a pillar of fire at night. The people of Israel always knew the Lord was by their side; the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.”-Exodus 34-35. In this way God’s presence was always with Israel.
However, the people of Israel were not always faithful to Jehovah. The Israelites worshipped a golden calf and angered God to the point, he declared his presence would no longer be with them. The Lord sent them toward Canaan without him. “Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you,”-Exodus 33:3. But Moses begged for the forgiveness of the people and a return of the Lord’s presence, “Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?”-Exodus 33:16.
As we studied last week, by the time of Jesus birth, the Spirit of God had long since departed from the temple and for 400-years, there was not a people on the earth with whom God’s presence was felt. But that would soon change in the form of a new and living temple where God would dwell with his people.
Historians refer to the period of Solomon’s temple as the “first temple period” and from Israel’s return until the time of Herod the Great (Matthew 2:1) as the “second temple period.” They do not include the Tent of Meeting or the lesser temple of Nehimiah’s day. You can look at Herod’s temple as the “fourth temple” (John 2:19-21).
The Tabernacle in the wilderness is one, Solomon’s temple is number two, Ezra and Nehimiah cobbled together temple three, and Herod spent 46-years building the magnificent fourth temple of Jerusalem which God destroyed in AD 70 (Mark 13:2). Historians are correct in how they view the temple from a completely secular understanding. But God is not human, he is divine.
Remember God’s Spirit entering the Tabernacle of the Wilderness and Solomon’s temple? The Bible records nothing of the kind in association with Nehemiah’s temple or Herod’s. In fact, Ezekiel records a vision of God’s Spirit leaving the temple in chapter ten and verse 18, “Then the glory of the Lord went out from the threshold of the house and stood over the cherubim.” There is no record of the Spirit of God returning to those four temples in the Old Testament.
But Ezekiel also prophesied of a time when God’s people would meet behind the purple veil where the Spirit of God dwells; “I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”-Ezekiel 36:27. Jesus is sitting on a throne Moses, Solomon, and Nehemiah could only imagine. He is high priest and king dwelling in the Holiest of Holies, “We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has…become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”-Hebrews 6:19-20.
Jesus, “gives the Spirit without measure.”-John 3:34.” In this final age, Christians are the temple of the Holy Spirit, “Do you not know you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”-I Corinthians 3:16. Individually, we are stones in the temple of Heaven. But when we assemble as a church built on the rock, “the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”-Ephesians 2:20-22.
Amen and praise our Lord!
Editor’s note: This was produced as a two-part series. This is part two. The beginning can be found here: https://www.north2ndcofc.org/the-temple-of-god-part-one-1-2/
I also gave a sermon meant to wrap things up. It is here: https://www.north2ndcofc.org/sermons/the-temple-of-god/
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