The Temple God Is Building

During this Advent season we are doing a study called The Temple of God and the Anticipation of Advent. We’re considering the importance of the temple in the Bible and we’re relating that to the significance of Jesus’s birth that we celebrate at Christmas. We’re suggesting that the temple theme is one very good way to grasp the meaning and significance of the incarnation.

This is not intuitive for most of us, but we’re learning how temple and advent go together. Today is the third Sunday of Advent, and the theme of the third advent is joy. Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Yes, and so also: joy to the world, God is building his temple. And if we could get a glimpse today of the temple that God is building, it would bring us so much joy. You see, the arrival of Jesus is like the ground-breaking of God’s great temple, a temple so great and so glorious that, if we could see it, we would forget about all the lesser glories and joys of the past, not to mention all the former sorrows as well.

Let me show you what I mean. Here toward the end of the book of Isaiah, we are given a glimpse at this new temple. We see what it is, what it offers to us, and how it has begun.

The Temple is a New Creation

First, we see what the temple is. God says here, in verse 17, that he creates “new heavens and a new earth.” At the end of the next chapter, he speaks about this new creation again (Isa 66:22). Sandwiched in-between these two important references (they are the only two explicit references to God’s new creation in the entire Old Testament) is a reference to the temple in Isaiah 66:1. This tells us something. It tells us that the temple is a new creation.

The Creation Project

We Christians know that the reason God created the world, created the universe, was for his glory. But what does that mean? Once we grasp the concept that the creation of the universe is the creation of a temple, the answer becomes more objective. It’s not just that a temple, with all its splendor and beauty might say something about the greatness of God. Glory is all about presence, and the temple was all about where God himself took up residence. It is where God could be found. That’s what is meant by the glory of God.

So, when we say that God created the universe “for his glory” we are using temple language. We are saying that God created the universe so that he could be found there.

The evidence for this is so overwhelming it can hardly be debated. “It is now widely known” from archaeological ruins and from ancient texts that ancient temples were designed “as small models of heavenly temples or of the universe conceived of as a temple.”[1]This is just as true for Israel’s temple as it is for temples in other parts of the world. For example, all ancient temples tended to have a three-part structure, just like Israel’s temple: an outer court, an inner court, and a most holy place, symbolizing the visible place where humans live, the visible heavens above us, and then the invisible place beyond where God dwells.[2]Almost everything about physical temples reflects this cosmic perspective.

All Good Things

That’s why there is so much detail in the Bible when it comes to the construction of the tabernacle, the temple, and all its furniture. Because the temple was a reflection of creation as a temple, the temple is meant to reflect the beauty and joy of God’s handiwork.

Recall what we learned from Psalm 27:4, when the psalmist says the one thing he wants more than anything else is to “dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD.” The beauty of the LORD does not refer to God’s outward appearance but instead to all the ways in which God’s goodness and delightfulness might be taken in, with all the senses. And the entire cosmos is a playground for such discoveries. Romans 1:20 tells us that so many of God’s invisible attributes can be “clearly perceived . . . in the things that have been made.” God’s good creation is meant to tell us much about the multi-faceted, multi-sensory, goodness of God.

Joy and Gladness

And now we hear that God is going to do it again. He is going to “create new heavens and a new earth.” How should we respond to that? “Be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create,” God says.

I never get tired of meditating on the fact that the God who gives commands commands us to rejoice. It is one of the horrors of sin that we often find no reason to rejoice and need to be commanded to do it.

At the same time, there is a reason why God is going to create again. It’s not because he was disappointed with the original creation, that he thinks he might be able to do better if given another chance. It’s because, of course, the original creation has been broken and marred by human sin. And that also of course is why Jesus came into the world. As the book of Hebrews tells us: “[H]e has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb 9:26).

And so, God’s new creation project has been launched with the advent of Jesus. Joy to the world!

The Temple Offers Abundant Life

Next, we see what the temple offers to us: the abundant life that can be found in this new creation, in God’s new temple. God says in verse 17 that when he launches his new creation, “the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.” This new temple, this new creation, that God has started with Jesus will be so great that everything about the old creation—its sorrows, thankfully, but even its highest joys which are also dimmed and diminished by sin—will be eclipsed by this new creation project.[3] As verse 18 says, Jerusalem will be a joy, her people will be a gladness. Everything about life in God’s new creation will be radically different than life in the original creation. And in verses 19-25, Isaiah gives us four images that help us imagine what this new life might be like.

No More Weeping

First, in verse 19 he says there will be no more weeping, no cry of distress. Only joy and rejoicing. If there are tears, they will be happy tears.

We know well the bitter-sweet realities of life. There are plenty of reasons to rejoice, but all of them seem to be tempered by plenty of reasons to lament. But in God’s creation, it is not supposed to be this way. The creation story in the first chapters of the Bible have God declaring, “Good!” day after day. So when God laid the foundations of the earth, he remarks to Job, “the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy” (Job 38:4-7).

God’s promise is to bring about a world in which the only emotion will be unalloyed joy.[4]And so, God’s promise is that he will build a new temple.

After all, when the exiles returned from Babylon and laid the foundation for the new temple, “the people shouted with a great shout. . . . But many of the . . . old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice” (Ezra 3:11-12). This second temple simply did not have the same glory as the first one (Hag 2:3), and so God promised that “the latter glory of this house” would eclipse the glory of the previous one (Hag 2:9). How could that be?

No Loss of Full Life

Well, in verses 20-22, we get some idea of the possibilities. The prophet says one reason there will be no more weeping is because there will be no premature death. “No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days” (v. 20). No more shall there be an old man who doesn’t live out the entirety of his days. What this verse is saying is that one of the greatest reasons for sorrow and sadness is untimely death, and that problem will be resolved in the new creation.

Bible students have tried to figure out how this image, which still hints at the possibility of death, could fit into the new creation. Many have used this passage as proof of a certain kind of pre-millennial life before the second coming. But that is to miss the point. Isaiah has already told us that God plans to “swallow up death forever” (Isa 25:8). But here we have this image as a sign of what life might be like in the new creation. It is a picture of life lived to the fullest extent possible.

And in that kind of world, verses 21-22 suggest, one could build houses and know they would live in them. One could plant vineyards and know they would get to eat from its fruit. Life could be satisfying, “like the days of a tree,” with plenty of years to enjoy the work of one’s hands. It’s common for us who are getting older to say we don’t want to live past a certain point, but I’m sure that’s because we fear boredom or we fear dying of some devastating disease. But the image here is something like what we see in someone like Dick Van Dyke who turned 100 years old yesterday, has enjoyed so many things in life, and says even now his body has no aches and pains. A full and abundant life. That is what we are promised.

No Labor in Vain

A similar image is found in verses 23-24, but the picture here is of being able to labor without laboring in vain.

Work is not a result of sin. Work is supposed to be fruitful and prosperous, not a time-waster, or a cold necessity to pay the bills. Many people might resonate with the words of the author of Ecclesiastes who said,

It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind. (Eccl 1:13-14)

But what if it weren’t that way? What if you could do your labor, your ordinary vocation, without any futility? What if you always had the assurance that what you do with your life really matters and made a real difference? That’s what this image describes. Even the labor of having children will not be in vain—take heart, parents—because in the anticipation of this new life, children will “be the offspring of the blessed of the Lord,” a fulfillment of the great Abrahamic promise in Genesis 12. Verse 24 evokes the image of life with no vanity by speaking of being in such communion with God that prayers are unhindered and everything we need for such an abundant life is quickly provided.

No More Hostilities

And then we have the famous image in verse 25, the wolf and lamb grazing in the field together, the lion eating straw like an ox. But we do not need to force the imagery into a literalistic interpretation, thinking that wolves and lions will become herbivores. John Goldingay explains,

Context suggests that the talk of harmony in the animal world is a metaphor for harmony in the human world. The strong and powerful live together with the weak and powerless because the latter can believe that the former are no longer seeking to devour them.[5]

Now just imagine life like that!

The Temple Begins with the Advent of Jesus

And then, start to imagine and think like a Christian. Like someone who believes in Jesus, who believes in the message of his advent. Jesus’s message time and time again went something like this: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15). I want you to hear the temple language. Jesus’s message was, “Time is up! The old temple and creation will have to give way now to the new temple, to the new creation.” Brothers and sisters, here is one of the great messages of Christmas. With the advent of Jesus of Nazareth, the construction of God’s eternal temple, of the long-awaited new creation, has begun! And that is reason to rejoice.

Don’t Wait for Heaven

It is easy to lose the excitement of Christmas and the celebration of Jesus’s advent. Too many distractions, and, no, I’m not referring to Tik Tok or any other form of doomscrolling.

I’m talking about all the things that are still so wrong in our world. There are still plenty of reasons to weep. Life is way too often cut short. Our work can feel vain—I know this to be true. No lions grazing with the sheep. It seems the vision of Isaiah 65 will have to wait until you die or until Christ returns.

But I don’t think that’s quite right, in spite of how popular that opinion might be among many Christians. Back in chapter 11, Isaiah spoke with similar language, the wolf dwelling with the lamb, the leopard hanging out with the young goat, etc. But the beginning of that chapter speaks of the emergence of “a shoot from the stump of Jesse,” one upon whom the Spirit of the LORD will rest. These are clear references to the advent of the Messiah, and in Revelation 5 we are told to “weep no more” because “the Root of David” has been victorious. And that’s when we see “a Lamb” who had been slain. The burden of the New Testament is to prove not that one day God’s new creation will finally arrive but that with the coming of Jesus the new creation has already begun.

Sure, the new creation project is still ongoing, but the determining moment has already arrived in Jesus. There is no going back now. There is no need to look for another. Keep your eyes on Jesus and see how it is all coming true. Isaia 11:10 says, “In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.” His resting place? There’s that temple language again.

The Temple Fulfilled, Not Abolished

Back here in Isaiah 66, God says,

Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? (Isa 66:1)

Solomon recognized this, that no temple built by human hands could ever contain God (2 Chron 6:18). But this doesn’t mean that temples are a waste of time. The temple theme, so frequent in the Bible, doesn’t need to be abolished. It needs to be fulfilled.

What if, to borrow language from elsewhere in Isaiah, what if God “would rend the heavens and come down”? What if God would come and make his home among us? What if he were to begin to fill the entire cosmos with his presence and glory?

What if, this is exactly what God has done with the advent of Jesus?

Jesus seems to have thought so. Because he said this in Matthew 12:6, “I tell you, something greater than the temple is here.” That’s a remarkable statement for Jesus to make. But the truthfulness of that claim is evidenced by his death, his resurrection, and his ascension, what Jesus has done and has already achieved for us.

He has not done away with the temple, but he has rendered all other forms of it moot. Because all temple structures are signs pointing forward, pointing the way. But you don’t need signs anymore saying, “This way to Oklahoma City” when you are at the Paycom Center getting ready to watch the Thunder play.[6]

Humble Beginnings

This is not what we might have expected to see but there can be no doubt that this is what the New Testament is urging us all to see. Urging us to see that it is in Jesus where everything comes together. Urging us to consider that for God to truly dwell with us, not only must all creation be renewed, but so also must we. We must be transformed and made part of this new creation. [7] How? What must be done?

Like worshippers who came to the temple in the past, we must approach God with the right sacrifice, with right worship. Here in Isaiah 66:2, God says that he will have regard for the one “who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.” And so,

If [worship] is performed to curry favor with God, to satisfy God’s supposed needs, and thereby get something for ourselves from him, we should shut the doors of the temple at once and abandon the whole thing. But if our attitude in worship is the opposite of such arrogance as to think we can do something for God, and is instead the humble recognition that we can do nothing either for or to him [humble], the awareness that we deserve nothing but destruction from him [contrite in spirit], and the desire to do nothing other than what he commands (trembles at my word), then the expression of such a spirit through the medium of ritual and symbolic worship is entirely pleasing to God.[8]

The Christmas season reminds us of the way, the way of the kingdom which has its origins in the humility of what happened that one night in that “Little Town of Bethlehem.”

How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is giv'n! So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heav'n. No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.

Won’t you receive him? God’s promise then to you is this: “If anyone is in Christ, new creation! The old has passed away; behold the new has come” (2 Cor 5:17). By faith in Christ, you and I enter into God’s everlasting temple, into his new creation. It is in Christ that weeping will come to an end, where life abundant and full will be found, where our labor is no longer in vain, where peace will forever be enjoyed.

This is the temple that God is building. Come on in and rejoice! _____

[1] G. K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God, New Studies in Biblical Theology, vol. 17, ed. D. A. Carson (Downers Grove, IL:  InterVarsity Press, 2004), 51.

[2] Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 54.

[3] J. Alec Motyer, Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, vol. 20, ed. Donald J. Wiseman (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 450.

[4] John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 40–66, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament, ed. Robert L. Hubbard, Jr. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998), 658.

[5] John Goldingay, Isaiah, New International Biblical Commentary, vol. 13, ed. Robert L. Hubbard and Robert K. Johnston (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2001), 85.

[6]This is an adapted illustration borrowed from N. T. Wright.

[7] Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 137.

[8] Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 40–66, 667.