Introduction

Christianity is uniquely a temple-less religion. Judaism has Jerusalem (and modern Jews are is dying—pardon the expression— to build the Third Temple) and even Islam has her Mecca (though Muslims will insist their's is not a temple). Buddhist and Hindu temples are legions and tourist hotspots. On the other hand, the New Testament asserts that the disciples of Jesus are the temple: "Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?" (1 Cor 3:16). The internal as well as external history of Israel also witness to the dispensability of the temple as a central element in her faith: she has had the temple for only 965 years (Solomon's temple from 966-586 BC and the Second temple from 515 BC-70 AD) of her last 4000 years of existence (i.e., less than a quarter). Does that, therefore, mean that we need not bother about the Temple?

The answer is, No. Even if Christianity does not have a temple, it is rooted in a faith in which the temple had played an important part, and we cannot understand what Paul means unless we have an adequate grasp of the temple. A more urgent reason has to do with fact that modern Jews and Zionist Christians are lobbying so hard to build the Third Temple, which if or when it happens, will trigger a war so massive in its wake it will be like nothing the world has ever seen before. Some proponents of the project estimate that easily a third of the Jews will die in the resulting conflagration. How should Christians respond to this without a clear understanding of the place of the temple in our faith (even though, as we have said, we do not have one)? Indeed, the need to understand the temple is an urgent one.

Furthermore, the temple is the most notably visible institution and structure in the Bible, so visible, in fact, we habitually assume it to be central and indispensable element of biblical faith. But it is also easy to mistake visibility for significance. But as the opening sentence above indicates, the Christian faith is uniquely a temple-less religion.