Temples Old and New

There’s another great link between our Old and New Testament chapters this week. While Solomon is busy building his temple for the Lord in 1 Kings, over in Acts, Stephen is being accused of speaking against ‘this holy place’ (Acts 6:13), a reference to the temple and (so it seems) Jesus’ words ‘Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.’ (John 2:19)

It’s another of those cases of something that was right for one era of salvation history (a specific building in a specific city where you could go to worship God) being replaced in the new era of Jesus. When Jesus comes to earth, he is the place where God dwells (see John 1:14) and his sacrificial death fulfils and makes redundant all the animal sacrifices taking place at the temple. After Pentecost and the sending of the Spirit, two new things become clear: (1) the people of God (i.e. the church) are now the temple where God dwells by his Spirit (see 1 Corinthians 3:16-17), and (2) God can be worshipped anywhere (see Jesus’ words to the Samaritan woman in John 4:21-24 – worship in spirit and truth replaces worship restricted to Jerusalem).

Solomon’s temple was destroyed by the Babylonians. Keep reading on in the OT and you’ll get to that bit! Herod’s temple was destroyed by the Romans. Those could have been disasters for the true worship of God. But they weren’t, because, as Stephen says in Acts 7:48: ‘The Most High does not live in houses made by men.’ Worship in the temple was for Solomon’s time. Worship in spirit and truth is for now. And the Spirit of God dwells in his people.