Read Rapture: The End-Times Error That Leaves the Bible Behind Online
Authors: David B. Currie
Tags: #Rapture, #protestant, #protestantism, #Catholic, #Catholicism, #apologetics
Rapture: The End-Times Error That Leaves the Bible Behind (64 page)
But Jesus was not the only one whose body was a Temple. Your body is also a temple: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God?… So glorify God in your body” (1 Cor. 6:19–20).
Of course, aside from Jesus, the greatest example of a human temple is Mary, the mother of Jesus. She flawlessly housed God’s Spirit in the same manner that you and I do imperfectly. But she experienced much more. Her body was actually the physical home of God the Son for nine months during her pregnancy. This is why Scripture likens her to the new ark of the covenant. In his vision, John records, “God’s Temple in Heaven was opened, and the ark of His covenant was seen within His Temple.… And a great portent appeared in Heaven, a Woman clothed with the sun.… She brought forth a male Child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron” (Apoc. 11:19; 12:1, 5). Just as the Old Covenant Temple received God’s glory, so Mary is said to have been “overshadowed” by the “power of the Most High” (Luke 1:35).
St. John was not making a novel comparison in this passage. John of Damascus writes that, as a group, the original Apostles applied the psalms that speak of the Temple to Mary (Homily I:12). He does not defend this, as though it were a novel idea. He mentions three psalms that the Apostles used to point to Mary as the true Temple: “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved; God will help her right early” (Ps. 46:4–5). “We shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, thy holy Temple!” (Ps. 65:4). “Look … at the mount which God desired for His abode” (Ps. 68:16).
Without reservation, the early Church continued this tradition of drawing an analogy between the Temple and Mary. Many in the early Church saw in Mary the fulfillment of the new Temple promises in the Old Testament. Tobit implies that certain Jews did not understand the Temple of Herod to fulfill the future Temple promised by God, so Mary fulfilled them (13:10).
There are more Temples than just human ones, though. Christ’s Church is also a Temple of God. The Church is made of physical members, but God’s Spirit enlivens her. St. Paul repeated this theme often: “You are … members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy Temple in the Lord” (Eph. 2:19–21). “We are the Temple of the living God; as God said, ‘I will live in them and move among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people’ ” (2 Cor. 6:16; Exod. 25:8; Ezek. 37:27).
In Old Covenant times, the Bible was viewed as a Temple. The Pentateuch—the first five books of the Bible—was the inner sanctuary, the Holy of Holies. The prophets were the Holy Place. The writings were the outer court of the Gentiles.
Even Jerusalem was considered a Temple. God dwelt in this city in a unique way, because of the sacrificial Temple.
There is one more Temple the Jews discerned within the Old Testament. The largest Temple of the Bible was the earth (or alternately, the whole universe) (
AJ
, III, 6, 4, 122–126; III, 7, 7, 180–183). Like the other Temples, it was a physical place that held God’s presence. As early as Genesis 1:2, God’s Spirit is present interacting within the universe. Isaiah compares the Jewish Temple to the Temple God built for Himself, namely the physical universe. “Thus says the Lord, ‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house which you would build for me?’ ” (66:1).
The way the Bible uses
temple
is really an illustration of ground rule 3. Biblical history prophesies the future. The Old Testament foretold that the Temple building must be destroyed and then rebuilt. History confirms that Jerusalem was destroyed and rebuilt. Our bodies are going to be destroyed in death and then resurrected (2 Cor. 4:16). Every temple must be destroyed and reborn. When the Messiah came, even the Temple of Jesus’ body would meet the destruction of death on the Cross. While the rebuilding of the Temple foreshadowed the Messiah’s Resurrection, Christ’s resurrection foreshadows the resurrection of all Christians at the end of history; because Christ is “the first fruits” of all human resurrection (1 Cor. 15:20).
Yet all of these temples point to the future destruction and rebirth of another temple. The final temple to be destroyed at the end of time is the temple of heaven and earth, the physical universe: “The heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up” (2 Pet. 3:15). Some people understand St. Peter as describing the events of 70 A.D. I do not accept that view because of the context of verses 6 and 7, but that is largely irrelevant. If Peter is primarily speaking about the destruction of the Temple, it still points to that final death and resurrection of the temple of the universe at the final eschaton. That new heaven and new earth will be as different from the present one as the resurrected body of Christ is from His old body. (And the old one will be gone, just as Christ’s was!) All of the various temples in history point to that final cataclysmic event.
The Church reminds us that even the Bride of Christ must undergo this rebirth. The
Catechism
teaches that “The Church will enter the glory of the Kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in His death and Resurrection” (
CCC
, par. 677).
We must keep the mindset of the early Church and its Jewish forebears in mind when we look at various ideas concerning the future. Theological systems that discount the need for a death and rebirth of our bodies, the Church, or the universe should be immediately suspect. Hyperpreterism just does not do justice to the scriptural mindset.
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