Third Temple already exists for Christians

A component of Christian eschatology (the study of End Times) is the belief that a third Jewish Temple must be constructed on Mount Moriah (the Temple Mount in Jerusalem) before Jesus’ return. This prophecy fits well with orthodox Jewish prayers that the longed-for reconstruction of Solomon’s Temple will signal the arrival of the true Messiah.

Solomon’s Temple was constructed on Mount Moriah over Abraham’s altar – the sacred site where, a 1,000 years earlier, God told Abraham to go to Moriah and sacrifice his son Isaac as a test of Abraham’s faith. Abraham did as he was told: he prepared a stone altar, and raised the knife to sacrifice his son. He could do this because God had promised Abraham an everlasting covenant with Isaac’s descendants: therefore, Abraham believed that God would not allow Isaac to die childless. Even if Abraham killed him, God would raise Isaac to life again.

True to Abraham’s faith, an angel stayed Abraham’s upraised knife; a ram, caught by its horns in a nearby thicket, was substituted for the sacrificial bloodletting. Thus, Mount Moriah was a place picked by God for ritual sacrifice and therefore a site most worthy for the building of the Jewish Temple.

Abraham’s altar now is housed under the golden Dome of the Rock, an Islamic sacred site (since Abraham is called “father” by Muslims, as well). When I first visited Jerusalem in 1966, the area that included Mount Moriah was still in Arab hands, and I was allowed to remove my shoes and enter the Dome of the Rock to view the hole in the floor where Abraham’s sacred stone is honored (these days, only Muslims may visit the Dome).

Given the circumstances, this talk of rebuilding the Jewish Temple is a source of constant friction between Muslims and Jews. Rebuilding the Temple would most likely involve tearing down the Dome, and for this reason, Muslim excavations on the Temple Mount have systematically eliminated any archaeological evidence of the Second Temple – the Herod-restored temple as it stood in Jesus’ day. Mount Moriah represents in miniature the turf war for the whole Middle East.

Two years ago, back in Jerusalem, I stopped by a Third Temple storefront of orthodox Jews who have assembled all the ritual implements, robes and sacred elements (including a pure red heifer) in anticipation of re-establishing animal sacrifices in a Third Temple built where the Dome stands. The man behind the counter was candid to admit that much of their funding comes from the donations of fundamentalist Christians, who believe that reconstruction of the Temple will initiate the Second Coming of Christ.

“They give money to us,” he told me, “even though we warn them that with the restoration, no gentiles, reformed or even conservative Jews will be allowed here – only the orthodox.”

The next Monday, I was attending an Armenian Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which claims to have enclosed not only Jesus’ burial tomb, but the place of his Crucifixion on Mount Calvary. At the heart of this sprawling structure, in the center of the rotunda, stands a small, single-story building called the Edicule, which covers Jesus’ tomb.

As I watched, the priest preparing the Communion bread and wine left the congregation and went into the Edicule to say the words of transubstantiation – the act they believe turns the bread and wine into the body and blood sacrifice of Jesus. At that moment I realized the Edicule is the Christian Holy of Holies, the equivalent of the Temple’s Holy of Holies which, in Solomon’s day, contained the Ark of the Covenant.

The Ark was a gilded box, which held the tablets of God’s commandments, while its top formed the Mercy Seat – the place where God’s Presence spoke to Moses. Thus, the Ark was the physical container for God’s law and the physical seat for God’s love.

For Christians, the Ark is a type for Jesus: both embody the law and love of God. And both the Ark and Jesus are now gone from our “Holies of Holies” – the empty room and the empty tomb – but we look for their return. Likewise, Abraham’s altar of sacrifice on Mount Moriah is supplanted for Christians by the place of Crucifixion on Mount Calvary – the place where God’s son was killed for the forgiveness of sin. This time, the killing hand was not stayed, but the son lived again anyway. Just as God had promised Abraham, so it was with Jesus.

There is a key difference, however, between the Temple and the Church. In the Temple, only the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies, and then only once a year. He would wear bells on his robe, and a cord was tied to him; that way, if God found him unworthy and killed him, the bells would stop tinkling and the people outside could drag the priest’s body out from behind the curtain. They made these elaborate preparations because no unworthy person could enter the Holy of Holies.

When Jesus died on the cross, Matthew’s Gospel tells us, the curtain covering the doorway to the Holy of Holies was ripped in two. The torn curtain made clear that God was directly accessible to everyone, because as unworthy as we all are, Christ’s death was the sacrifice to end all blood sacrifices for the forgiveness of sin. Now the door was truly opened.

And that door to the Holy Sepulchre is open to all. Immediately after the mass, tourists, including Israeli soldiers in uniform, lined up to go inside the Edicule for a look-see and a prayer.

Long story short: the Third Temple, for Christians, already exists. It was built on Mt. Calvary by order of Emperor Constantine in 333 A.D., to enclose Jesus’ crucifixion site and burial tomb. It’s called the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and it’s well worth the pilgrimage. So go to Jerusalem – and enter the Holy of Holies for yourself!

Lee Witting is a chaplain at Eastern Maine Medical Center and pastor of the Union Street Brick Church in Bangor. He may be reached at leewitting@midmaine.com. Voices is a weekly commentary by Maine people who explore issues affecting spirituality and religious life.