The temple is one of the most complex symbols in the Bible. Most people shudder when you start talking about it. It’s boring to read about, and doesn’t make any sense – and anyway, why should you care? What is the temple of a done-away dispensation to you? And that’s a fair question.

It’s a real shame; most people are scared away from understanding the temple symbolism because no one starts by explaining the most fundamental question; they all jump right to the boring details, without first explaining the fundamental question – what does the TEMPLE symbolize!

It’s probably one of the simplest symbols to explain in the Bible, and yet you wouldn’t believe the wacky explanations for it that are out there. You know WHY you should care what the temple symbolizes? Because it symbolizes something you care very much about – YOU!

2 Corinthians 6:16 … ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Every piece of bread, every stick of incense, every time brass is used instead of gold, every last CUBIT in that temple is about YOU! And so it is well worth your time to understand what ALL of those details mean to YOU, because they ARE you – and if you understand them, you’ll understand yourself and what God is trying to do with you vastly better than you do now!

But before we get into those details (which I will try my best to make interesting!) we have to first establish exactly what the temple (or the tabernacle, which is essentially the same thing) means. Yes, it symbolizes you – you are God’s temple – but what PART of you? Your brain, your heart, your works, what?

1 Corinthians 6:19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you…

None of those things. The temple DOES NOT REPRESENT YOUR HEART! I know some people say it does, but they made that up. This is what the Bible says. Demand SCRIPTURAL proof of what something signifies from your teachers – only the Bible can explain the Bible.

2 Corinthians 5:1 For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

With these verses, we see that tabernacle, temple, house and building are all symbols of the same thing; your body. But you have more than one body; your present body, and your future spiritual body. Your current body is temporary; it’s prone to decay. But your next body is not – it will be a permanent, enduring body.

Moses built a temporary house for God in the wilderness; It was called a tabernacle – a temporary house. It worked, but it wasn’t the lasting structure God intended to build.

1 Chronicles 17:5 For I have not dwelt in an HOUSE since the day that I brought up Israel unto this day; but have gone from tent to tent, and from one tabernacle to another.

Notice how God contrasts HOUSE from TENT. He knows the difference! The tabernacle that Moses built was MEANT to be replaced by a better temple one day – a permanent one. And when Solomon built him such a house, it was NEVER called a tabernacle. It was meant to be a permanent house. But even that house wasn’t the ultimate house God intended to build;

Acts 7:48-49 Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet, Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house will ye build me? saith the Lord: or what is the place of my rest?

And as the other scriptures answer, WE are that place; the ultimate, permanent home of God. But we’re not that place yet! We are still not a permanent home for God. We are at best a temporary home – since we’re only going to live a century or so if we’re lucky anyway. And we’re a home that is subject to decay, both physical and moral, so God can’t get too attached to us, just as He wasn’t too attached to the old tabernacle. Our bodies, today, are the fulfillment of the OLD tabernacle.

Our bodies tomorrow, when God’s seed remains in us and we cannot sin; when we have a NEW body, we will be a NEW house for God; a house that is permanent, enduring, incorruptible; a TEMPLE, and no longer a mere tabernacle. And so the temple of Solomon represents what our bodies WILL be, just as the tabernacle of Moses represents what our bodies now are. That is a vital key, which we’ll deal with in due time.

Hebrews 3:6 But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.

For now we’re just a tent to God; a nice enough shelter to go backpacking through Yosemite, but not someplace you’d want to settle down and raise a family; but IF we hold fast to the end, we will be God’s HOUSE. Our bodies are His tent; our future bodies will be His house.

2 Corinthians 5:2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven:

SIZE OF THE TEMPLE

Since the person we are striving to be today is essentially the person we will become, most of the things in the tabernacle and in the temple are the same. There are a few changes which all mean something, but for now let’s focus on the common symbols and explain them first.

The temple was 20 cubits wide, 30 tall, and 60 long. (1 Kings 6:2). What that is in modern measurements is unimportant for now, in the units in which God measured it, its footprint was 20×60. Now lengthwise, it was divided up by the veil into the holy place, and the most holy place. The holy of holies was 20 cubits long and on the other side of the veil the rest of the holy place was 40 cubits. (verses 17-20)

It is generally agreed that Adam was created about 4000 years before Christ’s death; as it happens, it was almost exactly 4000 years, but that’s another article. The point being, mankind was blocked off from direct access to God for 4000 years; we didn’t have a high priest touched with the feeling of our infirmities, no one to make intercession for us, and we were strictly forbidden from entering the holy of holies. Even the high priest only entered once a year, and then it was so fogged up with incense he couldn’t see anything.

Hebrews 9:8 The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not YET made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing: [See also verse 3]

Then, 4000 years from creation, the veil was torn right down the middle. All of a sudden, mankind had access directly to the throne room of God (Hebrews 9:3, 8). It can’t be an accident that after 40 centuries of being behind a veil we broke through into the holy of holies; and that after 40 cubits in the temple, one arrives in the holy of holies.

Nor can it be an accident that 20 centuries of the New Testament era are to go by before the return of Christ and the beginning of the millennium, while the holy of holies is exactly 20 cubits long. When Christ returns we’ll have no more need for a temple ourselves; we’ll BE the temple. There will be a physical temple for awhile – Described at length in Ezekiel 40-48 – for the benefit of the second resurrection people, but the temple of Solomon will have been fulfilled in us.

Now in front of the temple was a porch; adding exactly 10 cubits to the length of the temple. Can it be an accident that the millennium will add 10 centuries to the previous 60, making the whole structure 70 cubits long, just as the plan of God for dealing with the firstfruits is 70 centuries long? The numbers overlay so perfectly with the plan of God that it’s difficult to argue.

The temple is our body; and in the sense that all of man shares the same body, the lifespan of man is 70 centuries; can it be an accident that David says “The days of our years are threescore years and ten” (Psalms 90:10) – just as the temple, our body, is threescore and ten cubits long?

INSIDE THE TEMPLE

TREE OF LIFE ARTICLE GOES HERE – Read it now!

As explained in the article you just read, God has a thread of analogies that run through the entire Bible; The tabernacle in the wilderness, the temple of Solomon, the Garden of Eden, the throne room of heaven, the new Jerusalem and the heart of man is all a single symbol; they all follow the same pattern. The kingdom of God described in revelation also fits this same exact pattern.

What that means is that having, say, a river of life in the middle of the garden symbolizes a certain thing; and you’ll find a symbol that fits the identical position in the ark of the covenant (the ten commandments), the throne of God in Revelation, and the spirit of God in the heart of man.

Similarly as I explained in that article, the tree of life represents the body of Christ, just as the Manna deposited in the Ark represents the body of Christ; just as we find the body of Christ in us and Jesus sitting in the throne room of heaven and in the new Jerusalem.

So every explanation about the temple must explain not only the temple itself, but all five symbols. If it fits them all, it must be right. This makes finding the full answer much easier, because you have five different sources of facts; when God says something about the temple in heaven, you know there is an analogous thing in your heart; so you can look at scriptures about your heart to explain the temple in heaven.

You can also read the description of the garden of Eden, for you know that the same symbols were illustrated there; and you can read about Solomon’s temple and/or the tabernacle. Now that you understand that all of these symbols are teaching us about each other, you can fill in the missing gaps in any one story and come up with a better complete picture than anyone has ever had before.

THE VEIL

The veil – or vail, in the King James – is well understood by most, but I’ll hit it briefly anyway just to be thorough. Paul (2 Corinthians 3:12-16) illustrates a parallel about the vail Moses put over his face which caused blindness to the people, so that they couldn’t look at and clearly understand Moses.

2 Corinthians 3:13 (BBE) And we, [Paul and company] are not like Moses, who put a veil on his face, so that the children of Israel might not see clearly to the end of the present order of things:

They were not supposed to understand the conclusion that Moses’ law would lead to; not supposed to understand that the things they were presently doing were to be done away in Christ. This veil protected them from that knowledge.

To put it another way, this veil over Moses’ face kept the people of Israel from looking PAST Moses and seeing God – which, had it happened, would have meant their immediate death. So in this sense, this veil is the same as the one in the temple.

I needn’t even quote the scripture that talks about how the veil was torn in two when Jesus died, for everyone knows that. This veil represented a barrier between us and the Father which Jesus’ death removed.

Hebrews 10:19-20 Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,

By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;

Some completely misunderstand this verse and say “so the veil represents Jesus’ flesh!” – but that isn’t what it says at all as you can see. It says we enter the holiest by a new WAY, which He paved for us through the veil, WITH his flesh – it’s not saying the veil represents His flesh, it’s saying that the WAY through the veil was paved BY his flesh.

The curtain doesn’t represent his flesh. It represents a barrier between us and God. A barrier that is taken away in Christ, just as the veil over Moses’ face was taken away in Christ. That’s why it split when He died.

GOLDEN CENSER – YOUR HEART’S SENTRY GOES HERE – Read it now!

Before we go on to reading about the candlestick, it will help if you understand what oil means – since the candlestick burns oil. So now…

SYMBOLISM OF THE OIL GOES HERE – Read it now!

SYMBOLISM OF THE CANDLESTICK GOES HERE – Read it now!

Oh, and it must be mentioned that the candlestick was NOT a candle that burned perpetually; it had to be renewed and trimmed daily, and it was only to burn during the dark. But if it was never extinguished, why have “snuffers” for the lamp?

Exodus 37:23 And he made his seven lamps, and his snuffers, and his snuffdishes, of pure gold.

Many people will tell you that the candlestick burned constantly, to try and draw a connection between it and the thoroughly pagan “eternal flame”; and there isn’t one. It was extinguished every morning and lit every night.

1 Samuel 3:3 And ere the lamp of God WENT OUT in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was, and Samuel was laid down to sleep;

This shows beyond question that this lamp (The only lamp in the temple) was to be allowed to go OUT in the temple (the one that had the Ark in it, in case anyone wondered).

SYMBOLISM OF THE SHEWBREAD GOES HERE – Read it now!

THE PORCH

It is worth noting that everything inside the temple is made of gold. Everything outside the temple was made of brass. This is not an accident but it’s too early to explain that here. But now as we go outside the temple we arrive at the porch.

1 Kings 6:2-3 And the house which king Solomon built for the LORD, the length thereof was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits, and the height thereof thirty cubits. And the porch before the temple of the house, twenty cubits was the length thereof, according to the breadth of the house; and ten cubits was the breadth thereof before the house.

The porch was ten cubits long and twenty cubits wide. I’ve already explained the length as representing the millennium; but here is another view on that same idea:

Zechariah 5:1-2 Then I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a flying roll. And he said unto me, What seest thou? And I answered, I see a flying roll; the length thereof is twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof ten cubits.

This is the only other thing I know of in the Bible that shares the same exact dimensions as the porch. That could conceivably be a coincidence; however, when you see what it does, that possibility disappears. I have said elsewhere (See “The Simple Truth About The Millennium”), that the millennium’s primary purpose is to prove that the law works. I can’t take credit for this idea as my father did most of the work on it long before I was around.

But when you think about it, when was God’s law as delivered from Sinai ever kept? I mean, the history of Israel reads like a manual on how to disobey God. There were a few good leaders, but as soon as they died the next generation was back offering their children to Molech again. When those leaders did administer God’s law, like David did, the people were prosperous and happy; but the world today thinks that the Old Testament law was a mistake God made which He had to die to correct. And that’s just not so.

Galatians 3:12 And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them.

So despite the fact that the “law was weak through the flesh” (Romans 8:3), if the law was obeyed it would have brought good fruit. The flaw was not with the law, but with the people;

Hebrews 8:8 For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:

The fault was with THEM – Israel – not with the laws, or the covenant, but the people. Anyway, the millennium will restore that system God set up; that’s why we see sacrifices being offered in Zechariah 14:21, Jeremiah 33:18, etc. A physical system, but administered by incorruptible rulers. The first resurrection people, who are in training, as kings and priests with Christ a thousand years before their BIG job starts.

I can’t do justice to the concept here, but the short answer is the millennium will be a time to prove that God’s way, even with physical people and physical ordinances, produces good fruits and that GOD WAS RIGHT – Levitical system, physical temple, and all. And the porch of the temple represents that time – as does the seventh day of tabernacles and the seventh day of unleavened bread (see my “Plan of the Holy Days” article).

Now this roll that was 20 cubits x 10 cubits also represented the porch and the millennium; for look what was written on that roll:

Zechariah 5:3 Then said he unto me, This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth: for every one that stealeth shall be cut off as on this side according to it; and every one that sweareth shall be cut off as on that side according to it.

Notice that this is a CURSE. What is written on that curse? “Thou shalt not steal” is written on one side, and “thou shalt not take the name of God in vain” is written on another. Remember that the Ten Commandments were written on two tablets front and back (Exodus 32:15). Most people don’t realize that the Charlton Heston version isn’t quite accurate.

Zechariah 5:4 I will bring it forth, saith the LORD of hosts, and it shall enter into the house of the thief, and into the house of him that sweareth falsely by my name: and it shall remain in the midst of his house, and shall consume it with the timber thereof and the stones thereof.

So in this 10×20 area – the millennium – this roll goes into the house of every man who breaks these commandments – by extension, all ten are implied – and curses his house, until it is consumed. So what this is saying is what I already said – that the Millennium returns the world to the old covenant, and back under the curse of the law!

Galatians 3:10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that CONTINUETH NOT in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.

The law isn’t a curse to those who obey it, but a blessing! But it IS a curse to all who do not OBEY all the things written in the book! And so in another sense, the law will be administered everywhere; as it says in:

Isaiah 30:21 And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.

And that’s the purpose of the millennium proper – that and a training ground for the first resurrection people. The purpose of the end of the millennium is to prove that, despite all that righteousness, man without the spirit of God living in him will always choose Satan. Which is why Satan is loosed. But that’s another story. Hopefully this is enough to convey the point for now.

It’s difficult not to touch on these other subjects, because the temple ties together every symbol and every facet of the plan of God together; the doctrines and plans we understand are illustrated in the windows and the widths of the doorways and the rooms and the staircases; and so when explaining what all this means, I can’t help but connect it to these other things we understand, which not everyone knows but which can’t all be explained here.

If one truly understood the temple, the sacrifices, and the holy days, and didn’t have a single word of the rest of the Bible, I believe you’d see the entire plan of God and everything you would ever need to know about how to fit yourself into it.

Before we finish the porch, we need to study the pillars, which are either on the porch, or (as I suspect) immediately in front of it.

SYMBOLISM OF PILLARS OF THE TEMPLE GOES HERE – Read it now!

HEIGHT

But now back to the porch. We’ve explained the length, and the width is the same as the rest of the house. But there was one huge difference between the porch and the rest of the temple…

2 Chronicles 3:4 And the porch that was in the front of the house, the length of it was according to the breadth of the house, twenty cubits, and the height was an hundred and twenty: and he overlaid it within with pure gold.

Since cubits aren’t feet, it doesn’t jump out at you what the difference was. The rest of the temple was 30 cubits tall. The porch jumps up to 120 cubits tall. That means it suddenly quadrupled in height at the porch!

No one is certain what a cubit is, but Leroy Neff’s excellent work “The Temple In Prophecy” makes an strong case for it being 25 ½ inches. This means that the porch was about 42.5′ wide, 21.25′ deep, and a whopping 255′ tall!

As always, Bible commentators scoff at this height saying that no one in the middle east knew how to build a structure that tall then; I would however point out that this building was designed personally by God, and that I’m reasonably sure God knew how to design a building 255′ tall – even 3,000 years ago!

But regardless of the exact dimensions, the point is that the temple was four times as tall on the porch as it was on the body of the structure. Now I’ve already explained the main structure’s length of sixty cubits as representing the sixty centuries from Adam to the second coming of Christ. So the height of that structure during that time would represent something about the people during that six thousand years – something that changes drastically at the beginning of the thousand years following it. You already know where I’m going, but let me quote this scripture first:

Daniel 4:20, 22 The tree that thou sawest, which grew, and was strong, whose height reached unto the heaven, and the sight thereof to all the earth; … It is thou, O king, that art grown and become strong: for thy greatness is grown, and reacheth unto heaven, and thy dominion to the end of the earth.

This sets up a definite Biblical precedent for comparing height to greatness or glory. Daniel here directly says a tree grew, “whose height reached unto heaven” and “your greatness is grown, and reacheth unto heaven”; so height equals greatness. And of course who can forget Satan’s dream of attaining ultimate greatness:

Isaiah 14:14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

Several other scriptures could be used (Ezekiel 31 for instance) but these are sufficient to make my point. For six thousand years the first resurrection people have been thirty cubits tall in greatness. Then suddenly they are resurrected at the end of that period and quadruple in greatness when they are changed to Spirit.

You might ask “they only quadruple?”And it does seem a bit small at first – but then consider that Jesus was “made a little lower than the angels” (Hebrews 2:9). It doesn’t say a LOT lower; just a little. So quadrupling is pretty reasonable. Then, too, God may measure greatness rather differently than we do (strength, power, brightness, etc). And that leads me directly into the second temple.

THE SECOND TEMPLE

After Judah sinned and was carried away into captivity, some were returned from Babylon to build a second temple under Ezra. A lot of prophetic books were written about this time – Ezekiel, Haggai, Zechariah, Ezra, Nehemiah, etc; and this temple was rebuilt.

And in general, this temple was just like the one of Solomon; except built on a budget.

Ezra 6:3 In the first year of Cyrus the king the same Cyrus the king made a decree concerning the house of God at Jerusalem, Let the house be builded, the place where they offered sacrifices, and let the foundations thereof be strongly laid; the height thereof threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof threescore cubits;

But the height was SIXTY cubits instead of 120; that is exactly half the height. The length (here called breadth) is the same as Solomon’s temple. From what we can tell, everything else was exactly the same; the original vessels were brought back that Nebuchadnezzar had taken (verse 5) and a healthy expense account was allotted.

The only difference is that there was no Ark of the Covenant, and it was half as tall on the porch. You’ll recall at the very first I showed that the tabernacle is our present bodies; the temple of Solomon is our future bodies; well, the temple of Ezra is the second resurrection’s future bodies. That is to say, those who are saved out of the second resurrection will be pictured in the layout and design of this second temple.

That is why it is half as tall – because the second resurrection will receive a half-portion portion of the inheritance (Deuteronomy 21:17, 1 Timothy 5:17). So their glory will only be 60 cubit’s worth, as opposed to 120 for the first resurrection. Not so bad, really. (Notice that these are multiples of twelve – one of God’s favorite numbers).

When the temple was finished, the people had mixed feelings about it:

Ezra 3:11-13 …And all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy: So that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people: for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off.

So half the people were shouting for joy, and half were weeping for the former house. By all human measurements, it was inferior to the former house; smaller, less gold, no ark, and so on;

Haggai 2:3 Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing?

Yet God said that wasn’t how he felt about it at all.

Haggai 2:9 The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the LORD of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the LORD of hosts.

Now why would this be greater than the former, much more glorious house? We can explain that by asking how could the second resurrection be more glorious than the former; simply because while there may be only 144,000 first fruits… there will be BILLIONS of second fruits.

In addition, the firstfruits will all be a few certain types of people; kings and priests need to be go-getters and problem solvers. For that job, those are practically requirements. But those are just the people in authority – rather a boring lot, if the universe is full of such people. The second resurrection will have all sorts of people of all sorts of mentalities and attitudes – that is, all sorts of RIGHTEOUS attitudes and mentalities.

Many people would hate the first resurrection, even if God forced them to be there. Those in the first resurrection will be the servants of all (Luke 22:26). It will be a demanding life of servitude and taking care of other people; sometimes, whether they want it or not. You will have little if any time for your own pursuits, for your time will be taken up caring for the needs of others.

Now perhaps that’s an overly grim picture, because there will be many joys in it – in fact, that in and of itself should be a joy to anyone who actually gets there. But for many people, it would be like slavery and being in a prison of helpfulness – for eternity. On the other hand, those people would be thrilled with life in the second resurrection; and God and Jesus and the first resurrection saints will be thrilled to have the variety of people in the universe that will create; and that’s why “the glory of the second house is greater than the former”.

There is much more to be explained and said about the temple; but frankly, this is most of what I clearly understand at the moment. Another day we will undertake to explain the courts, the gates, pomegranates and bells and tongs and basins and doorposts and… well, it looks like a big job ahead.