PART #11: HEIGHT OF THE PORCH, THE SECOND TEMPLE

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.