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August 6 - August 20, 2020
That this should be undertaken by the Babylonians is highly ironic in the light of how Genesis 11 portrays Babel as being the antithesis of God’s creation blueprint.71
The vision of the book moves, in fact, from the historical Jerusalem of the eighth century (under judgment) to the new Jerusalem of the eschaton, which is the centre of the new cosmos and symbol of the new age. To this new Jerusalem the nations come (66.18–21; cf. 60.1–22) so that ultimately the nations find their salvation in Zion
Jerusalem temple has already been reduced to ruins by the Babylonians. Coming in 572 BC, twenty years after his first vision, Ezekiel’s final vision is a long and detailed portrayal of an idealized replacement temple, set within a renewed city.83 There is an artificiality to the lengthy vision that suggests its contents are to be taken as symbolic.
Significantly, the vision concludes with yerušalayim, ‘Jerusalem’, being renamed yhwh-šammâ, ‘the LORD is there’ (Ezek. 48:35).
While the completed structure was unable to match the splendour of the temple constructed by Solomon, its erection was a powerful signal that God was still concerned to fulfil his creation blueprint.
In spite of the setbacks of the sixth century, Jerusalem and its temple still feature in the plan by which God will establish his presence throughout the world.85
Taking into account the rich variety of images used to describe the future Jerusalem, it seems likely that they all derive from the concept of the whole earth becoming God’s temple-city.
In the light of this, the next stage in the biblical meta-story introduces an important transformation that involves the replacement of the Jerusalem temple by a new and very different edifice.
In moving from the Old Testament to the New Testament, we discover that the Jerusalem temple is replaced by the church and, with its outward expansion from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth, God’s dwelling place also spreads outward.
Undoubtedly, Paul views the church corporately as being God’s temple.
Apart for the presence of building terminology in Ephesians 2:21–22, the concept of the church as God’s dwelling place is also reflected in Paul’s use of terms associated with the concept of ‘filling’.
In other words, God no longer dwells with his people in a sanctuary which they make for him; he dwells in them, and they are his temple.96
However, Beale links 1 Peter 2:4–6 with Revelation 11 and proposes that we have here ‘the conception of God’s saints being the true temple of God’s presence … and extending that presence throughout the earth by means of their witness’.
According to Beale, the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost in Acts 2 is best understood as paralleling those occasions in the Old Testament when God came to fill with his presence the tabernacle (Exod. 40:34–35) and temple (1 Kgs 8:10–11; 2 Chr. 7:1–2).
Prophecies about the restoration of Israel after the Babylonian exile included the promise of the gift of God’s Spirit, as the means by which he would dwell in or among his people and bless them in a new way (e.g. Joel 2:28–32; Isa. 44:3–5; Ezek. 36:27–28; 37:14).109
The stories in Acts represent, as it were, the cusp of the change from a localized view of God dwelling in the Temple to what we might call a universalized view, in which God is available, and reveals himself, anywhere and everywhere. Luke says implicitly what Paul or Hebrews or 1 Peter or John or Revelation say explicitly, but does not express their view outright because he is concerned to describe faithfully the historical process of development.110
Whereas in the Old Testament God was perceived as dwelling among his people, in the New Testament he is viewed as dwelling within his people.
In both testaments regeneration is not dependent upon the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within an individual. Rather indwelling is tied to the concept of temple:
Since Christ’s body is the temple of God and since, as Paul repeatedly emphasizes, Christians are those who are ‘in Christ’, it naturally follows that the church, as the body of Christ, is also the temple of God.
The church’s existence as the body-temple depends totally on the resurrection body of Christ in which the church is raised up, and on the Spirit of Christ by which the church lives. Paul’s appeals for the unity of the church are drawn from the unity of the body of Christ as the true and final temple. For Paul the body and the temple go together: the breaking down of the middle wall of the temple creates one body; the New Temple grows as a body (Eph. 2:21); the body is built as a temple (Eph. 4:12, 16). Christ is the cornerstone of the structure, the Lord in whom the New Temple exists.114
We began this chapter by noting that Revelation 21 – 22 anticipates a new earth dominated by a golden city of immense proportions in which God resides. Observing that the origins of this temple-city may be traced back to the opening chapters of Genesis, our survey of the theme of divine presence reveals a fascinating and coherent progression from Eden to tabernacle to Jerusalem temple to church to New Jerusalem. This distinctive framework is not only important for understanding the biblical meta-story, but it enables us, as we shall see in our remaining chapters, to understand better
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‘The prophets looked forward to a time when the End would be like the Beginning, and everything would be restored to its original state.’
‘Solomon built the temple as a garden sanctuary; the walls of the hekal were decorated with golden palm trees and flowers, set with precious stones; the bronze pillars were decorated with pomegranate patterns and the great lamp was a stylized almond tree.’
G. V. Smith, ‘Structure and Purpose in Genesis 1–11’, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 20 (1977), pp. 310–311, writes, ‘When Gen. 1 and 2 are compared with 8 and 9, one begins to perceive the extent to which the author uses repeated phrases and ideas to build the structural relationships within the units. The following relationships are found: (a) Since man could not live on the earth when it was covered with water in chaps. 1 and 8, a subsiding of the water and separation of the land from the water took place, allowing the dry land to appear (1:9–10; 8:1–13); (b) “birds and
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‘The tabernacle or temple stands as a representation of the cosmos, with God’s plan eventually being that all of creation becomes precisely this.’
There is thus good reason to see this book as a “tale of two cities” (a motif on which the book of Revelation is largely based).’
In the preceding chapter we proposed that the New Jerusalem of Revelation 21 – 22 represents the fulfilment of God’s original blueprint for the earth.
In differing ways each of these functioned as a model resembling God’s ultimate ambition for the world. Additionally, all three herald new stages in the process by which God himself gradually begins to inhabit the earth.
References to the throne of God draw attention to his kingship, one of the major themes in Revelation. By highlighting the divine throne, John’s final vision reveals that the creation of the New Jerusalem consolidates God’s absolute authority over everything that exists upon the earth.
However, the biblical meta-story indicates that God’s sovereignty does not extend unchallenged over the present earth.
In Genesis 1 – 2 Adam and Eve are endowed with a holy or priestly status that enables them to serve in the temple-garden and have direct access to God. In addition, the human couple are appointed as God’s viceroys to govern the earth on his behalf.
First, they are directly instructed by God to exercise dominion over all of the other creatures made by him:
The second reason for believing that Adam and Eve were commissioned to be God’s viceroys is less obvious to modern readers. The concept of royalty underlies the expression ‘image of God’.
As this quotation reveals, kingship and divine image go hand in hand.
the writer of Genesis 1 portrays God as king presiding over ‘heaven and earth,’ an ordered and harmonious realm in which each creature manifests the will of the creator and is thus declared ‘good.’ Humanity is created like this God, with the special role of representing or imaging God’s rule in the world.
Implicit in this instruction is the idea that God’s authority will be extended throughout the earth as people increase in number and spread outwards.
In the ancient Near East a ruler’s image was set up in distant parts of his kingdom in order to indicate that his authority reached there.
Adam and Eve are to be fruitful so that their descendants may, as priest-kings, extend God’s temple and kingdom throughout the earth.
In the light of their royal status and their divine commission to rule over the animals, it is especially noteworthy that Adam and Eve obey the serpent’s instructions rather than those of God.
By betraying God and obeying the serpent, the royal couple dethrone God.
The ones through whom God’s sovereignty was to be extended throughout the earth side with his enemy. By heeding the serpent they not only give it control over the earth, but they themselves become its subjects.6
due to their rebellious behaviour, God’s authority structures are overturned.
Against this background, the rest of the biblical story is especially interested in describing how the sovereignty of God will be restored and extended over the whole earth.
To see how the restoration of God’s sovereignty over the earth is described in the rest of the Bible, we shall focus briefly on Israel as a theocracy and the church as the kingdom of God.
the establishment of Israel as a nation ruled over by the Lord God is an exceptionally important development.
God’s creation project requires the existence of priest-kings who will extend God’s temple-city throughout the earth.
Abraham successfully defeats the four eastern kings and rescues Lot. When he returns victorious, two kings come to greet him.
Two distinctive forms of kingship are represented by the kings of Salem and Sodom.
Melchizedek displays the kind of kingship acceptable to God.
The king of Sodom, in marked contrast, typifies earthly or godless kingship that places sovereignty in the power of the individual.
