To answer this question comprehensively, one must look at the historical events, as it is important to understand why we are referring to a third temple, and what this temple of God is all about.
Who built the first temple and why? What happened to this temple and what became of it? And finally, why should the third temple be a requirement for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ?
We can predict one thing with certainty: YES, this third temple is a requirement for Jesus Christ to even initiate His Second Coming! All of this is prophesied in the Bible, the Word of God; including the fact that there MUST be a third temple!
Some believe that the prophecy for the third temple is not about a physical temple made of stones, but only about a spiritual, inward temple. They link this to Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17, where he says, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.” (Compare also 2 Corinthians 6:16; 1 Corinthians 6:19.)
Paul is saying here that our body, “spiritually speaking,” is a temple of God, in which God the Father and Jesus Christ dwell through the Holy Spirit, which WE should not defile, for example, by smoking, excessive drinking, gluttony, fornication or adultery, and so on.
But that does not mean that there will be no physical temple in the end time – BEFORE the Second Coming of Christ.
Let us first ask ourselves: Why did the God of the Old Testament – Jesus Christ – want a temple, initially a tabernacle, to be built? Who was to build it?
We find the answer to this question in Exodus 25:1-9:
“Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: ‘Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring Me an offering. From everyone who gives it willingly with his heart you shall take My offering. And this is the offering which you shall take from them: gold, silver, and bronze; blue, purple, and scarlet thread, fine linen, and goats’ hair; ram skins dyed red, badger skins, and acacia wood; oil for the light, and spices for the anointing oil and for the sweet incense; onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod and in the breastplate. And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I show you, that is, the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings, just so you shall make it.’” (See also Exodus 40:34-35; 1 Kings 8:10-11).
Christ is the King of kings. He wanted to dwell with His people. He wanted to be close to them and care for them. Of course, we know that God does not actually dwell in a physical temple (see Acts 7:48). But this was a symbolic visual confirmation that He would be close to His people.
Unfortunately, in the time of Samuel, there was a rebellion by the Israelites, because they did not want to accept the invisible God of the Old Testament as their king, preferring a human being as their ruler, which of course only led to suffering and pain (see 1 Samuel 8:1-22).
And so God decided that Saul should be anointed king (compare 1 Samuel 9:15-27; 10:1). According to the biblical account, Saul died because of his many sins, and God had David, the shepherd, the son of Jesse, anointed to be king. David, however, became a man of war and had much blood on his hands. Nevertheless, he was a man after God’s own heart because he was faithful to God and always repented with all his heart and with humility.
We read in 2 Samuel 5:4-10: “David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years. In Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months, and in Jerusalem he reigned thirty-three years over all Israel and Judah. And the king and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land… David took the stronghold of Zion (that is, the City of David)… Then David dwelt in the stronghold, and called it the City of David. And David built all around from the Millo and inward. So David went on and became great, and the LORD God of hosts was with him.“
In 2 Samuel 7:1-16, we read that it was David’s desire to build a house or temple for God, but this was denied him because he was a man of war. Instead, his son Solomon was to build the house for God.
In 1 Chronicles 21:18-30; 22:1-19, however, God allows David to identify the site for the temple and the altar of sacrifice, after which David handed over the construction of the temple to his son Solomon, as it was God’s will. David then passed the design of the temple to his son Solomon with all its provisions and regulations (compare 1 Chronicles 28:11-21).
In 2 Chronicles 3, Solomon began the construction of the temple, which was around 970 BC. In 1 Kings 6:37-38 we read: “In the fourth year the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid, in the month of Ziv (today April/May). And in the eleventh year (about 7 ½ years later), in the month of Bul, which is the eighth month, the house was finished (about 962 BC) in all its details and according to all its plans. So he was seven years in building it.”
This first Temple, also called “Solomon’s Temple”, was then destroyed and burnt down by King Nebuchadnezzar II in about 587/586 BC. We read in 2 Kings 25:8-10: “And in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month (which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon), Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. He burned the house of the LORD and the king’s house; all the houses of Jerusalem, that is, all the houses of the great, he burned with fire. And all the army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard broke down the walls of Jerusalem all around.” On this subject, also read Ezra 5:12; 2 Kings 24:10-14; 2 Chronicles 36:17-19.
At this point, the people of Judah had already been deported to various regions of the Babylonian Empire. This captivity, which was to last for 70 years, had already been prophesied by the prophet Jeremiah. He was preaching to the people of Judah for 23 years that this would happen, but they did not want to hear it (see Jeremiah 25:1-11; 29:10, and 2 Chronicles 36:20-21).
After these 70 years of captivity, they returned from Babylon to Jerusalem and Judah. The whole community numbered 42,360 people in total, not including their servants, who numbered 7,337, and there were 200 singers (see Ezra 2:1-70).
Then, in about 515 BC, about 7 months after the return from Babylon, King Cyrus gave the order to rebuild the temple and to bring back all the articles of the house of God (compare Ezra 1:1-11). After an interruption, King Darius again confirmed the order to build the temple (Ezra 6:1-5).
This was the second temple that was built or rebuilt, which was not always easy, as there were some obstacles. It is also interesting that Isaiah, about 150 years before Cyrus, predicted exactly this situation; namely, that Cyrus would rebuild the temple (Isaiah 44:24-28; 45:1-3).
In our free booklet “The Fall and Rise of the Jewish People”, you can learn more about the fulfillment of these prophecies, and how they relate to the modern State of Israel.
This second temple was then renovated several times and greatly expanded and redesigned under Herod the Great. It became known as the Herodian Temple, but it was still the second temple.
When Jerusalem was conquered by the Roman troops in 70 AD, it was again looted, set on fire and destroyed. This was no coincidence, because Christ had twice predicted during His lifetime as a human being here on earth, that the temple would be destroyed again.
In Luke 21:5-6, we read: “Then, as some spoke of the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and donations, He said, ‘These things which you see—the days will come in which not one stone shall be left upon another that shall not be thrown down.’”
According to the biblical account, Christ was saddened for the people of Jerusalem because they did not believe in Him and the gospel, the good news, and He wept over them. He also said the following in Luke 19:41-44: “Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, ‘If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.’”
This is exactly what happened in 70 AD through the Romans.
The German Website of the Wikipedia-Encyclopedia states the following: “On August 30, the Romans conquered the upper and lower city with Herod’s palace. Smaller groups of Jewish fighters escaped through hidden tunnels. On September 7, 70, the city was completely in Roman hands. According to Flavius Josephus, approximately 1.1 million people lost their lives during the conquest, the majority of whom were Jews. The temple was destroyed – probably accidentally – and has not been rebuilt to this day. Only the Western Wall remains.”
What is at issue now is that this destroyed second temple must in fact be rebuilt before Jesus Christ can return!
So why a third temple before the return of Jesus Christ? Couldn’t Christ just decide not to have the third temple built and come back to earth without it?
NO, because otherwise God’s end-time prophecy could not be fulfilled! For it is prophesied that there MUST be a third temple. The Bible gives us numerous impressive prophecies that describe or mention the third temple before Christ’s return.
Matthew 24:15 refers to the “abomination of desolation” in the temple. The New International Version puts it like this: “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel – let the reader understand…”
Daniel 11:31 reads: “And forces shall be mustered by him, and they shall defile the sanctuary fortress; then they shall take away the daily sacrifices, and place there the abomination of desolation.”
Although Antiochus Epiphanes fulfilled this prophecy in his time, this was only a forerunner, because it is an end-time prophecy. It is a prophecy for the third temple. The sacrificing of animals, which according to the Bible is to be taken away, is being prepared in Jerusalem at this present time and will soon reach its climax!
We also read about what must happen in the third temple before the Second Coming of Christ.
In 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2, the German Luther Bible 1984 begins with the heading “The Adversary’s Appearance Before the Coming of Christ.”
Verses 3-4 state: “Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” This man will claim to be God.
Verses 9-10 continue as follows:
“The coming of the lawless one (the adversary; the man of wickedness or also the man of lawlessness) is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.”
This is a clear prophecy that there must be a third temple!
Who is the one who will sit in the third temple and claim to be God?
Revelation 13:11-14 states: “Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs…”
The first beast is an end-time political and military leader of German or Austrian descent. The second beast refers to a religious leader who is also called the false prophet. In 2 Thessalonians, he is called the transgressor, the lawless one, the adversary, the man of sin or the man of lawlessness, depending on the translation. He will be someone who will arise from the Catholic Church, perhaps even directly from the Vatican in Rome.
But he will meet his temporary end and lose his life, since he is only human, not God!
Revelation 19:20 says: “Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone.”
In Ezekiel 28:8-9, we also read the following about the false prophet in the Authorized Version:
“They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas. Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayeth thee.”
There are many more Bible passages that point to the false prophet in this coming age, before the Second Coming of Christ. This man will sit in the rebuilt third temple and will claim to be God. The construction of this third temple is imminent.
If you want to know and understand more about it, please order our free booklet “The Fall and Rise of the Jewish People.”
Lead Writer: Thilo Hanstein (Germany)
Initial translation from the German: Daniel Blasinger
