Tag: Jesus as temple

Jesus as Temple Recapitulation in Matthew

Nearly every ancient people and culture has its own creation myth, which does not repair what was broken but simply starts again, in a sort of cosmic version of the film Groundhog Day, but the story of Christ as a recapitulation of the history of Israel may be the exception. This history recapitulates and in the process repairs, corrects and completes, what went wrong and is broken. But maybe as in the film version, getting it right is the true event and the failures turn out to have been dead ends which are erased and forgotten. So true creation, true Temple, true Adam, true Israel, in Christ precede the other versions in terms of reality. Irenaeus first recognized, or at least developed this doctrine of recapitulation, which may be most conspicuously on display in the book of Matthew. Matthew is recapitulating creation, the history of Israel, and the formation of the Temple, in his telling of the life of Christ.[1] The concept may be best illustrated in the case of the Temple; Christ is the true Temple replacing the model which served to point to him.

Jesus as New Creation and True Temple

Jesus as new creation and true Temple are the same idea, as creation and the cosmos are symbolized by the Temple, and so Jesus is the source of life, the realization of the presence of God and the perfection of creation. Just as the Temple symbolically pictured God emerging from his dwelling place into the world, so too Christ is filling the earth through his extended family. Most creation stories tell of the origin of the head of the race and then by providing a genealogy of the royal family, explain the formation of the people. Matthew begins his creation story with the genealogy of Jesus, “the book of the generation” of Jesus, the genesis of divine presence in all creation. This one “who is called Christ” (1:16b) will “make disciples of all the nations” (28:19) and will thus fulfill the mandate given to Adam and Eve to “fill the earth” (Gen 1:28). He fills all things, not through procreation but by endowing with his Spirit, made eternally present (Mt 28:20).

The Temple is not the dwelling place of God, and this was supposed to have been understood: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be?” (Is. 66:1). Neither a physical city, nor a building, nor a host of rituals, produced God’s presence, but in Emmanuel what the Temple only represented is realized. God with us in Christ makes the Temple obsolete, just as it is unnecessary in the heavenly city: “I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple” (Re 21:22). Emmanuel is the reality of the holy of holies, not through ritual but through his relational presence: “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them” (Re 21:3). This is not a limited, mediated or interrupted access but is unrestricted.

Jesus as Universal Temple: As Demonstrated by the Magi

According to S.L. Black, this new “approach” (προσέρχομαι) to God’s presence is reflected in Matthews distinctive deployment of this unique term: “people ‘approach’ Jesus with reverence rather than merely coming to him.”[2] He is approachable, but the term carries the sense of awe before Christ’s majesty and divine dignity. The term is employed some fifty-two times by Matthew to describe the tempter (4:3), angels (4:11), his disciples (5:1) and a host of others who approach him. For example, “a leper approached Him and bowed down before Him, and said, ‘Lord, if You are willing, you can make me clean’” (Mt 8:2). It is the word used to describe approaching God in prayer (in Mark 11:17; Luke 6:12). In Matthew it is combined with bowing down, as in the above instance, indicating what might be typically done in prayer and worship in the Temple.

It is what the Magi do when they find the baby Jesus, and in fact the entire episode of the Magi reflects activity normally associated with the Temple: “After coming into the house they saw the Child with Mary His mother; and they fell to the ground and worshiped Him. Then, opening their treasures, they presented to Him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh” (Mt 2:11). Gentiles like the magi or the Ethiopian eunuch would normally come to Israel to worship at the Temple where they would offer up gifts. Elsewhere in Matthew, gifts (dṓron) “is used exclusively … for offerings to God” in the context of the Temple.”[3] Norman Francis argues that the gifts themselves are of the kind associated with the Temple: the inner chambers of the Temple are inlaid with gold (1 Kgs 6:20-21) and frankincense myrrh are offered up in the Temple. Pure frankincense was to be offered in the Tent of Meeting (Ex 30: 34-36) and was burnt with the meal offerings (“lay frankincense on it; it is a grain offering” – (Le 2:15)) and it was part of the weekly Sabbath bread offering (“And you shall put pure frankincense on each pile, that it may go with the bread as a memorial portion as a food offering to the Lord” – (Le 24:7)). Myrrh was sprinkled in the Holy of holies, including on the Ark of the Covenant: “Take the finest spices: of liquid myrrh 500 shekels . . . And you shall make of these a sacred anointing oil blended as by the perfumer; it shall be a holy anointing oil. With it you shall anoint the tent of meeting and the ark of the testimony” (Ex 30:22–26). So the magi are the beginning of the nations converging on the Temple (Is 2:2-3).

Ezekiel’s Vision of the Temple Fulfilled in Christ

At Jesus baptism there are a series of events echoing Ezekiel’s vision of a heavenly temple: the heavens are opened, God speaks, and the Spirit descends. The Spirit “lights” on Jesus like the Spirit hovering over the waters in Genesis (1:2) marking the new creation and its Temple described in Ezekiel. Both occur during a time of foreign domination at a river (Eze 1:1; Mt 3:13) and both are a direct revelation through the voice of God (Eze 1:3; Mt 3:17). Jesus though, is called the “Son of God,” while Ezekiel is called “Son of man.” The Spirit does not “light” on Ezekiel but lifts him onto his feet and speaks to him alone (Eze 2:2). The Spirit descends and lights on Jesus, like a dove. This “lighting” of the Spirit is unique to Matthew and is specific to God’s presence “lighting on the Temple.” According to N. Perrin, “where the Spirit settles, there one finds the Temple.”[5] The proclamation, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased” (Mt 3:17) gives divine notice that God is now with us.

In Ezekiel’s vision “The Lord is there” (Eze 48:35) is the name given to the city in his vision. This city of God’s presence is a picture of the cosmic Temple, which in each of its dimensions is impossibly squared: “The city (48:15-16), the Temple courtyard (41:13-14), its outer walls (42:15-20), inner court (40:47), holy of holies (41:4), and altar of burnt offerings (43:13-17), etc., are all perfect squares.”[4] The square is representative of perfect holiness, and in Ezekiel God departs from the defiled Temple but returns to the perfectly squared holy Temple (43:13ff): “Son of man, this is the place of My throne and the place of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell among the sons of Israel forever” (Eze 43:7). It is a “coming” eschatological city while at Jesus baptism, God has “come.”

In Ezekiel’s vision, waters of life flow from out of the Temple: “It will come about that every living creature which swarms in every place where the river goes, will live. And there will be very many fish, for these waters go there and the others become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes” (Eze 47:9). Along the river fruit trees sprout up, and they will never fail to provide fruit and their leaves are for healing (Eze 47:12). Jesus healing in the Temple (Matt. 21:12-17) and his healing ministry follow Ezekiel’s Temple signs. According to Francis, “Like the stream originating from Ezekiel’s visionary Temple, Jesus now becomes the source of healing, wholeness and abundance. Moreover, Jesus’ commissioning of his disciples to ‘make disciples of all the nations’ (28:19) is probably intended by Matthew to be read as analogous to the ever-expanding reach of the Temple’s healing stream in Ezekiel’s vision.”[6]

The Recommissioning of Israel in the Twelve

Jesus sends out his disciples, equipped as priests, serving the Temple rather than travelers: “Do not acquire gold, or silver, or copper for your money belts, or a bag for your journey, or even two coats, or sandals, or a staff; for the worker is worthy of his support” (Mt 10:9–10). In Alfred Edersheim’s description this fits preparation for serving in the Temple:

 Thus ‘no man might go on the Temple Mount with his staff,’ as if on business or pleasure; nor yet ‘with shoes on his feet’—sandals only being allowed; nor ‘with the dust upon his feet’; nor ‘with his scrip,’ nor ‘with money tied to him in his purse.’ Whatever he might wish to contribute either to the Temple, or for offerings, or for the poor must be carried by each ‘in his hand,’ possibly to indicate that the money about him was exclusively for an immediate sacred purpose. It was probably for similar reasons that Jesus transferred these very ordinances to the disciples when engaged in the service of the real Temple.[7]

The twelve disciples, the recapitulated tribes of Israel, are sent into Galilee and eventually the world to bring God’s kingdom to the world. In their preaching and healing they are carrying out the work of new creation: “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give” (Mt 10:8). They are curing the world of fallenness as they radiate out from Jesus, the New Temple, the central presence of God.

Jesus as Lord of the Sabbath is the New Temple

The Temple is the place in which the Sabbath rest for God occurs: “Let us go into His dwelling place; let us worship at His footstool. Arise, O Lord, to Your resting place, you and the ark of your strength” (Ps 132:7–8). It is a symbolic place of rest, promising a true Sabbath. Jesus in proclaiming himself “Lord of the Sabbath” (Mt 12:8) also explains “that something greater than the temple is here” (Mt 12:6). He fulfills the role of the Temple in providing the promised rest: “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS” (Mt 11:28–29).

Jesus as the Shekinah

After six days, perhaps echoing entry into the seventh day of rest, Jesus is transfigured and shows forth his divine glory: “Six days later Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up on a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light” (Mt 17:1–2). Moses and Elijah appear with him, and the scene echoes God’s appearance to Moses: “The glory of the LORD rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; and on the seventh day He called to Moses from the midst of the cloud” (Ex 24:16). The shekinah refracts off a cloud for Moses, and then his own face shines as a result, but Jesus is the source of light in the transfiguration. “His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light” (Mt 17:2). He is the enduring shekinah represented in Exodus and associated for a time with the tabernacle and temple, but which was withdrawn. Jesus’ influence spreads throughout Israel and beyond (Mt 4:24-25) growing until he is all in all (I Cor 15:28) filling the world with his glory. As Edersheim concludes, “His feet have trodden the busy streets of Jerusalem, and the shady recesses of the Mount of Olives; His figure has ‘filled with glory’ the Temple and its services; His person has given meaning to the land and the people; and the decease which He accomplished at Jerusalem has been for the life of all nations.”[8]

Conclusion: The Body of Christ, the Church is the Temple

I have only begun to introduce the material in Matthew echoing and fulfilling the Temple, but in conclusion of part 1, it is enough to point to the commissioning of the disciples at the end of Matthew to go into all of the world to complete the Temple project: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and he Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Mt 28:18–20). Christ, as the new Temple, seeks to expand God’s presence over the whole earth through the work of his disciples. As Paul describes, the church is the ongoing Temple project “being fitted together” and “growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit” (Eph 2:21-22).

[1] Joel Kennedy has developed the concept in the first four chapters of Matthew, as he describes: “the summing up of Israel’s history in Jesus’ early life; Jesus as the corporate representative of his people Israel; and Jesus as the embodiment of Israel in his recapitulation.” J. Kennedy, The Recapitulation of Israel: Use of Israel’s History in Matthew 1:1-4:11 (Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 3-4.

[2] Stephanie L. Black, Sentence Conjunctions in the Gospel of Matthew: Kai, De, Tote, Gar, Oun and Asyndeton in Narrative Discourse (Bloomsbury, 2002) 221. Cited in Norman O. Francis, Jesus as the Fulfillment of the Temple and its Cult in the Gospel of Matthew (Edinburgh: Unpublished Doctor of Philosophy Thesis: The University of Edinburgh 2020) 141.

[3] Robert Horton Gundry, Matthew: A Commentary on His Handbook for a Mixed Church under Persecution (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub., 1994), 32. Cited in Francis, 144.

[4] Francis, 152.

[5] N. Perrin, Jesus the Temple, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010) 70. Cited in Francis, 153.

[6] Francis, 153-154.

[7] Alfred Edersheim, The Temple–Its Ministry and Services (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library) 29

[8] Edersheim, 6.

The Sign Given in the Temple: Sacrificial Violence is Ended

When asked for a sign, Jesus says he will only give the sign of Jonah, but then in the Temple incident, when asked for a sign, he says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (Jn 2:19). Both signs refer to his death and resurrection, though in the Temple Jesus uses the active verb “destroy” to indicate the manner by which he would die. Both incidents are surrounded by violence: the violence of the sea, the violence of the Temple sacrifices, the violence of Nineveh, the violence of the Jews and Rome, and it is this violence in both the sign of Jonah and in the Temple incident that accounts for his death. The sign of Jonah entails the anger of Jonah toward his enemies, duplicated in the Pharisaical anger turned on Jesus (see here), the same anger directed at protecting the Temple, which will kill Jesus.

Jesus is like Jeremiah, who predicted the destruction of the Temple and whose life was then threatened: “When Jeremiah finished speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak to all the people, the priests and the prophets and all the people seized him, saying, “You must die!” (Je 26:8). In this sign, Jesus ties his death to the threat he poses to the Temple, and all that it represents. His claim of the Temple being a “robber’s den,” is not so much that bad people have corrupted a good system, but as in Jeremiah and Isaiah, the Temple itself is behind the robbery. The English word “robber” may not capture the meaning of léstés, an armed thief who steals by use of threat of violence. Cleaning up this system, is more than getting rid of the money changers. God, in Jeremiah, claims the institution is a den of “robbers” (7:11) and that setting up this system of sacrifices was not his idea: “For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices” (Je 7:22). It is not that the moneychangers are charging unfair rates, but the Temple is incurring a violent debt and making thieves of all involved in its operation. God describes it as a place of institutionalized murder, oppressing “the alien, the orphan, or the widow, and shedding “innocent blood in this place” (7:5). The issue is destruction of the entire system, which Jesus intimates in saying “destroy this Temple,” and in describing its end.

As God says in Isaiah, “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle; And I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs or goats” (Is 1:11). God hates the system: “I hate your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts, they have become a burden to Me; I am weary of bearing them” (Is 1:14). He equates the system with murder: “So when you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; Yes, even though you multiply prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood” (Is 1:15). We may tend to read these verses as saying they are killers in spite of the Temple, but what is described is a system that is inherently violent, obviously in the slaughter of animals but also in promoting scapegoating sacrifice. “Bring your worthless offerings no longer, incense is an abomination to Me. New moon and sabbath, the calling of assemblies— I cannot endure iniquity and the solemn assembly” (Is 1:13).

Jesus disrupts the sacrifices in the Temple, (echoing Jeremiah that it is a den of violent thieves), as the institution is robbing people of their life. It shelters murder and violence as part of Jewish identity.[1] The driving out of the animals is not simply concerned with money, but is a symbolic ceasing of the sacrificial economy; a momentary saving of the animals from slaughter as a metaphorical end to the murderous system. During his action in the Temple, Mark says “he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple” (Mk 11:16). Some translations call this “merchandise” but it is not items for sale but the items necessary for the sacrifices as in Hebrews 9:21: “all the vessels used in worship.” According to Anthony Bartlett, “In short, there is a whole paraphernalia necessary for the conduct of sacrifice – shovels, barrels, buckets, bowls, pans, trays, censers, etc. These would have been used to ferry wood, ashes, oil and grain offerings, grain cakes, and the animal body parts remaining in sin offerings, peace offerings/thanksgiving offerings sacrifices (cf. Leviticus 2-7).”[2] Jesus was disrupting the entire system of the Temple, of which the money changers were one small part. The sellers and consumers, patrons and priests, or all that are involved are interrupted. He symbolically halts the entire system, and in his person he makes it obsolescent. He predicts this will cause his death, but that is part of the point, so as to expose the violence at the heart of the system; the violence that killed him and which he defeated in the cross and the resurrection.

The driving out of the animals puts a direct focus on the sacrifices but all understood the animals are symbolic. The sacrificial victims Jesus is driving out of the Temple represent his sheep, delivered from sacrificial violence. In Matthew Jesus seems to accentuate the point, healing “the blind and the lame” who came to Him in the temple” in the midst of this incident (Mt 21:14). These are oppressed by the Temple system, but Jesus opens a new way for these “sinners” the Temple did not pretend to help. “All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep” (Jn 10:8–11). Jesus implicates all who were previously shepherding Israel: “All who came before Me are thieves and robbers.” His is a universal statement, but of course the bandits (those who would “kill and destroy” the sheep), along with all the patrons are saved from the robbery of this death dealing system. By the time John writes, the Temple, along with its sacrifices and priesthood, are long gone, but all understood even in the synoptics, Jesus had provided a door out of the sacrificial economy and entry into an alternative Kingdom. The Sheep Gate into Jerusalem accentuated the purpose of the Temple to sacrifice, and Jesus opens a new sheep gate: “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep” (Jn 10:7). This shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, driving them from the deadly system to which they were subject.

Halting the sacrifices, also entails an implicit political dimension involving Rome. When Israel decided to cease offering sacrifices in the Temple on behalf of the emperor in 66 AD, according to Josephus: “This action laid the foundation of the war with the Romans.”[3] An army, the size of the Roman Army that eventually destroyed the Temple, would have been necessary to permanently halt the sacrifices, but Jesus symbolically accomplished the same thing. The disruption produces a sacrificial crisis, of the sort which would eventually consume the Temple and Israel. The priests and Pharisees foresaw this possibility, which was behind their decision to kill him: “If we let Him go on like this, all men will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation” (Jn 11:48). Jesus death would not ward off Rome’s eventual sacrifice of Israel in its own sacrificial economy, and Christ is aware he is potentially unleashing unprecedented violence: “The whole of archaic humanity, and one thousand years of intense Jewish religious history culminating in the present crisis of Roman occupation, would have risen up against him.”[4] The Jews momentarily forestalled the all-out violence by collaborating with Rome in Jesus death, but eventually a new round of sacrificial violence would consume the Temple, but Christ had made provision for a new Temple and a new, nonviolent, way of being human.

Combined with the imagery of the triumphal entry, it is clear the violent world of warring kingdoms, attached to Israel and the Temple, is being halted by a new kind of king and kingdom: “Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, humble, and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zec 9:9). This is not a king prepared for battle, but one equipped to end the sacrifices of war, religion and violence. He is described as (ani) humble, poor or oppressed. Elsewhere such a one is a victim of murder: “The murderer arises at dawn; He kills the poor and the needy, and at night he is as a thief” (Job 24:14). The humble are the victims, not the victimizers; one who must give up his coat as part of a pledge, and likely homeless and without another cloak (Deut 24:12-13). This humble and meek King does not come to sacrifice, but to halt violent sacrifice: “I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem; and the bow of war will be cut off. And He will speak peace to the nations; and His dominion will be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth” (Zec 9:10). This is the imagery Jesus is purposely echoing in his entrance into Jerusalem and the Temple.

This is also why John the Baptist marks the end of this violent type kingdom: “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force” (Mt 11:11–12). John is the last in the line of those who, like Elijah, possess “the kingdom in a way that is alien to the kingdom itself.”[5] The violence of the kingdom, the sacrificial economy of the Temple, the warring destruction of Israel, was not the kind of kingdom God would establish. This violent sort of kingdom is finished with Jesus: “May no one ever eat fruit from you again!” (Mk 11:14). The fig tree representing the Temple is dead and finished. As he says right after the Temple incident, the Temple Mt. is subject to being cast into the sea, and the disciples can already live out their faith, in its absence (Mk 11:22-26). As Bartlett points out the two incidents are tied together in a mutual explanation: “It is much more intelligible to hear him referring exactly to this event, using the withering of the fig tree as a parable of what will now happen to the Temple and its sacrificial order.”[6] The fig tree will bear no more fruit, the Temple system is finished, and can now be discarded into the sea. “The mountain Jesus is speaking of is the temple Mt., and the movement is entry into a fulness of forgiveness, no longer dependent on the ritual of sacrificial violence.”[7]

Jesus is himself the alternative to the Temple, exposing its continual blood sacrifice and ongoing violence, made evident as that which sacrifices Jesus. He is sacrificed in an effort to preserve the Temple and its deadly economy, and in the process he displaces sacrificial religion. The sign of Jonah and the sign of the Temple, stand against the scapegoating sacrifice of Nineveh and scapegoating Temple sacrifice. Jesus knew that halting the sacrifices, would produce the sign of Jonah in his murder, the destruction of the Temple of his body and his resurrection, defeating this order of violence and sacrifice. Just as Jonah is three days in the earth symbolically delivered from death (sheol), Jesus, the destroyed Temple, is three days in Hades or Hell, cleansing the world of hellish violence and providing resurrection life, free of sacrificial violence in a new Temple order.

[1] Anthony Bartlett, Signs of Change: The Bible’s Evolution of Nonviolence (Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2022) 167.

[2] Bartlett, 166.

[3] Josephus, Bellum Judaicum II: 408, cited in Bartlett, 142.

[4] Bartlett, 146.

[5] Bartlett, 155.

[6] Bartlett, 163.

[7] Bartlett, 162.

Jesus’ Temple Construction as a New World Order

At the beginning of John, Jesus disrupts the Passover sacrifice in the temple with a sign which, in his explanation, points to himself as true temple: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19). The temple incident is not about cleaning up Herod’s temple nor is it about getting rid of coin exchange (it was necessary that the coins bearing Caesars image be exchanged for those with “no graven images”) or animals being sold. As Mary Coloe points out, such trade was not itself wrong; rather, “his words and actions must be seen as a prophetic critique of the entire sacrificial system.”[1] The Jewish response indicates as much, as they do not question why he did it but ask what sign he could give that he had the authority to do such a thing. They did not take his action as some sort of violent assault on the temple, but presumed it called for a legitimating sign of authority, as with Moses’ “signs and wonders” (Deut. 34:11). They knew the prophecies concerning the end of sacrifice and the limitation of the efficacy of animal sacrifice, and indeed, Jesus is declaring the end of the sacrificial system, as he is true temple and true sacrifice. As Jacob Neusner describes Jesus’ action in the temple, it “represents an act of the rejection of the most important rite of the Israelite cult and therefore, a statement that there is a means of atonement other than the daily whole-offering, which now is null.”[2]

The Gospel of John is written at the end of the first century, after the Romans had already destroyed Jerusalem and its temple, so that John might be read, not only as the story of temple replacement, but as a depiction of how all of the rites and meaning of Israel are now continuing as a first order reality through Christ. The ingathering of a new Israel, represented in the 12 apostles, resonates with the founding of a new dwelling, a new sacrifice, and a new understanding of atonement.

 As Coloe points out, this theme of fulfilling Israel’s scriptures, echoes from “the beginning” in which the true tabernacling (eskenoseri) among us has commenced in his flesh and God is among us, and we saw his glory {doxa)” (1:14).[3] The language of tabernacle and glory reverberates with the way in which God’s presence was made known to Israel in the ark, the tabernacle, and the temple. Rather than reading this opening scene as a cleansing of the temple, in the context of John, this must be read as the beginning of a new temple and new order of worship and a recentering of the world.

The theme of Jesus as temple marks each key moment in Jesus’ explanation of his identity. Seated at Jacob’s well in Samaria, Jesus indirectly alludes to himself as the temple, which was often pictured as situated above the wellsprings of creation (as in Ezekiel 47:1-12). The temple, in Jewish tradition, was thought to rest upon the spring of creative waters (Gen. 2:8) and also served as the capstone holding back the flood waters of Noah. Noah’s altar is also linked with this foundation stone located in the Holy of Holies supporting the Ark, with its temple sitting upon the wellspring of the earth at the center and source of creation, but now Jesus is this living water (John 4:6, 10). At the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus describes himself in terms of this festival as the source of thirst-quenching water (7:37) and the light of the world (8:12). During the Feast of Dedication, celebrating the reconsecrated temple (in 165 BCE), Jesus describes himself as the “consecrated one” (10:36). During the final discourse Jesus speaks of his “Father’s House” with many dwellings (14:2) which indicates an ongoing extension of the household of God. In the course of the Gospel, the temple has been identified as a building whose true form is the person of Jesus, and this then is extended to a new temple community of disciples, but ultimately a new world order. [4]

If we take Jesus at his word, the key part of temple construction gets under way at the cross and the tomb, in which the echoes of the temple reverberate throughout. John makes it obvious that the cross is the point when the true Passover lamb is being sacrificed, as his Gospel climaxes with the crucifixion at the very moment the Passover lambs are being slain (John 19:14, 31). Jesus is this Passover lamb that cleanses the world of sin and death, according to John the Baptist (John 2:13, which I described last week here).

The work of the temple, representative of a cosmic removal of death, is a work completed in Christ, but maybe it is the empty tomb and resurrection which most clearly bears echoes of Jesus as true temple. For example, in John 20:12 Mary “saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying.” Several commentators see here an allusion to the ark of the covenant with its two angels at either end of the mercy seat or lid on the ark of the covenant.[5] Nicholas Lunn finds ten similarities between the scene of the tomb and the ark of the covenant: the inner chamber of the temple, separated by a veil is like the burial chamber sealed with a rock and, like the ark, Jesus body was “carried” (άροϋσιν) and “put” in the tomb (τίθημι – put, place, lay is used some six times in John to describe that Jesus was laid there (John 19:42; also 19:41; 20:2, 13, 15)). A cloth covered the ark and was wrapped around Jesus for burial, and both involved spices (and specifically myrrh). Both the tomb and the ark were adjacent to a garden (with the Garden of Eden represented as surrounding the ark). Though entry into the holy of holies is restricted, Peter and John enter and believe but Mary receives a warning, similar to that given to the priests not to touch the holy things (Jesus says, “Do not touch me” (John 20:17)) and both times of entry were early morning. Finally, the risen Lord directly correlates to and surpasses the glory surrounding the ark (John 12:16; 2:22).[6]

The glory of the Lord had been attached to the ark (with the cherubic figures described as “the cherubim of glory” (Heb. 9:5)). It was here that God appeared to Moses to give him revelations: “There I will meet with you; and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak to you about all that I will give you in commandment for the sons of Israel” (Ex 25:22). With the loss of the ark the glory departed from Israel (I Sam. 4:21-22) and God fell silent. Now real cherubim show up to mark the spot where full access to God is realized. The presence of God had been identified as the one “who dwells between the cherubim” (cf. 1 Sam 4:4; 2 Sam 6:2; 2 Kgs 19:15; Ps 80:1; 99:1), but now the presence of the risen Lord is marked by living angelic messengers.

Lunn draws parallels between the Levites and Jesus’ high priestly prayer (for the disciples) in terms of the relationship between the high priest, God’s representative, and the Levites. It is stressed several times, that they belong to God: “They are mine [έμοι έσονται],” he says (Num 3:13; cf. 12, 45; 8:14). Jesus repeatedly describes his disciples as those who were God’s which are now mine. “I have manifested your name to the men you gave me out of the world; they were yours and you gave them to me” (John 17:6). “I do not pray for the world but for those you have given me” (John 17:9). “I desire that they also, whom you have given me, be with me where I am, that they may see my glory” (John 17:24). Just as God designates the tribe of Levi as Aaron’s brothers (Numbers 18:2) Jesus calls his disciples his brothers (John 20:17). On the other hand, the prohibitions against touching or looking improperly are clearly abrogated in Christ, whom they could freely see and touch without fear of being struck dead. “No longer is God concealed and unapproachable, but revealed and accessible. No longer is there any threat of death in drawing near, but rather through the incarnate Son’s own atoning death there is an offer of life.”[7]

Besides the obvious implications, that here God and his people meet and that here true revelation is given and divine access is opened through Christ, the explicit linking of cross and lamb, and tomb and ark, bear a striking theological lesson. There is no negotiation with the powers, with evil, with death, or with the necessity of violence. While great violence is unleashed on Christ, this is not something he negotiates but it is what he overcomes. The true high priest has applied his own life blood to the “mercy seat” so that where death previously occupied the center of the world, life now appears so as to displace death. Death or the devil do not demand or require a ransom for Jesus, as he simply defeats both. He is lifted up and the prince of this world who has kept the world enslaved through death is defeated (John 12:30-32).

There is no deep discord, original violence, or dialectic difference to mediate the work of Christ. He is the light that dispels the darkness, the life that overcomes death, and the “I am” which exposes all false metaphysical presuppositions. It is not, as Karl Barth depicts it, that the antithesis to creation – nothingness – is somehow lent a reality in competition with God’s being. He maintains, “That which God renounces and abandons in virtue of his decision is not merely nothing. It is nothingness, and has as such its own being, albeit malignant and perverse. . . . It lives only by the fact that it is that which God does not will. But it does live by this fact.”[8] In Barth’s Calvinist depiction, God must negotiate with this malignant order as if it is in competition with the reality of God. While some may not be so bold as Barth and Calvin to assign evil to God, there is a long tradition imagining God must somehow stoop to the level of death, darkness, and violence to overcome it.

The tomb as ark and the cross as means of establishing this relation, not only connects Christ to the atoning sacrifice, it also bears the full meaning of that sacrifice. We find the life of Christ in the place of death and the love of Christ in the place of violence. Christ’s life puts paid to the notion that violence is inevitable and that even God must struggle against the powers, pay the penalty, and work within the law or the laws of the universe. This inevitable violence and death dealing struggle describe every human order, every institution, every means which cannot imagine a resource that transcends the violence of the world. But this is precisely why Christ is the singular atoning sacrifice, the sole foundation of a new peaceable kingdom. We should not look to the shadows to determine the substance of the reality.

However atonement might have been construed prior to Christ, it now must be understood in light of his work as, “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2, NIV). In John’s depiction in both the Gospel and the Epistles, love is definitive of God but this is a love that comes to full expression and fruition in the work of Christ: “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 Jn 4:10). The love of God as the defeat of sin and death is the meaning of atonement and this is the meaning of the world.

The Lamb is at the center of the throne, the place described as between the cherubim (Exodus 25:22). (As in Numbers, it is from here that Moses “heard the voice speaking to him from above the mercy seat that was on the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim” (Numbers 7:89).) The center of the world has become the throne room of heaven in John’s vision: “Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne” (Revelation 5:6). All peoples and all of heaven are now centered on this reality: “Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying: ‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!’” (Revelation 5:13). Here the world is brought into relation with its Creator and Redeemer through the true Temple and True sacrifice of reconciliation.

[1] Mary Coloe, “Temple Imagery in John,” Interpretation (2009, 368-381)

[2] Jacob Neusner, “Money Changers in the Temple: The Mishna Explanation,” NTS 35 (1989) 290. Quoted in Coloe, ibid.

[3] Coloe, Ibid.

[4] Coloe, “Raising the Johannine Temple (JOHN 19: 19-37),” Australian Biblical Review (48/2000) 47-58.

[5] Nicholas P. Lunn, “Jesus, The Ark, and The Day of Atonement: Intertextual Echoes in John 19:38-20:18”

JETS 52/4 (December 2009) 731-46, provides the following references. John Lightfoot, A Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica, Vol. 3 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1859) 443-44; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 5: Matthew to John (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991) 979; Β. F. Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John (London: John Murray, 1892) 291; Geerhardus Vos, Grace and Glory (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1994) 73. More recently the same comparison has been made by Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John, XIII-XXI (AB; New York: Doubleday, 1966) 989; Rowan Williams, in an “ssay entitled, “Between the Cherubim: The Empty Tomb and the Empty Throne,” in his volume On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000) 183-96, esp. 186- 87; Johannine scholar Mark Stibbe in his popular work The Resurrection Code: Mary Magdalene and the Easter Enigma (Milton Keynes: Authentic Media, 2008) 61, 71; also Jim Cassidy, “The Mercy Seat” (a sermon preached August 2008) at http://www.calvary-amwell.org/sermons/ John20b.mp3.

[6] Lunn, Ibid.

[7] Lunn, Ibid.

[8] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics: The Doctrine of Creation. Volume III, Part 3 (London; New York: T&T Clark, 2004), 352.