Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff and was told, “Rise and measure the temple of God, and the alter, and those worshiping in it. 2But exclude the court that is outside the temple, do not measure it because it has been given to the nations. They will trample the holy city for forty-two months. 3And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for one thousand two hundred sixty days, dressed in sackcloth” (Revelation 11:1-3).
John is given a measuring instrument something that resembled a pole usually about nine feet long. He is told to measure the temple, the alter and worshipers, but not the Court of the Gentiles. These Gentile powers will crush the holy city, no doubt Jerusalem where the temple is located, for forty-two months. Then God will empower His two witnesses dressed in sackcloth, the sign of mourning, penitence and warning of imminent judgment, for one thousand two hundred sixty days. The two ministers will preach the same length of time as the occupation of Jerusalem. The scene recalls the measuring of the new eschatological temple (Ezekiel 40-48); or as Metzger calls it a cosmic temple that correlates to earth.[1] Like the Seal of God the act of measuring protected the worshipers from wrath (Zechariah 2:5-12). Measuring demarcated the holy from the profane. The holy city represents the people of God, the bride of Christ or the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:2). They will suffer persecution for forty-two months. Jerusalem will be trodden down until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled (Luke 21:24). The church is protected from the wrath of God, but will still suffer martyrdom.
This passage presents particular difficulties of interpretation. At the time of writing AD 90 Herod’s Temple had already been destroyed twenty years earlier in AD 70. So unless we take the earlier dating of Revelation during the reign of Nero as accurate, then the temple referred to was not the one destroyed by Titus. The only other two options see this as a restored future temple or a metaphor for the temple of God built up in Christ. As with any puzzling problem that presents multiple solutions so with interpretation the simplest answer is usually correct. The most congenial remedy sees this guarded temple as the temple of the body of Christ. Jesus said He would raze the temple and in three days build it back up referring to the temple of His body (John 2:19-21). He never spoke of a literal rebuilt temple. In the new era the purpose of the temple has become obsolete. God dwells in His body not a building. Peter tells believers to come to Christ as “living stones” to be built into “a spiritual house” that offer “spiritual sacrifices” (1 Peter 2:4, 5). Paul says that the saints are the household of God supported by the prophets and apostles with Christ as the chief cornerstone. In Him everything fits together as a holy temple; “in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God” (Ephesians 2:22). Paul refers to the body of Christ as the temple of God (1 Corinthians 3:16; 2 Corinthians 6:16). Also the angel measures the city, gates and walls of the New Jerusalem, which is the body of Christ (21:15). The wild beast curses the heavenly temple and those who dwell within. The temple, alter and the worshipers then are God’s elect protected from the wrath to come. Those outside the temple who are not in Christ will suffer punishment.
A literal future restored temple appears speculative with ominous implications for the modern world, but fits the overall pattern of a futurist interpretation. The idea of a Third Temple, however, built in contemporary time’s sets us on a dangerous course. The present site of the old temple is currently occupied by the Dome of the Rock, the third holiest shrine in Islam. To remove the Mosque and replace it with a Jewish temple would cause such outrage as to bring us to the brink of war between Islam and the West. This war would include both Russia and China who will be forced to choose sides in this massive global conflagration. The issue of the rebuilt temple illustrates for us the relevance of the bible prophecy movement to current events and the need to make responsible interpretations without recourse to sensational fancy. The futurist perspective that replaces the Mosque with a Jewish temple is given to self-fulfilling prophecy. People have already plotted to or will try to blow up the Mosque in an effort to hasten the end. Since the rebuilt temple is a precondition for the arrival of the Anti-Christ. Israeli police monitor Dispensational Christians in Jerusalem out of fear of just such an incident. This interpretation also lends credence to the notion that the Jews have a divine right to occupy Palestine, an idea in itself which is responsible for much bloodshed and holy war.
The idea that the Antichrist according to Paul will sit in the temple and proclaim himself God (2 Thessalonians 2:4) need not refer to a Third Temple but a sacrilegious depiction of the Antichrist’s claim to divinity. Hoekema says this, “The expression is probably best understood as an apocalyptic description of the usurpation of the honor and worship which is properly rendered only to God.”[2] A Third Temple will by no means be a Christian house of worship, but a Jewish one with animal sacrifices which Hebrews tells us to avoid.
The forty-two months and the one thousand two hundred sixty days like the cross references to three and half years or a time, times and half a time, all refer to an intense but limited period of oppression and trial for the people of God at the end of history in fulfillment of Daniel’s seventieth week prophecy (Daniel 9:24-27; 12:7). We encounter this reckoning elsewhere indicating the length of the reign of the wild beast (13:5) and the seclusion of the woman (12:6, 14) suggesting that these four events: the trampling of Jerusalem (tribulation for the saints), the prophesying of the two witnesses, the rule of Antichrist and the preservation of the woman happen simultaneously. The origin of these phrases goes back to Daniel 7:25 and 12:7 both alluding to the terrible persecution of the Jewish people under the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes when the temple was desecrated and the Jews were subject to systematic genocide. Antiochus ruled for a time, a year, two times, two years and half of time, half a year or three and half years from 167-165 BC or half of seven. Seven being the number of perfection so three and a half means imperfection. The phrase has been burned into Jewish consciousness as a metaphor for a temporary moment of terror, persecution and martyrdom before the time of the end and the dawn of a new age. In the New Testament the end times presently extends through the age of the church from Pentecost to the return of Christ (Acts 2:17-21; Hebrews 1:2). The twelve hundred sixty days prophecy lasts the entire duration that the church is on the earth. We are currently living through the end time’s tribulation. Although, the temple of the body of Christ is protected from wrath it will still suffer martyrdom as a witness to the Gentiles who persecute it.
[1] Metzger, Breaking the Code, 86.
[2] Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, 160.