You still have learned because you are deaf to what Christ said. Meaning you lack spiritual discernment.
Of course! The buildings were used of Christ as a token or "type" of the true!!! Get it?! As were the jars of purifying water, the trips to Jerusalem three times a year, ablutions, circumcision, bread, the sacrifices, etc., etc. Jesus gave the disciples literal bread and wine, but that is not what He was referring to when he spake of it, it was to His body and blood. There is a spiritual and there is a literal/physical. People likeyou and the Jewish people at that time could not get past the physical, therefore to this day they think they can be saved by good works, and that the Messiah hasn't yet come, and that the physical city Jerusalem is a Holy City and the Temple and wailing wall a Holy place. Because
like many today, they miss the whole point!
As for the Temple building, would that be the
very same Holy Temple that
Jesus threw the Buyers and Sellers out of, and
when the Jews asked Him for a Sign demonstrating He had the power to do this, Christ responded to the JEWS: "
Destroy this Temple and
in three days I will raise it up?" Despite the fact that He had just thrown the merchants out of "that" literal Temple Building, was that the one He was talking about? ..or was the one Christ was talking about the spiritual temple of His body, DESPITE what they would "assume" from His words.
The fact is, those who had no spiritual discernment thought the very same way as those without spiritual insights, Preterist or Premillennialist leanings, or Dispensationalist theology think today. Like so many others, they "automatically" assumed that Christ must be talking about the physical Temple and marveled how he could say such a thing seeing as it took forty-six years to build?! Who could blame them for thinking literal temple? After all He had just thrown the buyers and Sellers out of it and this is what they were questioning Him about!! Hello? But
nevertheless, despite their "assumptions" Christ was not talking about the literal Temple there, or the literal building, He was
speaking spiritually about them killing Him. Because JESUS was the TEMPLE that they would destroy, and which He would raise up in three days.
Now...
Note the language as Christ "
went out of the Temple," and He "
departed from it." Granted, it may seem coincidental language that this is when they pointed out the Temple buildings.
But it has a Spiritual meaning. The Disciples are illustrating the great pride they (
being Jews) had in this physical glorious building, and such reverence for the greatness of it as the pride of Israel. They put so much stock in their bloodline and Jewish traditions, when without Christ their Messiah, this was all meaningless. What it represented would be thrown down.
Many of the Jews (
and their cousins the Preterists, Premillennialists and Dispensationalists today) had
put all their trust in the natural/physical/temporal, and God was prophesying in the Spiritual--which isn't an anomaly since this is what Christ did throughout His ministry. Just like when the disciple's brethren, the Jews, asked Jesus for a sign. And He gave them one, even though they didn't even realize it or its significance. Like you, they missed it because they were thinking like many in the church today, in terms of
a literal Temple being destroyed, and Christ was responding to their question
by prophesying in spiritual terms. Not one stone left standing one upon another is very specific illustrating that it is completely vanished, totally GONE! It means the Old Testament Congregation was no longer represented the Holy One of Israel! The Disciples in that episode were glorying over a building, and Christ is saying what it represents will be taken away completely in God's economy. His words are not ever coincidental, they are deliberate. Again, as in His promise of the sign to the Jews (
which they asked for) was fulfilled, and all they could think about was a literal build--just like YOU and most of the congregation today! But whether or not men ever understand what Temple Christ was speaking of, doesn't mean that he spoke of a physical, literal, brick Temple. Because the Holy Spirit being poured out at
Pentecost would eventually reveal the "real" deeper Spiritual truth of His words--to His people. e.g., when Christ threw the buyers and sellers
out of the Temple (G2411 - hieron)
John 2:18-21
- "Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?
- Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
- Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?
- But he spake of the temple of his body."
That word Temple Christ used there is a different word (G3485 - naos), but it is obvious that the words are interchangeable as the Jews spoke of the physical building, declaring it took 46 years to build. And note Christ never told them that He spoke of the Temple of His body, it remained a mystery to them!! But it is written by the Apostle John for us, who would
come after and
receive the deeper Spiritual truth of His words. True to His words,
they did destroy the Temple, and Christ did raise it up in three days, and
it was the sign that Jesus had the power/authority to do these things--as they had asked. A sign that many are blinded to from that day to this very day. And you failed to answer my questions many times in the past, if the temple fell in 70AD, did Christ raise it up in 3 days? Do you have a record of this? Can you check with your idol, Josephus on this?
The truth is many Jews looked upon the Gentiles as Dogs and Swine and gloried in the fact that they were the chosen seed of Abraham that could never fall from that (
in their minds). Even as many in the Preterist and Premillennial/Dispensational church today think the church can never fall. But the fact is, they did fall and the congregation today is no better than the congregation was then. Because their eyes were on the temporal rather than the Spiritual, even as the Disciples were admiring the great buildings of the Jewish nation. They at the church today feels the very same way about the nation of Israel's position because their hermeneutic is almost identical in its looking at God's word only literally (
John 3:4) and to some degree having great disdain for God authored Spiritual truths. It's simply the other side of that "
exact same" coin of methodology. Stones represent the people--both those who fell and those who would be raised up/ built again, when we understand the builder and maker is God. i.e.:
Matthew 3:9-10
- "And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.
- And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire."
Yes, God
was able of those stones to raise up children unto Abraham,
And He Did! Pay attention to this.. Christ was not talking about literal stones. But people as spiritual stones! Hello?
Galatians 3:29
- "And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."
Nothing coincidental about the language of God raising up stones as the children of Abraham, though it may seem so to many who seem antithetical to the Spirit of truth. Nothing coincidental about stones being the building of the church, or the stones being made of wood hay and stubble, or of gold silver and precious gems "
when we gracefully receive God authored Spiritual truths!" The word temple (G2411 - hieron) used by the Disciples doesn't preclude Christ from talking about a spiritual Temple any more than the word temple (G3485 - naos) that the Jews used in saying it took 46 years to build it precluded Christ from speaking of His body and not whatever building the Jews spoke of!
