New Temple
Matthew 24:1-2 Jesus
left the temple and was walking away when His disciples came up to him to call His
attention to its buildings. 2 “Do you see all these things?” He asked. “I tell
you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; each one will be
thrown down.”
JESUS and His disciples leave the temple where Jesus has
pronounced severe judgment on the temple leaders, and the walk toward the Mount
of Olives.
Their vantage point gives the men a stunning
view of the temple still under construction. Some of the temple’s stones are as
large as semi-trailers, weighing 100 tons! The structure was a beautiful tribute
to man’s creative genius. Jesus’ disciples were very proud of the glorious
structure.
But Jesus draws
them away from the world’s temporary beauty to point to God’s eternal glory.
When Jesus says that no stone will be left on top of another, the disciples
would not believe Him. Surely such a thing could not and will not happen.
But it did. In 70
AD God caused the Roman army to annihilate Jerusalem and the temple. True to
Jesus’ words, no stone was left on another as Rome rampaged through the city.
To that point the
temple was the symbolic home of God. When God’s people rejected and killed His
Son, stubbornly refusing to then believe in the risen Christ, God destroyed the
worldly temple. Through the Holy Spirit, He sent the Gospel out from Jerusalem to
build new temples throughout the world.
No, these new temples
are not magnificent structures of stone. They are glorious structures of God’s
new creation. After all, “Don't you know
that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16)
LIFE Link: Jesus has built you new and glorious.
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