THE TEMPLE WILL NEVER BE REBUILT
Every couple of weeks the same breathless headline appears somewhere in the Christian world.
“Plans for the Third Temple!”
A new red heifer has been spotted. Someone has reconstructed a priestly garment. A group in Jerusalem has produced a golden menorah. Prophecy charts start glowing again like a conspiracy theorist’s corkboard. Lines connect from Ezekiel to Daniel to the nightly news. And more.
Yet somewhere in the background of all this dispensational dupery, a quiet historical fact clears its raspy throat and says, “mmmhmmm... You know… someone already tried that.”
In the fourth century the Roman emperor Julian the Apostate decided he was going to humiliate Christianity. Julian had grown up around the Christian faith but hated it and wanted nothing more than to see it sink back into the darkness where he believed it came from. So, Julian rubbed a few synapses together and came up with a great idea. Let's rebuild the temple, because that single project will utterly discredit Christianity and invalidate their claims!
And he thought this way, because Christians had been saying for centuries that Jesus’ prophecy about Jerusalem had already come true. In the Gospels Christ declared that the temple would be destroyed so thoroughly that “not one stone here will be left upon another” (Matt. 24:2). Jesus Himself said He is the true temple and that His resurrection body would permanently and forever replace the temple (John 2:19–21). BOTH Paul and Peter had been saying that God was building a third temple, but not in Jerusalem, but out of the living stones of Christians, who were built on Christ the cornerstone (1 Cor. 3:16–17; Eph. 2:19–22; 1 Pet. 2:4–6). So, In Julian's mind, as long as the temple lay ruined from its destruction in AD 70, Christianity and Christ would be proven true, and Julian could not have that happen.
So in AD 362 Julian did something that would make modern prophecy enthusiasts cheer. He authorized the rebuilding of the temple on the Temple Mount. He gave imperial funds for the building project. He collaborated with Jewish workers, who were encouraged to return and get to work, marking Rome's official backing of this cockamamie project.
Then the construction project began and immediately things went sideways.
The pagan historian Ammianus Marcellinus, who admired Julian and certainly was not trying to defend Christianity, recorded what happened next. He tells us that when the workers started clearing the foundations, violent disturbances interrupted the work. Ammianus reports that terrifying bursts of flames shot out from the ground near the foundations and repeatedly drove the workers away. Almost "as if" (Sarcasm included), God was determined for this plan to fail!
You can almost imagine the scene. Roman officials standing around with blueprints and building plans. Optimistic Jewish workers with tools and shovels. And then suddenly the construction site turns into ground zero for a lava vomiting earthquake, scattering the workers, throwing the foremens into panic, and the Romans wondering what was happening.
Ammianus describes the result was that the project was deemed cursed by God who was making it impossible. And it truly was impossible, because the flames made the place inaccessible to the workers, and the entire enterprise was humorously and embarrassingly abandoned.
Other historians like Socrates of Constantinople and Sozomen also recorded the failed attempt and mention earthquakes and other disturbances that accompanied the event.
Whatever exactly happened at the site, the conclusion is not disputed.
The temple was not rebuilt.
The most powerful and wealthiest empire on earth tried and failed.
And frankly;y, whoever wants to try and rebuild it again in the modern world, will face similar calamities.
God does not want the temple rebuilt, because Christ is the true temple. That old one is obsolete at best, and a blasphemous symbol of Jewish hatred against Jesus Christ. Think about it, what better way to give the middle finger to God, than to reject His true temple, and build another one in Jerusalem. What better way to split in the face of the Almighty than saying, no thanks Jesus, we would rather bleed out our livestock.
That is a blasphemy God will not allow, and many in the church should be ashamed for even wanting this to happen. Our Lord and our savior is the true temple, and we should care most deeply that no rival images ever erected to compete with Him.
