The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 5
The Temple
The Temple.
In the Covenant made with David, Jehovah declared that he would raise up one of his sons, who should be also Son of God, and that he should build a temple for his name. When the foundations only of a temple existed in Jerusalem, Jehovah sent Zechariah to Joshua, the son of Josedeck, the High Priest, to say to him, that "the man whose name is the Branch," which he had said should grow up unto David, "should build the Temple of the Lord." "Even He shall build the Temple of the Lord," and that the sons of strangers from afar should come and assist in its erection; when the glory of Lebanon, the fir tree and the pine tree and the box together should be brought to beautify the place of the temple—Zech. vi. 12-15; Isa. lx. 10-13. When the flocks of Kedar and the rams of Nebaioth, should also come up with acceptance on its altar, and the temple itself should be glorified with His glory; when this should come to pass, Zechariah likewise testified that "The Branch" "should bear the glory and should sit and rule upon his throne, and be a priest upon his throne." Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah under the Persians, was at that time rebuilding the Temple, and finished it in the 6th year of page 40 Darius. But Zcrubbabel though a type of Messiah, who was then, so to speak, in his loins, was not named "The Branch," nor did he ever sit and rule upon a throne as king or priest; Therefore, the temple he finished was not the temple referred to. The temple built by Zerubbabel was finally destroyed by the Romans, since when no temple has existed in Jerusalem. The Lord Jesus is admitted on all hands to he "the man whose name is the Branch," but as yet he has built no temple to the Lord. It is true the Christ's mystical body, the Church, is styled a holy temple in the Lord, for a habitation of God through the Spirit. He also called his natural body "the temple" which he would rebuild in three days, and in the Revelations it is said that "the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of the New Jerusalem." But this is not the temple described in the 40th, 41st, and 42nd chapters of Ezekiel. The building is architectural there, for its courts and internal compartments, with its furniture and ordinances, are different from the tabernacle and temple built by Solomon and Zerubbabel. It is a structure,* then, hereafter to be erected in Jerusalem restored, not in Jerusalem the New† and the builder of it is the Lord, for He saith, "I will set my Temple in the midst of Israel for evermore." He will set it there by "the Branch" whom He hath appointed to build it.
* This is a most important distinction.
† The New Jerusalem is the Body of the Christ in its perfection. (See Heb. xii.)
‡ Can these predictions have had an accomplishment, or be spiritualized away into heaven as existing invisible realities, as the theology of the Churches of Christendom assumes.
* Types and shadows of the law fulfilled in the antitype—the Christ and His brethren.
† Seven: the symbol of perfection.
‡ Symbolic of the introduction of another priesthood made after the power of an endless life, the Mosaic system of means had then fulfilled its result, to bring to, the Christ the elect of God.
The burning of incense, therefore, will not be restricted to the temple as in the days of old. Prayer is the voice of supplication seeking assistance in times of need. It ascends as incense before the Lord burned by the necessitous; prayer will be made for Israel's kings continually, and will ascend as incense in every place.
But the Christ and His saints will not be necessitous. They will have no wants unsupplied, for they will possess all things. Praise, not prayer, will ascend from the Holy place, therefore there will be no golden altar there on which to burn incense before the Lord.