By Seth Erlandsson. Translated by Julius Buelow.
The time of the Old Covenant was a time of preparation for the New Covenant. It was a time of illustrations, pictures, and shadows of the complete salvation which would take place through the Messiah of God.
During the time of the Old Covenant, through the prophet Jeremiah, God already foretold that a New Covenant would fulfill and replace the Old: “Yes, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers, when I took them by the hand and led them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant of mine, although I was a husband to them, declares the Lord” (Jer 31:31-32, EHV). “Listen, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, who will reign wisely as king and establish justice and righteousness on earth. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely. This is his name by which he will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness” (Jer 23:5-6).
The teaching of the letter to the Hebrew clarifies many of the Old Testament’s shadows and pictures of the true reality: the true sin offering, the true salvation, the true temple, the true Jerusalem, the true Mount Zion, “The chief of the mountains,” (Isa 2:2) etc. “In fact, the law is only a shadow of the good things to come, not the actual realization of those things” (Heb 10:1). “For Christ did not enter a handmade sanctuary, a representation of the true sanctuary. Instead, he entered into heaven itself, now to appear before God on our behalf” (Heb 9:24). “He entered once into the Most Holy Place and obtained eternal redemption, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood” (Heb 9:12). “In the other case, this priest, after he offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God” (Heb 10:12). The Old Covenant sin offerings have received their fulfillment, and are not to be repeated. “Jesus has obtained a ministry that is as much superior as the covenant that he mediates is better, because it has been established on the basis of better promises” (Heb 8:6). Believers under the New Covenant “have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God; to the heavenly Jerusalem; to tens of thousands of angels in joyful assembly; to the church of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven; to God, who is the judge of all; to the spirits of righteous people who have been made perfect” (Heb 12:22-23).
The time of preparation for the New Covenant was important, but it became a time of apostasy. Israel had received a very important assignment to be God’s servant during that time. But God declares about Israel, “Who is as blind as my servant? Who is as deaf as my messenger whom I sent? Who is as blind as my associate, as blind as the servant of the Lord? You, Israel, see many things, but you do not observe. Israel opens his ears, but he does not hear.” (Isa 42:19-20). Jerusalem (which means “City of Peace”) was to be the faithful servant of the Lord and was supposed to testify to God’s righteousness and peace. But God’s city had become like “a prostitute”. The Lord says through Isaiah: “Look how the faithful city has become a prostitute! … Your officials are rebellious. They are partners with thieves. Everyone loves bribes and chases payoffs” (Isa 1:21-23). The prophet Jeremiah writes: “This is what the Lord says. What fault did your fathers find in me, that they departed so far from me? They followed worthless idols, and so they became worthless themselves. ... I brought you into a fertile land, to eat its fruit and its good things. But you defiled my land and made my inheritance repulsive” (Jer 2:5,7).
But the Old Covenant would come to an end. “The rules about food and drink and various washings, were only outward regulations which were in force until the time of the new order” (Heb 9:10, JB). The law and all of its rules about clean and unclean food, the many ceremonial washings and the various offerings for particular days and times became a heavy burden for Israel’s children, a type of slavery. “Therefore, do not let anyone judge you in regard to food or drink, or in regard to a festival or a New Moon or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were coming, but the body belongs to Christ” (Col 2:16-17). “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. As it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’” (Gal 3:13). “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” (Gal 5:1).
But notably, even after the New Covenant had replaced the Old, a number of the Jewish Christians still wanted to turn back to the statues of the Old Covenant. The Christian freedom which Christ had purchased for them, freedom from the curse of the law, had not yet taken root in them. Paul writes to the congregations in Galatia: “But now that you know God, or rather are known by God, why are you turning back again to the basic principles that are weak and miserable? Do you want to be enslaved by them all over again? You carefully observe days, months, seasons, and years. I am fearful about you, that somehow my labor for you was wasted” (Gal 4:9-11). Galatians 5:1 begins, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free,” and goes on to say, “Stand firm, then, and do not allow anyone to put the yoke of slavery on you again” (Gal 5:1).
There remain Christian groups in our time who interpret the Bible as if the Old Covenant still applies and that the Kingdom of God is a geographical location, an earthly kingdom with physical boundaries, and not a spiritual, heavenly kingdom.
After his conversion, the highly educated Jew, Paul, compared the Old and New Covenants using Hagar and Sarah. He saw an “illustration” in the Old Covenant’s shadows of the true reality, and the great difference between the two covenants: “These things can be used as an illustration; namely, the women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children into slavery. This is Hagar. You see, this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and she corresponds to present-day Jerusalem, because Jerusalem is in slavery along with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free. She is our mother” (Gal 4:24-26).
“Jerusalem” can designate God’s true people, those who are born again from above by the gospel of God. That is why Jerusalem and the land of Canaan can be personified as The Lord’s faithful bride who has the Lord as her bridegroom. “You will never again be called Abandoned, and your land will never again be called Desolation, for you will be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land will be called Married, because the Lord delights in you, and your land will be married” (Isa 62:4). “‘Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.’ He carried me away in spirit to a great and high mountain, and he showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God (Rev 21:9-10). Mount Zion and Jerusalem of the New Covenant designate God’s true kingdom (see Heb 12:22f), because all of its inhabitants are born again, born “from above” (in Greek ἄνωθεν, anothen, Joh 3:3). “In righteousness you will be established. Oppression will be far from you, so you will not be afraid. Terror will be far from you. It will never come near you” (Isa 54:13). “They will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord” (Jer 31:34). Under the time of the Old Covenant, however, most of God’s people were had fallen away. Likewise, many of those who call themselves “Christians” during the time of the New Covenant are, in reality, Christians in name only.
When the Samaritan woman wondered about which mountain was the proper place to worship God, Jesus said: “A time is coming and now is here when the real worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth” (Joh 18:36). God’s true kingdom is not identical to its earthly shadows and illustrations. The geographical shadows and illustrations for God’s kingdom (Jerusalem) and its enemies (Assyria, Babel, Edom, Gog and Magog) do not mean that God’s kingdom is geographically bound and an earthly kingdom. “His kingdom will extend from sea to sea, from the River to the ends of the earth” (Zech 9:10). “My kingdom is not of this world” (Joh 18:36). “The kingdom of God is not coming in a way you can observe” (Luk 17:20).
The Third Temple
Will the earthly temple in Jerusalem, which was destroyed in 70 AD, be rebuilt? No, the time of the shadows has passed, and the offerings and temple service of the Old Covenant will not be resumed. “When God said ‘new,’ [Jer 31:31ff] he made the first covenant obsolete, and something that is obsolete and growing old is going to disappear [which happened in 70 AD]” (Heb 8:13). But that which the shadow foreshadowed, the true temple, was already built on the third day after the atoning sacrifice of the true Lamb of God. Jesus said, “‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again.’ … But Jesus was speaking about the temple of his body” (Joh 2:19-21).
The following list of passages shows that the temple has already been built.
- 1 Cor 3:16-17: “Do you not know that you yourselves are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and that is what you are.”
- 1 Cor 12:27: “You are the body of Christ, and individually you are members of it.”
- Col 1:18: “He is also the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that in all things he might have the highest rank.”
- Col 1:24: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings on your behalf, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church.”
- Eph 2:20-21: “You have been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the Cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord.”
- 2 Cor 6:16: “And what mutual agreement does God’s temple have with idols? For you are the temple of the living God, just as God said: I will live and walk among them. I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
- 1 Pet 2:4-5: “As you come to him, the Living Stone, rejected by men but chosen by God and precious, you also, like living stones, are being built as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, in order to bring spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
- Rev 3:12: “The one who is victorious I will make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he will never leave it again. I will also write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God—the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God—and my new name.”
- Rev 21:22: “I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.”
The Third Temple – A Future Temple of Judaism in Jerusalem
According to the Jews, the Old Sinaitic Covenant is still in effect. Ever since the destruction of the second temple in 70 AD, pious Jews have prayed to God that the temple be rebuilt on the temple mount in Jerusalem. This prayer has been a part of the three daily prayers in Judaism. This dream of a third temple is central to orthodox Judaism. Both in the year 361 AD and 614 AD an attempt to rebuild took place but was stopped by opposing forces.
The third temple is to be built on the temple site in Jerusalem with reference to Ezekiel’s temple in Ezekiel 40-48. But (as is seen in another article we’ve written on this topic) Ezekiel’s temple is not meant to be used or understood this way. Ezekiel’s temple is a shadow, a picture, of the true temple which is itself the center of God’s kingdom. That is why Ezekiel’s temple is in the middle of the land of Canaan, an picture of God’s true kingdom. The literal middle of the land of Canaan is north of Jerusalem, and the temple complex is much bigger than would fit on the temple site in Jerusalem.
Just as there were certain groups in Galatia, so there are certain Christian groups today who are “Judaizers” and do not take to heart the Bible’s message that the Old Covenant is “obsolete” (Heb 8:13). They adhere to the dream of Judaism of a restoration of the temple site and a third temple in Jerusalem. In recent times both Jewish Zionists and many Christian groups believe that if a third temple would be built, the way would be prepared for the arrival of the Messiah and an earthly kingdom of God, with Jerusalem as its capital.
[Translators Addition: Why is this so important? Whether one goes back to the Old Covenant, or looks ahead to an earthly restoration of it, one is being robbed of the full comfort of the gospel, and robbed of the comfort of many spiritual realities that are true right now for all believers. We are in Christ’s kingdom now, we are enjoying his reign of peace now, we are blessed through the heavenly temple now, regardless of earthly, visible, realities and political boundaries.]