John 14:2-3 Part 1 - Jesus And The New Temple

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon. We pray that as we declare the Word of God that you would be encouraged Strengthened in your faith and that you would catch a greater vision of who Christ is.

May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word and may the Lord be with you. If God Wanted the Bible to be an inch deep he would have made it into a kiddie pool. But because God has made the Bible this Mariana Trench of in beautiful Data, he wants us to explore it.

The Temple Theme From Genesis to Revelation

Now today we're gonna explore at a at a level. That's a little deeper than normal. We're gonna look at a theme that runs all throughout the Bible and It's this theme of the temple God's presence with his people and we're gonna view that from Genesis to Revelation.

Then we're gonna look in zone or zoom into John 14. We're gonna see what God is doing with all of these things. Now temple is something that is a theme that runs throughout the entire Bible. It begins much earlier than the Solomonic Temple, which was built in 957 BC.

It's much earlier even than the Mosaic tabernacle. Which is in the 1500s after Israel is rescued from their slavery in Egypt in there. They make this tent of meeting. It's way before that. In fact the temple theme the temple narrative the temple Reality what's going on in the temple is on the very first page of the Bible all the way back to Genesis now today.

For a moment. We're gonna look at 11 reasons why that's so and Then we'll get to the text that we have for this morning. Eden is the first temple where God and man commune together with one another. That's the first thing.

Eden as the First Temple and Adam as High Priest

It's a temple. I'm defining it this way is a sacred space where God makes people sacred in order to offer him sacred worship. That happens in Eden. God carves out a sacred space called Eden. It is a garden land in the midst of a world filled with deserts and God places his man and woman in the garden.

He makes them significant and sacred by breathing life into them. That word in Hebrew is the same word for spirit and Then he commands them to worship him. That's a temple. Adam himself is the first high priest.

You're like I didn't read that in Genesis 1. Well, we have to read a little bit under the surface. What does a high priest do? Well a high priest serves God a high priest? Helps other people come into worship.

The two words actually that are used for Adam in the Hebrew above and shop Mar. Are the words that are used for Aaron the high priest later when it says that Adam is to? Cultivate the garden and to keep the garden.

Those are the same words for the priest who are to cultivate the temple and to keep it for the glory of God the high Priesthood. What this is teaching us was not invented at the time of Aaron. It was actually patterned off of Adam.

So it goes all the way back to the very beginning. Number three if you're not convinced we've got eight more. The tree of life in the Garden of Eden is The prototype for the temple lampstand that sits in the holy place in Jerusalem.

The Tree of Life, the Menorah, and Garden Imagery in the Temple

Adam served in the presence of this great tree it was a tree of nourishment in the ancient world a tree especially like this was a symbol of life and Vitality and nourishment. Well inside the holy place in the Jerusalem temple was this lampstand called a menorah.

It had a central trunk and it had seven branches. It's a tree seven branches where light is Going to be present in the temple and also the bread of the presence is right there in front of it. So nourishment.

You've got a tree right there in the temple that's pointing back to the Garden of Eden. Jewish scholars are unanimous on this that that menorah is a symbol of the tree of life. Because why? The priests are supposed to remember that as they serve in the temple.

They're doing the work of reconciliation bringing people back into the garden presence with God before sin corrupted things. Number four the temple is decorated like a garden now. We know what a garden is it's it's fruits and plants and flowers and nuts and trees and all of these things.

Well inside the temple in Jerusalem, there were wood carvings of apricots. There were wood carvings of different fruits and nuts and berries and as you walk into the temple to look like a golden garden.

So the temple is decorated like Eden. To symbolize that it is patterned off of the original creation. It's not a novel creation. Number five the temple is filled with gold and jewels. If you read the text in Genesis, there's four rivers.

We'll talk about them in a moment that flow out of the Garden of Eden. One of them is the Pyshon not Python kids. Don't get scared it's the Pyshon and that river flows into a valley of gold and gemstones.

The temple itself is covered with gold and Gemstones, it's I don't think it's a coincidence. That it is patterned off of Eden in such a deliberate way. An interesting one number six is The Garden of Eden could only be entered through an east.

Entrance the the entrance to the Garden of Eden was on the east of the garden and it's the exact same way for the temple. The temple had one entrance and it was a temple. It was an entrance that faced east.

So that if you were going to go into the temple you had to turn and walk west into that eastern gate. Now in the Old Testament there is some symbolic references to east and west. That I think are important.

Every time the people of God in the Bible walk east. They're walking into curse or subjugation or slavery. You think of Adam who was kicked out of the garden he was kicked out of the garden. He was cast out through the eastern gate to walk east in.

His sin.

Cain was exiled to the east after he murdered Abel. The people of Babel Traveled east before they built the Tower of Babel. Judah was exiled to the east whenever God put them through the exile. There's a little theme there that as you're walking away from God you're walking east.

Which is also true that when you turn around and walk back the other way and you're walking west. There's a theme of redemption in the Bible. That's the number seven. In order to enter the Garden of Eden, you would have to walk west westerly.

Is that a word? It's the same for the temple. It's the same for the tabernacle. If you were a high priest who were serving sort of in that Adamic role You would have to turn and walk west to enter into the temple.

You would see the fruit and the gold and the tree and you would see this garden set up and it would be Symbolically like you were walking back to the Garden of Eden Representing your people who have sinned and been cast out of the presence of God.

Abraham. When he goes to Canaan, he travels west. To the land the garden land, which is also a pattern of Eden. When the exiles returned home they returned west. Again this is symbolic for we're leaving exile leaving sin leaving shame and traveling back into the presence of God.

God is so Providential over the details of the temple construction that he had it represent Eden in Every way because think about it when we take communion we take bread and wine. Those are tactile reminders of the gospel.

God did that for the Old Testament people as well. He gave them tactile reminders of Eden the hope that for which he created the world. This one I think is even more important. That as Adam and Eve were walking away from God to the east God gave them a Prohibition from entering back into the garden and to enforce that prohibition He installed two massive cherubim with flaming sword so that they could not enter back into.

The garden.

Now if you were a priest, this is what you would experience a couple thousand years later in Jerusalem. You would enter the garden temple Traveling west just like Eden you would have entered a golden room filled with plants and vegetation just like a garden.

And You would have entered into the Holy of Holies once per year. And on that big curtain because there was a curtain that Separated you from the Holy of Holies. On that curtain was woven to cherubim with flaming swords.

Because you're walking back.

Symbolically into the garden when you get inside the Holy of Holies. There's two massive cherubim with their arms spread out wide. Symbolizing that under the threat of death you were in here. On top of the mercy seat there were two cherubim on.

I don't know exactly what they look like. Indiana Jones has like this. You know this little representation. Two cherubim on top of the mercy seat. There's three sets of two cherubim to remind you that you are not only walking by God's grace past the angels of death but you remain in the Holy of Holies by God's grace.

And All of this is typifying what Jesus is going to one day do in bringing us back into the garden with God. Those aren't coincidences. Number nine under the threat of death. Were you in the Holy of Holies in?

The same way that you could not touch the Ark of the Covenant in heaven. You can ask Gaza how that worked out. Under the threat of death. You could not touch the mercy seat one the same way. You were supposed to avoid the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Under the threat of death. Now this number ten makes even more sense because what is the knowledge of good and evil. The knowledge of good and evil is wisdom. So here you have this tree that is dangerous for humans.

You're not supposed to grab from it. But it's also a tree that will give knowledge and wisdom. It's a place that if you eat from it You will surely die in the temple. The place where if you touch it You will surely die is the Ark of the Covenant.

And inside of the Ark of the Covenant is the law of God. The thing that gives us wisdom. So you've got the tree of the knowledge of good and evil compared to the Ten Commandments that are inside of the mercy seat.

Another Non-coincidence the last one I would say is.

That Eden.

Was on a mountain. And maybe you've never heard that before. That Eden was on a mountain. But I ask you to consider it this way. If there's four rivers that are flowing out of Eden rivers don't flow uphill.

Rivers flow downhill. So you have four rivers that are flowing from Eden? I don't know if this is true or not, but maybe from all four cardinal directions so that Eden was the geographical high point in that region.

Now that's fascinating because in the Bible high places are always places where worship occurs. High places are where temples were placed. Pagan temples idolatrous temples, but also the temple of the Living God.

Jerusalem was the high point in the entire region no matter what direction that you walk to Jerusalem. You had to go up to get to Jerusalem and On top the highest point in the city of Jerusalem on Mount Moriah.

Was where the temple was placed? It's a lot like Eden is it not? Ezekiel even says that from that temple streams of living water will flow kind of like the garden of.

Eden.

All of this is Symbolic of the fact that humans have fallen out of relationship with God. This glorious Garden paradise where God made us to dwell with him to love him. This Sacred space where God makes us sacred and we give him sacred worship.

All of that is lost but not entirely All throughout the Bible God is giving glimpses images pictures types shadows of the journey back home. If we were cast out of the garden God could have left us Isolated from him forever, but he doesn't.

He gives us pictures of what it's going to be like to travel back. Pictures like a tabernacle. Pictures like a temple. Pictures like a high priest. I didn't list this one. This is bonus material is number 12.

The high priest clothing reminds us of the Garden of Eden. The first layer of it says that it clothes his nakedness. Wasn't it Adam who had to have his nakedness covered? The high priest is serving in a way that's supposed to remind us of what the true high priest Christ is going to come and Do which is bring us back Into fellowship with God and this reality of temple God creating a sacred space for people who've been made sacred in his presence to do sacred duties and Worshiping him is all throughout the Bible.

It's from Genesis to Revelation. It's in Eden and it's also in New Jerusalem if we believe as Christians that well Thank God that we don't have to deal with a temple. You've missed it because the temple is all throughout the Bible as Christians temple is really important concept for you and I which we will see in Just a moment if you will.

Well, actually I've got a few more verses before we get there. Let's look at now. Not only that temple runs throughout the scriptures, but God meets with his people intentionally at a temple. This is the design from God all along.

God Dwells With His People in the Tabernacle and Temple

Exodus 25 8. It says let them construct a sanctuary for me that I may dwell among them. God's desire is to dwell among sinful people by grace. Exodus 29 42 through 43. It shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the doorway of the tent of meeting before the Lord where I will meet with you and speak with you there and I will meet there with the sons of Israel and it shall be consecrated for my glory.

Think about the grace that God shows over and over and over. These are golden calf making people. We can't judge them. We have a golden calf on Wall Street. Google it's right there and Yet God in his grace and in his mercy is welcoming them in over and over and over again pursuing them with his presence.

The great blessing of the Bible is God sharing his presence with undeserving people. That's what we see over and over again. Leviticus 26 11 through 12 moreover. I will make my dwelling among you. One of the most unbelievable statements in the Bible.

I will make my dwelling among you. And my soul will not reject you and I will walk among you. The temple reality points back to Eden does it not. Where do we see God walking and talking with his people in Eden here.

God is promising in Leviticus. I will walk and I will talk with you at the temple. Again, the temple is not a new reality when we get to it in Leviticus. Or when we get to it in the book of Kings, it is an old reality.

That goes all the way back to the very beginning. God even calls his temple his home which I think is makes it even more personal. The temple is not just a religious building as Christians the church even this is applicable to us.

It's not just a religious building. The temple is God's house. It's his home. Look at what God says about the very first temple in first Kings 827. But God but will God indeed dwell on earth. Behold heaven and the highest heavens cannot contain you how much less this house.

Which I have built. Solomon doesn't say this building. That I have built this great mega church that I have built this this great Edifice that I have built. He says your house. All throughout the scriptures this idea that God is dwelling with us is that he's left he's let his guard down.

He's taken his coat off. He's put his hat on the hat-rack. He's kicked off his shoes even and he's dwelling with us in intimacy. This is really important. Because when we go to the church and when they went to the temple They weren't going to meet with a stiff aloof Angry God who demanded that they come and worship.

I will make my presence known to you and I like the Wizard of Oz a little short man in the booth. It's not like that. When you hear these phrases, you should hear the grace and the tenderness of God. I'll make my dwelling among you.

I'll build my house in your neighborhood. That's what God is saying. Psalm 23 6. David got this. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

That's how David would have been. We laugh but David would have burst through that door to to David. It was not just a religious building. It was God's home. Isaiah 56 7. These I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer.

And Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar for my house. Shall we call it a house of prayer for all people? My personal gathering place. The place where I let down all my guard and and I make myself known.

It'll be known as a house of prayer. This in fact is the point of John 14 2 through 3, but I don't want us to skip ahead too fast. One of my favorite verses on this section is Ezekiel 43 7. I love this verse.

Listen to what it says and He said to me. God said to me son of man. This is the place of my throne in the place of the soles of my feet. God kicks his shoes off. He doesn't say this is the place where you see the underside of my sandals.

The temple is the place where I take my shoes off and I stay a while and I rest a while and I fellowship with my people. I Will dwell in the midst of the people of Israel for and that's true. Because of what Christ has done now for us.

There's a difference even between a house and a home too that we need to wrestle with. We have this phrase. Home is where the heart is. We have that phrase because we're made in the image of God. The house that you live in right now may not be the house that you live in for the rest of your life.

Your address may not always be the same. The building is not as important as the presence that inhabits it, right? My house burns down today. My house burned down, but not my home. My home is with the relationships that I've built with the family members that I've built.

And it can go anywhere. I talked about the army last week. We slept in a lot of places that don't look really housey. But I never felt like I was homeless. God's home His abode. His dwelling is with his people by grace and grace alone.

The prophet Haggai talks about this. He says go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house that I may take pleasure in it. And then I may be glorified says the Lord again. From the very beginning of creation until the end in New Jerusalem.

God is making his dwelling known to people. He is making a sacred place for people to perform sacred duties to love and serve their God.

The Old Temple Was Limited and Corrupted

But.

The temple also is not a stagnant reality because in the Old Testament the temple was limited. The Old Testament doesn't present a completed temple. It presents a temple that was woefully limited. It was a picture.

It was a shadow. It was a type of what Christ was doing, but it was not the Fulfillment on the very best day of the temple one day out of the year one man.

Alone.

Through great preparation and through terror. Got to enter into the oppressively good Presence of God. His presence is so good that it overwhelms most people. A lot of them died and they had to pull them out by a rope.

That's a limited temple that only one person gets to experience it only once per year. Most everybody else was on the outside. Looking in which tells us that God's home also in the Old Testament had boundaries it had borders in A similar way like ours does today for instance.

I'll talk to anybody on my front porch. I.

Will.

Jehovah's Witnesses vacuum salesmen's Democrats. You want me to put a sign in there in my yard. I'll talk to him on my front porch. But I'm not gonna invite them in my backyard. Let's be fair that's even wishful thinking.

I don't have a yard. But if I did. See, we'll talk to people on the front porch. We want to invite them in their backyard. Backyard. It's a little bit more intimate. Is it not. That's for your neighbors.

That's for your co-workers. That's for friends who are friends of friends, maybe even as. You get further into your home you get deeper in the intimacy. There's people who you would invite to your backyard if you would never invite into your house.

Like I like my neighbor. Maybe I would invite my neighbor, but I'd have him in my backyard before I'd have him in my living room. As you enter the home, it's a little bit more intimate. It's a little bit more exclusive.

I.

Would say.

Maybe you have different sets of boundaries than I do. I don't like When my house is a mess in the upstairs and Someone goes upstairs to see our mess our unmade beds. Do you feel that way? It's because upstairs is a little bit more intimate than the downstairs.

You invite people over to your dinner table and you have fellowship and fun and then that's great. But there's only a select people they get to go upstairs at the bedrooms. There's only a few people that get to To see how it really is.

You know The deeper you go into a home the more intimacy there is the more exclusivity. There is and it's the same in God's temple. The people who were allowed on the front porch at a distance. Was the people of Israel?

Most of them were on the front porch or in the backyard. They could they could see God at a distance. But they didn't get to go into the house. They didn't get to go into his home. It was only a select group of people who were allowed to go into God's home and that's the Levites and the priest and On most of them only got to go into his living room.

There's only one and only once per year That got to sleep and enjoy The blessings of the upstairs bedroom the Holy of Holies where God takes his shoes off. And he makes his presence known in its most beautiful and raw way.

That's why the Old Testament temple was limited because not everybody got in and As we transition now to John 14 as we've seen that temple is there from the very beginning. God's desire is to dwell with his people from the beginning and yet sin and failure and Brokenness and all of these things keep us at a distance from God.

They keep us in the backyard with God or they keep us not even on the front porch. But kicked off the front porch and into the street with God. We now need to look at what Jesus is going to do to rectify the situation.

He's not gonna throw away the concept of temple. He's gonna do something beautiful to bring us in so as we turn To John 14 today verses 2 through 3. I want us to look at how Jesus is gonna make a brand new temple.

He's not gonna reinvigorate the old one. He's gonna make a new one a final one a perfect one a better one and in so doing he's going to bring us from the outside in. So if you will turn with me John 14 1 through 3 We're gonna read our passage this morning and then we're gonna explore these things together.

John 14 do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God and believe also in me in my father's house. Are many dwelling places? If it were not so I would have told you for I go to prepare a place for you.

And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself or where I am. There you may be also, let's pray Lord Jesus. Your life Your work all of it stands at the very center of human history.

Everything created without sin without error in the garden. Tarnished and broken by our sin in Genesis 3 leaving humans without hope without ability.

Broken.

Beyond their Their power to be able to fix and yet Lord at just the right time you came. You came to provide the remedy you came to provide your gospel to fix the parts of us that are broken and To bring us in Lord today.

Would you help us to be able to see the temple reality? Underneath the gospel. It's a it's a it's a concept that we don't normally look at that the gospel Opens us up to the new and greater and better temple motif.

It's not a reality that we look at often. It's not something that we consider very frequently, but Lord, would you help us to see it? Would you help us to appreciate it? Would you help us to be thankful in it and Lord, would you help us to praise you because of it?

It's in Christ's name. We pray. Amen now the first thing we have to discover is is Jesus even talking about a temple because as I read verses 1 through 3, I don't see the word temple anywhere. I don't see the word tabernacle anywhere.

So the question we have to ask ourself is Is he talking about the temple? Now, I think he's talking about the temple. Yes, I think he's talking about more than the temple. That's why this sermon had to be two sermons.

I said that last week in that funny how things multiply. One text becomes three sermons before you know it. It'll be the end of the year and we'll still be in John 14 verse 5. Bibles deep and good got a lot of amazing things inside of it.

Today, I just wanted to look and see if temple is here and explore the ramifications and I would say yes. The word temple is not here. But yes, the concept is Jesus uses the word house. He said in my father's house.

That phrase is not accidental. The phrase father's house only occurs a couple times in the New Testament. Jesus says three of them and they're always talking about the temple every single time Luke chapter 2 when Jesus is a teenage boy and he's talking to the people who ought to have known what the temple actually is.

He says this. Why is it that you were looking for me? He's talking to his mom and dad. Did you not know that I had to be in my father's house. Where's he at? He's at the temple. He's saying that the temple is his father's house.

John chapter 2 he uses this phrase again. Now. He's not a teenager anymore. Now. He's 30 years old. He's entering ministry. John chapter 2 is the beginning of Jesus's ministry and the Pharisees again are questioning his authority questioning what Jesus knows and this is what Jesus says to them in John chapter 2.

Take these things away stop making my father's house a place of business. He's saying you're treating my father's house like it's just a building like it's just a place for commerce like it's just a marketplace.

But it's my father's home. Get your tables out of my dad's house. He's time at the temple. The intimate dwelling of God when we take that understanding we combine it with Jesus says in John 14 My father's house has many rooms.

I think it's undeniable that he's talking about the temple in John 14 at that time. The temple complex was a massive sprawling metropolis of buildings. King Solomon's temple was actually quite small. It was just a temple.

That's it by the time of Herod. They call it the Herodian temple. There was building upon building upon building. It was a massive sprawling Complex, it looks like a lot of megachurches in, Texas. This building is this this building is that this building is that it's there's the temple.

Kind of subsumed among the temple complex when Jesus says my father's house has many rooms. It could be that he's applying to the fact or or sort of implicating the fact that hey this little Temple right here is not big enough.

Doesn't have enough rooms for all the people that I'm gonna let in my father's house has many. You think that building is special you think that building significant you think it's big. The one I'm gonna build is better.

Now we do have to do some work here. I can't avoid this because I grew up in a Christian culture. We're gonna take a pause for a second. We're trying to talk about the mansions. I. Somebody would remind me don't worry.

Just be faithful one day. You'll get your mansion. That's not what this passage says at all. The word mansion is not even here when you translate this word from the Greek to the Latin, it's a word that looks like mansion and Unfortunately when the English translators brought it over into English.

They did what sometimes we do when we look at other languages and say how it looks like mansion English. It must mean mansion and in the Latin that's wrong. That's that's not how translation works. The word doesn't mean mansion.

The word actually is a verb that Jesus converts into a noun which would have made his sentence a little awkward. But it would have also made it striking. It would have brought a lot of emphasis to what he was saying the word means Stay to stay or I am staying.

It's a verb.

So when Jesus turns it into a noun It would have been sort of like in my father's house. There's many staying places in My father's house. There's lots of places to rest In my father's house. There's many places for you.

To stay.

Again, I think that this would have been in contradiction or in juxtaposition to the temple. Which was limited. The temple Jesus is building is not has nothing to do with mansions when we get to heaven.

It's not gonna look like Bel Air or rodeo or day or drive or whatever those places are. It's gonna be we all have place to stay. All of us who are in Christ have a place to stay now. How is Jesus gonna do that or why would he even do this?

As Jesus is saying these words he's in the city of Jerusalem with the towering Herodian temple hanging over top of him. Why would he say that my father's house and I go to prepare a better place than that?

Why would he do that? The temple is functioning. It's working. It's doing what the temple has always done. Why would he need? To promise a new temple again because the old temple wasn't working. The old temple was excluding people.

The old temple was the Pharisees broken house at this point where they were weaponizing God's presence against the Gentiles. Remember in John chapter 2. They filled the entire presence of the Gentile court with animals and tables and they were saying be damned Gentiles.

There's no place for you in the father's house, even though in Isaiah. He said my house. It's a house of prayer at this point. The temple had become rotten. If you read in Josephus. Josephus is a Jewish historian.

He talks about the disgusting and despicable Practices that were happening in the Herodian temple. It had become very corrupt. It was no longer a place where people would come to know God. It was a place where a sign was hanging up in the court of the women that said if you're a Gentile and we find You here we will kill you.

There was a sign in the temple that said that. It was a temple that was used to buttress ethnocentricity and every other Jewish Custom, but it wasn't a temple that was dedicated to the service of God.

At its best when Solomon built it. It was a type and it was a shadow of the true and better temple that was to come. It was never meant to be the final end all be all temple. Jesus came to build a better temple.

We're not just an elite class of people get to go in and only once per year and to the holiest of holies a place Where all of his people get to go in a kingdom even a priest. Have you ever thought about why the Bible calls us a kingdom of priests?

Because you're no longer on the outside. You get to be in.

God's home.

It doesn't mean that you need to wear funny clothes when you go to church it doesn't mean that you need to go out and sacrifice an animal in your backyard and If you do put it on the grill and I'll be there.

Take mine rare or medium rare. The point though is that every room is now open. When Pete when Jesus or when Paul says that there's no more any division no more dividing line. The curtain has been torn.

He means that now we're in. So the temple had to be Brought down the old temple in order to make way for a new and better temple. So An implication of this what Jesus is saying is if he's gonna build a new temple, the old temple has got to go and That is in fact an overlooked aspect of the Gospels.

That a lot of people have booted into future Antichrist future eschatology passages. Most of these passages I'm going to read with you have to do with Israel in the first century. Jesus taking away their temple because he's going to build a new one this whole Dynamic begins in Matthew 21.

Read Matthew 21 not and Through 24 read it not as though these things are in the future or these things apply to us they do by application, but read those passages with fresh eyes and You'll see that Jesus is taking away their temple because of their sin and their rebellion.