Apocalypse Revealed#191
191. "'I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God.'" This symbolically means that the truths they possess, springing from goodness derived from the Lord, sustain the Lord's church in heaven.
A temple symbolizes the church, and the temple of My God symbolizes the Lord's church in heaven. It is apparent from this that a pillar symbolizes what sustains and stabilizes the church, and that is the Divine truth in the Word.
In the highest sense, a temple symbolizes the Lord in respect to His Divine humanity, particularly in respect to Divine truth. In a representative sense, however, a temple symbolizes the Lord's church in heaven, and so also the Lord's church in the world.
That a temple in the highest sense symbolizes the Lord in respect to His Divine humanity, and particularly in respect to Divine truth, is apparent from the following passages:
(Jesus said to the Jews,) "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." ...He was speaking of the temple of His body. (John 2:19, 21)
I saw no temple in (the New Jerusalem), for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. (Revelation 21:22)
Behold..., the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple, and the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire. (Malachi 3:1)
I will bow myself toward Your holy temple... (Psalms 138:2)
...I will look again toward Your holy temple... And my prayer went to You, to Your holy temple. (Jonah 2:4, 7)
Jehovah is in His holy temple. (Habakkuk 2:20)
The holy temple of Jehovah or of the Lord is His Divine humanity, for it is to this that people bow, look to, and pray, and not to the temple merely, as the temple is not, in itself, holy. It is called a holy temple, because holiness is predicated of Divine truth (no. 173).
"The temple that sanctifies the gold" in Matthew 23:16-17 means nothing else than the Lord's Divine humanity.
[2] That a temple in a representative sense symbolizes the Lord's church in heaven, is apparent from the following passages:
(The) voice (of Jehovah) from the temple...! (Isaiah 66:6)
...a loud voice came out of the temple of heaven... (Revelation 16:17)
The temple of God was opened in heaven, and the ark of His covenant was seen in His temple. (Revelation 11:19)
...the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened. And out of the temple came the seven angels... And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God... (Revelation 15:5-6, 8)
I called upon Jehovah, and cried out to my God; He heard my voice from His temple... (Psalms 18:6)
I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty, and His skirts filled the temple. (Isaiah 6:1)
[3] That a temple symbolizes the church in the world is apparent from these passages:
Our holy... temple... has become a conflagration... (Isaiah 64:11)
I will shake all nations..., that I may fill this house with glory... The glory of this latter house shall be greater than the former... (Haggai 2:7, 9)
The new temple in Ezekiel 40; 41; 42; 43; 44; 45; 46; 47; 48 describes a church to be established by the Lord. A church is also meant in Revelation 11:1 by the temple that the angel measured. So likewise elsewhere, as in Isaiah 44:28, Jeremiah 7:2-4, 9-11, Zechariah 8:9.
...the disciples (of Jesus) came up to show Him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said to them, ."..Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left... upon another, that shall not be demolished." (Matthew 24:1-2)
The temple here symbolizes the church today; and its demolition means, symbolically, that not one stone would be left upon another. This symbolizes the end of that church, when not any truth would remain. For when the disciples spoke with the Lord about the temple, the Lord foretold the consecutive states of this church, even to its last one, or the end of the age; and the end of the age means the final period of the church, which is the one that exists today. This was represented by the destruction of that temple to its foundations.
[4] A temple has these three symbolic meanings, namely the Lord, the church in heaven, and the church in the world. Because these three are bound up together, they cannot be separated. Consequently one cannot be meant without the other. Therefore anyone who divorces the church in the world from the church in heaven, or the one or the other from the Lord, is without the truth.
The temple here means the church in heaven, because reference to the church in the world follows after this (no. 194).
Jeremiah第7章
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The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying,
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"Stand in the gate of Yahweh's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, 'Hear the word of Yahweh, all you of Judah, who enter in at these gates to worship Yahweh.
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Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.
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Don't trust in lying words, saying, The temple of Yahweh, The temple of Yahweh, The temple of Yahweh, are these.
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For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor;
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if you don't oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, and don't shed innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your own hurt:
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then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even forevermore.
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Behold, you trust in lying words, that can't profit.
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Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods that you have not known,
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and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered; that you may do all these abominations?
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Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it, says Yahweh.
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But go now to my place which was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.
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Now, because you have done all these works, says Yahweh, and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you didn't hear; and I called you, but you didn't answer:
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therefore will I do to the house which is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh.
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I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, even the whole seed of Ephraim.
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Therefore don't pray for this people, neither lift up a cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me; for I will not hear you.
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Don't you see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
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The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.
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Do they provoke me to anger? says Yahweh; [do they] not [provoke] themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?
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Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, my anger and my wrath shall be poured out on this place, on man, and on animal, and on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.
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Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat meat.
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For I didn't speak to your fathers, nor command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:
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but this thing I commanded them, saying, Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.
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But they didn't listen nor turn their ear, but walked in [their own] counsels [and] in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.
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Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them:
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yet they didn't listen to me, nor inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff: they did worse than their fathers.
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You shall speak all these words to them; but they will not listen to you: you shall also call to them; but they will not answer you.
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You shall tell them, This is the nation that has not listened to the voice of Yahweh their God, nor received instruction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.
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Cut off your hair, [Jerusalem], and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for Yahweh has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.
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For the children of Judah have done that which is evil in my sight, says Yahweh: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it.
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They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I didn't command, nor did it come into my mind.
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Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that it shall no more be called Topheth, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of Slaughter: for they shall bury in Topheth, until there be no place [to bury].
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The dead bodies of this people shall be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth; and none shall frighten them away.
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Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the land shall become a waste.
