Garden, Tabernacle & Temple … Small Scale Models Of God’s Cosmic Sanctuary

Psalm 78:69 says something amazing about Israel’s Temple: God “built the sanctuary like the heights, [He built the sanctuary] like the earth which he has founded forever.” this tells us that in some way God modeled the Temple to be a little replica of the entire heaven and earth. Yet, in Is. 66:1 God says, “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is My footstool. Where then is a house you could build for me?” God never intended that Israel’s little localized temple last forever, since, like the Eden temple, Israel’s temple was a small model of something much bigger: God and His universal presence, which could never eternally be contained by any localized earthly structure.

Israel’s tabernacle and temple were a miniature model of God’s huge cosmic temple that was to dominate the heaven and earth at the end of time. That is, the temple was a symbolic model pointing not merely to the present cosmos but also to the new heaven and earth that would be perfectly filled with God’s presence. That it was a miniature symbolic model of the coming Temple that would fill heavens and earth is evident from the following figurative features of the three sections of the temple: the holy of holies, the holy place, and the outer courtyard.

G. K. Beale

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him.

5 thoughts on “Garden, Tabernacle & Temple … Small Scale Models Of God’s Cosmic Sanctuary”

      1. I don’t have the OT in the NT, but I do have the Temple, which I plan to read as soon as I can.

  2. This notion is well known to the Freemasons, who have always considered Solomon’s temple to have been a symbolical miniature-model of the universe. They only have developed that idea into the direction of pantheistic syncretism – worshipping Nature itself as the reflection of God (if not “god” himself).

    Sort of like Solomon himself who in his old days of weakness fell into ecumenism with pagan Phoenicians, to whom this temple-symbolism was also well known.

    Reply

    1. Kiwi,

      Thank you for connecting those dots. I remember that now about the Masons now that you mention it but I would not have made the connection w/o your direction comment. Yours is a valued comment. It opens up whole new avenues of consideration.

      Thank you for stopping by.

      Reply

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