Jesus Christ is in His Temple

The present priestly ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ is within the Heavenly temple of which the temple of Solomon was but a shadow. The book of Hebrews records the setting of this temple in the Holy Mountain of God on the sides of the North. “Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; A minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.” (Hebrews 8:1-2) It is an incredible stretch of our mind to grasp even a little of the glory in His Heavenly temple. Maybe if we try to grasp the glory of Solomon’s temple, and then compare the earthly in its limited form with the unlimited of the Heavenly, we can get just a glimpse.

Solomon’s Temple was a magnificent structure. It was a perfect pattern or likeness of the Heavenly, but on a human scale. The Word says, “Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount.” (Hebrews 8:5) The gold and silver in the wilderness tabernacle was valued in today’s world at thirteen billion dollars. All of that wealth, added to the additional gold and silver in the Temple of Solomon, brings the value to fifty-six billion dollars in gold and silver alone. It took one hundred eighty-three thousand six hundred workers seven and one-half years to build and finish this temple complex. The ultimate cost and worth in today’s financial climate is over one and one-half trillion dollars, or fifteen hundred billion dollars. According to 2 Chronicles, this temple was approximately twenty stories tall with massive pillars; everything of the exterior and interior was covered with pure gold. There has never been a temple to a god or a building built by men to match this temple to the great God of the Jewish and Christian world.

It was built after the very pattern of the temple in Heavenly Jerusalem. King David received the architectural plan for the entire temple and complex from the Spirit of God. Scripture states, “Then David gave to Solomon his son the pattern of the porch, and of the houses thereof, and of the treasuries thereof, and of the upper chambers thereof, and of the inner parlours thereof, and of the place of the mercy seat, And the pattern of all that he had by the Spirit, of the courts of the house of the LORD, and of all the chambers round about, of the treasuries of the house of God, and of the treasuries of the dedicated things.” (2 Chronicles 28:11-12) The temple structure and its complex was of great hewn stones prepared in the underground quarries without a hammer sounding in the temple area. Massive amounts of wood – olive, fir, cedar, and algum – were prepared by workers of Tyre commissioned by Huram, their king, cut from the forest of Lebanon and brought by ships to Joppa. A great number of workers from Tyre, “…skilful to work in gold, and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson; also to grave any manner of graving, and to find out every device…” (2 Chronicles 2:14b) were assigned by King Huram to assist Solomon and his great army of workers. All of this massive plan, along with the exterior and interior design, was a copy from Heaven of the temple of our eternal God. Great cherubims were engraved on the walls and standing cherubims were engraved to overshadow the sacred Ark of the Covenant where the glory of God was manifest.

Now, we return our minds to the temple where Jesus Christ is the High Priest at this very moment. All that we learn of Solomon’s temple and the great complex to house thousands of priests that ministered in the temple, the art of the apothecary, sweet singers, great trumpeters, and all manner of musical instruments, plus many other functions of the priestly offices, was but a shadow of the Heavenly. Jesus Christ is called “the Lord of hosts” or “the Lord of Sabaoth” (Hebrews 8:29) because the Heavenly temple and all of the great spiritual activities in that temple are at His bidding as well as all the angels.

The Heavenly temple is the center of the Shekinah presence. The great choir is producing tunes of music that would overwhelm a human mind. The Heavenly orchestra has mastered tones or sounds that cannot be imagined. But the center of this Heavenly temple is the “Mediator” appointed by His Heavenly Father. His purpose is redemption, and the family of saints are forever on His mind. The idea of Mediator is two-fold. One of the great meanings of mediator is internunciator. He does not just talk to God in our defense; He talks to us in God’s defense. The Father’s will is known by the saints because the Lord of the church is Master in our lives. If we do not hear and listen as He talks to us for the Father, we cannot expect Him to intercede to the Father on our behalf. This is a covenant relationship.

The blood on the altar in the Holy of Holies is divine blood offered by the sinless Son of God. The Word says, “But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.” (Hebrews 9:11-12) This High Priest is the Eternal Son, the Word of God, the Virgin Born, the Sinless Son of Man, the Miracle Worker, the Willing Sacrifice, the Captive Deliverer, the Death Destroyer. He turned hell on its head, He served notice on the devil, He emptied His own tomb, He scattered the Roman guards, He ripped hell out of death, He arose triumphantly, He defied nature, He ascended to God His Father, and He took over as High Priest of His Father’s temple. He has established a new covenant out of the old order. He put Solomon’s temple and all that followed it out of business.

Jesus Christ is in His temple and He is there for you. You are forever on His mind as He officiates in a temple that is eternal, transcending, absolutely holy and accessible by His own Divine blood.