My Response to a Third Temple Rebuilder

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I received the following from a listener of my podcasts: “I started to listen to the podcasts of Mr. DeMar. Regarding whether the 3rd Temple will be rebuilt, he states there is nothing in the New Testament that mentions the temple will be rebuilt. That, I believe, is not true.”

Let’s start with Daniel’s 70 weeks-of-years prophecy (490 years). There is no place in Scripture where a set number of days, weeks, or years includes a separating gap. There is no stated gap between the 69th and 70th weeks, like there is no separating gap between the 7 (49 years) and 62 (434 years) (Dan. 9:25) weeks of years. The number 70 follows 69 in both cases: the captivity and 7 + 62 + 1 = 70. Notice how Daniel 9 begins.

In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of Median descent, who was made king over the kingdom of the Chaldeans—in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, observed in the books the number of the years which was revealed as the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet for the completion of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years (vv. 1-2).

Was there a gap between the 69th and 70th years? No. The 70th year followed the 69th year. Jesus was crucified (cut off) in the middle of the 70th week. The final 3.5 years end when Stephen outlines Israel’s history and ends his speech with the following.

“You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did. Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, and you have now become betrayers and murderers of Him; you who received the Law as ordained by angels and yet did not keep it” (Acts 7:51-53; see Matt. 23:29-36; Acts 13:46).

That event ends the 70 weeks-of-years prophecy. There is no mention of the antichrist in Daniel 9:24-27. It’s about Jesus, “Messiah the Prince” (9:25). Jesus is the “the prince who is to come [who] will destroy the city and the sanctuary by His coming using the Roman armies like God used Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 1:1-2). And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined” (9:26). Jesus predicts this in Matthew 23:37-39. Jesus outlines what was going to happen to their generation before it passed away (Matt. 24:1-34), which included the destruction of the temple described by Jesus in 24:2. The temple was destroyed just as Jesus predicted.

Nothing is said about a so-called “rapture of the church” that will take place before (pre-trib), during (mid-trib), before God’s wrath is poured out (pre-wrath), or after (post-trib) seven years. See my book with Frank Gumerlock, The Rapture and the Fig-Tree Generation.

While the NT describes the temple’s destruction, no verse says the temple will be rebuilt. Jesus is the permanent temple (John 2:13-22), “a living stone, rejected by men.” We are “living stones being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood…” (1 Pet. 2:4). The stone temple (“not one stone here shall be left on another, which will not be torn down” [Matt. 24:2]) was no longer needed, it was a type of the true temple. No NT writer even intimates that there will be another temple. For what purpose? So God can turn over everything to the antichrist (see the biblical definition of antichrists who were alive in John’s day: 1 John 2:18, 22; 4:1-4; 2 John 2:7) and allow him to slaughter millions of Jews living in Israel based on Zechariah 13:7-9? For more information on the rebuilt temple claim, see chapter 7 in my book Ten Popular Prophecy Myths Exposed and Answered.

Some people claim that the rebuilt temple is described in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4. The temple was still standing when Paul wrote to the Thessalonians. The man of lawlessness was alive in Paul’s day: “you know what restrains him now” (2 Thess. 2:6). The “now” was then. The “mystery of lawlessness” was “already at work” (v. 7). It’s important to note that some Thessalonians were under the impression that the “day of the Lord has come” (v. 2). The KJV has “was near.” The Greek word ἐνίστημι is used and means “present.” The Greek word for “near” is not used. Suppose Paul was referring to the rapture or the second coming. In that case, it raises the question of how the Thessalonians might have believed that either event had already occurred, given that there was no evidence of individuals being “raptured” and no physical return of Jesus. How could Paul have written a letter telling them that either event had occurred since he would not have been on earth to write such a letter? One must assume Paul is describing a rebuilt temple of which there is no biblical evidence. Whosoever the man of lawlessness was (and there are several theories), he took his seat in the temple that had been completed around AD 64, and he was destroyed when Jesus returned to destroy the temple. I cover this in my book Last Days Madness.

There was an apostasia, a falling away. These were the antichrists John mentioned.

Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be evident that they all are not of us…. Who is the liar except the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son (1 John 2:18-22).

The Greek word apostasia can mean a departure from the faith or a political rebellion. In theological terms, Jews who had professed Christ were returning to the old covenant. Hebrews and Galatians mention this form of apostasia. Also, “Times of severe persecution are typically accompanied by men falling away from the faith, so this heavy tribulation implies [2 Thess. 1:4-7; 2:14-15], at very least, an occasion for apostasy. This tribulation is the very reason that Paul penned the first portion of the second chapter.”[1] Thessalonica was a hotbed of Jewish opposition to Christianity (Acts 17:1-11). A political apostasia would refer to events surrounding the Jewish revolt against Rome (AD 66-70). The Jerusalem Bible translates apostasia as “revolt,” while the NIV, ESV, and NET translate it as “rebellion.”

Who “sits” in the temple and speaks for God? “The Scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses (Matt. 23:2). As long as they followed Moses, they were to be honored (Acts 23:2-5), but when they did not, they nullified the word of God by their traditions. (Mark 7:1-13). God destroyed them “with the breath of His mouth.” This action brought that “lawless one … to an end by the appearance of His coming” (2 Thess. 2:8; see Isa. 11:4) in judgment in AD 70. That’s what the Olivet Discourse describes. Check out Johann Christian Schoettgen’s commentary on 2 Thessalonians 2 in my book Prophecy Wars.

The events of Revelation were “soon to take place … because the time was near.” Rev. 1:1; 3; 22:6, 10). John was a “fellow partaker in the tribulation” (1:9). John could measure the temple because it was still standing, which is evidence that Revelation was written before the temple’s destruction. See Kenneth Gentry’s book Before Jerusalem Fell: Dating the Book of Revelation and his two-volume commentary on Revelation, The Divorce of Israel. The temple had been “given to the Gentiles [Roman armies] for 42 months.” Henry Cowles (1803-1881), in his commentary on Revelation, offers the following:

[H]ere is one of the landmarks of our prophetic interpretation. We know that the temple, altar and holy city were standing at the time of this vision; we know they were on the very eve of their desolation; we know therefore that this desolation—so “shortly” after these visions were seen and recorded—can not possibly be any other than that effected by the Roman armies in A. D. 70.

Scripture shows the NT does not predict that another temple will be rebuilt. The temple that Jesus cleansed and Paul preached in was a rebuilt temple. Jesus made sure there would not be another.

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[1] Lee W. Brainard, Apostasia in 2 Thessalonians 2:2: Rapture or Apostasy? (South Keep Press, 2021), 56.

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