Will the Temple be Rebuilt?

Dispensationalists insist that Chapters 40-48 of Ezekiel are to be taken literally, that their fulfilment will be in the millennial kingdom, that the temple will be rebuilt and animal sacrifices are again to be offered. "Doubtless these offerings," says Scofield, "will be memorial, looking back to the cross, as the offerings under the old covenant were anticipatory, looking forward to the cross." (p. 890).

In connection with the crass carnality of such views, the Rev. Harold Dekker writes, "It is one of the plainest universal teachings of the New Testament that the sacrifices of the Mosaic economy were fulfilled in Christ and were taken away as vanishing shadows that prefigured the substance.

Paul’s warnings against a return to them are cited: "How turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, where unto ye desire again to be in bondage." "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ bath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." (Gal. 4:9 & 5:1).

"The Epistle to the Hebrews" says Dr. J. H. Snowden is one long and conclusive argument that the old ordinances are fulfilled and done away in Christ, "who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s; for this he did once, when he offered up himself." (7:27) (The Coming of the Lord).

There will be no further "memorial looking back to the cross" but the memorial which the Lord Jesus instituted the night in which He was betrayed and which He commanded His disciples to observe "till He come."

The glorious temple detailed in Ezekiel, chapter 40, etc., is a symbolic representation of the New Testament Church in her millennial glory, described in Old Testament language. It is not a literal temple, any more than the words " this is my body" and "this is my blood" are to be taken literally. This is the view held by the godly and eminent divines of the past. Jonathan Edwards says, " A very great and clear evidence, that the city of Jerusalem, the holy city and the temple in all its parts and measures, and its various appendages and utensils, with all its officers, services, sacrifices and ceremonies, and so all things pertaining to the ceremonial law, were typical of things appertaining to the Messiah and His church and kingdom, is that these things are evidently made use of as such, in a very particular manner in the vision of the prophet Ezekiel: that we have an account of in the nine last chapters of his prophecy. These there mentioned which are the same which were in Israel under the law, are mentioned as resemblances, figures. or symbolical representations of spiritual things. So that God has in these chapters determined, that these things are figures, symbols, or types representing the things of the Messiah’s kingdom, because here he plainly makes use of them as such." (Vol. 2, p. 674).

Is it any wonder that Dispensationalism has been described as among the sorriest in the whole history of freak exegesis?

Philip Munro says, Dispensationalism may be fascinating as a work of art, but as a revelation it rests on a foundation of sand. The entire system of dispensational teaching is modernistic in the strictest sense; it is modernism, moreover of a very pernicious sort, such that it must have a Bible of its own (i.e., the Scofield Reference Bible) for the propaganda of its peculiar doctrines since they are not in the Word of God."

In connection with the Scofield Bible it has been said; "It is a matter of great concern to many Christians that a book should exist, and be offered for sale, wherein corrupt words of mortal men are printed and set as positive statements in the midst of the Holy Word of God Almighty. Is not this an affront before God Himself? ‘Let God be true and every man a liar’ (Rom. 3:4)"