Chapter Fourteen – “Measure the Temple”

What Mr. Armstrong Taught About Yet Another Temple

Many have assumed the commission to prophesy again immediately precedes the work of the Two Witnesses, described just shortly after the first portion of Revelation 11 ALL . This is, in fact, almost true—but not quite. These same people have thought that the Church’s flight to safety also happens immediately at this point. This isalmost true—but again, not quite. An incredible ongoing process culminating in a single final event parallels the whole period of prophesying again. It involves another specific and entirely different responsibility.

There is a profoundly important prophecy that culminates just after the short work ends, and just before the commission of the final two prophets in this age begins. This prophecy is so important that it requires that this be the book’s longest chapter. In fact, it is longer than any other two chapters in the book. You should find the puzzle that it unlocks so compelling that it is difficult to put it down.

Revelation 11 ALL opens with a curious statement recorded by the apostle John instructing him to ;Rise, and measure the temple of God.” Certain descriptive clues of this mysterious ;measuring” are also given. The Tribulation is not introduced until the middle of Revelation 11:2 and the Two Witnesses are not directly mentioned until Revelation 11:3.

Most have never noticed or focused on this strange command. A few have, and still fewer have considered its meaning and implications. Similar to ;prophesy again,” none have comprehended—and most have not understood at all—the seriousness of what it means!
You must understand!

You have seen that Mr. Armstrong laid the foundation to properly understand Revelation 10:11. Yet we saw circumstances in the Church and in the last days had to change—had to advance beyond his lifetime—before that prophecy could possibly be understood. The same is true of ;Rise, and measure the temple.” However, Mr. Armstrong never to my knowledge even attempted to explain what this prophecy meant. You will learn why he would not need to know its meaning—but YOU do!

This chapter will closely examine this additional very dramatic prophecy. May God help you grasp—truly comprehend!—all that you are about to learn!

The Prophecy

Before continuing, it is helpful to read as one the overall context and flow of the three prophecies—(1) prophesy again, (2) measure the Temple of God and (3) the Two Witnesses—as they appear. Remember again as you read that the book of Revelation was recorded as a scroll. It originally lacked the chapters and verses that men came to think it should contain. While helpful in almost every instance through the Bible, these manmade ;breaks” in the text can cause the mind to ;break” with them in thinking. In this case, the closely connected time sequence that the text reflects gets lost if these three things are not read together.

Let’s then read Revelation 10:11 through 11:3 as a single block of Scripture, as it would have appeared to all Bible students for many centuries after it was recorded, when no chapter and verse were present. The bolded section is the part that most overlook:

And I took the little book out of the angel’s hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter. And he said unto me, You must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings. And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months. And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.”

It is crucial to get the flow and its setting clearly in mind. This will better enable you to distinguish all the points to be understood within the text.

What is the ;Temple of God”?

If you have been reading my books to the splinters and listening to key sermons referenced in the suggested order, it should now be clear to you that the Church Jesus Christ promised to build is the same as the biblical ;Body of Christ.” This book has also referenced this several times. You have been brought to remember that this Church and Body is undivided, that it functions under the government of God, and that it exists to do the Work of God. If you have not proven—more correctly, reproven, for those with a Church of God background—what is Christ’s Body, all that follows will make little sense. (Again, you must read The True Church – One Organization, or Many?)

There is something else in this equation—another most crucial term—that must also be understood or vital knowledge is screened away, left impossible to understand. Only by understanding this additional vital element of knowledge can the meaning of ;Rise, and measure the temple of God” be unlocked.

If one does not understand what is the ;temple of God” as the term is found in the New Testament, there is no possible way to know what is to be measured in the above prophecy. For instance, if you were told to go measure ;the skyscraper,” but not told where it is—which skyscraper, and in which city—and also what a skyscraper is—the assignment is impossible to fulfill. You would have no hope of carrying out the instruction.

Let’s understand the New Testament Temple of God.

Three Temples

The path to understanding Revelation 11:1-2 begins in the Old Testament with the temple that King David purposed to build. This first building replacing the tabernacle in the wilderness (that was in use for almost five centuries) is often called ;Solomon’s Temple.” Begun in about 964 or 963 B.C., this perhaps most magnificent and beautiful of all structures ever built by the hands of men took seven years to complete. Overlaid and furnished in gold throughout, it remained in use for over 370 years, or until about 585 B.C., when it was destroyed by the invading army under Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. Of course, the Jews were taken into captivity in this same military siege against Judah and Jerusalem.

There is not space here to describe the awesome size and incredible splendor of this first ;house of the LORD,” as Solomon’s Temple was also called (I Kgs. 6:37-38). Suffice to say, this stunning structure became the model guiding Mr. Armstrong in his desire to build the Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena, which from the beginning was always affectionately—and respectfully—also referred to by the Church as the ;House for God.”

In 539 B.C., the Medo-Persian empire defeated the Babylonians. God almost immediately after the victory commissioned King Cyrus of Persia to rebuild both Jerusalem and God’s temple (Isa. 44:28). Ezra 6:3-4 records Cyrus’ decree to carry out the instruction.

Begun in 537 B.C., this second temple, usually referred to as ;Zerubbabel’s Temple,” took 21 years to complete—until 516 B.C. It remained in use for almost 500 years (497) until 19 B.C.

Zerubbabel’s Temple was also an extraordinary structure, but it was generally considered to be much inferior to Solomon’s in both workmanship and quality of materials used. In fact, these shortcomings became the pretext under which it was dismantled by Herod the Great, giving way to what is usually referred to as ;Herod’s Temple” or the ;Renovation of the Temple.”

Herod the Great (there are four Herods mentioned in the New Testament, this was the first), the builder of this ;renovated” temple, reigned from 37 to 4 B.C. Having severely offended the Jews under his governorship, Herod desired to reclaim their affection through what he thought would be the ultimate gift—yet another temple that he wanted to build for them (but also as a monument to himself). He determined that it should exceed what he deemed to be the both inferior and incorrectly designed second temple built by Zerubbabel. After some convincing, the local Jewish leaders and citizenry signed on. Construction began in 19 B.C. and continued for 46 years (John 2:19-20) until late 27 A.D., the year beginning Christ’s ministry.

Built on top of a gargantuan foundation called ;The Temple Mount,” roughly the size of 30 football fields, no one has ever determined how the huge stones in such a massive foundation were laid. Some single stones were as heavy as 600 tons, or 1.2 million pounds. When the Roman General Titus destroyed the temple in 70 A.D. (Matt. 24:2), he used battering rams to knock down each part of the building, including every stone ;one upon another” just as Christ had foretold. But his legions could not dislodge the foundation stones, and neither could multiple earthquakes over the centuries to follow.

Thousands of finely shaped stones were brought in from Lebanon for construction in the ;renovated” temple. A total of 1,000 priests, specially trained for the project, completed it well ahead of the projected schedule for final construction—thus allowing it to be in place before the arrival of Christ’s ministry. For comparison, this enormous renovation was actually 2½ times the size of the Temple of Giza in Egypt.

Daniel 9:25 describes a decree in 457 B.C., the seventh year of Artaxerxes, king of Persia (Ezra 7 ALL)—as part of the ;70 weeks prophecy”—which revealed that the temple would be finished by 27 A.D., again, the year Christ’s ministry would begin.

Many brethren reading this date back to the time of the important Ambassador College ;Big Dig” in Jerusalem in which a ;50/50 joint participation,” as Mr. Armstrong put it, with Hebrew University took place. They will remember a project that began in late 1968 and continued into the mid-70s, during which the south wall of the Temple Mount was excavated. Specially chosen Ambassador College students were sent to work there each summer, and some others remained through the year, as this project was reported through regular updates to the Church and college by Mr. Armstrong and others. Of course, the Church understood this was in the very place from which the returning Jesus Christ will soon rule the entire world with the saints!

It is worth noting that the Bible actually describes in significant detail a future fourth physical temple in Ezekiel, chapters 40-48. To be built on Mount Zion in Jerusalem at the outset of the Millennium, this colossal building complex will even far exceed the size and splendor of Solomon’s Temple. It will have a veritable skyline of towers connected to it that will be the equivalent of 20-story buildings and will include immaculate dining facilities for the priests that just in themselves will be spectacular. (An artist’s depiction of this temple from The Good News magazine of May 1988 has been added, with an accompanying legend—next two pages—to aid in picturing various critical parts of the temple mentioned in the ;measuring” prophecy. While interesting of itself, the elements of this rendering will take on more value later in the chapter.)

What Mr. Armstrong Taught About Yet Another Temple

Back to The Work of God