Tag: the temple

Before the Throne — Chapter Four — The Heaven on Earth House

This was part four of a sermon series preached at City South Presbyterian Church in 2024. You can listen to this on our podcast, or watch the video.

What should God’s house look like?

If you were building a physical thing on earth to teach yourself, and others, what heaven looks like — or what heaven on earth looks like — dwelling with God — somewhere you could go to visualise this reality — what would you build?

This is the dilemma that has faced church architects for centuries — right — from the time Christians met in houses, to when we could meet publicly in halls, to when we could build structures.

And part of that dilemma is: are our churches temples? How should they relate to the temple in the Bible? The temple is often called God’s dwelling place in the Bible — but what is a temple? What does it mean for the God of heaven to dwell on earth anyway — especially as we are looking at how followers of Jesus are raised and seated in the throne room of heaven, so our lives on earth reflect this reality (Ephesians 2:6).

Back in week one we touched on this idea that we — God’s “heaven on earth” people — are his temple (Ephesians 2:21–22).

So how do we be a temple?

What pictures should shape our imaginations? What vision of heaven should shape us as we live in space and time? How do the passages in the Bible about temples shape what we become?

This is not easy. What we are going to do today is a little ambitious, and this theme is so broad and rich that really it is just an example of the sort of meditation on some imagery in Scripture that we are trying to practice together this series.

There are lots of other rich threads you might pick up over a lifetime. I reckon you could pick any aspect of the design of the tabernacle or temple in the Old Testament — or its furnishings — to contemplate, and see how they are fulfilled in Jesus and point to the ultimate heaven on earth reality he brings us into. Not just our current location in the heavens with him, but the future reality of heaven and earth being brought together as one as we live in God’s presence — his house — forever.

We have also got some limitations in our tradition when it comes to thinking this way. If you were answering this question — about what God’s house might look like — both anticipating heaven, and looking back to the story of the Bible as someone in the Orthodox tradition, sitting — or standing — in church — you would just have to look around.

In the Orthodox tradition churches are built to tell this story — right from the ground — the floor plan, which maps out who lives where on earth — to the ceiling, where you might find a dome as a picture of the heavens above.

In a traditional Orthodox church, those not part of the church yet — those not baptised or received into the life of the house — remain in the narthex, while the members of the church gather in the nave, and the priests and bishops “mediate” heaven to earth from the sanctuary, which is where the Eucharist is served from as Jesus’ body and blood are given to the congregation. It is separated from the nave by a wall with doors that is covered with icons — imagery of saints — those in heaven.

You go to church in this sort of space and it teaches something about their view of heaven and earth. It functions a bit like the temple.

We do not tend to think about imagery or architecture like this — and we are often worried about idolatry — but there is a danger this stunts our imagination, leaving us just with the words in the Bible, without aids to picture what those words describe. This is tricky territory to navigate, especially if part of our task as image-bearing people is to live in ways that picture heaven-on-earth life now. And maybe it leaves us with fewer tools than God’s people in Israel, who had a whole architecture and set of rhythms to teach them life as God’s people; architecture fulfilled in Jesus, pointing to him.

The writer of Hebrews draws heavily on imagery from the temple and the life of Israel — and connects this to the story of Jesus and our place now in a heavenly temple. They say Jesus is a high priest — the king seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven also serves in a sanctuary — the “true tabernacle” — that is a dwelling place — built by God, not by humans (Hebrews 8:1–2). This is the temple we now have access to through Jesus as those raised and seated with him. They also say some things about the reality of the previous dwelling places of God… and the earthly temple in Jerusalem before it was destroyed by the Romans…

The writer of Hebrews tells us that these Old Testament designs — built by humans — were, right from Moses with the tabernacle, attempts to build things on earth that reflected this heavenly dwelling of God that Moses sees on the mountain. They are tools designed to reflect what heaven is like, what God is like, and how to live as people who dwell with God. They are “a copy and a shadow of what is in heaven” (Hebrews 8:5).

The tabernacle that belonged to what the writer of Hebrews calls “the old covenant” — an old way of doing business with God, in relationship with him — is contrasted with the new covenant described in a bit we skipped, which quotes Jeremiah talking about God writing his law on hearts, rather than on stone tablets they keep in a box, where people will not need a temple to teach us how God works because they will know him (Hebrews 8:10–11), where sins and wickedness will be forgiven and made no more (Hebrews 8:12).

For the writer of Hebrews this happens as the perpetual sacrifices in the temple are replaced with the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus. The old covenant had patterns of worship — rhythms of coming before God — and architecture — a sanctuary with a floor plan, and furnishings that lined up with this way of doing things, helping people picture and live out this arrangement between heaven and earth. It had a holy place and a most holy place, and furniture that helped people move from one place to the other — or a priest to do this — through sacrifices and being made symbolically clean — in order to enter heaven-on-earth space. There was a golden altar and a golden ark of the covenant, and above the ark there were these cherubim — pictures of heavenly creatures from the throne room of God — which the writer of Hebrews does not dig into — and maybe preachers like me could learn from them (Hebrews 9:1–5)… because we are going to dig into the details a bit… but let’s finish the Hebrews thread first, which stresses how old covenant priests did a bunch of business in the outer room, but could only go into the most holy place once a year, with blood offered as an atoning sacrifice on behalf of the people. That word atonement — it is a word about restoration of relationship, not just forgiveness — a sacrifice so people could keep living with God at the heart of their community.

The Holy Spirit was using this imagery — this architecture, and these rhythms — to show that the way into life with God, the most holy place, heaven on earth, was not open, and could not be while this first dwelling place — the tabernacle, and then the more permanent temple — were functioning (Hebrews 9:7). Which I guess means whatever architecture and rhythms we take up would have to help us see how the way is open. This was an illustration — a picture — an image — of the first covenant being inadequate for actually transforming a worshipper into a heaven-on-earth person. Not just the people, even the priest. A picture fulfilled (Hebrews 9:9).

But now, Jesus the true high priest has made a way into the true temple — the heavenly dwelling place — the place we are trying to imagine ourselves in now (Hebrews 9:11). He did not enter through animal sacrifices offered up once a year, but his own blood — as the Son of God — obtaining eternal redemption and opening up access to this most holy place — not just the illustration, the shadow, but the heavenly reality (Hebrews 9:12). So those cleansed by his blood are actually able to receive this new covenant, forgiveness and life with God — so that we can actually serve the living God as his priestly people who actually live in his presence in order to reflect it (Hebrews 9:14).

If we go a little past Hebrews 9, we are told Jesus enters this heavenly sanctuary — a sort of heavenly temple — in order to represent us in God’s presence; in his throne room (Hebrews 9:24). So that, as Hebrews says later, we can now — now, not just in the future — come behind the curtain into the most holy place — through this new and living way — not just the dead body of Jesus cleansed by his blood, but his living body because we are united to him and that is where he is seated.

We can now draw near to God with sincere hearts — changed hearts — hearts of the new covenant — cleansed by sprinkling, like the priests would sprinkle the altar, having our bodies washed with pure water (Hebrews 10:19–22).

This is where we now live. This reality is our reality. We might just need to open our minds up to see ourselves behind this curtain and understand what this means. And to do this, we might dip back into the Bible’s story; to look at the shadow or illustration to get a clearer picture.

A shadow alone lacks detail, it is two-dimensional. But when you add shadow to a picture it makes it three-dimensional, it gives it depth. If you think of an illustration like a guide for making flat pack furniture — the picture is not the real thing, but it does help you picture what the real thing should look like and build it.

So we will look at some of the architecture of the temple, and how the story of the Bible picks up these things and shows them fulfilled in Jesus in order to furnish ourselves with some pictures to contemplate as we live lives behind the curtain, anticipating the future the temple points to where the whole earth becomes like a temple — which is where the story heads — with that vision of a new heavenly city coming down from heaven (Revelation 21:10).

Only, there is no temple in this vision because God himself — and the Lamb, Jesus — are the temple (Revelation 21:22–23). God is dwelling in his new creation where heaven and earth are one, the heavenly reality merges with our reality — so there is no need for a halfway house to teach us what heaven-on-earth life looks like.

There is some imagery from the temple picked up in this vision though that is fun to think about and to guide our imagination now; an example of things we might contemplate or meditate on as we open our eyes to heaven.

We get the plans and patterns for the tabernacle — the tent dwelling of God — in the book of Exodus. If you were with us last year we looked at these in depth, and if you were not those talks are online. So we are going to jump in to when David’s son, King Solomon, builds a house for God in Jerusalem.

It is a house — a temple — built on a mountain to evoke images of the garden, and of heaven. It has a floor plan that the writer of Hebrews describes, marking out holy space from the most holy space. And it is built from incredible materials. If you want to try to picture life in the temple — it is full of gold; it is shining brightly everywhere you look. Everything is overlaid with gold: the walls, the chain ropes, the interior of the inner sanctuary, and the altar (1 Kings 6:21–22).

The walls are decorated with cherubim — heavenly creatures — and palm trees and flowers and fruit — and these are covered in gold. It is a golden Eden, and the sanctuary, guarded by cherubim and walled off, is a picture of paradise lost — the dwelling place of God is still not accessible even if people can come really close… except, once a year, by the priest (1 Kings 6:29–30).

The description of the temple includes a bunch of time devoted to this huge bowl of water — it is called the sea (1 Kings 7:24). It sits outside the holy place. It is bronze not gold, and there is a bronze altar where sacrifices are offered as people arrived at the temple. This sea is weird to imagine — it is a giant bowl decorated with pumpkins, gourds — propped up by twelve bulls facing outwards (1 Kings 7:25).

It is like a giant flowercup and it holds two thousand baths (1 Kings 7:26) — or 44,000 litres — which, for scale, is what you could carry in this truck.

This sea is placed on the south side of the temple — specifically in the southeast corner (1 Kings 7:39). Remember that.

Second Chronicles tells us this sea is for the priests to wash themselves (2 Chronicles 4:6). It is not just about having clean hands, this washing is part of cleansing themselves as they move towards heavenly space, from the earthly space outside the temple.

It is a bigger, more permanent version of the bronze bowl Moses puts in the tabernacle, next to the altar, where the priests had to wash themselves when they entered the tent of meeting — the tabernacle —

so they would not die. They had to be clean any time they were going to carry something from earth to heaven in the form of an offering to God (Exodus 30:17–21).

Now look, you might be lost — so let’s re-orient for a second. We are zoomed in on the part of the temple used for washing people clean, next to the part of the temple where people would spill blood to deal with their sins.

These are shadows of what the writer of Hebrews says happens for us through Jesus that allows us to draw near to God (Hebrews 10:21–22). We will just look at two more details from the temple setup in 1 Kings before tracing the story through.

The priests bring in the ark of the covenant to the inner sanctuary, the most holy place — God’s throne room on earth (1 Kings 8:6). This is a special box built when the tabernacle is built — it is a picture of the throne of God — it symbolises his heavenly rule on the earth:

“There, above the cover between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the covenant law, I will meet with you and give you all my commands for the Israelites.”

— Exodus 25:22

Moses meets God there “between the cherubim” (Numbers 7:89). And God is often described seated on the ark or enthroned — ruling between the cherubim (1 Samuel 4:4; Psalm 99:1). When this throne arrives in the centre of the house at the top of the mountain, God’s glory cloud fills the temple of the Lord. He comes to live in his house. And things look good for God’s people (1 Kings 8:10–11).

They live before the throne of God; you would think they would learn, with this holy architecture and this furniture, how to live like God’s people. But they do not. Their hearts are not in it. The old covenant does not transform them from the inside the way the new covenant does. This temple is not enough to teach them.

And the story of the Old Testament is a story of deconstruction of this heaven-on-earth space. We get stories like the story of King Ahaz, who gives all the treasure of the temple to the king of Assyria (2 Kings 16:8). Then he goes off to their temple and sees a fancy altar to their gods, and has that altar copied and built in the temple. Where Moses saw the tabernacle designs in the heavens, he is getting his blueprints from idol temples (2 Kings 16:10). He moves the sea (2 Kings 16:17).

One of his descendants, Manasseh, goes further — he builds a bunch of altars in the temple to the starry hosts — the bright heavenly lights God created — who, even if they are imagined as being like cherubim, are not meant to be the objects of worship (2 Kings 21:4–5). And he puts an Asherah pole — a symbol of another god — in the temple where God’s name is meant to dwell; where he is enthroned (2 Kings 21:7).

Even when King Hezekiah gets rid of these altars and idols and smashes them to pieces (2 Kings 23:12), these insults were enough — God is going to move out (2 Kings 23:27). And this happens as Babylon moves in. Nebuchadnezzar takes all the treasures that have not been given away (2 Kings 24:13). His generals set fire to the temple (2 Kings 25:9), and break up the altar and the bronze sea and take it all off to Babylon (2 Kings 25:13).

And losing this temple and furniture — well — that is also meant to teach God’s people something. They are not living in his presence anymore.

The prophet Ezekiel provides a sort of from-the-heavens view of these earthly events. He is operating around the time these events are happening — as King Jehoiachin is taken into exile by Babylon (2 Kings 25:8, 12). Ezekiel starts seeing visions in his fifth year of captivity (Ezekiel 1:2).

And then in year six he sees this vision from heaven of an idol in the temple (Ezekiel 8:1, 3), and of God’s glory going above his seat between the cherubim and heading stage by stage to the exit — from the ark to the threshold, and the cherubim take off too. It is no longer a heaven-on-earth house (Ezekiel 10:18–19). In the midst of this, Ezekiel promises a return — with an echo of Jeremiah’s promise of the new covenant — that God will give his people an undivided heart and a new spirit; restoration to life with him as his people (Ezekiel 11:19–20). Before the cherubim and God’s glory — his throne — take off as a sign of the spiritual reality of exile (Ezekiel 11:22–23).

When Israel returns from Babylon to rebuild the temple in Ezra, they start with the altar. But there is no ark, there is no sea, there is no glory of God in the temple (Ezra 3:2). And as they lay the foundation, those who saw the first temple weep (Ezra 3:12). The glory of God is not there. Even as, at the order of the Babylonian courts (Ezra 6:3), the treasures are returned to the temple, there is still no ark, and no sea — which is significant because it is not a house that is teaching people how to live in God’s presence, before his throne anymore (Ezra 6:5). It is a bit hollow. It is not the renewed temple Ezekiel describes as he sees God’s glory returning to dwell with his people, entering the temple and filling it again, coming to sit on his throne and live with his people again in a heavenly home (Ezekiel 43:1–7).

There is an altar, but it is not the temple with water — the sea — in a bowl cleansing priests so they can approach the throne — or where this water flows out as a picture of transforming life. Here is a fun thing. Maybe.

“The man brought me back to the entrance to the temple, and I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east).”

— Ezekiel 47:1

We looked at Ezekiel’s vision of water flowing from the temple when we worked through John and saw Jesus — the walking temple — call himself living water over and over again [I haven’t posted these, but here is a link to the podcast]. Here is this picture in Ezekiel of a renewed temple and I want to suggest there is no sea in this picture. The bowl has been overturned and the cleansing flood is washing down the mountain and transforming the world into something like the garden — because — remember where the sea, used to purify the priests, was placed in the temple; in the southeast corner (1 Kings 7:39). As Ezekiel looks at this living water flowing out of the temple it is coming from the southeast corner (Ezekiel 47:1) — under the threshold toward the east, but from under the south side, south of the altar — where the sea was placed.

This water turns the salt water into fresh, so abundant life emerges; so where the river flows everything lives (Ezekiel 47:8–9). Fruit trees grow on this overturned sea, bearing fruit monthly because the temple waters them, healing and feeding those by the waters (Ezekiel 47:12). It is like a garden. Paradise. Eden.

This is a sort of heavenly temple — the heavenly temple depicted again at the end of the story — when John sees the new Jerusalem (Revelation 21:10). The old temple was this square building covered in gold; this is a city of pure gold (Revelation 21:18). In the heavenly picture there is no temple because the Lord Almighty and the Lamb are the temple (Revelation 21:22–23). Their throne is in the centre; providing glorious light to the world (Revelation 21:23). And water flows from the throne — just as water flows out of the temple — as this river of the water of life, surrounded by the tree of life. This is the heavenly temple (Revelation 22:1–2). This is the “behind the curtain” reality where Jesus now sits, enthroned with his Father, that we have access to as we come before the throne now.

The sea of water — where priestly people had to be cleansed with water to approach the throne — instead, turning salt water into living water, there is no longer any sea (Revelation 21:1), but a river of the water of life flows from the throne room bringing life (Revelation 22:1–2).

This is a view of the perfect tabernacle (Hebrews 9:11). And our way into this most holy place is to be cleansed by the blood of the Lamb; the king and high priest who makes a way through a new and living curtain, which is his body (Hebrews 10:19–20). A cleansing we illustrate with our baptism — our bodies being cleansed, washed pure by water — and as we receive the living water — which Jesus says is God’s Spirit — becoming not just a kingdom of priests but a living temple — the dwelling place of God on earth (Hebrews 10:21–22).

The glory of God did not turn up to live in another temple building, but as Jesus ascended, he joined his Father in pouring out his Spirit on his people — making us temples (Acts 2:2–4).

It is the community of people worshipping God in the “holy of holies” together; as those who have been baptised not just by water, but his Spirit, entering God’s presence — through Jesus’ body — in prayer and worship — being transformed by his Spirit into his likeness — picturing life united to the heavenly temple — and so living heaven-on-earth lives who are the architecture that teaches us this story here on earth. And it is entering this reality through prayer and worship, setting our hearts and minds on things above, that teaches us the story from a heavenly perspective — and this is what we do together as we gather.

You might be reading as someone who, in an Orthodox church, would be left in the courtyard, looking on. I want to invite you to enter a church community; to join God’s people, to meet Jesus with us, and in us, as we gather, to see this story and be swept up into it.

You might be wondering where you belong as someone who follows Jesus — someone who has been cleansed by his blood and washed in water — a priest, a temple. The trick is, if this story is right we do not belong in some “less than sacred” place. We all belong through the doors, past the wall, in the holy of holies, at the throne — the heavenly temple — with our high priest and king.

And if we want that design to shape us — or to design our lives and spaces on earth to teach us this story — well, the writer of Hebrews’ point last week remains: we should keep our eyes on Jesus; on the throne; in the holy of holies as the author and perfector of our faith; basing our life there — and we should be gathering as this living temple.

Where we meet, we do not have the gold walls or the altar or the candles or the giant sea. We have a communion table and a baptism pool and God’s word, and our houses, and our tables, and each other — glorious people filled with God’s Spirit being transformed into the likeness of Jesus together. Which is why, I think, the writer of Hebrews follows up this thing about us having been brought into the new covenant, with forgiven sins and cleansed hearts, by calling us to draw near to God with this instruction to help us live heaven-on-earth lives as those who dwell in the holy of holies — holding on to our hope of a heaven-on-earth future while tasting heaven-on-earth life now (Hebrews 10:23).

And we should keep meeting with other heaven-on-earth people — to spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, but encouraging one another all the more as we see the Day approaching (Hebrews 10:24–25).

This is what “God’s house” — the temple — looks like on earth as we draw near to God in heaven through Jesus and the new and living way opened for us that is his body.

So let’s imagine ourselves entering the most holy place, coming before God’s throne as we pray, and in gatherings where we enter physical space and come together to the Lord’s Table — with no barrier to cross — remind ourselves that Jesus has made a way for us to enter the heavenly temple through his body and blood.

September 17, 2025 Add Comment

The Image of Trump or the Image of Jesus: on Trump’s sacrilege and the toppling of idols

In the last two posts I’ve explored how the practice of destroying statues — the damnatio memoraie — is an ancient one, and how public space has always been sacred and contested (and how when Jesus turns up in a contested public space, both sides of the contest joined sides to kill him).

There’s a picture of this for those who would follow Jesus in the book of Revelation; John’s apocalypse. Up front John writes to some churches in the Roman world. He pictures these seven churches as lamp stands. Churches who are meant to bring light to the world as they reflect the glory of Jesus. By the time you get into the ‘apocalyptic’ stuff — the vivid picture of life in this world that John offered, the seven lamp stands are reduced to two. Two faithful churches — witnesses to Jesus — are pictured as martyrs, and we’re told they speak up, and the beastly world kills them, celebrating the sacrilegious erasure of their voice from the public square like first century statue topplers. John says, of these witnesses, “their bodies will lie in the public square of the great city — which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt — where also their Lord was crucified” (Revelation 11:8). To follow Jesus in the world is to be treated like Jesus because we act like Jesus because we worship Jesus.

The book of Revelation serves up a picture of beastly worldly power as opposed to God; it ties Sodom, Egypt, Babylon, Rome, and Jerusalem together as pictures of an economically motivated monster opposed to the kingdom of God; in love with the things of this world, and the prince of this world, Satan. The desecration of these faithful churches — these bodies pulled down in the public square is paralleled with the desecration of Jesus, the image of God, in the public square of Jerusalem.

It’s fascinating that the debate about the tearing down of statues — images cast in metal or stone — in public squares around the world — the outpouring of anger of the sort evoked by sacrilege that we’re hearing from one side of the ‘history wars’/’culture wars’ divide because statues-as-history are being destroyed in such a sacrilegious manner, and the outpouring of anger we’re seeing from the other side of the same conflict in the desecrating destruction these of statues happened at the same time that the President of the United States so ‘sacrilegiously’ (or desacrilegiously) set himself up as a pixelated image in a brazen photo opp on the footsteps of a church.

Trump’s photo opp was straight out of the playbook of the Greek king, Antiochus Epiphanes, whose cultural and religious conquest of Jerusalem was framed by the writer of the inter-testamental book 1 Maccabees as “the abomination that causes desolation.”

And perhaps the most distressing part of this scene was not Trump’s following the image-erecting playbook of the idol-kings of the ancient world; it was the way he was cheered on by the faithful — the sort of lamp stands in Revelation who forsook their first love, Jesus, to cosy up with the Beastly Roman empire; the new Babylon, Egypt, and Sodom.

Revelation is apocalyptic literature. Apocalypse just means ‘revelation’ — it’s not pointing to some future moment of cataclysmic end times so much as revealing the cataclysmic results of siding with anybody but God; given that ultimately the victory of Jesus won at the cross will turn the whole world on its head. Revelation talks about the Spiritual reality behind political realities; there is no ‘secular/sacred’ divide — everything is religious; every political act is an act of sacrilege or sanctification — an act of elevating some thing or other to holy status, or applying a religious paradigm to the organisation of life in the world, in terms of how we organise communities of people and how we make and enjoy created things. That those kingdoms that set themselves up to oppose Jesus because they love money and the things of this world are collectives of people — systems, structures, cultures — that have rejected Jesus and picked Satan. Instead of being bearers of the divine image — and so being treated like Jesus and executed in the public square; they’re joining with corrupt power in order to reject God’s king and kingdom, and to destroy their own enemies (those who would take from them the things they really love). In Revelation you’ve got the image of Israel as a harlot, jumping on the back of beastly Rome.

1 Maccabees condemns Israel for not being desperately offended by the sacrilegious act of Antiochus Epiphanes; instead of tearing down the idol and seeking to rededicate the Temple to Yahweh (after Antiochus dedicates it to Zeus), “Many even from Israel gladly adopted his religion; they sacrificed to idols and profaned the sabbath” (1 Maccabees 1:43). Israel’s hearts have been captured by this beastly foreign ruler and his promise of order, and status, and the benefits flowing from belonging to such a powerful empire.

Trump’s photo opp — secured through violent action (this Washington Post composite of smart phone footage and police radio audio puts the idea that he didn’t use tear gas or equivalents squarely in the ‘fake news’ column) — was an act of sacrilege; co-opting the symbols of Christianity — the Kingdom of God — for his own political agenda (so much so that even his military has since distanced itself from the photo opp). This was the digital equivalent of the erection of a statue; a pixelated bust. An image that he hoped might spread frictionlessly around his empire to shore up his rule, and a call to worship his image. In Empire and Communication (1950), Harold Innis argued that empires rose and fell, historically, based on how well and widely they were able to communicate. Statues were an expensive but long lasting way to share an imperial imagery through the landscape an emperor ruled. They were fixed in place, but would last for a long time. They were limited. Trump is the master of harnessing the digital landscape to create imagery and words that spread through the empire; a master of propaganda and pageantry. He doesn’t need statues to spread his image; there is now a permanent picture of Trump with a Bible, in front of a church, engraved in the American pysche. The Roman empire followed other ancient near eastern practice by using coins as propaganda; the emperor’s image was carried in the pockets of the average Roman citizen (see Jesus on coins ‘the image of Caesar’ v ‘the image of God), when Trump wanted his name on the cheques sent out as stimulus to citizens during the Covid-19 lockdown he was again borrowing straight from the ancient playbook.

Just as Revelation depicts a faithful church who stand against the empire and so get slaughtered, 1 Maccabees tells the story that not all in Israel succumbed to Antiochus’ attempts to profane the Temple, while glorifying the image of his gods.

“But many in Israel stood firm and were resolved in their hearts not to eat unclean food. They chose to die rather than to be defiled by food or to profane the holy covenant; and they did die. (1 Maccabees 1:62-63)”

These were the #NeverTrumpers of the first century B.C.

My observations of peers in the U.S who won’t bend the knee to Trump is that it’s more costly within Christian community to refuse than it is for an NFL player to bend the knee during the anthem. Leader after leader seem to be coming forward to pledge their allegience to the Trump re-election campaign; excited by his fusion of the sword of empire with the sword of God’s word… while ignoring the picture God’s word paints of the empire while telling Christians to submit to its authority — to the point of martyrdom; just as Jesus did. Now, this is complicated of course, and people of God are able to be a faithful presence working for change in idolatrous foreign governments — the guiding principle from Joseph, to Daniel, to Esther, to Nehemiah, to Erastus in Corinth, to the early Christians in the Roman empire — seems to be a refusal to worship at the feet of the emperor because Jesus is their Lord and King — their spiritual and political leader. Daniel, the courtier, was chucked in the lion’s den explicitly for his refusal to bend the knee to the king he served. Serving in the courts of the king isn’t the problem — that’s precisely where God’s people can act as a faithful presence to see actions aligned with God’s kingdom (so when Esther doesn’t mention God, that’s not because God is absent in the story, he’s present through the faithful presence of his people). In Daniel, in case the symbolism needs to be any more overt, Nebuchadnezzar literally becomes beastly as a result of the pride he takes in the size and scope of his power.

“Immediately what had been said about Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled. He was driven away from people and ate grass like the ox. His body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like the claws of a bird.” (Daniel 4:33)

Trump is the embodiment of the worship of the things of this world. He is beastly in every sense of the word, as the Bible describes it. He is the personification of the vice list in Colossians 3 that Christians are told to put off as they are restored in the knowledge of the image of our creator. Find one thing in this list that Trump hasn’t proudly demonstrated in his tweeting, rallies, and photo opps.

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices (Colossians 3:5-10)

He is a living, breathing, idol, erecting pixelated statues to himself and inviting all to bend the knee to him (and getting angry when they take a knee to any other god).

But when he stands in front of a church, co-opting it to maintain his position in his empire, church leaders in America aren’t falling in behind the example of the two faithful lamp stands in Revelation 11; they’re the five who left. And it’s appalling. It’s a symptom of a Christian culture that cares more about results and appearance and power than about virtue, and faithfulness, and following the example of a crucified king. It’s the sign of a church who learns nothing from history, because it cares nothing about history; or the role of narrative — both from the Bible, and through history, and its foundational role in shaping character; a church obsessed with technique, coopted by the forms and strategies of the world, because those are the ones that for good and for ill, have provided influence (and, on the whole, less martyrdom).

Christians might ‘bend the knee’ while holding their nose; but there was no space for that in Jerusalem when Antiochus swept to power, and none in Rome in John’s revelation; the faithful church was martyred for its refusal to take a knee. There’s even evidence of this in Pliny’s letter to Trajan. The trial Pliny devised for those accused of being Christians was simple; straight from the pages of Daniel. They were asked to worship an image of the emperor.

“Those who denied that they were or had been Christians, when they invoked the gods in words dictated by me, offered prayer with incense and wine to your image, which I had ordered to be brought for this purpose together with statues of the gods, and also cursed Christ – none of which those who are really Christians can, it is said, be forced to do — these I thought should be discharged. Others named by the informer declared that they were Christians, but then denied it, asserting that they had been but had ceased to be, some three years before, others many years, some as much as twenty-five years. They all worshipped your image and the statues of the gods, and cursed Christ.”

Trajan’s response is a model of reasonableness — he doesn’t want a witch hunt; but, if people are accused of being Christians and fail this test, then they are to be punished.

“They are not to be sought out; if they are denounced and proved guilty, they are to be punished, with this reservation, that whoever denies that he is a Christian and really proves it — that is, by worshiping our gods — even though he was under suspicion in the past, shall obtain pardon through repentance.”

There’s a whole swathe of Christians failing this test; putting Supreme Court seats, religious freedom, political influence, abortion law reform, and victory in the culture wars against the evil “woke left” as justification for joining in Trump’s profanity. But it’s not just the church of the right co-opted by the empire… by the lure of worldly power — they’re not the only Christians lured by the sides going toe-to-toe in the culture wars and backing their chosen champion to the hilt; not the only ones taking a knee… There’s a whole swathe of Christians also failing this test by becoming political and spiritual progressives who deny the resurrection, reject any created norms in terms of biological sex, sexuality, or sexual morality, where allegiance to the institutions of the left seems to require a particular stance on the lives of the unborn, who take on the more radical ‘deconstruction’ aims of the extremes of the left not only to dismantle oppression but the idea of any construction outside the self-constructed authenticity we all want to pursue as tribes of individuals… The litmus test might not be invoking the gods in words supplied by the agents of the empire, but it sure feels close; the Christian leaders who paraded out in lockstep to praise Trump’s strong and god-annointed leadership, and to celebrate the photo, have something to learn from Daniel, from Esther, from the faithful Israelites in the time of Antiochus, and from the faithful churches in Revelation…

Both the ‘Christian right’ and ‘Christian left’ — when they’re expressions of the culture wars, and the fight to control the empire (at the expense of the other) — have forsaken their first love. And it might seem like this is a world away from Australia, and America’s narrative — especially when it comes to civic religion — is a very different animal to Australia; but the same symptoms are there in Australia’s own version of political Christianity; especially, I think, on the Christian Right, with the Australian Christian Lobby and a variety of similar bodies spearheading the charge. There’s, frankly, not enough calling this out from leaders of the institutional church in Australia because our temptation to idolatry is often aligned with the right; we Christians (apparently) want a government that will make life comfortable for us (religious freedom), that will keep the invocation of God’s name in the parliamentary process (the Lord’s prayer), and who will give conservative Christian voices access to the throne room (even if it means justifying a vote for One Nation).

There’s another interesting dynamic to Antiochus Epiphanes and his abomination that causes desolation. The temple he profanes is empty. It’s a shell. It stopped housing God’s glorious presence in the exile. When Solomon builds the temple in 1 Kings, the glorious presence of God shakes the foundations of heaven and earth, and God speaks, as he comes to dwell in Israel as their God. The Temple is the seat of his political and spiritual rule; his footstool in the earth. The curtain in the temple marks off the ‘holy of holies’ — as a sort of boundary marker between heavens and earth.

The second temple never witnesses God’s glorious presence arriving (well, it might, I’ll get to this below); the Old Testament ends in anticipation of God gloriously dwelling with his people again. Israel, with the help of the rulers of Persia, rebuild and rededicate the Temple.

There’s a sense in Ezra that things just aren’t the same; first, people who remember the original temple mourn the difference as the foundation is laid: “But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy.” (Ezra 3:12), and then, the whole thing launches with a party without any divine intervention.

“Then the people of Israel—the priests, the Levites and the rest of the exiles—celebrated the dedication of the house of God with joy. For the dedication of this house of God they offered a hundred bulls, two hundred rams, four hundred male lambs and, as a sin offering for all Israel, twelve male goats, one for each of the tribes of Israel.” (Ezra 6:16-17)

And that’s it. It goes off with a whimper, rather than a bang. There’s no ground-shaking arrival of God in his house from the thunderclouds. No cloud of glory. The house that Antiochus desecrates has not yet been resanctified; the Day of the Lord has not arrived; Israel is still essentially exiled from God when this house is renovated by Herod, when Jesus turns up as the Messiah and calls it a ‘den of Robbers,’ he turns up as an entirely new temple.

And, just in case you think this is some weird over-reading of a lack of cosmic fireworks in Ezra, the prophets anticipate a future ‘day of the Lord’ when the temple would be restored…

“This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land.I will shake all nations, and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the Lord Almighty.” (Haggai 2:6-7)

Haggai also has this change coming with a judgment on beastly empires.

“I will overturn royal thrones and shatter the power of the foreign kingdoms. I will overthrow chariots and their drivers; horses and their riders will fall, each by the sword of his brother.” (Haggai 2:22).

The sort of destruction longed for, and promised, in the closing chapters of Revelation. The one that comes when Jesus returns to ‘make all things new’ — the sort of kingdom — political and spiritual — that Christians are now meant to anticipate that allows us to faithfully avoid being co-opted by the empires of this world.

The same Bishop of the Episcopal Church of Washington (the denomination St John’s, the church in Trump’s photo, is part of), Mariann Budd, who said “Mr. Trump used sacred symbols to cloak himself in the mantle of spiritual authority, while espousing positions antithetical to the Bible that he held in his hands,” also said, in a widely quoted (now deleted) blog post “The truth is that we don’t know what happened to Jesus after his death, anymore than we can know what will happen to us. What we do know from the stories handed down is how Jesus’ followers experienced his resurrection. What we know is how we experience resurrection ourselves.” There’s every chance Trump stood in front of an empty house, just as Antiochus re-dedicated an empty house to Zeus. Denying not just the ‘in the flesh’ nature of the incarnation, but the resurrection, was something John (who by-the-by, I think is the same John who wrote the Gospel, and Revelation) had pretty squarely in mind when he talked about anti-Christs in 1 John (see more on this here).

I’m not here to play the theological witch-hunt game or to be a watch-blogger railing against the wishy-washy world of the Episcopalian Church; the bishop might have had a bad day, and this might be why that post is now deleted and the quote found circulating elsewhere on the interent. As an Aussie Presbyterian, I don’t have a dog in that fight. But the left hand side of the culture wars demands allegiance just like the right does; you get to be part of an empire on that side if you give up the spiritual reality of the Gospel in order to pursue the political vision of justice that was part of Jesus’ kingdom. Christians explicitly taking sides in the culture wars — championing or being championed by visions from the left, or the right, end up doing eschatologically odd things, and aligning themselves with empty temples. You get a pass from the left for championing feelings and desires above the created reality of our bodies, and the ‘feeling of resurrection’ over the embodied reality of resurrection, and the goodness of humanity over the darkness of sin and God’s holiness and so the reality of judgment (and exile from God). You get a pass for the left for sharing its political vision, and so sharing its spiritual vision — because there is no secular/sacred divide. You get a pass for totally over-realising your eschatology; and, just like the right, seeking to build your vision of the kingdom here and now through whatever levers of power are on offer. So you play your own part in the culture wars, and bend your knee to your own alternative gods when you should stand. And yet, again, a caveat — Christians can be faithfully present in the institutions of the left, just as they can in the right, the question, ultimately, is about allegiance (and one of the signs for who your allegiance is to might be in how you make space for Christians on the other side of the political fence).

We followers of Jesus should have no part in sacrilegious abominations that are not the destruction of our own image in the same way that the image of God was destroyed in first century Israel, in the public square of that beastly city. We’re not meant to jump on board with the erection of other images that represent worldly power; not to nail our colours to those masts; not to bow the knee to other emperors — we’re to stand, and die, with the one who stood and died for us. To pick a side in the culture wars is to pick an idol, and to sign up for a particular form of iconoclasm, and a particular form of idol construction. And the Bible consistently calls the people of God away from idols because to participate in such image making conforms us into a particular image… As Psalm 115 puts it, when it comes to idols, “Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.” You lie down with dogs, you get fleas. You side with Antiochus, you get the Pharisees executing Jesus. You side with Satan, and the rulers who rule using his playbook, you become beastly. You follow Trump and suddenly you lose all public credibility when preaching Jesus. You join young Martyn and his political revolution aimed at securing access in the corridors of power through endorsing One Nation, and you get… And here’s the thing, you sign up as a card carrying supporter of Black Lives Matter, the organisation (as opposed to participating in the conversation and using the statement)… well, it’s very likely you’ll be conformed to its view of the world. The trick is figuring out how to be in an empire but not of the empire; to serve in the government of Rome without worshipping the emperor. To work in the public service without campaigning for the leader, which is hard — a lesson a certain general, and stacks of other ex-Trump staffers have learned the hard way: you refuse to be in the photo opp, or facilitate it, you say “no,” you differentiate yourself in words and actions, you speak up clearly and with conviction to call out bad behaviour, you recognise the good and the humanity not just in your own side, but the other, you love your enemy and practice forgiveness, you draw a line and you hold it with integrity, you preach Jesus even rebuking those in power on your own side, when it costs you everything… You stand when you’re called to bow. And look, I get that my friends on the right see that this is an issue with Black Lives Matter TM, and so don’t want to take a knee — but I’d like them to take the same stance when it comes to those idolators on the right, not stay silent when it suits them. You stand against racism and for the plight of the marginalised and oppressed; and you stand for J.K Rowling as she gets cancelled. You do both. 100%, or 50-50, not chucking stones at the other side and its excesses with a caveat about the goodness of their diagnosis of the issue, not defending the excesses of your side with a caveat that Trump is really bad “but”… You use “and” instead of “but” — a pox on both their houses… Both houses are empty.

Revelation 11 gives us a picture of faithful image bearers of Christ, and what that looks like in the public squares of beastly empires.

They’re dead.

Killed. Hated. Rejected. Mocked. By everyone.

Right and Left, without Jesus, are just beastly versions of the same beastly game of rejecting God in favour of self; both are insidious expressions of and co-opted to a political system that loves money and power and autonomy; both are idolatry.

We might well get thrown to the lions, but not bending the knee, is also how to patiently and faithfully bring about the sort of change and reform that shook the world, it’s also what we do in the hope of real, embodied, resurrection.

Choosing either side of the culture wars has a cost for our faithfulness, and deforms us into false images of false gods… and I’ll explain in a future post why I write so much more about the dangers from the ‘right’ and Trump, than from the left… but for now let me conclude by saying that Trump’s photo opp, like the original ‘abomination that causes desolation’ is the product of the fusion between the political and the spiritual; there’s no secular/sacred divide.

Trump’s photo opp was a profane and idolatrous act as he sought to glorify himself by creating an image to spread through and support his empire; and that should be massively problematic for Christians, and we should faithfully speak out not just in opposition to that, but to testify to the same Jesus who was executed in the public square of a beastly city by religious people who should’ve kept the faith, but whose track record was being the descendants of those who did not oppose Antiochus. How could they do anything but cuddle up to worldly power?

If you’re upset about statues of ancient white dudes being toppled, but not by this old white dude erecting pixel images of himself while surrounded by symbols of Christianity, then I think you need a little more iconoclasm in your diet.

Images are powerful. That’s precisely why not only are those statues ‘powerful’ — but the pictures of statues being toppled get sent around the world.

And if you can’t bring yourself to condemn Trump’s image-building, without qualification, as an act of political beastliness, rather than godliness — I’d ask you to check your motives. Your enemy’s enemy is not your friend. The lesser of two evils is still evil (and may actually be the greater danger if you can’t call it evil). Trump’s image, because we’re now in the digital age, is likely to be harder to remove than a statue. It will be reduplicated and distributed as part of the historical record; unlike a statue, it’s going to be very hard to erase.

When it comes to the culture wars, without a differentiated Christian presence challenging the idol building game, the temples on both sides are empty; devoid of life and the presence of God. A St. John’s without the proclamation of the Gospel of the resurrected Jesus, if indeed this is the case, is a profane building already; empty and de-sacred (‘desecrated’). God is present through his Spirit; his Spirit is present in those who recognise and proclaim the resurrection and Lordship of Jesus. Trump’s digital statue exercise and rededication didn’t significantly change its spiritual state.

Israel’s exile from God didn’t end with her return from exile; the captivity of their hearts continued. The return, and even the building of an inadequate, empty, temple was a precursor to God’s plans to return to his people and re-create us in his image again; to give us new hearts. The day of the Lord required an empty Temple, so that god’s presence might fill his new temple as his spirit created new images.

And that happens with the coming of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2. I think, for some reason I’d always pictured this moment at Pentecost happening in “the upper room” (because the events of Acts 1 happen there). But Luke is at pains to tell us that the disciples practice was to ‘meet daily in the temple courts’ (Luke 24:53, Acts 2:46). The events of Pentecost happen in front of lots of people — heaps more than you’d expect in an upper room where the disciples met in Acts 1. There’s chronological distance between Acts 1 and Acts 2. So I think the events of Pentecost happen in the empty-of-God’s-presence Temple; the Temple that was judged when the curtain tore, that has no claim on being the dwelling place of God because of the way Israel participated in the ultimate desolating abomination (the destruction of Jesus).

There, in the temple that had been waiting all those years to be renewed by God’s presence coming back, God’s presence comes to those who believe in the resurrection of king Jesus. It comes in the same glorious firey way that God came into the Temple in 1 Kings, only it lands not in the holy of holies, but on God’s holy people. People made holy (sanctified… made ‘sacred’), by the Holy Spirit. Holy just means ‘set apart’ from the beastly people around them. The Holy Spirit is what gives animating life to God’s living, breathing, images — the representatives of his kingdom — as we live in the world as his ambassadors; those who might be present in the corridors of power in different empires, but who won’t support or bow the knee to the elevation of abominations — those who call people to worship something other than the living God. To pick a side in the culture war — to choose an empire with its associated imagery — and to be excited or upset about the image games played by your side (or the other) — is to choose an idol.

One way to avoid the appearance of picking a side — even while seeking to be a faithful presence within an empire and its machinery — is to call out this idolatry, the idolatry of your own particular political ideologies or inclinations, another is to keep faithfully proclaiming the death resurrection of Jesus and seeing his kingdom as one that challenges the beastly regimes of this world so much that they put him to death; such that to follow him means a commitment to a certain sort of martyrdom; to being desecrated by the world.

As John himself puts it in 1 John…

“We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.” (1 John 5:19-21)

June 17, 2020