There is talk within some Jewish circles of the building of a third Jerusalem temple. There is also a similar idea among many Christians of a need to build another temple. However, within Christianity arises this conundrum: Is that future temple a Tribulation temple or a Millennial temple? That, in turn, leads to these questions: Is Ezekiel’s temple (Ezekiel 40-44) the future temple; and if so, which one?

All the confusion stems from the writings of Irenaeus, the second-century Christian apologist. Irenaeus was well-respected, but he was not a historian. The author of a five-volume treatise titled Against Heresies which refuted the false teachings of Gnosticism that had crept into the first-century church and continued until his day, he is frequently quoted by today’s futurists as some sort of eschatological authority. In the last several chapters of his final volume he veered off from his area of expertise, stating, on five separate occasions, that Antichrist will sit in the temple of God, showing himself to be God, an obvious allusion to 2 Thessalonians 2:4. We should note the Second Temple was still standing when Paul wrote those words.

Nevertheless, that has become the pretext for interpreting Ezekiel’s vision of a temple as being Irenaeus’ referred-to temple. The problem is this: Nearly all futurists, whether dispensational or otherwise, believe Daniel’s seventieth week, as well as the Book of Revelation, are about the future. But here is the rub: In Daniel’s prophecy, the city and sanctuary are destroyed, supposedly by the Antichrist while from the Apocalypse chapter twenty comes the doctrine of the Millennium. Many Christians believe there will be a millennial temple from which Christ will reign when He comes back to set up His kingdom, replete with reinstituted sacrifices. See the dichotomy?

However, nothing could be further from the truth.

Ezekiel and Daniel were both exiles of the seventy-year Babylonian captivity after Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and the First Temple. The Second Temple, which eventually became known as Herod’s Temple, had not yet been built when either Ezekiel or Daniel had their visions. On that point alone it defies logic to say Ezekiel’s temple is not the Second.

That reveals a serious flaw in futurist thinking. They simply minimize Jerusalem and the First Temple’s importance to God and the system He set up. The idolatrous behavior of the Israelites, God’s chosen people, led to the horrors of the city and first Temple’s destruction and to the peoples’ captivity. To add insult to injury, the futurists then downplay the importance of the Second Temple and its demise, the one which stood during the most significant period in history, the time of Christ and the Apostolic Age. When Jerusalem and that Temple were destroyed in A.D. 70, there was no more need for a temple because Christ had fulfilled the Law and the Prophets and the need for a temple by becoming sin for us and being the ultimate sacrifice when He went to the cross. Jesus specifically referred to that and alluded to Himself as being the new temple (John 2:19-21). Furthermore, we are now the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19).

Therefore, Daniel’s seventieth week refers to the A.D. 70 destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple. Furthermore. in Ezekiel’s vision, after the completion of his Temple and the glory of the Lord filled it, God said to him, “As for you, son of man, describe the Temple to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed in their inequities; and let them measure the plan. If they are ashamed of all that they have done, make known to them the design of the house, its structures, its exits, its entrances, all its designs, all its statutes, and all its laws. And write it in their sight so that they may observe its whole design and all its statutes and do them. This is the law of the house: its entire area on the top of the mountain all around shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the house” (Ezekiel 43:10-12).

So, that vision had nothing to do with a third or fourth temple. To the contrary, it was the design of what the Second Temple should have been – if the people were ashamed in their inequities, which had caused God to pass judgment on them in the first place and which, at that time, resulted in the destruction of the First Temple and their seventy-year captivity. Apparently, they were not ashamed in their iniquities as we read this, “Yet many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ households, the old men who had seen the first Temple, wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes…” (Ezra 3:12).

Thus, if there were any shame at all it was shown by those who wept when they saw the foundation because, predictably, they could tell it not only did not measure up to the first Temple, but it surely was also not up to God’s grand specifications per Ezekiel’s vision. It only became grand after Herod refurbished it, centuries later. Therefore, the assertion that Ezekiel’s temple is the future Tribulation or Millennial temple is unfounded, as is the idea of a Tribulation or Millennial temple itself.