Abstract
The classic concepts of heaven, with all their materiality and spatiality, do not square easily with our post-Copernican universe. As a result, we do not know what to do with the traditional biblical language of the heavenly temple, and are prone to cash it out too quickly as a metaphor for something else — the worshipping community, or the coming of the kingdom on earth. (Maybe that is one reason why we fail so signally to understand the materiality and spatiality of our physical places of worship, and the vital roles they can still play in contemporary spirituality.) It also makes it very hard to read (or preach) many passages in the NT.
In this compact and tightly-argued volume, Nicholas Moore provides a comprehensive overview of the idea of the heavenly temple in the NT. Drawing on contemporary spatial theory, he offers a crisp and concise analysis of temple theology in the OT and Second Temple Judaism. He proposes a fourfold taxonomy (or perhaps better a spectrum) to differentiate the many variations on the theme of the heavenly temple: the heavenly blueprint on which the tabernacle was based (Exodus 25.9); the heavenly temple as an actual structure (Wis 9.8); heaven itself as the archetypal temple, with an angelic liturgy mirrored by the worship of the earthly sanctuary (Isaiah 6.1-8); the whole cosmos as a heavenly temple, with the physical universe as the outer courts of the temple, and the inner sanctuary within the highest heavens as the inaccessible dwelling-place of God (variants in Philo, Spec. Leg. 1.66; Moses 2.71-160; Josephus, Ant. 3.180). Passages like Isaiah 66.1 (‘Heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool’) should not be taken as ‘anti-temple’ (p. 21) but as expressions of God’s transcendence (cf. 1 Kings 8.15-26) and the unresolved tensions between ‘the reality of localized divine presence and the challenges and obstacles to access’ (p. 193).
The remainder of the book is taken up with a careful exploration of the complex of ideas associated with the heavenly temple in NT and early Christian texts, principally revelation (ch. 3), Hebrews (ch. 4), the Gospels and Acts (chs 5-7), and Ephesians and other early Christian texts (ch. 8). Moore concludes (p. 187) that, ‘[t]he presence of the exalted Christ in the heavenly temple is a fundamental part of early Christian experience and confession. . . . Their map of reality enabled them to plot in a cultic frame who Jesus was, what he had accomplished, and where he now is. At the same time, Jesus’s descent, earthly ministry, ascent, and ongoing heavenly presence transformed their cartography’ of the heavenly realm in terms of personnel (a heaven now populated by the Lamb and his faithful witnesses of every nation), process (the atonement and intercession of the heavenly high priest) and place (Jesus removes the barriers to access to God). Moore’s study is a treasury of exegetical insights for the preacher, and an invitation to explore the continuing potency of ancient temple theology — including (though Moore does not pursue this) its potential for our theology of creation.