The Tribulation Temple
In the future, a rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem will become the site of the horrific “abomination of desolation.”
As the Rapture of the church and the Tribulation draw closer, the subject of a Jewish Temple will continue to be a major issue. Orthodox Jews have long desired to rebuild the Temple, religious war continues over the Temple Mount, and the geopolitical situation focuses intensely on sovereignty over Jerusalem in the creation of a Palestinian state as a resolution to the Middle East conflict.
The prophetic Scriptures indicate that the Temple will indeed be rebuilt, only to be desecrated later by Satan’s evil henchman, the Antichrist.
The Temple Prophecy
During the first part of the future Tribulation, the Temple will be rebuilt by unbelieving Orthodox Jews (Isa. 66:1–6), apparently as a result of a covenant between the Jewish leadership and the Antichrist (Dan. 9:27). (The church will be gone. Genuine believers in Jesus Christ will have been removed from the Earth in an event called the Rapture.)
The covenant launches the 70th week of Daniel, a horrible, seven-year period also called the Tribulation and “time of Jacob’s [Israel’s] trouble” (Jer. 30:7; Dan. 9:24–27). It also seems to lead to the Temple’s construction, which Jews in today’s Temple Movement claim could be accomplished in one month to six weeks.
Because this Temple will be built as the result of the Antichrist’s deceptive covenant with Israel, many refer to it as the “Antichrist’s Temple.” However, this terminology is incorrect. Even though the Antichrist will place the “abomination of desolation” there (Dan. 11:31; 12:11), Jesus still called the site “the holy place”1: “Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place . . .” (Mt. 24:15).
The apostle Paul, using Daniel’s text as his reference, called the site where the Antichrist will usurp God’s holy presence “the temple of God” (2 Th. 2:4). Only as “the temple of God” could it be desecrated (Dan. 9:27). If the site already were an abomination through its association with the Antichrist’s covenant (Mt. 24:15; Mk. 13:14), it could not become one.
Moreover, this Temple will be built by religious Jews who will not consciously follow the Antichrist but who will obey the biblical instruction to rebuild the Temple whenever possible (Ex. 25:8). They may see the man as a Messianic figure, a human deliverer like Persian King Cyrus, who was called “messiah” or “anointed” for performing this task (Isa. 44:28—45:1–4).
Just as the Second Temple built by Herod the Great (a type of Antichrist) was considered a holy place where Jesus (Mt. 21:13; Lk. 2:41–49) and the apostles worshiped (Lk. 24:52–53; Acts 3:1; 21:26; 24:11, 18), so too will be the Tribulation Temple. People will regard it as holy; and it appears that Messianic Jews (Jews who believe in Jesus as their Savior) will join observant Jews for legitimate worship there, though they will be ostracized by the Orthodox worshipers (Isa. 66:5).
The Temple’s Purpose
The Antichrist’s armies will desecrate the Tribulation Temple when the Antichrist invades Jerusalem (Dan. 11:45; Rev. 11:2). Then will come the abomination of desolation (Dan. 9:27; 12:11; Mt. 24:15; Mk. 13:14; 2 Th. 2:3–4).
Jesus enlarged on Daniel’s prophecy by making the Temple’s desecration the signal event that divides the first half of the Tribulation from the remaining 1,260 days of “great tribulation” (Mt. 24:15; Mk. 13:14; cf. Rev. 11:1–2). The Temple’s desecration begins an unparalleled period of Jewish persecution (Mt. 24:16–22; Mk. 13:14–20) leading up to the rescue of the redeemed remnant at the Messiah’s Second Advent (Zech. 12:8–14; 14:3–5; Lk. 21:27–28; Rev. 19:11–16).
In fact, Daniel’s prophecy of the 70th week, with its division into two equal halves of three-and-one-half years (1,260 days), serves as a template for both Jesus’ Olivet Discourse and the apostle John’s section on wrath in the book of Revelation (chaps. 4—19).2
The purpose of the Tribulation Temple is to act as a dividing point between the growing apostasy in Israel in the first half of the Tribulation, its climax at the midpoint, and its escalating judgments (Zech. 12—14). The judgments culminate with the Messiah’s return to deliver the Jewish remnant in Jerusalem (14:3), cleanse the Temple Mount (Dan. 12:12), and ultimately build the final Temple (Isa. 60:4–7, 13–14; Ezek. 40:5—43:10).
The Tribulation Temple might be destroyed at Messiah Jesus’ return, when the Mount of Olives splits in two (Zech. 14:4). It certainly will be removed as part of the extensive topographical changes that will take place to prepare for the Millennial Jerusalem and its Temple (v. 10; cf. Isa. 2:2).3
The prophet Jeremiah summarized these two aspects of the Tribulation by calling the period the “time of Jacob’s [Israel’s] trouble” and saying, “but he shall be saved out of it” (Jer. 30:7).
The Temple’s Desecration
Daniel’s 70 weeks prophecy covers both the Second Temple period under Roman rule (Dan. 9:24–26) and the end-times Tribulation under the Antichrist’s rule, thousands of years later (v. 27).
It uses the phrase your people (v. 24), meaning Daniel’s people, Israel. Thus, the Tribulation deals exclusively with future, national Israel. This fact explains why the Jewish Temple is prominent in this Tribulation context. (See “The Amazing Prophecy of the 70 Weeks of Daniel.”)
Daniel 9:26 refers to the Roman period (still future to the prophet Daniel). Here we see a figure known as “the prince” (Hebrew, nagid, “leader”) whose “people” (Gentile Romans) will destroy the Second Temple. The 70th week covers the entire Tribulation period as a time of wrath in which Israel—in a disciplinary, exilic condition—suffers punishment for transgression, sin, and iniquity until everlasting righteousness and the Messianic consecration of the Temple can take place.
Israel’s covenant with the Antichrist and the cessation of the sacrificial system as a result of the abomination of desolation (Dan. 9:27; Rev. 11:1–2) are the central events of Israel’s Tribulation judgment. Our Lord chose this text to warn a future Jewish generation that it will have entered the Tribulation when it sees these things take place (Mt. 24:15; Mk. 13:14; cf. 2 Th. 2:4).
In the apostle Paul’s description of the abomination of desolation (2 Th. 2:2–9), he called the Antichrist “the man of sin . . . the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God” (vv. 3–4). Since God’s presence was manifested only within the holy of holies at the Ark of the Covenant (Ex. 25:22), some prophecy students believe that when the Jewish people gain political access to the Temple Mount through the covenant and begin to excavate to rebuild the Temple, they will find and reinstall the sacred Ark.
The Antichrist’s takeover of the Temple (Rev. 11:2) will allow him access to the holy of holies, and he will sit atop the Ark symbolically, usurping the place of Israel’s God (cf. Isa. 14:13–14; Rev. 13:4).4This act will bring about his decreed destruction (Dan. 9:27; 2 Th. 2:8–9; Rev. 19:20).
The Tribulation Temple will stand during a terrible time of wrath on Earth. May each of us be certain of our trust in Jesus the Messiah, who “delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Th. 1:10; cf. Jn. 14:1–3; 2 Cor. 1:10; Gal. 1:4; 1 Th. 5:4–9; Ti. 2:13; Rev. 3:9–10).
ENDNOTES
- For more on this matter, see Randall Price, Jerusalem in Prophecy (Bellmawr, NJ: The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, 2022).
- See John Andrew McLean, The Seventieth Week of Daniel 9:27 as a Literary Key for Understanding the Structure of the Apocalypse of John (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1996).
- For an extensive study of these details, see Randall Price, The Temple in Prophecy (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2000).
- For more on this subject, see Randall Price, In Search of Temple Treasures (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1994) and In Search of the Ark of the Covenant (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1998).
