Measuring the Temple

ATTENTION: Be very careful with these 11 verses. Misinterpretation of these verses has resulted in most of the (faulty) setting of dates when the world was supposed to end.

Vs. 1 & 2: John is told to measure the temple just as the angels in the visions of Zechariah and Ezekiel were told. HOWEVER, his purpose was different from theirs and what he is measuring is not the historic temple site in the historic city of Jerusalem.

Read Zech 12:3ff and Ezek 40:3ff. The purpose behind these measurings is that the temple itself might be restored and rebuilt after the Israelites returned from the Exile. The message of both these prophets is a word of hope to the Israelites that the temple would be rebuilt.

The purpose of the measuring in John 11:1 is that the "inner court and those who worship there" be protected. So the purposes are different.

Also Ezek and Zech are concerned with the historic temple in the historic city of Jerusalem. John is concerned with something else. We know John's "holy city" (vs.2) is not the historic Jerusalem because in 11:8 John calls the city of Jerusalem itself the new Sodom and the New Egypt.

So at the end of vs. 1 we know that whoever (or whatever) is in the inner court is to be protected. (But we do not yet know what or where this temple is.).

"the outer court -. in the Jerusalem Temple, the outer court was the place where Gentiles worshipped. The Gentiles could not go into the inner court. So whoever (or whatever) is in the outer court is to be trampled. We do not yet know what the trampling is nor what the "holy city" is.

We do know what the "Outer court" is not. It is not people who think they are Christians but are only on the fringes of the church. Nor could those in the outer court be "pagans and children of darkness because why would "the nations" trample those who are themselves part of "the nations", considering that for John "the nations" are the powers of the world who are opposed to Christ and his church.

"The Nations" = worldly forces of evil; godless paganism. (see Rev. 13:7).

The meaning of Vs. 1 and 2: "For a limited time, the forces of evil in the world will be able to persecute the church and martyr Christians. Although God does not offer the church protection from bodily suffering and death, God does promise an inner security against spiritual dangers. It is God's intention that his faithful people remain vulnerable to the full hostility of their enemies, secure only in their faith in the crucified and risen Lord.