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Roy A. Bradley

· 22 min read

“Behold, the Dwelling Place of God Is with Man”: The Temple from Eden to the Church

From cosmos and Eden to the tabernacle, Scripture's temple theme leads to the church, which Ephesians presents as the actual end-time temple.

Introduction

It is natural to expect that the introductory material of a well-crafted work of literature would contain either a direct statement of, or allusions (hints) to, the main themes that develop throughout the entire work. This feature is clearly evident among the tomes of classical literature. For example, the Iliad of Homer begins with the Greek word menis, which means “rage” or “wrath.” This one word functions as an immediate indication of the main theme around which Homer’s entire epic is structured. The rage of Achilles is central to the story; his glory has been impugned by another, and it awaits to be seen how his rage is avenged and thus, his glory restored. A similar feature is present in John Milton’s Paradise Lost, where in the “proem”1 to his work he states directly his intention:

What is in me dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support,
That to the height of this great argument
I may assert Eternal Providence
And justify the ways of God to men.2

Just as Homer’s bard-poet appeals to the Muses to aid him in telling of the rage of Achilles, so Milton’s calls on them to help him explain God’s mysterious ways to mankind. In both cases, the opening lines function as a preface and hermeneutical (interpretive) paradigm for all that comes after it.3

This early, initial establishment of thematic material in classical literature is a feature that plays prominently in biblical literature as well. The Pentateuch constitutes the first major literary portion of both the Hebrew and Christian canons. As a unity,4 the Pentateuch sets the agenda for all that comes after it, and it provides an interpretive framework for understanding the unfolding history of salvation that ensues. In it we encounter, very early in the narrative—even “in the beginning”—evidence of God’s deliberate desire to dwell with humanity. This theme is set up and pushed forward in the Pentateuch, but is not fully developed there, where it remains inchoate. It is not until the eschaton, as revealed in Revelation 21-22, that we see the consummation of this divine plan fully realized. Nevertheless, the Pentateuch clearly reveals the LORD to be committed to establishing his holy presence among his creation, which can be seen through the temple imagery at work.

Inasmuch as the creation account in Genesis 1-3 functions as prefatory material for the Pentateuch,5—indeed, for the entire Bible—it serves to provide the thematic trajectory that guides the subsequent narrative. The thematic content embedded there demonstrates God’s intention to establish his cosmic temple administration on earth, whereby he will dwell with man in covenant relationship.

Between Eden and the eschaton stands the church. Paul’s statements in Ephesians 2:19-226 may be the most explicit passage in the Bible that views the church as a temple. The fundamental question that arises from this assertion is whether Paul thinks that there is an analogical relationship between the church and the eschatological temple or a more direct ontological relationship that understands the church to be the actual fulfillment of the Old Testament expectation for the end-time temple. The image of the temple is loaded with thematic meaning, being one of the most important symbols of God’s desire to dwell among his people, and the answer depends on how much of that meaning Paul brings with him. I will argue that the Pentateuch presents the cosmos as God’s temple, Eden as its garden-sanctuary, and the tabernacle as God’s provision of access to his presence for a sinful people; and that Paul, drawing on this whole trajectory, presents the church not as an analogy for the temple but as the actual end-time temple—the place on earth where God now dwells by his Spirit. I will first trace the temple imagery of the Pentateuch, from heaven as the model to the tabernacle in the wilderness, and then turn to Paul’s view of the church in Ephesians and what it means for the church’s life and mission.

Heaven as Model

The creation is full of remarkable beauty and complexity, awesome forces and tiny pleasures, rational order and sublime mystery—all pointing to its Creator as an “artist with an eye toward aesthetics.”7 The world that God has chosen to create is comprised of distinctive dimensions of reality, each revealing in a special way the presence of its maker and sustainer. The “highest” (invisible) heaven, existing outside the “firmament” (earth), functions as a model, or “blueprint,” for earth.8 That is, the visible world is a reflection of the invisible, heavenly realm in which God himself resides. Thus, typology plays a critical role in understanding the symbolism at work in Scripture. Typology, from the Greek word typos, “refers to an image impressed onto something else, for instance, wax. It is the word used in Scripture for the imprint of God’s heavenly pattern on the earth.”9

The tabernacle complex (and its later iteration in the Jerusalem temple) is a case in point. In Acts 7:44, Stephen says, “Our fathers had the tent of witness [tabernacle] in the wilderness, just as he who spoke to Moses directed him to make it, according to the pattern that he had seen.” Similarly, Hebrews 8:5, quoting Exodus 25:40, reminds us that the tabernacle and the sacrificial system in operation there served as “a copy and shadow of heavenly things;” and Moses was told to “make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain” (ESV).10 Vern Poythress poses a rhetorical question about this “pattern” shown to Moses: “What else would it be than a heavenly pattern, since he received it by symbolically going up to heaven [on Mount Sinai]?”11 Psalm 78:69 further indicates that God “built the sanctuary like the heights, [he built the sanctuary] like the earth which He has founded forever” (NASB).

The architecture of the cosmos is tripartite in nature, consisting of (1) the “habitable world,” (2) the “visible heavens and its light sources,” and (3) the “invisible dimension of the cosmos, where God and his heavenly hosts dwelt”12 (what we normally refer to by “heaven”). James Jordan argues that wherever this structure is modeled in the visible world, it is by the work of the Spirit “proceeding from heaven” and bringing “the heavenly pattern into the cosmos.”13 Thus, “the heavens declare the glory of God in the special sense that they are a copy of the archetypal Glory of God.”14 This structure is reflected in the cosmos itself, in the Garden of Eden, and in the architecture and furnishings of the tabernacle/temple complex. In each of these cases, God’s presence is established with clear intention to dwell with humanity. “And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God” (Exod. 29:46 ESV).

The Cosmos as Temple

The cosmos is God’s temple by design—his intended resting place in which he chooses to dwell, and from which he rules the universe: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool’” (Isa. 66:1 ESV).15 T.D. Alexander states that “the creation of the earth is closely associated with the construction of God’s temple.”16 Along the same lines, John Walton argues that there is a “close connection between cosmic origins and temple building.”17

There are a number of interpretive connections and “subtle allusions”18 that provide clues for understanding the cosmos as a temple. The connection gets “tighter,” Walton says, when we consider that “temples in the ancient world were considered symbols of the cosmos.”19 As such, they literally served as a kind of micro-cosmos that reflected the features of the cosmic temple in miniature, directly implying the intentional presence of God therein. G.K. Beale notes that this is not a novel concept, but an “ancient notion.”20

The most striking evidence for understanding the cosmos as a temple is found in the cosmic symbolism of Israel’s tabernacle/temple architecture and furnishings. It is remarkable to note that the tripartite structure of the cosmos, outlined above, is clearly modeled in the tabernacle. “The holy of holies represented the invisible heavenly dimension, the holy place represented the visible heavens, and the outer courtyard represented the visible sea and earth, where humans lived.”21 What follows is a brief and very limited survey of some of the connections.

The holy of holies represented the invisible heavenly dimension by (1) the presence of cherubim on the ark and woven into the curtain that separates the holy of holies, just as cherubim guard the heavenly temple; (2) the lack of any image of God beyond the ark, representing the invisible heaven where God resides; (3) the incense cloud, which the high priest had to enter into when approaching the holy of holies.

The holy place as a representation of the visible heavens rests on a number of observations, but I will only list two here: (1) The curtains of the holy place, especially their colors and design, mimicked the visible heavens. (2) The lampstand modeled the heavenly lights. “This symbolism is enhanced by observing that the Hebrew word for ‘light’ is used ten times in the Pentateuch for the lamps on the lampstand, and the only other place in the Pentateuch where the word occurs is five times in Gen. 1:14-16, where it refers to the sun, moon, and stars.”22

Finally, the outer courtyard represented the visible sea and earth. (1) The large metal washbasin and the altar in Solomon’s temple are called, respectively, the “sea” (1 Kings 7:23-26 NASB) and the “bosom of the earth” (Ezek. 43:14 NASB).23 (2) The twelve bulls “entirely circling the sea” and the “lily blossom” provide a model of the land and wildlife (2 Chron. 4:2-5 NASB). (3) The four corners of the earth are suggested by the bulls that held up the washbasins as they are facing toward the four points on the compass.

In light of this kind of evidence, Walton concludes that “from the idea that the [tabernacle] temple was considered a mini cosmos, it is easy to move to the idea that the cosmos could be viewed as a temple.”24 Additionally—and interestingly—the creation account of Genesis 1:1-2:3 can be interpreted as a cosmic temple inauguration ceremony, wherein God establishes the “functional origins” of the cosmos.25 In any case, cosmic symbolism in the design of the tabernacle/temple complex is prevalent and striking, lending support for the idea that the cosmos itself is a temple.

Eden as Garden-Temple / Antechamber to Cosmic Temple

In his commentary on Genesis, Bruce Waltke states outrightly that “the garden is a temple from which the heavenly waters flow to the rest of the earth.”26 This notion of Garden as temple is an extension of the cosmic temple idea addressed above. As an “axis between heaven and earth,”27 the garden of Eden functioned as an archetypal sanctuary.28 G.K. Beale contends that the Garden of Eden “was the first archetypal temple in which the first man worshipped God.”29 It is important to note that as we try to understand the theology of Eden, “we must…recognize that the garden of Eden was not, strictly speaking, a garden for humans but was the garden of God (Is 51:3; Ezek 28:13),” and only secondarily a place for man to live and worship him.30

Beale notes that Eden “served as a little earthly model of God’s temple in heaven that eventually would encompass the whole earth.”31 Alexander states that “the case for Eden being a divine residence rests largely on the striking parallels that exist between the garden and later Israelite sanctuaries.”32 Just as we have seen in the cosmic symbolism of the tabernacle/temple, there also exists striking symbolic parallels between it and the Garden of Eden. Space does not permit a complete list of parallels; nevertheless, a sampling of examples are in order. Consider the following:33

  • The Garden as the place of the first arboreal lampstand—the Tree of Life (Exod. 25:31-36).

  • The Garden as the place of precious stones (Gen. 2:12; Exod. 25:7, 11-39; 28:9-12, 20; 1 Kings 6:20-22; 1 Chr. 29:2).

  • The Garden as the place of the first mountain (Ezek. 28:14, 16).

  • The Garden was the first place with an eastern facing entrance, guarded by cherubim (Gen. 3:24; Exod. 25:18-22; 26:31; 36:35; 1 Kings 6:23-29; 2 Chr. 3:14; Ezek. 40:6).

  • Ezekiel views the Garden of Eden as the first sanctuary. Ezekiel 47:1-12 describes a river flowing from a future Jerusalem temple, bringing life to the Dead Sea. Water does not flow uphill, indicating that Eden must be an elevated location, possibly a mountain. God’s presence is frequently associated with mountains.

Furthermore, the imagery demonstrates that Eden served as the antechamber to the Cosmic Temple. Alexander confidently admits that “the Garden of Eden has every appearance of being a garden attached to a temple.”34 The suggestion arises from the garden symbolism present in the antechamber of Israel’s tabernacle/temple, most notably, the menorah as a symbol of the Tree of Life and the table for the Bread of the Presence, indicating God’s provision of plant and animals for food for the first priest, Adam.35 This further suggests that Eden was created as a means of provisional access to the presence of God, a place where they could hear “the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Gen 3:8). God, by his grace, created this place for man and woman to live in harmony with the land and animals; to enjoy the blessing of harmonious marriage; to be nurtured by the fruit of the Garden; to enjoy unlimited access to the presence of their maker.

The Tabernacle as a Symbol of God’s Presence

Being a “replica of heaven,”36 the tabernacle by its very presence illustrated the powerful truth that the God who created heaven and earth was the same God who dwelt among them in the wilderness tent-sanctuary, albeit provisionally. “And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst” (Exod. 25:8 ESV). The tabernacle was provisional in the sense that it functioned as a mediatory instrument through which God would make gracious allowances in order to continue his relationship with his sinful covenant partners. At the same time, the tabernacle provided a symbolic confirmation of the promises already made by YHWH. “In pictorial form God was saying, as it were, ‘Look at My provisions for you. This is how I redeem you and bring you to My presence.’”37

The theme of God’s presence continues through the book of Numbers, where it “may be observed in the care with which the text deals with the place of the Levites…in their responsibility to transport the tabernacle and its furniture (Num. 4),”38 and indeed, in a large measure, through the rest of the Old Testament. The continued maintenance of the tabernacle complex, according to the meticulous, divinely prescribed protocols, illustrates the precarious and precise nature of mediating the presence of God through tabernacle ministry; yet at the same time, it is a reminder of the provisional nature of such mediation—a reminder that God has provided access to his presence as an act of grace.

“Thus, the tabernacle as a whole is a replica of heaven. When God comes to dwell with the Israelites, He brings down to them in His wonderful condescension a little replica of heaven.”39 So, when Paul appropriates temple imagery to illustrate the nature of the church, he is “loading” the image with all of this contextual meaning, and giving us insights into the nature of the church.

One Story in Two Testaments

C. S. Lewis once observed, “one of the rewards of reading the Old Testament regularly” is that “you keep on discovering more and more what a tissue of quotations from it the New Testament is.”40 In fact, the New Testament authors “cited or alluded to the Old Testament more than 250 times.”41 Given that the New Testament authors and their audiences were a people “whose identity and even their very patterns of thought were shaped by the words of the Old Testament,”42 it makes sense to expect that the New Testament would be a continuation and development of the themes established by its former counterpart.43

This is certainly true with respect to the temple. The Bible is a unity, and the bonding agent is God himself. Waltke makes it clear: “The bond that unites the testaments is the sense of God’s divine activity in revelatory history in progressively establishing his rule in heaven on earth from the creation of the cosmos (Genesis 1) to his creation of the new cosmos (Revelation 21-22).”44 The “irruption of the kingship of God”45 thematically continues into the New Testament, culminating in the incarnation of the Son of God, ushering in a new phase of salvation history, and establishing an inaugurated eschatology that anticipates a time of complete and total victory of the divine seed over the serpent. G.E. Ladd notes that the “Kingdom of God” in the Old Testament “always involves an inbreaking of God into history when God’s redemptive purpose is fully realized.”46 In the Pentateuch, we see YHWH breaking into the chaotic world to establish order and function; to create man and woman and a means of relationship with them in the garden-temple of Eden; to punish their sin, yet to clothe them in grace and provide still a way of knowing him; to choose a people for his name, and though they prove rebellious and “stiff-necked,” are given provisional access to God by means of law and tabernacle. From the beginning we see YHWH actively pursuing the establishment of his presence and rule on earth to the benefit of his chosen people. This theme finds its true expression in the one who actually came and “tabernacled” among us;47 he became the sin offering in our stead, so that the presence of God would not only be accessible, but now dwelling in the inner man, making us a “new creation” in Christ.48

The Church as the End-Time Temple

It seems quite reasonable to conclude, then, that when Paul calls the church “a holy temple in the Lord” (Eph. 2:21), he does not intend merely to say that the church is “like” the temple in some analogous sense, but rather that it is indeed the real eschatological temple inaugurated in this new age under the Lordship of Christ. This becomes even more clear when we consider the allusion made in v. 17 to Isaiah 57:19: “And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near” (Eph. 2:17 ESV).49 This statement is employed in the context of Paul’s argument that Christ’s ministry of death and resurrection has brought both Jews and Gentiles together into the same community where God’s spirit dwells (temple). This is why Paul can say that Christ is the “cornerstone” of this new temple, and along with the “foundation of the apostles and prophets,” the church (= temple) is being built up from Him. In short, “the church is the initial phase of the building of the final temple that will appear at the end of the age,”50 that is, the church is the “place” on earth where God’s Spirit dwells, and that community is made up of Jews and Gentiles at peace, reconciled through the blood of Christ.

In Ephesians 3, Paul goes on to say that the church-as-temple—the community of the saved, formed around the Son, who live in the presence of God—is the “mystery” that has now been revealed in Jesus Christ. What the cosmos was built to be, what Eden was, and what the tabernacle could only provide provisionally, the church now is: a people in whom God dwells.

The Church Is Not Optional

If the church is the temple of God, then the nature of the church is no secondary matter. It was a central debate during the Protestant Reformation. The Reformation divines labored hard to articulate (restore) a biblical doctrine of the church that avoided the errors that lie on two extremes of a spectrum. On the one end, there stands the High Church position of Roman Catholicism. This view understands the church to be the reservoir or repository of salvation out of which clergy may dispense the gospel to the world. On the other end of the spectrum stands the view of Low Church Protestantism, which understands the church to be an optional, though helpful, instrument of salvation. Upon reflection, it becomes clear that these two extremes are much more closely related than they first appear. They are really two ends of a spectrum that curve around and connect at the same point. In both views, salvation is distinct from the church. But the Reformed response is that the Church is the social form of salvation—the gospel creates the church. The church is not simply instrumental to personal salvation and evangelism/mission, but is essential to one’s relationship to Jesus; to be united to the husband is to be united to the bride; to be united to the head is to be the body; to be loved by the father is to be nurtured by the mother. In short, the church is the gospel manifestation of the community of the saved. It is not optional or even peripheral to salvation. As the Westminster Confession of Faith states, “The visible church…is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation” (25.2).51

Conclusion

The church as the eschatological temple has significant application to its mission in the world. The symbolic design of the temple and its operation reveals that God intends to fill the entire cosmos with his presence. And so, as the temple, the church mediates God’s presence to the world. It is the church’s privilege to be so filled with the presence of God that we become the means by which God’s presence fills the world more and more, and brings with it the refreshing power of restoration until all things are consummated at the end of time. This means that the vitality of the church is of first importance, and that vitality is rooted in the union of Husband (Christ) and Wife (Church) [cf., Eph. 5] secured by covenant promises and maintained through worship and sacrament for the sake of the world.

The temple theme that is set up in the opening chapters of Genesis and pushed forward through the tabernacle in the wilderness is not left inchoate. It takes flesh in the one who “tabernacled” among us, it takes shape in the church that is built on him as its cornerstone, and it will reach its consummation when the whole creation becomes the sanctuary it was made to be, and the voice from the throne announces, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God” (Rev. 21:3 ESV).

Bibliography

Alexander, T. Desmond. From Eden to the New Jerusalem. Kregel Academic, 2008.

Alexander, T. Desmond. From Paradise to the Promised Land: An Introduction to the Pentateuch. 3rd ed. Baker Academic, 2012.

Beale, G. K. A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New. Baker Academic, 2011.

Beale, G. K. The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God. New Studies in Biblical Theology. InterVarsity, 2004.

Collins, C. John. “How the New Testament Quotes and Interprets the Old Testament.” In The ESV Study Bible. Crossway, 2008.

Eichrodt, Walther. Theology of the Old Testament. Translated by J. A. Baker. 2. The Old Testament Library. Westminster Press, 1961.

Jordan, James B. Through New Eyes: Developing a Biblical View of the World. Wipf & Stock, 1999.

Kline, Meredith G. Images of the Spirit. Baker, 1980.

Ladd, George Eldon. A Theology of the New Testament. Revised ed. Edited by Donald A. Hagner. Eerdmans, 1993.

Leithart, Peter J. Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature. Canon Press, 1999.

Longman III, Tremper, and Raymond B. Dillard. An Introduction to the Old Testament. 2nd ed. Zondervan, 2006.

Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Edited by Gordon Teskey. W.W. Norton & Co., 2005.

Poythress, Vern Sheridan. The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses. Presbyterian & Reformed, 1991.

Waltke, Bruce K. An Old Testament Theology: An Exegetical, Canonical, and Thematic Approach. Zondervan, 2007.

Waltke, Bruce K., and Cathi J. Fredricks. Genesis: A Commentary. Zondervan, 2001.

Walton, John H. “Eden, Garden Of.” In Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch, by T. D. Alexander and D. W. Baker. IVP, 2003.

Walton, John H. Genesis. NIVAC. Zondervan, 2001.

Walton, John H. The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate. InterVarsity, 2009.

Footnotes

  1. Peter J. Leithart, Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature (Canon Press, 1999), 44: “Epics generally are introduced with a ‘proem,’ in which the poet announces the main character and theme of his story and calls on the Muses, goddesses of poetry and speech, to help him do justice to his theme.” ↩

  2. John Milton, Paradise Lost, ed. Gordon Teskey (W.W. Norton & Co., 2005), 4, lines 22b-26. ↩

  3. This happens at the micro level of narrative, as well. See Bruce K. Waltke, An Old Testament Theology: An Exegetical, Canonical, and Thematic Approach (Zondervan, 2007), 124: “A narrator typically prepares his audience with a few set-up sentences for the plot, called the ‘exposition.’” ↩

  4. T. Desmond Alexander, From Paradise to the Promised Land: An Introduction to the Pentateuch, 3rd ed. (Baker Academic, 2012), 113–14, argues that “in its present form the Pentateuch is clearly a unified work.” ↩

  5. Alexander, From Paradise to the Promised Land, 119: “The opening chapters of Genesis are exceptionally important for understanding the rest of the Pentateuch.” ↩

  6. “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” ↩

  7. Waltke, An Old Testament Theology, 393. ↩

  8. James B. Jordan, Through New Eyes: Developing a Biblical View of the World (Wipf & Stock, 1999), 42. ↩

  9. Jordan, Through New Eyes, 49. ↩

  10. Quoted in Jordan, Through New Eyes, 49. ↩

  11. Vern Sheridan Poythress, The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses (Presbyterian & Reformed, 1991), 14, emphasis mine. ↩

  12. G. K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God, New Studies in Biblical Theology (InterVarsity, 2004), 32–33. ↩

  13. Jordan, Through New Eyes, 43. ↩

  14. Jordan, Through New Eyes, 43. ↩

  15. cf. Psalm 11:4; Matthew 5:34; 23:22; Acts 7:49. ↩

  16. Alexander, From Paradise to the Promised Land, 124. ↩

  17. John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (InterVarsity, 2009), 78. ↩

  18. Alexander, From Paradise to the Promised Land, 123. ↩

  19. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One, 78. ↩

  20. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 31. ↩

  21. G. K. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New (Baker Academic, 2011), 628. ↩

  22. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology, 628–29. ↩

  23. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology, 629. ↩

  24. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One, 82. ↩

  25. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One, 33: “[W]e may deduce a functional ontology in the ancient world—that is, that they offer accounts of functional origins rather than accounts of material origins.” ↩

  26. Bruce K. Waltke and Cathi J. Fredricks, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan, 2001), 101. ↩

  27. Waltke, An Old Testament Theology, 255. ↩

  28. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One, 82. ↩

  29. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 66. ↩

  30. John H. Walton, “Eden, Garden Of,” in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch, by T. D. Alexander and D. W. Baker (IVP, 2003), 204. ↩

  31. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology, 627. ↩

  32. T. Desmond Alexander, From Eden to the New Jerusalem (Kregel Academic, 2008), 21. ↩

  33. This list is adapted from Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 66–80; Alexander, From Eden to the New Jerusalem, 21–24. ↩

  34. Alexander, From Paradise to the Promised Land, 123. ↩

  35. John H. Walton, Genesis, NIVAC (Zondervan, 2001), 182: “It is logical to understand the garden as the antechamber to the Most Holy Place…Eden is in effect the Most Holy Place, and the garden adjoins it as the antechamber.” ↩

  36. Waltke, An Old Testament Theology, 405, 413, 447; Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology, 627: “Israel’s tabernacle and temple were a miniature model of God’s huge cosmic temple that was to dominate the heavens and earth at the end of time. That is, the temple was a symbolic model pointing not merely to the present cosmos but also to the new heaven and earth that would be perfectly filled with God’s presence.” ↩

  37. Poythress, The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses, 11, emphasis mine. ↩

  38. Tremper Longman III and Raymond B. Dillard, An Introduction to the Old Testament, 2nd ed. (Zondervan, 2006), 100–101. ↩

  39. Poythress, The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses, 15. ↩

  40. Quoted in C. John Collins, “How the New Testament Quotes and Interprets the Old Testament,” in The ESV Study Bible (Crossway, 2008), 2605. ↩

  41. Waltke, An Old Testament Theology, 16. ↩

  42. Waltke, An Old Testament Theology, 15. ↩

  43. Waltke, An Old Testament Theology, 45, concurs: “the writers of the New Testament understood their writings as continuing the witness of the Old Testament to Jesus Christ.” ↩

  44. Waltke, An Old Testament Theology, 45. ↩

  45. Waltke, An Old Testament Theology, 68. ↩

  46. George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament, Revised ed., ed. Donald A. Hagner (Eerdmans, 1993), 58, emphasis mine. ↩

  47. John 1:14; cf. Matt. 1:23 ESV ↩

  48. 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15 ESV ↩

  49. Isaiah 57:19: “‘Peace, peace, to the far and to the near,’ says the LORD, ‘and I will heal him.’” ↩

  50. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 262. ↩

  51. This summary leans heavily on the material as it is presented by Dr. Robbie Crouse in his Systematic Theology 2 course at Knox Theological Seminary. ↩