Ages ago - I mean something like 3,000 years ago - an ancient king decided he wanted to build his God a temple. Nothing unusual there, except this king's God was the awesome God of Israel. The king was the incredibly famous King David, second earthly king of Israel. And God took issue with this. No, He hadn't said to King David anything about David building Him a temple, no. He was not OK with it because David had had a reign of bloodshed (though all in obedience to God) and besides, God, the true and living God, didn't make a habit of living in temples, not man-made ones anyway. Something better by far would be coming in the future, God promised it: But yes, it would still be by way of one of King David descendants, as an extreme favour to David. There was a promise made to David that was to affect the whole course of history: There would be one who would come and would reign as a true Son of the living God, never out of favour with God, chastised but never abandoned, and this One would reign forever over all who God made His own. Hence, from then on there was the belief in the Messiah, the Christ, the Prince of Peace.
Even more ages ago - this time something like getting on for 5,000 years ago - a Sumerian tribal leader walked with God and saw visions, dreams and revelations beyond anyone before or since (with perhaps just a few exceptions). This visionary, seventh descendant from the ancient person believed by Sumerians to have been the first ever human on Earth, was taken into the heavens above the Earth and given angelic lessons in all things (perhaps resulting in the first rendition of the earthly calendar) and at this time he saw someone awesome called The Son of Man. The prophesies about the Son of Man were to persist over the following centuries until one Jesus of Nazareth was to pick them up and clearly use them to identify Himself (as seen over and over in Matthew's account, the 'Gospel of Matthew').
At the time Jesus taught in Isreal (then Judea, under Roman occupation), some two thousand years ago, He asked His disciples who people said the Son of Man was (as He did when speaking about Himself). One disciple said "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God", identifying Jesus with both of the above people of prophesy: the promised Messiah who would be treated as a beloved Son by God, and accepting Jesus' identification of Himself with the Son of Man seen in the ancient prophet's great visions and revelations.
Some four thousand years ago there was a righteous man chosen by God to be the root of righteousness for all the nations. God made him a promise that he would father many nations. God renamed him Abraham. Two thousand years ago Jesus, after His crucifixion, resurrection and ascension into heaven, called a Jew named Saul to be His Apostle to the Gentiles (non-Jews), changing his name to Paul and He revealed to Paul that the promise to Abraham had not just been fulfilled in the descendants of his by blood-line, the Jews, but also was to include all who believed in God as Abraham had done.
And so we have today the temple which is the Messiah and all His body of people who believe in God through Him, both Gentile and Jew.
Even more ages ago - this time something like getting on for 5,000 years ago - a Sumerian tribal leader walked with God and saw visions, dreams and revelations beyond anyone before or since (with perhaps just a few exceptions). This visionary, seventh descendant from the ancient person believed by Sumerians to have been the first ever human on Earth, was taken into the heavens above the Earth and given angelic lessons in all things (perhaps resulting in the first rendition of the earthly calendar) and at this time he saw someone awesome called The Son of Man. The prophesies about the Son of Man were to persist over the following centuries until one Jesus of Nazareth was to pick them up and clearly use them to identify Himself (as seen over and over in Matthew's account, the 'Gospel of Matthew').
At the time Jesus taught in Isreal (then Judea, under Roman occupation), some two thousand years ago, He asked His disciples who people said the Son of Man was (as He did when speaking about Himself). One disciple said "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God", identifying Jesus with both of the above people of prophesy: the promised Messiah who would be treated as a beloved Son by God, and accepting Jesus' identification of Himself with the Son of Man seen in the ancient prophet's great visions and revelations.
Some four thousand years ago there was a righteous man chosen by God to be the root of righteousness for all the nations. God made him a promise that he would father many nations. God renamed him Abraham. Two thousand years ago Jesus, after His crucifixion, resurrection and ascension into heaven, called a Jew named Saul to be His Apostle to the Gentiles (non-Jews), changing his name to Paul and He revealed to Paul that the promise to Abraham had not just been fulfilled in the descendants of his by blood-line, the Jews, but also was to include all who believed in God as Abraham had done.
And so we have today the temple which is the Messiah and all His body of people who believe in God through Him, both Gentile and Jew.
