Does the Temple Need to Be Rebuilt Before the End Times Can Begin?

Does the temple need to be rebuilt before the end times can begin? If so, what will happen to the Dome of the Rock? The Bible says a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem will play a role in end-time events. Daniel 9:24–27 describes a final seven-year period just prior to the Messiah coming to set up His kingdom. In the middle of this seven-year period Daniel is told of a coming “prince” who will “put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering.” In their place “on the wing of abominations will come the one who makes desolate” (v. 27). For this to happen, the sacrificial system must be in operation. In Matthew 24:15–16 Jesus refers back to Daniel’s prophecy. “Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place—let the reader understand—then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains.” Jesus makes it clear that the abomination will be set up in the “holy place,” which refers to the temple.

In 2 Thessalonians 2:3–4 Paul explains the activity of the future Antichrist. “No one is to deceive you in any way! For it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.” The Antichrist will go to “the temple of God” to proclaim himself as God. For that to happen, a temple must be built.

The final passage that points to a future temple is Revelation 11:1–2. “Then there was given to me a measuring rod like a staff; and someone said, ‘Get up and measure the temple of God and the altar, and those who worship in it. Leave out the courtyard which is outside the temple and do not measure it, because it has been given to the nations; and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months.’” John wrote the book of Revelation around AD 95, twenty-five years after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. He is told to measure a future temple that will exist in Jerusalem for at least a three-and-a-half-year period.

A temple must be present during the tribulation period, but it doesn’t need to exist prior to the start of that period. These passages simply require the temple to be in existence by the middle of that final seven-year period. Interestingly, construction on the second temple began on September 21, 520 BC (Hag. 1:14–15) and was completed on March 12, 516 BC (Ezra 6:15)—a construction period lasting almost exactly three-and-a-half years. If the second temple could be built in that length of time, so can a future temple!

Where will this temple be built? The basic answer is that it will be built where the orthodox Jews believe the last temple stood. Archaeologically that’s almost certainly where the Dome of the Rock now stands. However, there are those who believe the temple actually stood just to the north of the Dome of the Rock and who have drawn up plans showing that the temple and inner court could be rebuilt without disturbing the Dome of the Rock or the AlAqsa Mosque.[1] Could this be what God meant when He told John, “Leave out the courtyard which is outside the temple and do not measure it, because it has been given to the nations” (Rev. 11:2)?

We don’t yet know how the Jewish people will be able to build their temple. But thankfully, God does!

[1] For a more detailed explanation of this position, see Asher Kaufman, The Temple Mount: Where Is the Holy of Holies? (Jerusalem: Har Year’ah Press, 2004). Thomas Ice and Randall Price evaluate this and other suggestions in Ready to Rebuild: The Imminent Plan to Rebuild the Last Days Temple (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1972), 154–70.