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Acts 7:45–47
“Our fathers in turn brought [the tabernacle] in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our fathers. So it was until the days of David, who found favor in the sight of God and asked to find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. But it was Solomon who built a house for him.”
Can God have a relationship with His people apart from a permanent physical house of worship such as the temple in Jerusalem? Does calling into question the permanence of such a sanctuary call into question the Lord’s power and grace, His ability and willingness to maintain the covenant community? These were real issues for first-century Jews. Many of them thought that God could not really have a relationship with His people without the Jerusalem temple and that the Lord had so bound Himself to the Mosaic law that to change even the civil and ceremonial aspects of it would cast doubt on His faithfulness.
The Jews should have known better than to assume that the Lord had bound Himself absolutely to the temple. After all, He allowed the Babylonians to destroy it in 586 BC, and yet He remained God of the universe and Lord over the Jews (see 2 Kings 24). Nevertheless, many first-century Jews, especially those in religious leadership, did not really learn the lesson from history. As we have seen, they tied God so closely to the rebuilt temple that to believe that it could fall constituted, in their minds, blasphemy against God Himself. Stephen in his speech to the Sanhedrin undermined their belief in this connection, noting that God was in a redemptive relationship to His people long before there ever was a temple. Abraham and the other patriarchs enjoyed the Lord’s salvation without the benefit of a temple, and in the days of Moses, the Israelites had a portable tabernacle, not a grand temple (Acts 7:1–44).
After the days of Moses, the nation of Israel continued to exist in covenant with God even without a temple. Stephen makes this clear in today’s passage, noting that the people had only the tabernacle from the era of Joshua’s leadership through David’s entire time on the throne through the first part of Solomon’s reign, a span of about four hundred years (vv. 45–47). Joshua and David, of course, are among the most celebrated and faithful leaders of God’s people under the old covenant administration, and even they did not enjoy the blessing of a permanent temple in Jerusalem. The Sanhedrin had a misplaced hope in the temple, which was a later addition to God’s relationship with Israel and could disappear as the Lord saw fit. It was no blasphemy to suggest that the temple would fall. God had allowed it to happen before, and He could do so again.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
The Sanhedrin erred because the council members had the idea that God had promised never to allow the second temple, rebuilt after the exile, to be destroyed. They came to this conclusion because they failed to understand the full scope of God’s history with His people and thus missed important teachings in Scripture. As we study God’s Word, we must seek to do so in the context of the history of salvation. Otherwise, we will miss key truths.
For further study
- 2 Samuel 6
- 1 Kings 6
The bible in a year
- Joshua 9–10
- Luke 3
- Joshua 11–14
- Luke 4:1–41