Mar

Messianic Age and the Third Temple

Opinion offered by Jerry J. Pollock, Ph.D.

When and what is the Messianic Age? Thirteen Hebrew Prophets over hundreds of years of biblical history spoke about a glorious Messianic Age at the End of Days when a future Third Temple will exist on earth. According to the Prophets, the Messianic Age is not the age of the Messiah, but rather is the age of God. The Messiah, whether Jesus or a Jewish Messiah descended from King David, will play an important role being God’s King in the End Times. According to the New Testament, Jesus will be resurrected and return to be King of the World; while in the Hebrew Bible, a person now on this earth or one yet to be born will be the exclusive King of the Jews in the Land of Israel. The latter statement implies that all Jews, even from the United States, will be ingathered by God to the Holy Land which God promised to the Jewish Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In His infinite wisdom, God decided that the Jews shall be keepers of the Land. In 1948, the Land of Israel became an officially recognized country fulfilling God’s ancient promise of permanency to the Patriarchs. The Land shall be transformed into a second Garden of Eden and there shall be healing, abundance, shelter, and longevity. The latter will seem like immortality, lasting 1300 years for those who are currently living and who are blessed to enter this dawn of a new era. Moreover, the dead shall be resurrected to face their lot. Either to live in this eternal world in bliss or to face the abhorrence of a future life that comes with a guilty verdict by God concerning one’s moral choices in this life. The majority of people will live out their lives in this world and will be subject to the normal vicissitudes of the ups and downs of daily living. They will not enter the Messianic Age. Only those who are judged righteous or evil by the Creator will either enter the Messianic Age or be sentenced to hell, respectively. God has always been the scorekeeper of our moral actions.

What is the Significance of the Messianic Age? God’s plan for humankind moves along whether we choose to believe in it or not. Without the imperfection of this world, we would not truly appreciate a more perfect world of a Messianic Age. Without our imperfections, what would be the impetus to have faith for those who have chosen to believe in a Supreme Being. How would we know the difference between right and wrong if we didn’t make and correct our wrong choices? Wouldn’t our world be dull if God did not continually test us in our moral behavior? Isn’t that why He instilled doubt into our brains along with intelligence, inquisitiveness, imagination, thought and language. Speaking about jobs in our depressed global economy, God is the biggest Creator of jobs on this earth. With His gift of free will, the number of jobs of the world’s population are as numerous as the stars. Yet, why go to all this trouble to create a failsafe plan for a future blissful age when we are facing so many problems in today’s world? Why worry about a Messianic Age when we have so much to worry about just keeping ourselves afloat? Many of us are struggling in misery with seemingly insurmountable problems that stare us in the face without apparent solutions. And the argument then becomes, “Where is God in all this?” It is said that God can save you from the forces of nature but He doesn’t interfere with the free will of man’s actions against man. Well many of our present problems are circumstantial and only indirectly a consequence of man’s actions against man, so why isn’t the Creator helping us instead of just watching from the sidelines? My answer is that we humans, especially the ancient Jews, booted Him out of our earth when our ancestors let King Solomon’s First Temple be destroyed by the Babylonians some twenty-five hundred years ago. The tides of history are imprinted by our actions. When the universe was created 14 billion years ago, the earth 4.5 billion years ago and evolutionary Homo sapiens or modern humans some 100,000 years ago in Africa, God was not on the public scene and was the God of Heaven. With the Creation of Adam and Eve some 5,769 years ago, God takes the public stage and becomes the God of Heaven and Earth. With the fall of the First Temple because of the continuous and flagrant breaking of the Ten Commandments, in spite of the Hebrew prophets countless warnings forecasting doom, God becomes the God of Heaven again. It now becomes the responsibility of human beings to restore the Covenant between man and God. Despite God’s public absence, He has never given up His stewardship of the world. The Messianic Age is when God will once again be the God of Heaven and Earth, a time of everlasting peace and harmony. Each descent we face becomes part of an ascent if we have faith.

Who Will be Admitted to the Garden of Eden? Prior to entering the Messianic Age, either a remnant of all worldly souls, or strictly its Jewish souls, will undergo purification so that their inclination to do evil will be subdued or eliminated. The purifying agent shall be the “Hand” of God in the form of water whose origin lies under the Third Temple. In order to accomplish such a miraculous feat, God shall have to bring about an incredible advancement in human evolution whereby our brains will be programmed to do only good without bad. This will be the end of humans as we know them as the connection between lower brain and higher brain centers will never be the same. Alternatively, the free will to choose between good and evil shall still be present in our brains, but because we shall know God as the waters of the sea, we will no longer have the inclination to make morally wrong choices. Morally wrong not based upon human morality. Morally wrong based upon Divine morality.

How would you rate yourself if according to you, your moral actions fell into or were close to one of the following categorizations. Then think about how you would fare if God was the scorekeeper and He was judging you:

5% Good and 95% Bad

This is an easy one since a little more bad and we would have a demonic individual. By anyone’s standards, this person will not be admitted to the Messianic Age and if dead will be resurrected to be accountable for his evil actions to God.

95% Good and 5% Bad

This too is an easy one as a person this good (95% good) is considered a very righteous person by God. Of course, the person can be way off if he or she is judging himself or herself.

20% Good and 80% Bad

This too is a no-brainer. A person at 80% bad may not be evil but is not a very nice person.

60% Good and 40% Bad

This graph of 60% good and 40% bad may represent the general population who could be 40% good and 60% bad or 50 % each of good and bad. According to my not so humble opinion, this may not be enough to gain entrance to the Messianic Age. It’s all up to God and what He recognizes in you and your future potential for the Messianic Age. Maybe you were all bad but lately have moved toward being good and that will go in your favor. It’s both the quality of the sin; some sins count more against you, and the quantity of the sin; the number of times you sin that God somehow keeps track of.

80% Good and 20% Bad

This is the bar set in the Messiah Interviews. In my opinion, if you reach 80% goodness in God’s Eyes, you will be admitted into the Messianic Age

Although God has never left us, He has retreated to Heaven. In the Hebrew Bible, it is said that the Messianic Age can come about in two ways. One way is in human appointed time if and when we are ready, and the other way as described in both the New and Old Testaments (Hebrew Bible) is by apocalyptic cataclysmic events. Each time we don’t treat each other with kindness and respect, God scores this against a peaceful entrance into the Messianic Age. Each time we do, God scores this in our favor. If you look at the state of the world and the hatred among people, you would have to conclude that the Messianic Age will come in God’s appointed time and it won’t be pretty. There is I believe one way to increase the chances of bringing God back on the public stage of life as He was in biblical times. And that way is to plan for and build God’s Third Temple which goes hand and hand with the Messiah. In fact, some in Judaism believe that it will be the Messiah who shall build God’s Third Temple. When Moses and the Israelites were wandering in the Sinai Desert some 3.300 years ago, they carried with them a portable Tabernacle. God had instructed Moses to tell the Israelites that they should build Him a Tabernacle so He could dwell among them. Later the Tabernacle became a permanent structure in the form of the First and Second Temples, both of which are destroyed. Just as the Ten Commandments were meant for all humanity, the Third Temple was meant to be a House of Prayer for all peoples, no matter your faith, your belief, or your non-belief system. In Messianic times, all who are admitted will believe in God even if they did not on this earth.