I was given a reed like a measuring rod and was told, ‘Go and measure the temple of God and the altar, and count the worshipers there. But exclude the outer court; do not measure it, because it has been given to the Gentiles. They will trample on the holy city for 42 months.

This is a chapter that is perhaps the most disputed in the book of Revelation in the history of the church as to just what it means. There are many variations in interpretation.

On the one hand are those who take selective elements of this chapter in a very literal way. Nobody takes everything exactly literally, You can’t do it.

There are at least five broad interpretations of this passage:

The dispensational futurist, along with some modified futurist views, projects this into the time of tribulation immediately preceding Christ’s final return. Typically, the temple and altar refer to a literal restored temple in the literal “holy city” of Jerusalem. Those who worship in it are a remnant of believing ethnic Jews. Unbelieving Jews are in the court which is outside the temple (referred to as the “outer court”) and thus unprotected. The “measuring” of the temple, altar, and remnant indicates that they will be physically protected by God. Gentiles will enter the outer court, persecute the remnant, and overrun a literal Jerusalem during a literal forty-two month period.

Since John is writing after the temple’s demise, he probably expects his audience to understand that he refers to a spiritual temple, because no temple stands in his day and he provides no explicit indication that the physical temple will be rebuilt. Most important is the fact that the temple is symbolic elsewhere in Revelation (3:12; 13:6).

In early Christian literature, the temple regularly symbolizes Christians, both Jewish and Gentile (1 Cor. 3:16; 2 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 2:18–22; 1 Peter 2:5). This is also what the temple symbolizes elsewhere in Revelation (Rev. 3:12; 13:6);

A modified futurist view understands the descriptions figuratively. The images of the sanctuary, the altar, and the worshipers refer figuratively to those within ethnic Israel whose salvation is secured at the end of history by the “measuring.”

The outer court and holy city refer to Jewish unbelievers whose salvation will not be secured.

The preterist view is virtually identical in its literal approach by also viewing the temple, altar, and outer court as the actual cultic complex in Jerusalem.

However, according to this view, the portrayal depicts events occurring before and during the literal destruction of the temple and Jerusalem in 70 AD.

Another position is similar but does not relegate the scenario to the future and understands the outer court as the professing but apostate church throughout history, which will be deceived and align itself with unbelieving persecutors of the true, spiritual Israel.

A final view, which also understands the text figuratively but interprets the outer court as the physical expression of the true, spiritual Israel, which is susceptible to harm. This view is linguistically allowable because the language of “casting outside” (v.2 reading literally “the court outside the temple, cast it out and do not measure it”) can also refer to God’s true people who are rejected and persecuted by the unbelieving world ( Matt. 21:39; Mark 12:8; Luke 4:29; 20:15; John 9:34–35; Acts 7:58).

John Takes Temple Measurements

The significance of the measuring means that their salvation is secured, despite physical harm. This is a further development of the “sealing” of 7:2–8. The most likely symbolic interpretation of the act of measuring here is a promise of preservation, as in the measuring of Jerusalem (Ps. 48:12–13; Zech. 2:1–2) or the temple (Ezek. 40–42, esp. 40:3).

No measurements are given here; this defers the mention of the measuring rod until 21:16, when John begins to measure the gloriously massive new Jerusalem, which is shaped like the Most Holy Place.

In the OT generally, “measuring” was metaphorical for a decree of protection ( 2 Sam. 8:2; Isa. 28:16–17; Jer. 31:38–40; Zech. 1:16) or of judgment (e.g., 2 Sam. 8:2; 2 Kgs. 21:13; Lam. 2:8; Amos 7:7–9).

The “measuring” is best understood against the background of the prophecy of the temple in Ezekiel 40–48. There, the sure establishment and subsequent protection of the temple are metaphorically pictured by an angel measuring various features of the temple complex.

There are those who take, for example, the temple here to be a reconstructed temple. In this view, there will be a reconstructed temple where the Mosque of Omar now is. They take these two witnesses to be literally two witnesses. Since they have similarities to Elijah and Moses, some think these are Elijah and Moses come back to life, quite literally, at the end.

In every case where the symbolism comes out of the Old Testament, as we’ve seen, the author does something fresh with it. It’s a bit flexible.

We’ve seen these passages that use the language of the Old Testament but give it another twist. Enough connections with the Old Testament to give you some idea of what it means. Enough independence to make this John’s book, not just a bunch of quotations.

One thing to keep in mind as we look at this chapter and dealing with a literal interpretation is; that a future literal temple with an altar would mean the revival of the OT sacrificial system, whereas Heb. 10:1–12 affirms that Christ’s sacrifice typologically fulfilled and abolished that system forever.

Hebrews 10 For the law having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect them that draw nigh. 2 Else would they not have ceased to be offered? because the worshippers, having been once cleansed, would have had no more consciousness of sins. 3 But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance made of sins year by year. 4 For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. 5 Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, But a body didst thou prepare for me; 6 In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hadst no pleasure: 7 Then said I, Lo, I am come (In the roll of the book it is written of me) To do thy will, O God. 8 Saying above, Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein (the which are offered according to the law), 9 then hath he said, Lo, I am come to do thy will. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. 10 By which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

One response to this is that such future sacrifices will be mere memorials of Christ’s sacrifice is not convincing. The fact that the temple prophesied in Ezekiel 40–48 includes a sacrificial system must be reinterpreted in the light of Heb. 10:1–12.

In this last view the temple is the church, the two witnesses are that part of the church that must suffer martyrdom as they bear witness, and the great city represents this fallen world order, civilizations that finally are utterly alien to God and his will and are climaxed in destruction all the way to the very end when the witnesses, in fact, are justified before them.

Last week, in discussing the end of chapter 10, the little scroll, this has the content of the little scroll being chapter 11. The reason it tastes good is because it’s the Word of God, and the reason it is so sour in the stomach is precisely because once ingested, lo and behold, what does it mean? It means there’s judgment, suffering, and terror to come even on the church.

This is the second part of the break between the sixth and the seventh trumpet or between the second woe and the third.

In this situation, we have John the seer as an active participant in the vision. Until chapter 10, that didn’t happen, but then in chapter 10, he becomes an active participant by taking the scroll and eating it. In the vision he’s now participating, not just watching.

He’s taking what we would call a tape measure (it would be a measuring rod of a certain standard length) and going out and measuring things. Biblical prophets not uncommonly in the Old Testament performed some kind of symbol-laden action, which helped to authenticate their message, to make their message all the more powerful and colorful.

For example, Ezekiel 12, he digs through a wall in his house and carries out his luggage in the night in the sight of Israel as a symbol of the coming exile.

They’re going to have to move. Isaiah, chapter 20. Isaiah walks around naked and barefoot for a while to show what it means to be captured and dragged away into captivity as a slave.

Acts 21, the prophet Agabus takes Paul’s girdle and puts it around his middle and ties his hands up in it to show that the man who wears this belt is going to be carried off bound. What is happening here with John is not all that uncommon. Here you have some kind of symbolism.

What does this symbolism mean?

Well, there are instances of measuring in the Old Testament. In the vision of Ezekiel 40–48, you do have this measuring of the temple. If here the temple does stand for the people of God, which is not an uncommon New Testament thing (for example, last verses 1 Corinthians 6 or Ephesians 2:19–22).

If that is what is meant, then the measuring of the temple is taking the measure, if you like, of the people of God, but interesting is (verse 2): “… exclude the outer court; do not measure it, because it has been given to the Gentiles.”

Solomon’s temple had only two courtyards (1 Kings 6), but in the time of Herod, which would be the temple these people were more familiar with, there were three courts.

Apart from the area right around where the priests themselves alone went in, there was the court of the women, the court of the Israelites, and the court of the priests. Then beyond that, there was the outer court, the court of the Gentiles, and there were huge signs posted saying that there was death to any Gentile who walked in there. That sort of thing is found in all kinds of first-century sources.

This outermost portion of the Herodian temple was designed for “God-fearing” Gentiles.

In Rev. 11:1–2, in this modified view, the temple of the church is being patterned after the cross of Christ, who is the true temple. Just as Christ suffered, so the church will suffer and appear defeated. Nevertheless, through it all, God’s tabernacling presence will abide with believers and protect them from any contamination leading to eternal death. God’s abiding presence also guarantees them ultimate victory.

In 11:1, the focus is now on the whole covenant community dwelling in a spiritual temple in which God’s presence dwells (this focus is also 1 Cor. 3:16–17; 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 2:21–22; 1 Pet. 2:5). What Ezekiel prophesied has begun to find its real, true fulfillment on a spiritual level, which will be consummated in fuller form physically and spiritually in a new creation (Rev. 21:1–22:5).

The people of God who are members of God’s temple in heaven are referred to in their existence on earth as being in “the temple of God.” Already in John 2:19–22, Christ identified His resurrection body as the true temple, and this is developed in Rev. 21:22 John says he “saw no temple” in the new Jerusalem “for the Lord God … and the Lamb are its temple.” There is no reason to limit this identification to the new, future Jerusalem, since the identification began to be made when Christ was resurrected, and the resurrected Christ is the central feature of the heavenly temple scene in 1:12–20.

What then is this court of the Gentiles? What does that mean?

“They will trample on the holy city for 42 months.” Some have argued that John is making a distinction between the true church (the inner courts, the real temple) and the outer court. That is, all kinds of people who are called church but really belong with the Gentiles.

The problem with this view is that it is the outer court that gets trampled, in the book of Revelation the believers get trampled. They are faithful in their being trampled (in the next chapter we’ll see this very clearly) and how they overcome in all of this, but at the end of the day, it is the true church, those who refuse the mark of the Beast, who then have to suffer the wrath of the Beast. That’s the whole point of the end of chapter 13 and the beginning of chapter 14.

We need to remember that from the point of view of first-century Jews (and Christians who knew Jewish symbolism) it was the whole temple complex, including the Gentile court, that was the temple.

There was not only the temple building but all the courtyards, including the Gentile court, where Gentile proselytes and Gentile God-fearers could go and worship. All of that was part of the temple complex. I think what is being said simply is that part of the people of God do get trampled, they do suffer.

“They will trample on the holy city for 42 months.”

Now you’ve changed your metaphor again. It sounded in the first place as if the trampling takes place in the outer court. You exclude the outer court, and now suddenly they’re trampling on the Holy City. I would want to argue it’s one of those places where if you read on through the whole book, it becomes clear.

If the picture here of the “temple” and the “altar” is symbolic, then so is the time period. The reference is to the time of tribulation prophesied by Daniel (7:25; 12:7, 11–12) either as a “time, times and half a time” (three and a half years or forty-two months) or as one thousand, three hundred and thirty-five days (the equivalent). For Daniel, this lay far off in the future, but for John it has begun, starting with the resurrection of Christ and continuing until His return

In the last vision, the whole new heaven and the new earth is the place where God lives with his people. The New Jerusalem is the place where God lives with his people. The Holy City is the place where God lives with his people, and the whole thing is the temple. In fact, the whole thing is built like a perfect cube.

What would that mean to anybody who’s steeped in Old Testament background?

It’s not just the temple; it’s the Holy of Holies. That’s the only perfect cube in the Bible. The perfect cube is the Most Holy Place, where God meets with his people. It’s another way of saying the whole thing is the very presence of God. You’re never outside the presence of God.

So you can look at the final status from a variety of perspectives. From one perspective it’s a whole renovated universe. From another perspective it’s the community of the saints, the Holy City, Jerusalem, the antitype of the Jerusalem in the past. From another perspective it is the temple. There is no other temple there. The whole thing is the temple. In fact, it’s the very Holy of Holies of the temple, because that’s where God is. You’re in the presence of God, the unshielded glory of God forever and ever.

We’ve seen apocalyptic doing that already several times, and it was that kind of commonality that drives me, likewise, earlier in chapter 7, where you have the 144,000 and then the great multitude. I think they’re referring to the same thing, but they’re looked at from a different perspective. I think that’s what’s going on here.

You have the temple of God and the altar, and count the worshipers there. The whole people of God, and then count the people who are there. Taking the measure of the church. You exclude the outer court. It has been given over to the Gentiles. That is, part of this is going to suffer. That’s what’s going to happen. In the sovereignty of God, some of it’s going to suffer. To look at it another way, they will trample on the Holy City for 42 months. The Holy City is the people of God.

Now we come to the first reference of 42 months. This crops up several times in chapters 12–14. Forty-two months on an idealized month of 30 days is the same thing as 1,260 days, 1,260 days or 42 months or three and a half years. It’s all the same thing. Also time, times, and half a time. That’s the same thing..

What do they mean? Is this an exact historical referent?

There are some people who think it is, that this is a measure of three and a half years during which certain things will take place. But we have seen already that numbers are used symbolically again and again and again in the book of Revelation.

So one asks oneself, to a first-century Jewish Christian, to someone who’s steeped in this kind of literature, who knows Jewish history, whether Jewish or Christian, what would spring to mind with the three and a half years mixed out in judgment and so on?

Do you know how in certain periods of history something stands out in just about everyone’s mind? in 1963, can you remember where you were when you heard that President Kennedy was shot? It was a defining moment.

Because it was a defining moment for anybody who lived through it or anybody for whom this is part of a history, you can just make an allusion.… You just say, “November ‘63, Dallas.” You don’t have to say any more than that, and all of the emotions of the time come back. Where you were, to whom you were talking, and what was going on. Isn’t that correct?

“Fourscore years and seven,” what do you think of?

So when you refer to certain events in a people’s history, they may be very significant to them, but they may not be significant elsewhere. In Jewish history, one of the defining moments is the Maccabean Revolt.

At the end of the canonical Old Testament, you have the Jews scattered throughout the entire Mesopotamian area, with a small number of them back rebuilding the temple under Nehemiah and Ezra, the post-exilic prophets like Haggai calling the people back to rebuild and so on. You’re in the Persian period, and then you turn over a couple of pages and you’re in the New Testament, there are no Persians around, and the Romans run the show. What has gone on?

What has gone on is that the Medo-Persian Empire was finally taken over by the Greeks. I don’t know how good your ancient history is, but Alexander the Great and his marauding riffs went around the empire, got as far as India, and then, according to legend at least, he died at the age of 33 because he had no more worlds to conquer.

Regardless of whether that bit is true, certainly his band of marauding riffs did go right through the Middle East. They took over Egypt. They took over the whole north shore of the Mediterranean. Then they moved east through Persia, through Arabia, all the way to the borders of India. Then he died, and the empire was broken up into four bits, four chunks, each controlled by one of his generals.

The two generals that were important from our point of view were Ptolemy, who gained control of Egypt and founded the Ptolemaic dynasty, and the Seleucids in the north in what is now Syria. These two generals.… The rest of them too, for that matter, but these two in particular got into fight after fight after fight, and guess what’s right between Syria in the north (which extended farther up into the old area of Assyria) and Egypt in the south? Israel.

So for 150 years, you have this border going back and forth, back and forth. Whenever the Ptolemies take control, they demand utter allegiance, and whenever the Seleucids gain control, they demand utter allegiance. It goes back and forth, and it’s a terrible mess. Inevitably, the Jewish population in what is now Palestine was divided as to how to handle this. Some were conservatives and some were Hellenizers themselves and some wanted to go with one side and some with the other. Just a terrible mess.

In this period, one of the Seleucids came to power. We now call him Antiochus IV Epiphanes. He came to power in the north at a time when what is now Palestine was under Seleucid control. He was a passionate pagan. In consequence of this, partly because he was simply anti-Jewish as well, he made it a capital offense to own any part of the Hebrew Bible.

He made it a capital offense to observe any Jewish religious rite. He made it a capital offense, for example, to observe the Sabbath. He made it a capital offense to go up to the temple on Yom Kippur. In fact, what he did was bring in his troops and sacrifice pigs, which were unclean, on the altar and dedicate the whole thing to a pagan god. This was a time of savagery and butchery.

The date was 167 BC. There was one old priest by the name of Mattaniah living in a village who, when one of the emissaries came by, refused to do his homage and, in fact, took out a spear and killed him. He had two or three sons. The most famous was Judas Maccabeus, which in Semitic tongue means Judas the Hammer. The Maccabean Revolt was the revolt of Judas the Hammer.

So far as our records go, he invented guerrilla warfare. I’m told by former military types who have come to Trinity after they’ve done their 20-year stint, people who have been to West Point and then have come to Trinity after they’ve done their stint and are training for the ministry or the like.… One West Pointer told me it is still on the curriculum at West Point to read the Jewish historian Josephus, who gives an account of the Maccabean Revolt, precisely because it is the first known account of guerrilla warfare.

They got together bands of Jews who were full of animosity against this dictatorial control from the North, and they hid in the Judean hills and in the Samarian hills. They attacked here. They attacked there. They fled away. They melted away. They came in and attacked and fled away, avoiding all pitched battles as their numbers grew up and the other side grew weaker. It’s classic guerrilla warfare under Judas Maccabeus.

Eventually, Judas was killed and a brother took over and so on, but that was the Maccabean Revolt. The whole thing was over by 164. They won. They rededicated the temple. Antiochus IV Epiphanes was beaten, and that was the end of the Seleucid hegemony over this whole area. The whole thing lasted three and a half years, and it was a defining moment for the Jews. It’s still a defining moment for the Jews.

You ask any Jew, no matter how secular he is, to tell you about the Maccabean Revolt, and he’ll tell you about it. It is part of the self-identity of the Jews and was so even more in the first century. It was so much closer. So it came to be identified with a period of extreme suffering that would only last for a period of time and then it stopped. In that sense, it’s unlike seven from a numerical point of view. A perfection of things? No, it’s an acute of period of time, and then you cut it off.

Do you remember what Jesus said in the Olivet Discourse? “For the sake of the elect those days will be stopped.” Instead of going to a full number, you cut it off at three and a half. It came to be a useful symbol in a whole lot of ways. I think that’s what is picked up. I think in every instance of the 42 months or three and a half years or time, times, and half a time or 1,260 days …

I think in every instance where it shows up in the book of Revelation, that is the background reality that now serves as a symbol for a period of time of terrible suffering, which is finally brought to an end. We’ll see that again in the next two or three chapters,