Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
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Both by derivation and common usage the term temple, in its literal application, is of restricted and specific meaning. The essential idea of a temple is and ever has been that of a place specially set apart for service regarded as sacred, and of real or assumed sanctity; in a more restricted sense, a temple is a building constructed for and exclusively devoted to sacred rites and ceremonies.The Latin Templum was the equivalent of the Hebrew Beth Elohim, and signified the abode of Deity; hence, as associated with divine worship, it meant literally the House of the Lord.
Structures regarded in their entirety as sanctuaries, or enclosing apartments so designated, have been raised in many different ages, both by worshipers of idols and by the followers of the true and living God. Heathen temples of antiquity were regarded as abiding places of the mythical gods and goddesses whose names they bore, and to whose service the structures were dedicated. While the outer courts of such temples were used as places of general assembly and public ceremony, there were always inner precincts, into which only the consecrated priests might enter, and wherein, it was claimed, the presence of the deity was manifest. As evidence of the exclusiveness of ancient temples, even those of heathen origin, we find that the altar of pagan worship stood not within the temple proper, but in front of the entrance. Temples have never been regarded as places of ordinary public assembly, but as sacred enclosures consecrated to the most solemn ceremonials of that particular system of worship, idolatrous or divine, of which the temple stood as a visible symbol and a material type.
In olden times, the people of Israel were distinguished among nations as the builders of sanctuaries to the name of the living God. This service was specifically required of them by Jehovah, whom they professed to serve. The history of Israel as a nation dates from the Exodus. During the two centuries of their enslavement in Egypt, the children of Jacob had grown to be a numerous and powerful people: nevertheless, they were in bondage. In due time, however, their sorrows and supplications came up before the Lord, and He led them forth by the outstretched arm of power. No sooner had they escaped from the environment of Egyptian idolatry than they were required to prepare a sanctuary, wherein Jehovah would manifest His presence and make known His will as their accepted Lord and King.
The tabernacle, which, from the time of its construction in the wilderness and thence onward throughout the period of wandering and for centuries thereafter, was sacred to Israel as the sanctuary of Jehovah; it had been built according to revealed plan and specifications. It was a compact and portable structure, as the exigencies of migration required. Though the tabernacle was but a tent, it was made of the best, the most prized, and the costliest materials the people possessed. This condition of excellence was a nation's offering unto the Lord. Its construction was prescribed in minutest detail, both as to design and material; it was in every respect the best the people could give, and Jehovah sanctified the proffered gift by His divine acceptance. In passing, let us be mindful of the fact that whether it be the gift of a man or a nation, the best, if offered willingly and with pure intent, is always excellent in the sight of God, however poor by other comparison that best may be.
To the call for material wherewith to build the tabernacle, there was such willing and liberal response that the need was more than met: "For the stuff they had was sufficient for all the work to make it, and too much" (Exodus 36:7). Proclamation was made accordingly, and the people were restrained from bringing more. The artificers and workmen engaged in the making of the tabernacle were designated by direct revelation, or chosen by divinely appointed authority with special reference to their skill and devotion. The completed tabernacle, viewed in relation to its surroundings and considered in connection with the circumstances of its creation, was an imposing structure. Its frames were of rare wood, its inner hangings of fine linen and elaborate embroideries with prescribed designs in blue, purple, and scarlet; its middle and outer curtains of choice skins; its metal parts of brass, silver, and gold.
Outside the tabernacle, but within its enclosing court, stood the altar of sacrifice and the laver or font. The first apartment of the tabernacle proper was an outer room, or Holy Place; and beyond this, screened from observation by the second veil, was the inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place, specifically known as the Holy of Holies. In the appointed order, only the priests were permitted to enter the outer apartment; while to the inner place, the "holiest of all," none but the high priest might be admitted, and he but once a year, and then only after a long course of purification and sanctification (see Hebrews 9:1–7; Leviticus 16).
Among the most sacred appurtenances of the tabernacle was the ark of the covenant. This was a casket or chest made of the best wood obtainable, lined and overlaid with pure gold, and provided with four rings of gold to receive the rods or poles used to carry the ark during travel. The ark contained certain objects of sacred import, such as the golden pot of manna, preserved as a remembrance; to this were afterward added Aaron's rod that had budded and the tablets of stone inscribed by the hand of God. When the tabernacle was set up in the camp of Israel, the ark was placed within the inner veil, in the Holy of Holies. Resting upon the ark was the mercy seat, surmounted by a pair of cherubim made of beaten gold. From this seat did the Lord manifest His presence, even as promised before either ark or tabernacle had been made: "And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubums which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel" (Exodus 25:22).
No detailed description of the tabernacle, its appurtenances, or its furniture will be attempted at this place; it is sufficient for our present purpose to know that the camp of Israel had such a sanctuary; that it was constructed according to revealed plan; that it was the embodiment of the best the people could give both as to material and workmanship; that it was the offering of the people to their God and was duly accepted by Him (see Exodus 40:3–38). As shall yet be shown, the tabernacle was a prototype of the more stable and magnificent temple by which in course of time it was superseded.
After Israel had become established in the land of promise, when, after four decades of wandering in the wilderness, the covenant people possessed at last a Canaan of their own, the tabernacle with its sacred contents was given a resting place in Shiloh; and thither came the tribes to learn the will and word of God (see Joshua 18:1; 19:51; 21:2; Judges 18:31; 1 Samuel 1:3, 24; 4:3–4). Afterward it was removed to Gibeon (see 1 Chronicles 21:29; 2 Chronicles 1:3) and yet later to the City of David, or Zion (see 2 Samuel 6:12; 2 Chronicles 5:2).
David, the second king of Israel, desired and planned to build a house unto the Lord, declaring that it was unfit that he, the king, should dwell in a palace of cedar, while the sanctuary of God was but a tent (see 2 Samuel 7:2). But the Lord spake by the mouth of Nathan the prophet, declining the proposed offering, and making plain the fact that to be acceptable unto Him it was not enough that the gift be appropriate, but that the giver must also be worthy. David, king of Israel, though in many respects a man after God's own heart, had sinned; and his sin had not been forgiven. Thus spake the king: "I had in mine heart to build an house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and for the footstool of our God, and had made ready for the building: But God said unto me, Thou shalt not build an house for my name, because thou hast been a man of war, and hast shed blood" (1 Chronicles 28:2–3; see also 2 Samuel 7:1–13). Nevertheless, David was permitted to gather material for the house of the Lord, which edifice not he, but Solomon, his son, should build.
Soon after Solomon's accession to the throne he set about the labor, which, as heritage and honor, had come to him with his crown. He laid the foundation in the fourth year of his reign, and the building was completed within seven years and a half. With the great wealth accumulated by his kingly father and specifically reserved for the building of the temple, Solomon was able to put the known world under tribute and to enlist the cooperation of nations in his great undertaking. The temple workmen numbered scores of thousands, and every department was in charge of master craftsmen. To serve on the great structure in any capacity was an honor; and labor acquired a dignity never before recognized. Masonry became a profession, and the graded orders therein established have endured until this day. The erection of the Temple of Solomon was an epoch-making event, not alone in the history of Israel, but in that of the world.
According to commonly accepted chronology, the temple was finished about 1005 B.C. In architecture and construction, in design and costliness, it is known as one of the most remarkable buildings in history. The dedicatory services lasted seven days—a week of holy rejoicing in Israel. With fitting ceremony, the tabernacle of the congregation and the sacred ark of the covenant were brought into the temple; and the ark was deposited in the inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place. The Lord's gracious acceptance was manifest in the cloud that filled the sacred chambers as the priests withdrew, "so that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of God" (2 Chronicles 5:14; see also 2 Chronicles 7:1–2; Exodus 40:35). Thus did the temple supersede and include the tabernacle, of which, indeed, it was the gorgeous successor.
A comparison of the plan of Solomon's Temple with that of the earlier tabernacle shows that in all essentials of arrangement and proportion the two were so nearly alike as to be practically identical. True, the tabernacle had but one enclosure, while the temple was surrounded by courts, but the inner structure itself, the temple proper, closely followed the earlier design. The dimensions of the Holy of Holies, the Holy Place, and the porch, were in the temple exactly double those of the corresponding parts in the tabernacle.
The glorious preeminence of this splendid structure was of brief duration. Thirty-four years after its dedication, and but five years subsequent to the death of Solomon, its decline began; and this decline was soon to develop into general spoliation, and finally to become an actual desecration. Solomon the king, the man of wisdom, the master-builder, had been led astray by the wiles of idolatrous women, and his wayward ways had fostered iniquity in Israel. The nation was no longer a unit; there were factions and sects, parties and creeds, some worshiping on the hilltops, others under green trees, each party claiming excellence for its own particular shrine. The temple soon lost its sanctity. The gift became depreciated by the perfidy of the giver, and Jehovah withdrew His protecting presence from the place no longer holy.The Egyptians, from whose bondage the people had been delivered, were again permitted to oppress Israel. Shishak, king of Egypt, captured Jerusalem—the city of David and the site of the temple—"and he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord" (1 Kings 14:25–26). Part of the aforetime sacred furniture left by the Egyptians was taken by others and bestowed upon idols (see 2 Chronicles 24:7). The work of desecration continued through centuries. Two hundred and sixteen years after the Egyptian spoliation, Ahaz, king of Judah, robbed the temple of some remaining treasures and sent part of its remnant of gold and silver as a present to a pagan king whose favor he sought to gain. Furthermore, he removed the altar and the font and left but a house where once had stood a temple (see 2 Kings 16:7–9, 17–18; see also 2 Chronicles 28:24–25). Later, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, completed the despoiling of the temple and carried away its few remaining treasures. He then destroyed the building by fire (see 2 Chronicles 36:18–19; see also 2 Kings 24:13; 25:9).
Thus, about 600 years before the earthly advent of our Lord, Israel was left without a temple. The people had divided; there were two kingdoms—Israel and Judah—each at enmity with the other. The people had become idolatrous and altogether wicked, and the Lord had rejected them and their sanctuary. The kingdom of Israel, comprising approximately 10 of the 12 tribes, had been made subject to Assyria about 721 B.C., and a century later the kingdom of Judah was subdued by the Babylonians. For 70 years the people of Judah—thereafter known as Jews—remained in captivity, even as had been predicted (see Jeremiah 25:11–12; 29:10).
Then, under the friendly rule of Cyrus (see Ezra 1, 2) and Darius (see Ezra 6) they were permitted to return to Jerusalem and once more to raise a temple in accordance with their faith. In remembrance of the director of the work, the restored temple is known in history as the Temple of Zerubbabel. The foundations were laid with solemn ceremony, and on that occasion living veterans who remembered the earlier temple wept with joy (see Ezra 3:12–13). In spite of legal technicalities (see Ezra 4:4–24) and other obstructions, the work continued, and within 20 years after their return from captivity the Jews had a temple ready for dedication. The Temple of Zerubbabel was finished in 515 B.C., specifically on the third day of the month of Adar, in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king. The dedicatory services followed immediately (see Ezra 6:15–22). While this temple was greatly inferior in richness of finish and furniture as compared with the splendid Temple of Solomon, it was nevertheless the best the people could build, and the Lord accepted it as an offering typifying the love and devotion of His covenant children. In proof of this divine acceptance, witness the ministrations of such prophets as Zechariah, Haggai, and Malachi within its walls.
About 16 years before the birth of Christ, Herod I, king of Judea, commenced the reconstruction of the then decayed and generally ruinous Temple of Zerubbabel. For five centuries that structure had stood, and doubtless it had become largely a wreck of time.
Many incidents in the earthly life of the Savior are associated with the Temple of Herod. It is evident from scripture that while opposed to the degraded and commercial uses to which the temple had been betrayed, Christ recognized and acknowledged the sanctity of the temple precincts. The Temple of Herod was a sacred structure; by whatsoever name it might have been known, it was to Him the house of the Lord. And then, when the sable curtain descended upon the great tragedy of Calvary, when at last the agonizing cry, "It is finished," ascended from the cross, the veil of the temple was rent, and the one-time Holy of Holies was bared. The absolute destruction of the Temple had been foretold by our Lord, while He yet lived in the flesh (see Matthew 24:1–2; Mark 13:1–2; Luke 21:6). In the year A.D. 70, the temple was utterly destroyed by fire in connection with the capture of Jerusalem by the Romans under Titus.
The Temple of Herod was the last temple reared in the Eastern Hemisphere in ancient times. From the destruction of that great edifice onward to the time of the reestablishment of the Church of Jesus Christ in the 19th century, our only record of temple building is such mention as is found in Nephite chronicles. Book of Mormon scriptures affirm that temples were erected by the Nephite colonists on what is now known as the American continent, but we have few details of construction and fewer facts as to administrative ordinances pertaining to these western temples. The people constructed a temple about 570 B.C., and this we learn was patterned after the Temple of Solomon, though it was greatly inferior to that gorgeous structure in grandeur and costliness (see 2 Nephi 5:16). It is of interest to read that when the resurrected Lord manifested Himself to the Nephites on the western continent, He found them assembled about the temple (see 3 Nephi 11:1–10). The Book of Mormon, however, makes no mention of temples even as late as the time of the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem; and, moreover, the Nephite nation came to an end within about four centuries after Christ. It is evident, therefore, that on both hemispheres temples ceased to exist in the early period of the Apostasy and the very conception of a temple in the distinctive sense perished among mankind.
For many centuries no offer of a sanctuary was made unto the Lord; indeed, it appears that no need of such was recognized. The apostate church declared that direct communication from God had ceased, and in place of divine administration a self-constituted government claimed supreme power. It is evident that, as far as the church was concerned, the voice of the Lord had been silenced, that the people were no longer willing to listen to the word of revelation, and that the government of the church had been abrogated by human agencies (see James E. Talmage, The Great Apostasy [1953], chapter 9).
When, in the reign of Constantine, a perverted Christianity had become the religion of the state, the need of a place wherein God would reveal Himself was still utterly unseen or ignored. True, many edifices, most of them costly and grand, were erected. Of these some were dedicated to Peter and Paul, to James and John; others to the Magdalene and the Virgin; but not one was raised by authority and name to the honor of Jesus, the Christ. Among the multitude of chapels and shrines, of churches and cathedrals, the Son of Man had not a place to call His own. It was declared that the pope, sitting in Rome, was the vice-regent of Christ, and that without revelation he was empowered to declare the will of God (see The Great Apostasy, chapter 10).
Not until the gospel was restored in the 19th century, with its ancient powers and privileges, was the holy priesthood manifest again among men. And be it remembered that the authority to speak and act in the name of God is essential to a temple, and a temple is void without the sacred authority of the holy priesthood. In the year of our Lord 1820, Joseph Smith, the prophet of the latest dispensation, then a lad in his 15th year, received a divine manifestation in which both the Eternal Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, appeared and instructed the youthful suppliant (see James E. Talmage, The Articles of Faith, 12th edition [1924], chapter 1). Through Joseph Smith, the gospel of old was restored to earth, and the ancient law was reestablished. In course of time, through the ministry of the Prophet, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized and established by manifestations of divine power.
It is a significant fact that this church, true to the distinction it affirms—that of being the Church of the living God as its name proclaims—began in the very early days of its history to provide for the erection of a temple (see D&C 36:8; 42:36; 133:2). The Church was organized as an earthy body-corporate on the sixth of April, A.D. 1830; and, in July of the year following, a revelation was received designating the site of a future temple near Independence, Missouri.
On the first day of June 1833, in a revelation to the Prophet Joseph Smith, the Lord directed the immediate building of a holy house in which He promised to endow His chosen servants with power and authority (see D&C 95). The people responded to the call with willingness and devotion. In spite of dire poverty and in the face of unrelenting persecution, the work was carried to completion, and in March 1836 the first temple of modern times was dedicated at Kirtland, Ohio (see D&C 109). The dedicatory services were marked by divine manifestations comparable to those attending the offering of the first temple of olden times, and on later occasions heavenly beings appeared within the sacred precincts with revelations of the divine will to man. In that place the Lord Jesus was again seen and heard (see D&C 110:1–10). Within two years from the time of its dedication, the Kirtland Temple was abandoned by the people who built it; they were forced to flee because of persecution, and with their departure the sacred temple became an ordinary house, disowned by the Lord to whose name it had been reared. The building still stands.
The migration of the Latter-day Saints was to the west; they established themselves first in Missouri, and later in Illinois with Nauvoo as the central seat of the Church. Scarcely had they become settled in their new abode when the voice of revelation was heard calling upon the people to again build a house sacred to the name of God.
The cornerstones of the Nauvoo Temple were laid 6 April 1841, and the capstone was placed in position 24 May 1845; each event was celebrated by a solemn assembly and sacred service. Though it was evident that the people would be forced to flee again, and though they knew that the temple would have to be abandoned soon after completion, they labored with might and diligence to finish and properly furnish the structure. It was dedicated 30 April 1846, though certain portions, such as the baptistry, had been previously dedicated and used in ordinance work. Many of the Saints received their blessings and holy endowments in the Nauvoo Temple, though, even before the completion of the building, the exodus of the people had begun. The temple was abandoned by those who in poverty and by sacrifice had reared it. In November 1848 it became a prey to incendiary flames, and in May 1850 a tornado demolished what remained of the blackened walls.
On 24 July 1847 the Mormon pioneers entered the valleys of Utah, while the region was yet Mexican territory, and established a settlement where now stands Salt Lake City. A few days later Brigham Young, prophet and leader, indicated a site in the sagebrush wastes and, striking the arid ground with his staff, proclaimed, "Here will be the temple of our God." That site is now the beautiful Temple Block, around which the city has grown. In February 1853 the area was dedicated with a sacred service, and on the sixth of April following, the cornerstones of the building were laid to the accompaniment of solemn and imposing ceremony. The Salt Lake Temple was 40 years in building; the capstone was laid on 6 April 1892, and the completed temple was dedicated one year later.
It is not the purpose of the present material to consider in detail any particular temple, either ancient or modern, but rather to show the essential and distinguishing features of temples, and to make plain the fact that in both ancient and modern times the covenant people have regarded the building of temples as a labor specifically required at their hands. From what has been said, it is plain that a temple is more than chapel or church, more than synagogue or cathedral; it is a structure erected as the house of the Lord, sacred to the closest communion between the Lord and the holy priesthood, and devoted to the highest and most sacred ordinances characteristic of the age or dispensation to which the particular temple belongs. Moreover, to be indeed a holy temple—accepted of God, and by Him acknowledged as His house—the offering must have been called for, and both gift and giver must be worthy.The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints proclaims that it is the possessor of the holy priesthood again restored to earth, and that it is invested with divine commission to erect and maintain temples dedicated to the name and service of the true and living God, and to administer within those sacred structures the ordinances of the priesthood, the effect of which shall be binding both on earth and beyond the grave.
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