“And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.” (Revelation 11:1-2)

These opening verses of Revelation chapter eleven are all about measuring up. A reed used for a measuring rod was once known as a canon. The canon of Scripture is the books comprising our modern-day Bible. These books alone have measured up as divinely inspired. Furthermore, they alone are the true standard by which we measure faith and practice. In other words, the only way to measure whether our beliefs and actions are right or wrong is by whether or not they measure up to what the Bible says. If they do, they’re right; if they don’t, they’re wrong. It’s really that plain and simple.

John is commanded in these verses to measure “the temple of God” (the true sanctuary), “the altar” (true salvation) and “them that worship there” (the true saints). Notice, John is told to measure, not count, the worshippers, showing that God, unlike most contemporary congregations, is more concerned with quality than quantity. The only accurate standard to take such spiritual measurements by is the canon of Scripture—the Bible. According to the Bible, what is the temple of God in the world today, what is the only way to salvation, and who are the true worshipers of God?

THE TRUE SANCTUARY

The Bible plainly teaches that the temple of God in the world today is the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. As Stephen, the first Christian martyr, explained to fellow-Jews at the cost of his own life, “The most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands” (Acts 7:48). Ever since the Incarnation, the temple of God has been the body of Christ, not any man-made building. Whereas it was Christ’s physical body during His earthly sojourn, it is His spiritual body—the church—today!

During our Lord’s earthly life, God was alive in a man, the man Christ Jesus. It was Christ’s physical body that served as the temple of God. This explains our Lord’s response to sign-seeking Jews demanding confirmation of His claims—“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19). Although the Jews mistook our Lord’s promised bodily resurrection for a three day rebuilding of their cherished temple, John clearly points out that Jesus was speaking “of the temple of His body” (John 2:20-21).

Like the Jews of Jesus’ day, many today mistake a temple in Jerusalem for the true temple of God, which is the body of Christ. Of course, those who do so today are referring to a predicted rebuilt Jewish temple, which they insist will be the temple of God. This, despite the fact that it will be rebuilt by the Jews in absolute rejection of Christ and His atoning sacrifice on the cross of Calvary for the sins of the world.

Rather than being alive in a man, God is alive today in men. The temple of God is still the body of Christ. It is no longer His physical body; however, it is now His spiritual body. Christ lives within Christians today in the person of the indwelling Holy Spirit, making our bodies the temples of God (1 Corinthians 3:16-17; 2 Corinthians 6:16). All of us together comprise the church, which is the spiritual body of Christ, as well as God’s “holy temple” and spiritual habitation within the world today (1 Corinthians 12:27; Ephesians 2:19-22).

With the Word of God in our hand, we can clearly measure out the true sanctuary of God within the world today. It is not some impressive edifice like St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome or some future rebuilt temple on Jerusalem’s temple mound. Instead, it is the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is comprised of all born again believers; that is, of all who are indwelt by the Spirit of God as a temple of God.

THE TRUE SALVATION

Jesus once said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). His apostles preached, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The Bible clearly teaches that Christ alone is the Savior of the world and the world’s only hope of salvation. Apart from Christ, “there is no Savior” (Isaiah 43:11; Hosea 13:4).

The Bible instructs us to “call upon the name of the Lord” for salvation (Romans 10:13). Have you ever wondered why we are not instructed to simply call upon the Lord? Why are we to specifically call upon the name of the Lord rather than just upon the Lord Himself?

The Lord’s name is Jesus—the “name which is above every name” (Philippians 2:9-11). According to the Apostle Paul, the name Jesus will ultimately be universally bowed to and confessed by “things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth.” The only question is: “When will you bow to Jesus Christ and confess Him as Lord?” You can freely do so now for salvation or wait till later when you are forced to do so in condemnation. The choice is yours.

The name “Jesus” means “the salvation of Jehovah.” The salvation of God is found only in Him. There is therefore no other name that can save us. “Allah” won’t do, neither will “Mohammed,” “Buddha,” “Brahma,” or “Krishna.” Only Jesus can save us from our sins!

To be truly saved we must trust Christ and Christ alone for salvation. We must give up any notion of being saved by our own works and believe that Christ’s atoning work on our behalf is sufficient in and of itself for our salvation.

True salvation is only had by those who believe that all faiths apart from the Christian faith are spiritual dead-ends, leading only to destruction (Proverbs 14:12). No matter how sincere their adherents, false religions can no more save us from our sins than a sincere belief that strychnine is milk can save us if we drink it. There is simply no way that a false faith can lead anybody to the one and only true God.

It is only by calling upon the name of the Lord and believing that Jesus alone is the salvation of Jehovah that we can be saved from our sin. Anyone who believes that salvation is available apart from faith in Christ cannot possibly be a Christian, since such a belief belies one’s believing in and calling upon the name of the Lord.

With the Word of God in our hand, we can accurately measure true salvation. It is found in Christ alone. It is received by faith alone. And it is made possible by grace alone (Ephesians 2:8-9). Any other “altar” fails to meet God’s specifications. All man-made ways to God come up miserably short, none measure up to the divine standard. 

THE TRUE SAINTS

Those who measure up to the Scripture’s specifications as the true worshipers (saints) of God are those who have offered themselves to God as living sacrifices, which is the only reasonable way to worship Him who gave Himself for us on the cross of Calvary (Romans 12:1). Since Christ’s gave His all for us, our giving of our all for Him is the only reasonable thing for us to do. Without such a sacrifice on our part, we cannot possibly worship Him who made such a sacrifice on our behalf.

Worship today, just like always, requires sacrifice. The only difference is that today’s required sacrifice is bloodless. God no longer requires worshipers to shed the blood of the best of their flocks and herds. Christ, by offering Himself “once and for all” upon the cross of Calvary for the sins of the world, has caused all such sacrifices and offerings to cease (Hebrews 10:10; Daniel 9:27). As the book of Hebrews plainly declares, “There remaineth no more sacrifice for sins” (Hebrews 10:26).

The sacrifice required of today’s true worshiper is a living sacrifice, not a bloody one. It is the giving of ourselves to Christ. Thanks to the shedding of Christ’s blood and the pouring out of His life in place of ours, our offering of ourselves as living sacrifices to Him does not result in death, but in life everlasting. The only death involved is our willingness to die to ourselves and our own will. Once we do so, we come alive forever to God by living henceforth for the fulfillment of His will rather than our own. The resulting consequence of such submission and obedience to Christ is eternal life (Hebrews 5:7-9; Luke 22:41-42).

Jesus taught the Samaritan woman that the “true worshipers [of God] worship the Father in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23). He explained how the time would come when the place of worship would no longer be relevant. It wouldn’t matter where you worshiped. It wouldn’t matter whether you worshiped on Mount Zion in Jerusalem or on Mount Gerizim in Samaria. All that would matter was how you worshiped; that is, whether or not you worshiped in spirit and in truth.

The time Christ predicted has come. It commenced when the kingdom of God came with power on the Day of Pentecost (Mark 9:1; Acts 1:4-8). No longer do we have to be where Christ is to worship Him. Thanks to the indwelling Holy Spirit, we can now worship Christ anywhere, since He is now with us wherever we are.

Are you a true worshiper of God? Do you worship in spirit? Are you indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God as a consequence of offering the spiritual sacrifice required of all true worshipers today; namely, the living sacrifice of yourself to Christ? Do you worship in truth? Do you worship the true and triune God of the Bible? If so, then you measure up according to the Scripture as a true worshiper of God, someone who is worshiping Him in spirit and in truth. 

TREADING THE HOLY CITY UNDER FOOT

Christians, the only true worshipers of God today, are identified by the Apostle Paul as the true seed of Abraham. For instance, Paul pens these divinely inspired words in his epistle to the Galatians: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Furthermore, Paul identifies the true Jew as the spiritual descendants of Abraham, not as the physical descendants of Abraham (Romans 2:28-29). According to Paul, the true Jew is marked by an inward circumcision of the heart, not by any outward circumcision.

Along with Paul’s identifying of Christians as the true seed of Abraham and the true Jews in the world today, the Apostle Peter identifies today’s Christians as God’s priests. In 1 Peter 2:9, Peter writes, “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.” Just as the Levitical priesthood alone was allowed into the temple’s inner court to minister before the Lord in the Old Testament, it is only the “royal priesthood” (believers) who are allowed into the inner court of today’s temple (the church) to minister before the Lord.

Peter’s analogy of Christians as priests was not lost on the Apostle John, who repeatedly makes reference to it in the book of Revelation (Revelation 1:6; 5:10; 20:6). In light of this analogy, John’s prediction in Revelation 11:2 of the “holy city” being tread under foot of the “Gentiles” is an obvious reference to the church being ultimately overrun by unbelievers. Just as the New Testament refers to Christians as “Jews,” it refers to non-Christians as “Gentiles” (1 Corinthians 5:1; 12:21; 1 Thessalonians 4:4-5; 1 Peter 2:12; 3 John 5-8). Also, the “holy city” of which John speaks in Revelation 11:2 is clearly identified elsewhere in the book of Revelation as the church—the “new” and “holy Jerusalem,” as well as “the bride” and “the Lamb’s wife” (Revelation 21:1-2, 9-10).

Despite the fact that John is obviously predicting that those in the inner court, the true priests of God who alone are allowed to minister before the Lord, will eventually be outnumbered in the church by those in the outer court, those who merely profess Christ without possessing Him, many today still insist upon interpreting the “holy city” as the earthly city of Jerusalem and John’s prediction as a trampling of it under the feet of those who are not Jewish. Apparently, those who hold to such a interpretation are unaware of the fact that Jerusalem has been “tread under foot” by Gentile peoples from the time of the Roman conquest until our present-day.

Since the time of Christ, the earthly city of Jerusalem has been ruled by the Romans, Persians, Arabs, Crusaders, Turks and British. In 1949, the year after the reestablishment of the nation of Israel, Jerusalem was divided into an eastern section under Jordanian control and a western section under Israeli control. Even though the eastern section was captured from Jordan by Israeli forces during the Six-Day War in 1967 and the whole city of Jerusalem subsequently declared to be Israel’s capital by the Jewish Knesset in 1980, the Knesset’s declaration was immediately declared “null and void” by United Nations Security Council Resolution 478. Ever since, Israel’s claim to the whole city of Jerusalem has sparked worldwide dispute and served as the main sticking point in Israeli/Palestinian peace negotiations.

Today, Muslims, not Jews, make up the majority of East Jerusalem residents. Also, parts of East Jerusalem (the Old City) are still under Muslim control; such as the Jewish Temple Mount, which is home to the third holiest site in all of Islam, the Mosque of Omar or, as it is better known, the Dome of the Rock.

When you add to all of this the recent cooling of U.S.-Israeli relations over the building of apartment complexes in Jerusalem, you begin to clearly see just how tedious and limited a say the Jewish people really have over their own capital. What other country in the world can be taken to the woodshed by another government for constructing apartment buildings in their capital city? Truly, only Israel, whose capital city is still being tread under foot by Gentile peoples, just as it always has since the days of Christ.

THE WHEAT AND THE TARES

There are, as John predicted, many false worshipers of God in today’s “outer court”; that is, in today’s conventional, traditional and denominational churches. Their numbers are ever-increasing, while the number of true worshipers in the “inner court”—the true church of Jesus Christ—is ever-diminishing.

In His parable of the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13:24-30), as well as His parable of the net (Matthew 13:47-50), our Lord taught the church’s continual inundation with spurious saints throughout the Church Age. In addition, He taught the impossibility of the church weeding itself of its spiritual tares, insisting instead that this task must be left to the angels to accomplish during the harvest of the earth at the end of time (Matthew 13:36-40). As our Lord taught in the parable of the ten virgins (Matthew 25:1-13), there are many holders of oilless (spiritless) lamps in the church today whose unchaste spiritual condition will not be revealed until the Bridegroom (Christ) returns for His bride (the church).

One of the marks of the biblically predicted “perilous times” of “the last days” is the church’s infiltration by those who “have a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof” (2 Timothy 3:1-5). According to the Bible, it is “the gospel of Christ,” of which the Apostle Paul—unlike so many in the church today—was “not ashamed,” which “is the power of God unto salvation” (Romans 1:16). The fact that today’s church is being infiltrated by, as well as becoming permeated with, a spiritual fifth column clad in “a form of godliness,” while simultaneously denying the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is prove positive that we are now entering into the “perilous times” of the “last days.”

From its pulpits to its pews, the contemporary church is being overrun by those who profess other ways to God besides faith in Christ alone. While they commit such apostasy at the applause of today’s politically correct world, they endanger others’ hope of salvation by failing to preserve and protect for posterity the purity of the Gospel. Still, their love affair with the world trumps their loyalty to Christ, which proves them guilty of spiritual adultery (James 4:4).

According to John, “the holy city,” which he clearly identifies elsewhere in the book of Revelation as the church—the “new” and “holy Jerusalem,” as well as “the bride” and “the Lamb’s wife”—will ultimately be “tread under foot” by “Gentiles”—spurious saints in bed with the world. The resulting consequences will be an end-time apostate church, which is symbolized by “the great whore” of the book of Revelation, and a great “falling away,” which is plainly predicted by the Apostle Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2:2-3.

HOW DO YOU AND YOUR CHURCH MEASURE UP?

How do you and your church measure up scripturally? Make no mistake about it; if you measure up to the Scripture’s specifications as a Christian and a church you will open yourself up to persecution in these perilous times. Committing such a clear act of nonconformity to the world will inevitably solicit the world’s castigation. If you and your church remain faithful to Christ, by refusing to compromise the Gospel, and resist being squeezed into the world’s mode, by refusing to conform to political correctness, you will undoubtedly suffer persecution in ever-increasing degrees of severity as these continuously darkening last days unfold.

Are you and your church prepared to suffer the consequences of an uncompromising stand for Christ? If you’re not sure, you’ll soon have ample opportunities to find out.