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A long-time reader of my blog and books commented to me on Facebook: “I think that Christians should not support the Temple Institute financially or in any other way, because the building of a third temple by the Jews shows rebellion against God, because they still do not accept Jesus as their Messiah, but are trying to build their own way of salvation to God through the temple and sacrifice.“ I now respectfully disagree with this brother in Christ. I wrote on this subject back in November 2022, but I will expand my thoughts a little. The comment was related to my FB post in which I wondered a bit about a video update by Amir Tsarfat, a Messianic Jew living in Israel, in which he claimed the fuss of the Red Heifer sacrifice was a fake news story initiated by the enemy to justify Hamas’ terrorist attack against Israel on October 7, 2023.
I did my first FB update on red heifers about a year ago, before they started to get more attention in the secular media. At the time I shared an interview on the excellent The Israel Guys YouTube channel run by Christian Zionists living in Israel where Temple Institute representative Moriel Barelli said they had brought the red heifers from Texas to Israel on September 15, 2022 and hoped the political situation would allow the cow to be sacrificed as early as the fall of 2023. The most important annual festivals in the Hebrew calendar fall in autumn and spring, and therefore the Jewish Passover (Pesach) of the current week has also been reported by many to be the time when the ritual could have been performed.
The only fake news about the ceremony has been that it had already been performed or that the sacrifice was to be performed on the Temple Mount, although Jewish law requires it to be performed on the Mount of Olives. Such fake news is often spread by those who are hostile to Zionism and the Temple project and claim that the Israeli government has a conspiracy to destroy Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock and build the Third Temple (a conspiracy narrative that has been repeated by Islamists for almost a hundred years). In fact, the Israeli government is very reluctant to authorise such ceremonies, which could provoke further violence in the region, since the mere import of red heifers from Texas to Jerusalem provoked Hamas to the October massacre.
If the ceremony has not yet taken place, it is not because it was fake news, but because its planners have not yet received the blessing of the Israeli government. The only reason many people are now aware of these Red Cows is that on 100th day of the Gaza war, Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida cited the cows as the reason for their October terror attack (or rather attempted genocide), which the organization dubbed “theAl-Aqsa flood.”
But if we now say that Christians should not support the establishment of the Third Temple because the enemy justified his violence against innocent Jewish civilians with it, then we could just as well say that Christians should not have supported the return of the Jews to their land and the re-establishment of the State of Israel either, because the Arabs justified their violence against the Jews with it and the wars of 1948, ’67 and ’73 to destroy the Jewish State. Nor should Christians have supported President Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel in December 2017, because it could have sparked a third world war.
However, World War III did not break out in December 2017, and instead a historic peace treaty between Israel and the Arab peoples of the Gulf was signed in the region during the Trump administration. Peace does not come from submitting to the demands of terrorists. If that were the case, peace would have come about already after the 1993 Oslo peace agreement or the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza. Nor will there be peace today unless Israel succeeds in completely eradicating Hamas from Gaza and transforming the entire Palestinian culture from one that glorifies death and incites hatred of Jews to one that loves peace and life.
So I do not believe that the red cows themselves were the cause of the October violence, but rather the weak foreign policy of President Biden’s administration, which encouraged Iran and Hamas to commit violence against Jews. If Israeli or American leaders stood strong enough against the enemies of civilisation, the Israeli government could even blow up Al-Aqsa without much resistance or violence from the Palestinians. It is the continued Muslim complicity that brings about this violence, not the other way around.
However, the point of the fellow believer who commented on my Facebook update was based on Christian theology: “The building of the third temple by the Jews shows rebellion against God, because they still do not accept Jesus as their Messiah, but try to build their own way of salvation to God through the temple and sacrifice .” I also partly disagree on this point. Orthodox Jews who dream of a third temple believe, like Christians, in the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament, the Hebrew Tanakh, and believe that the establishment of a temple is the way to world peace, not chaos and violence. The prophet Isaiah prophesied:
The word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Now it will come about that in the last days the mountain of the house of the LORD will be established as the chief of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills; and all the nations will stream to it; and many peoples will come and say, “Come, let’s go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; so that He may teach us about His ways, and that we may walk in His paths.” For the law will go out from Zion and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And He will judge between the nations, and will mediate for many peoples; and they will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning knives. Nation will not lift up a sword against nation, and never again will they learn war.1
Isaiah thus prophesies that a Jewish temple would one day stand on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and its existence is linked in prophecy to an era of global peace, prosperity and justice, of which that temple stands in Jerusalem as the centre and symbol. This prophecy was not yet fulfilled in the first or second temple era, when nations fought against each other and against Jerusalem. The Orthodox Jews, therefore, do not seek to build a third temple simply because they ‘seek to establish their own way of salvation to God through the temple and sacrifice’, and because they ‘still do not accept Jesus as their Messiah’. The background is also the eschatological idea, of which Christian Zionists share too, that Jerusalem would one day become the centre of an era of global peace and justice, and in which the temple would play a central role. Jesus himself confirmed these prophecies of Isaiah and pointed to their future fulfillment at His Second Coming:
Then they came to Jerusalem. And He entered the temple and began to drive out those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves; and He would not permit anyone to carry merchandise through the temple. And He began to teach and say to them, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”2
The Second Temple in Jerusalem, from which Jesus drove out the Jewish money changers, was not a place of prayer for all nations, as access was restricted only to ritually cleansed Jews (although there was also an area on the Temple Mount known as the “court of the Gentiles” where Gentiles were also allowed to pray and worship the God of Israel). However, Jesus prophesied that there would come a time when all nations would worship the God of Israel in the Temple in Jerusalem. Now, some might say that this Messianic Temple would be a different temple from the Third Temple sought by orthodox Jews, which is the “Temple of the Antichrist.”
This too is a distortion of Bible prophecies that has often related to the view of the “Jewish Antichrist”, which is still a common view in Islamic anti-Jewish eschatology where the Antichrist is known as Dajjal. The Antichrist indeed does manage to deceive some Jews and make them believe that he is their prophesied messiah (there is a whole chapter in my books on the subject on how Charles III is able to meet that criteria too). But linking the personality of the Antichrist exclusively to the Jews and the Jewish Temple is often used as a tool for inciting Jew-hatred in both Christian and Islamic antisemitism. Especially when conspiracy theories about the ‘elders of Zion’ and the secret world power of the Jews are linked to this topic.
For example, while Christian Zionists see the return of the Jews to their land and the re-establishment of the Jewish state as an important part of God’s universal plan of salvation for all peoples, Islamic eschatology sees the existence of Israel as merely a tool of Satan, through which he can bring the “Jewish messiah”, the Dajjal of Islam, into the world, against whom Jesus and the Mahdi will fight in the Muslim end-time scenario (and after winning the battle, “Jesus” will slaughter all Christians and Jews and prepare the world for a Muslim world domination led by the Mahdi). But nowhere in the Bible does it talk about any “Temple of the Antichrist”. The future Third Temple in Jerusalem is called “a place holy” to the God of Israel and “the temple of God” even after the Antichrist has desecrated it with his abomination of desolation. I quote a few verses:
- “It [the Antichrist] even magnified itself to be equal with the Commander of the host; and it removed the regular sacrifice from Him, and the place of His sanctuary was thrown down.”3
- “Forces from him will arise, desecrate the sanctuary fortress, and do away with the regular sacrifice. And they will set up the abomination of desolation.”4
- “Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand),”5
- …who [The Antichrist] opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.6
You can only desecrate something that is already holy to God. We cannot say the same today about the Muslim Al-Aqsa Mosque or the Dome of the Rock. No Christian, Jew, or Muslim can desecrate them as they are not holy places in the first place. From a Christian perspective, they already represent the abomination of desolation on the Temple Mount, because the inscription on the wall of the Dome of the Rock quotes a passage from the Koran that denies that Jesus was the Son of God:
In the name of Allah, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful. “Peace upon me the day I was born, and the day I will die, and the day I am raised alive.” That is Jesus, the son of Mary – the word of truth about which they are in dispute. It is not [befitting] for Allah to take a son; exalted is He! When He decrees an affair, He only says to it, “Be,” and it is.7
The Apostle John said:
Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.8
It is therefore not consistent to teach that it is wrong for Christians to support the third temple, which Jesus himself called a holy place for his Father, and which will one day become a house of prayer for all nations. Nor does the Bible support the idea that the Messianic Temple is a different temple from the Tribulation temple, since Daniel 8:14 tells us that that same temple will be “properly restored” or cleansed after 2,300 days of defilement or abuse where “the daily sacrifice of the sanctuary and the host will be given for a trample.” The Third Temple will not therefore be destroyed in the same way as the First and Second Temples. If Christians make the Third Temple itself an “abomination of desolation” – even though Scripture calls it a place holy to God – then we run the risk of actually supporting the abomination of desolation imposed by the Antichrist (although I believe the church will be raptured before the mid-point of the tribulation period) , because he will abolish the Old Testament sacrifices of the Temple and apparently place some syncretistic worship there to bring the three monotheistic religions together on Temple Mount.
I do understand that the main theological objection to my view is now that the New Testament says that Jesus’ death on the cross made the animal sacrifices of the temple obsolete, which only served as a model for Christ’s future sacrificial death:
For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins? But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says, “Sacrifice and offering You have not desired, But a body You have prepared for Me; In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have taken no pleasure…
By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until His enemies are made a footstool for His feet. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.9
But I am not suggesting that the Jews can be forgiven of their sins and reconciled before God by sacrificing bulls and goats. I am not arguing that Jews have a different path to salvation than Gentiles. God is not pleased with those animal sacrifices, as Paul taught in Hebrews, and that is why He also allows the Antichrist to abolish these sacrifices that the Jews will perform in the rebuilt temple because of their unbelief. As Christians, we can support the Temple itself without supporting its Old Covenant sacrifices. Even if we do not directly support rituals such as the sacrifice of the red heifer on the Mount of Olives, we can also use it as an opportunity to preach the gospel to the Jewish people and tell them about Jesus Christ, of whom those sacrifices were just the shadow and reminder.
However, we must remember that animal sacrifices were also originally appointed and ordained by God Himself. They were not a sacrilege before Him, because they were sacrificed for the glory of His name and to atone for the sins of the people. The animal sacrifices offered in honour of the pagan gods, on the other hand, were an abomination and a sacrilege on His holy mountain. But as long as the Jews deny the Son, they deny the Father, for “Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also. “10
One of the points Amir Tsarfati made in his video was that the task of Christians is not to hasten the end times or the coming of Jesus, but to focus on evangelising people. Here too I disagree, because the apostle Peter gave us the very task of hastening the second coming of Jesus:
Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.11
Now, of course, hastening the coming of Jesus does not mean that we are going to fly planes into skyscrapers or otherwise cause global chaos that would somehow accelerate the coming of Armageddon. This would be more in line with the Islamic expectation of the end times. For it is not the role of Christians to act as agents of God’s judgments, for we believe that God himself will judge the world according to his own righteous will. But our task is to hasten the coming of His kingdom on earth by evangelising the nations and fighting moral evil in society by peaceful and legal means.
This belief in hastening the coming of the Kingdom of God led Christians to fight in the 1800s, among other things, for the abolition of slavery (as part of their belief in postmillenial eschatology). Evangelism also hastens His coming, for “the gospel of the kingdom must be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations; and then the end will come.”12 Or as Peter said: ” The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”13
Some might say that by supporting the Third Temple, Christians are hastening the end times in a negative sense, because we are only fuelling violence and inter-religious tensions that could erupt into a global nuclear war. But this again goes back to the theme of the beginning of my article; that it is the weakness of the West in the face of Islamic terrorism that is fuelling violence and wars. Christians and Jews support the Temple precisely because they believe that blessing of Israel and Jerusalem is the key to world peace and global prosperity, while cursing Jews tends to lead to ever greater chaos, misery and violence.
For example, “the Son of Hamas”, Mosab Hassan Yousef, who was a Mossad agent during the second Palestinian Intifada in the 2000s and saved countless lives on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides, has often said that Hamas is at war not only against Israel but against the entire peace-loving civilisation. Having destroyed Israel, they would continue their hatred, violence and chaos against each other because they love death more than life. Isaiah 2’s prophecy of a time of global peace is thus linked to the nations’ recognition not only of the Jews as God’s Chosen people and the Land of Israel as their rightful inheritance, but also of the Crucified Messiah of this nation, the Prince of Peace, Yeshua HaMashiach, and superiority His teachings. Lies (of which Islam is the greatest) and the people who spread them are the root cause of the world’s wars and violence. It is the truth that makes us free and brings peace to the world.
Conclusion
I already said on Facebook that my intention was not to attack Amir Tsarfat or his ministry. Tsarfati is doing important work for the Kingdom of God together with other servants of God and I can recommend his teaching to others. But often Christians can get too one-sided a picture if they listen to the views of only one influential teacher. This is especially true when it comes to Christian eschatology. Tsarfat’s views seem to be partly influenced by the end-time chronology that familiar to many from the Left Behind series of books and films, and in which the rapture of the church occurs first, followed by the revelation of the Antichrist to the remnant and his seven-year covenant with Israel, including the building of the third temple.
According to my own end-time chronology, the rapture of the church occurs before or at the same time as this seven-year covenant (While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then…14 ). The identity of the Antichrist will, however, be revealed to the church even earlier than this, as Paul taught in 2 Thessalonians 2:3. Again, we are not told anything about the date of the temple’s foundation. We can, of course, assume that it is part of the terms of the Antichrist’s covenant, but this is a mere assumption which is not further supported by Scripture.
We should not read too much into the chronologies of the end time when the Scriptures are silent of the topic. If the third temple were to be erected 100 years before the seven-year tribulation, it would not contradict much other than the “fig tree prophecy” in Matthew 24, which suggests that events related to Jesus’ second coming will occur within one generation of the rebirth of the state of Israel in 1948. If construction of the third temple were to begin this year, many Christians might think that the church had been left behind in the Tribulation period or that the pre-tribulationists were wrong. From such a scenario we cannot conclude neither in the light of Bible prophecy.
In his video, Amir Tsarfati labelled the premature talk about the sacrificial heifers and the Third Temple as “sensationalism”, but it is only sensationalism if the assumption is that the building of the temple will take place only after the rapture of the church. In the same way, he has branded the “speculation” about the Antichrist candidates – including King Charles – as sensationalism. But even in that case, it is sensationalism only if the assumption is that the Antichrist will be revealed after the rapture of the church (a doctrine I don’t see Paul supporting in 2 Thessalonians 2:3) . On May 15, 2023, Tsarfati wrote the following in the Telegram:
Videos are circulating online showing the newly crowned King Charles as the Antichrist. This kind of unbiblical and very hysterical sensationalism is exactly the reason why I wrote my new book “Has the Tribulation period begun?”. You can find hundreds or thousands of “signs” that seem to suggest that he is the Antichrist, and yet you are completely wrong. Born-again, Spirit-filled Christians are not supposed to experience the Tribulation or see the rise of the Antichrist, which Daniel 9 marks the beginning of that period. The events of Revelation 13 and the coronation in May 2023 are not even related! The existence of the beast rising from the sea is an appearance out of nowhere on the world stage. It will not be some grumpy old prince, unpopular not only around the world but also with many in his own country. It is time for Christians to stop looking for the Antichrist and start looking for Jesus Christ!
As I said, this is not a personal attack on Tsarfati for slandering my own ministry as “hysterical sensationalism”. I have not been in the habit of turn against my fellow servants in Christ even if they do not subscribe to my eschatological views. I can also subscribe to the end of Tsarfat’s Telegram message that seeking Christ is far more important than seeking the Antichrist. Yet his other conclusions in this message are quite strange: “You can find hundreds or thousands of ‘signs’ that seem to suggest that he is the Antichrist, and still be dead wrong.”
So even if a person like Charles – or anyone else – fulfilled a thousand Bible prophecies about this man, I would still be wrong about him, because one prophecy would be against that idea in his mind. His only Scriptural objection here is that “Born-again, Spirit-filled Christians are not to experience tribulation or see the rise of the Antichrist, which Daniel 9 marks the beginning of that age.” I agree with Tsarfat that Christians are not to experience the great tribulation period as Paul taught in 1 Thessalonians 5:9.
But he makes a mere assumption – which the Scriptures do not support – when he says that the rise of the Antichrist and the beginning of the Great Tribulation would be simultaneous events. Or that the Antichrist would become the focus of the world’s attention only after the rapture of the church. And even if this assumption were then correct, what would prevent the Holy Spirit from revealing his identity when he is still a relatively unknown or insignificant person (“the little horn” as Daniel 7 and 8 describe him). Finally, in his own wisdom, he also states something that completely contradicts the Bible’s own revelation: [He] “not be some grumpy old prince, unpopular not only around the world but also with many in his own country.” Tsarfati should take his Bible to read again Daniel 11:21, which says the exact opposite:
In his place a despicable [or despised] person will arise, on whom the honor of kingship has not been conferred, but he will come in a time of tranquility and seize the kingdom by intrigue.
It is from this verse that I have derived the title of my book and the detailed biblical and historical arguments for the biblical validity of this Charles-theory, not from some “hysterical sensationalism”.
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