Jesus is the Real Temple of God

28 January 2026  2 Samuel 7:4-17

Memorial of St. Thomas Aquinas, Priest and Doctor of the Church

“I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling….” (2 Samuel 7:6)

The Bible is pretty ambivalent about the whole issue of temples. God told David that He was happy with a tent (2 Samuel 7:6), but would allow that David’s successor, Solomon, could build Him a temple (7:13). Then, of course, that temple was destroyed, twice, and was never rebuilt. Judaism hasn’t had a temple since A.D. 70. When the disciples admired the temple, Jesus rebuked them, telling them that the day was not far off when the temple would be only so much rubble, and it was (Luke 21:5-6). The temple Jesus wanted them to focus on was the temple that was His body, and the temples that were their bodies, temples not made with hands, dwelling places of the Holy Spirit that would be “eternal in the heavens” (cf. Acts 7:48, 17:24, I Corinthians 3:16, II Corinthians 5:1).

We have temples now, many of them astonishingly beautiful, marvels of art and architecture. Just seeing them has made many turn their hearts toward God, and it would be an act of impiety to despise such places, or wish them away.

The temple Jesus wanted them to focus on was the temple that was His body, and the temples that were their bodies, temples not made with hands, dwelling places of the Holy Spirit that would be “eternal in the heavens”

It would be an act of imbecility, however, to imagine that anything made with human hands could possibly contain God, or even approach His glory; to imagine that even places as grand as St. Peter’s, Chartres, Notre Dame, the Gesú will not one day be piles of rubble, “not one stone upon another.”

In the fourth century, when Christianity first became legal, and Christians could build public buildings, they did not choose Roman temples for their architectural models. Though temples were some of the grandest buildings the world had ever seen, they did not meet the needs of the Church. The only thing inside Roman temples was a large statue of the god – there was no place for the community to gather. The Church chose instead the architectural form of the basilica, which had a large audience hall, and smaller spaces for legal proceedings, banking, and commerce. They were usually surrounded by colonnades where people could find relief on hot days, and shelter from the rain. By the fourth century, basilicas like the Basilica Aemilia, the Basilica Ulpia, the Basilica Julia and the Basilica of Constantine were the largest public buildings in Rome, next to sports venues like the Colosseum and the Circus Maximus.

The Church never really lost the Bible’s ambivalence about temples. It has always been more focused on people – what they need to get through the day, what they need to get through this life, what they need relief from.

In very early Roman times, a templum referred to a rectangualr area scratched out on the ground. A priest called an augur would stand within that space and watch the flights of birds, seeking omens about the future. Based on these observations, the augurs would declare days to be fas, or nefas, lucky or unlucky. In basilicas like St. Peter’s in the Vatican today, people still step into that space and look for signs. There is no place in that largest Church in Christendom where your eye can rest that is not dedicated somehow to drawing your attention toward God, His truth and beauty, His love in Christ, and the hope of heaven. Not every place, indeed hardly any place, can be as beautiful as St. Peter’s. Ideally, however, the people of each Church should be such holy signs, people who have sought the goodness, truth, and beauty of God, and found it. They are the ones who should draw people’s gaze upward. In God’s mercy, may it be so.