How can the temple in 2 Thessalonians 2:4 be called ‘the temple of God’, if it will be built by Jews who reject the Lord Jesus?

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1994.

The question, with which expositors have wrestled, stems from the fact that in Christianity there is no one temple in which the man of sin could sit.

The buildings in which Christians meet are never called temples in the New Testament. The church as a whole (that is, all the people of God) is described as a temple; but again, it is the people, not the places in which they meet, who are so called. The other usage of the term 'temple' to refer to a local church is found in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17, but again it is the believers who are referred to, not the building in which they meet.

The text also raises the question: what is the meaning of the phrase 'shall sit in the temple of God'?

The advantage of taking it to refer to a Jewish temple is that there would never be more than one temple in Judaism; and in that case, one could understand the phrase to 'sit in the temple of God' literally.

If the phrase is taken to apply in some sense to the Christian church, then it would seem to demand that the phrase be interpreted somehow metaphorically.

One might add that the temple in Jerusalem at the time of our Lord was run by the very men who crucified the Lord Jesus and abused the temple itself; but our Lord still referred to it as 'my Father's house' (John 2:16). Admittedly, he later said, 'your house is left to you desolate' (Luke 13:35 NIV), and predicted its destruction. But the destruction was not carried out immediately, and right up to the end of the Acts of the Apostles, Christians still frequented that temple and treated it with reverence.

Yours very sincerely,