The temple in Jesus’ day
When people speak of Herod’s temple, they mean the Jerusalem temple used in the time of Jesus. Herod the Great was the ruler of Judea when Jesus was born, and history remembers his major rebuilding and expansion of the existing temple. Scripture itself simply calls it the temple.
Jesus visited it, taught in its courts, and drove out those exploiting worshippers there. His disciples were struck by its impressive stones and buildings, but Jesus warned that it would be destroyed. That warning came true when Jerusalem and its temple were devastated by the Romans in AD 70 (Mark 13:1-2).
Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?
Why it is usually called the Second Temple
Solomon built the first temple in Jerusalem, and Babylon later destroyed it because of Judah’s long rebellion against God (2 Chronicles 36:18-19). After the exile, Jewish returnees began building a new temple under Zerubbabel. That rebuilt temple is commonly called the Second Temple (Ezra 3:8).
Herod did not begin a completely separate, third temple. He transformed and enlarged the second one. This helps explain why the leaders told Jesus that the temple had been under construction for forty-six years, while they were still speaking about the same sacred place (John 2:20).
And this house was finished on the third day of the month Adar, which was in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king.
What does “the Third Temple” mean?
The expression “Third Temple” is not a phrase the Bible uses. Today it usually refers to a possible future Jewish temple in Jerusalem. Some people connect that idea with Ezekiel’s detailed vision of a temple and its worship (Ezekiel 43:4-5).
Faithful Christians do not all read Ezekiel’s vision the same way. Some expect a future physical temple. Others understand its imagery as pointing to God’s restored presence with his people, fulfilled through Christ and ultimately in God’s renewed creation. Ezekiel’s central message is clear either way: God intends to dwell with a cleansed and restored people (Ezekiel 43:7).
Jesus changes how we see the temple
Jesus spoke of the temple of his body when he spoke about its destruction and raising again. John explains that he was referring to his resurrection, not to pulling down and rebuilding the Jerusalem sanctuary (John 2:19-21). For Christians, Jesus is the meeting place between God and humanity.
The New Testament also says that believers together are God’s temple because God’s Spirit lives among them (1 Corinthians 3:16). And Revelation ends with a striking picture of God’s final city having no separate temple building, because the Lord and the Lamb are its temple (Revelation 21:22). So Herod’s temple matters deeply in the Bible’s story, but the story leads us beyond a building to God dwelling with his people.
And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.