The "Third Temple" (Hebrew: בֵּית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ הַשְּׁלִישִׁי, Bēṯ hamMīqdāš hašŠlīšī, transl. 'Third House of the Sanctum') refers to a hypothetical rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem. It would succeed the First Temple and the Second Temple, the former having been destroyed during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in c. 587 BCE and the latter having been destroyed during the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The notion of and desire for the Third Temple is sacred in Judaism, particularly in Orthodox Judaism. It would be the most sacred place of worship for Jews. The Hebrew Bible holds that Jewish prophets called for its construction prior to, or in tandem with, the Messianic Age. The building of the Third Temple also plays a major role in some interpretations of Christian eschatology.
While there is a wide variety of views within Christianity regarding the significance or requirement of a third temple in Jerusalem, according to the writers[which?] of the New Testament, the New Covenant—insofar as they interpreted Jeremiah 31:31–34 and Ezekiel 36:26–37 as referring to it—is marked by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Christian believer. Therefore, every Christian's body and gathering thereof comprise "the temple" and, as such, the temple, if not Judaism, has been superseded.
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? (1 Corinthians 6:19
In the teaching of both Jesus and Paul, then, according to Wright,
God's house in Jerusalem was meant to be a 'place of prayer for all the nations' (Isaiah 56:7; Mark 11:17); but God would now achieve this through the new temple, which was Jesus himself and his people.[49]
— T. Wright, 1994
Ben F. Meyer also argued that Jesus applied prophecy regarding Zion and the temple to himself and his followers:
[Jesus] affirmed the prophecies of salvation with their end-time imagery Zion and the temple—belonging to the eschatological themes that the "pilgrimage of the peoples" evoked. But contrary to the common expectation of his contemporaries, Jesus expected the destruction of the temple in the coming eschatological ordeal (Mark 13:2=Matt 24:2=Luke 21:6). The combination seems contradictory. How could he simultaneously predict the ruin of the temple in the ordeal and affirm the end-time fulfilment of promise and prophecy on Zion and [the] temple? The paradox is irresolvable until one takes note of another trait of Jesus' words on the imagery of Zion and temple, namely, the consistent application to his own disciples of Zion- and temple-imagery: the city on the mountain (Matt 5:14; cf. Thomas, 32), the cosmic rock (Matt 16:18; cf. John 1:42), the new sanctuary (Mark 14:58; Matt 26:61). The mass of promise and prophecy will come to fulfilment in this eschatological and messianic circle of believers.
Further, the veil or curtain to the Holy of Holies is seen as having been torn asunder at the crucifixion – figuratively in connection with this theology (ch 10:19–21), and literally according to the Gospel of Matthew (ch 27:50–51). Likewise, Revelation 21:22 explicitly describes the absence of a temple in the New Jerusalem, "for its temple is the Lord God almighty and the Lamb."
Jesus himself stated, in response to a Samaritan asking whether it is right to worship on Mount Gerizim or Mount Zion, that "a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem... But in spirit and in truth". He stated of the Herodian temple, "Not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down" – John 4:21, Luke 21:6.
In 1762, Charles Wesley wrote:[54]
We know, it must be done,For God hath spoke the word,
All Israel shall their Saviour own,
To their first state restor’d:
Re-built by his command,
Jerusalem shall rise,
Her temple on Moriah stand
Again, and touch the skies.