Paul's
central symbol of the apostasy is the man of sin or lawlessness sitting
"in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God" (2 Thes. 2:4).
Pounds of pages have been written about this being the Jerusalem temple, but
that would be destroyed within two decades and would have no one sitting in it.
And what did that temple mean to the Greek Gentiles or even to apostles in
terms of their own religion without Mosaic sacrifices? The real question is how
Paul used the word temple in his writing Almost always he used it
figuratively - occasionally the body is a temple for God's Spirit, but usually
the Church is the temple of God. The members ("ye," older plural
English for the plural Greek) are "God's building" (1 Cor. 3:9), with
Christ its foundation (1 Cor 3:11), or, in summary, "the temple of
God" (1 Cor. 3:16). Elsewhere Paul teaches about Christ as cornerstone,
apostles as foundation, and members fitting into their places as a "holy
temple in the Lord" (Eph. 2:21). And in one of his last letters, Paul still
spoke of "the house of God, which is the church of the living God" (1
Tim. 3:15). Paul must define Paul, and his own words show that he was here
referring to the Church. (Richard Lloyd Anderson, Understanding Paul
[Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1983], 8)
