Didn’t Jesus’ Crucifixion end the need for temples

When Jesus Christ died on the cross, the veil of the temple was rent in two to symbolize that Jesus Christ’s crucifixion opened the way for all mankind to enter the presence of God.  The Gospel of Matthew says, “Behold the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom” (Matthew 27:51).  Some people suppose that this meant the temple, and thus Mormon temples, are no longer necessary. 

The Apostles of Jesus Christ did not think so, for they continued to visit the temple often after Jesus’ resurrection.  In Acts 2:46, we read, “And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart.”  In Acts 3, Peter and John preach and heal at the Temple in Jerusalem, just as Jesus had done.  Paul in his epistles to the early Christians repeatedly mentions the temple and uses its symbolism to illustrate the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  In fact, Paul himself frequently visited the temple in Jerusalem.  In Acts 21:26, we read, “Then Paul took the men, and the next day purifying himself with them entered into the temple, to signify the accomplishment of the days of purification, until that an offering should be offered for every one of them.” 

In Acts chapter 22, Paul has a vision of Jesus Christ while praying in the Temple in which the Lord commands him to leave the city and begin preaching to the Gentiles (Acts 22:21), for which Paul becomes known as the Apostle to the Gentiles.  In Revelation 7:15, we read that that those who are saved serve God in his Temple day and night.

God has always commanded his children to build temples in which sacred ordinances are performed.  When Jesus died the old Law of Moses was done away with, but was replaced by the law of the Gospel.  We read in Hebrews chapter 7 that Jesus was a priest after the order of Melchisedec (Hebrews 7:11) and that with the ending of the Levitical priesthood, which ended with the Law of Moses, the priesthood was changed to the order of Melchisedec just the law was changed as well.  Hebrews 7:12 reads: “For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law.”  Peter also mentions this priesthood in 1 Peter 2:5:

Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

So, we can see that even though the Apostles of Jesus Christ had this new, higher priesthood, they still honored the Temple because they knew that God still commanded mankind to build them, but for different purposes for a new law had been given.  In modern revelation given to the Prophet Joseph Smith, we learn that one of the ordinances performed in these temples after the order of Melchisedec is baptism for the dead, which Paul mentions in 1 Corinethans 15:29: “Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?”

The Prophet Joseph Smith said:

And again, in connection with this quotation I will give you a quotation from one of the prophets, who had his eye fixed on the restoration of the priesthood, the glories to be revealed in the last days, and in an especial manner this most glorious of all subjects belonging to the everlasting gospel, namely, the baptism for the dead; for Malachi says, last chapter, verses 5th and 6th: Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

I might have rendered a plainer translation to this, but it is sufficiently plain to suit my purpose as it stands. It is sufficient to know, in this case, that the earth will be smitten with a curse unless there is a welding link of some kind or other between the fathers and the children, upon some subject or other–and behold what is that subject? It is the baptism for the dead. For we without them cannot be made perfect; neither can they without us be made perfect. Neither can they nor we be made perfect without those who have died in the gospel also; for it is necessary in the ushering in of the dispensation of the fulness of times, which dispensation is now beginning to usher in, that a whole and complete and perfect union, and welding together of dispensations, and keys, and powers, and glories should take place, and be revealed from the days of Adam even to the present time. And not only this, but those things which never have been revealed from the foundation of the world, but have been kept hid from the wise and prudent, shall be revealed unto babes and sucklings in this, the dispensation of the fulness of times (Doctrine and Covenants 128:17-18).

Thus, while ancient temples and modern Mormon temples have some slightly different function, because one was under the Mosaic Law and the other is under the Gospel law, they ultimately center on God, our Heavenly Father, and on Jesus Christ.  Modern temples, like the ancient ones, are sacred spaces where people make covenants with God and where they receive wisdom and great spiritual strength.  The splitting of the veil of the temple, symbolized that Christ’s death is the way to salvation, but as the actions of the Apostles show, it did not lessen early Christian reverence for the temple.  In deed, the New Testament is full of references to the temple.  Then as now, the temple served as a place set apart from the world for worship and for those sacred ordinances which bring us closer to God and Jesus Christ.