{"id":1459,"date":"2025-10-24T04:59:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T04:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/?p=1459"},"modified":"2025-10-24T04:59:00","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T04:59:00","slug":"everybody-is-kissing-the-wall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/2025\/10\/24\/everybody-is-kissing-the-wall\/","title":{"rendered":"Everybody is Kissing the Wall\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>There is a real lack of basic historical knowledge among Christians about the Western (wailing) wall in Jerusalem. Many believe it&#8217;s always been a place Christians go to worship and that it&#8217;s somehow &#8220;holy&#8221; to Christians today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bottom line: It wasn&#8217;t a place Christians considered holy nor did they go to the Temple wall until very recently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1967: A historic Muslim neighborhood known as the Moroccan Quarter (also called the Mughrabi or Maghariba Quarter) in Jerusalem&#8217;s Old City was forcibly cleared and demolished by Israeli authorities in June 1967, shortly after the Six-Day War, to create the open plaza now used by visitors and worshippers at the Western Wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the Old Testament Period:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8211; When did the glory of the Lord leave the Temple?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ezekiel 10:18-19: The glory rose from the cherubim (angelic figures above the Ark) and moved to the temple&#8217;s threshold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ezekiel 11:22-23: It fully departed to the Mount of Olives east of the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8211; Did the glory of the Lord return to the Temple?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Unlike the dramatic fillings of the Tabernacle and First Temple, the Hebrew Bible contains no explicit description of the Shekinah glory returning to the Second Temple. The dedication in Ezra 6:16-18 mentions joy and sacrifices but omits any cloud, fire, or overwhelming presence. The Ark of the Covenant\u2014central to the glory&#8217;s resting place\u2014was also absent, further underscoring the difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When Jesus entered the Temple, He found moneychangers there. Christ purified the Temple by His presence and by driving out the money changers. It had long been a place that was impure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sadly, the Temple was defined just a few days later when Judas threw the blood money on the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. &#8216;I have sinned,&#8217; he said, &#8216;for I have betrayed innocent blood.&#8217; &#8216;What is that to us?&#8217; they replied. &#8216;That\u2019s your responsibility.&#8217; So Judas threw the silver into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In reality it had already been defiled. The only Glory the Temple had was when Christ, the King of Glory, entered the Temple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>IMO, Christians should not go there to worship. Jesus said why:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jhn 4:21 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Additionally, Christ Himself is the Temple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>John 2:19-21<br>Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?<br>But he spake of the temple of his body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Go if you wish for historical perspective but remember why the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD. It was because they rejected Christ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is a real lack of basic historical knowledge among Christians about the Western (wailing) wall in Jerusalem. Many believe it&#8217;s always been a place Christians go to worship and that it&#8217;s somehow &#8220;holy&#8221; to Christians today. Bottom line: It wasn&#8217;t a place Christians considered holy nor did they go to the Temple wall until [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,8,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archaelogy","category-bible","category-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1459"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1460,"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1459\/revisions\/1460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}