Where Is the Temple?

Series on Ezekiel

III. The Fulfilled Promises

A. Future Temple, Text: 40:1-43:27

Title: Where Is the Temple?

Introduction

As you note from your outlines we have come to the third major section of Ezekiel’s prophecy. We have seen the prophecies regarding the fall of Jerusalem and God’s condemnation and punishment of his covenant people, and we have also seen the foreign nations and God’s judgments upon his enemies near and far. All of this leads to the climactic material found in chapters 40-48 which describes the future restoration of God’s people in detail. The details of these chapters describe a new temple, a renewed worship and a renewed land. The question arises whether they are to be understood physically or whether they are symbolic of important realities in the age to come after Ezekiel which began with the advent of Christ and continues now. When we read them, the details are tedious and even somewhat obscure, because we are not that familiar with the whole apparatus of worship upon which they are based which is laid down in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. But I would submit to you that this vision was not given so that the people, the priesthood and the proper worship could continue in the old way, but rather as an indication of a great spiritual fulfillment in the age to come after the Old Testament. By these visions i do not think the Israelites are encouraged to expect a restoration of the life they had before the Babylonian captivity but rather to expect a much better order of things. In the chapters we look at tonight there are three things we may see: the pattern, the priesthood and the presence.

I The Pattern

Here, first of all, we see a description of the new temple area and this section, verses 1-27 consists mainly of the dimensions. The ideal nature of this description is intimated in the fact that the location is a very high mountain and a very large temple. Noted Old Testament Scholars, Keil and Delitzsch and others tell us that the description involves things which, taken literally, almost involve natural impossibilities. The square of the temple, in Ezekiel 42:20, is six times as large as the circuit of the wall enclosing the old temple, and larger than all the earthly Jerusalem. Ezekiel gives three and a half miles and one hundred forty yards to his temple square. The boundaries of the ancient city were about two and a half miles. Again, the city in Ezekiel has an area between three or four thousand square miles, including the holy ground set apart for the prince, priests, and Levites. This is nearly as large as the whole of Judea west of the Jordan. The very fact that the whole is a vision as we are told in 40:2, not an oral face-to-face communication such as that granted to Moses in Numbers 12:6-8, implies that the directions are not to be understood so precisely literally as those given to the Jewish lawgiver, In visions of God he took me to the land of Israel and set me on a very high mountain, on whose south side were some buildings that looked like a city. The temple here is ideal in its symmetry, perfection and holiness. This points to the fact that the real temple is not made of mortar and stone but of living stones as it says in I Peter 2:5. note in verses 3 and 4 there is an angel who will measure the temple, He took me there, and I saw a man whose appearance was like bronze; he was standing in the gateway with a linen cord and a measuring rod in his hand. The man said to me, “Son of man, look with your eyes and hear with your ears and pay attention to everything I am going to show you, for that is why you have been brought here. Tell the house of Israel everything you see.” The very act of measuring is important first of all because it reminds the Israelites who had lost their temple, the desire of their eyes, that what God has for them is just as real, but the act of measuring is also important because of its repetition in the book of Revelation chapter 11 showing us that while this is real it is spiritual and not material. Where the apostle John in his vision does very same thing, he is not to measure the outer court because it has been given to the Gentiles, I was given a reed like a measuring rod and was told, “Go and measure the temple of God and the altar, and count the worshipers there. But exclude the outer court; do not measure it, because it has been given to the Gentiles. They will trample on the holy city for 42 months.” By this obscure prophetic language God is telling us that there is no longer a court of the Gentiles because the 42 months represents the gospel age in which the Gentiles have been admitted to the true Israel, the Church. The New Testament introduces this new element. the purpose of Ezekiel was to picture the restoration in terms the people of his day could understand . In the Old Testament the outer court was for the people and the inner court for the Priests, but in the New Testament temple of God which is the Church, the Body of Christ, we are all priests, a kingdom of priests as in Revelation 1:5 and 6, To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father-to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen. Thus, in John’s vision, there is no outer court for the people and the area is trampled down by the unbelieving Gentiles.

II The Priesthood

In 40:28 through 42:20 we have a description of the inner court which is just for the priests. This includes all of the rooms for the work of the priests and for their residence as well as the sanctuary itself which consisted of the holy place and also the holy of holies where the high priest entered only once a year on Yom Kippur. There is an absence of detail in describing the furnishings which suggests that the old sacrificial system was not to be revived because atonement was completed by Christ. In fact the author of Hebrews makes clear in 10: 8-14, First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them” (although the law required them to be made). Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. We shall never return to the weak and beggarly elements of Old Testament religion now that Christ has come. Then in chapter 42 we have an extended description of the priests’ rooms for changing their garments and for storing and eating of the sacrifices. If as we have proposed the purpose of this glorious temple is to give us a picture of the Body of Christ as the true dwelling place of God and to see that the future restoration is a spiritual temple and a spiritual priesthood then all that is said here with regard to the priests applies to us as a kingdom of priests. The primary task of the priest was to represent the people in the worship of God and as he did this he performed in two areas, sanctity and stewardship. First in sanctity he ate of the holy things. He ministered in holy garments which could not be polluted by contact with the world, he washed, and he sacrificed for himself just in order to be a proper representative of the people. In other words he was separate. Everything he did pointed to the absolute holiness of God. Even his tribe was different, and his family was different. But, secondly, he was a steward. He received all the offerings of the people, stored them in the holy place and kept all the vessels of the temple and all the wealth of the Lord that had been contributed. So the priests were holy stewards and that is what each of us are to be.

III The Presence

The crowning glory of this section is Ezekiel’s vision in chapter 43: 2-5 of the return of the glory of God from captivity, And I saw the glory of the God of Israel coming from the east. His voice was like the roar of rushing waters, and the land was radiant with his glory. The vision I saw was like the vision I had seen when he came to destroy the city and like the visions I had seen by the Kebar River, and I fell facedown. The glory of the LORD entered the temple through the gate facing east. Then the Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court, and the glory of the LORD filled the temple. God had filled the temple with his presence before as in the days of Solomon, but this is the return of the glory. Ichabod is not true, The glory has not departed forever. It will be restored, but it will be restored as the Bible says in Christ. Paul says we see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. John says in 1: 14, The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. This verse tells us, not only that Jesus is the glory of God, but also that he is the true temple because the “dwelling” in this verse is the Greek word for tent or tabernacle. Literally he “tented” among us. As we are in Him we are also the true temple of God. And then in verses 12-27 we have a lengthy description of the altar and its purification. an atonement must be made even for the altar upon which atonement is to take place in verse 20, You are to take some of its blood and put it on the four horns of the altar and on the four corners of the upper ledge and all around the rim, and so purify the altar and make atonement for it. It must be cleansed. Because there is only one altar that meets all the requirements of atonement, this points to the cross of Christ. Douglas Stewart of Gordon-Conwell Seminary writes, “The vision of the new altar looks forward to the God-given means to make people holy; namely the shedding of blood and sacrifice. How fortunate we are to be able to understand, in retrospect, what the vision of the altar really symbolized: the atoning sacrifice of Christ who made Himself sin so that we would know no sin He made us holy on God’s terms according to God’s standards.” The blood of Christ alone makes the temple of God, the Church, holy because it was purchased with his own blood. We must be as diligent in resorting to the cross, as these priests were to be in preparing the altar. The altar is indispensable to the holiness of the sanctuary and the cross is indispensable to the holiness of the Church.