THEN THE MAN brought me to the gate facing east, 2and 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. 3The 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. 4The glory of the LORD entered the temple through the gate facing east. 5Then the Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court, and the glory of the LORD filled the temple.
6While the man was standing beside me, I heard someone speaking to me from inside the temple. 7He said: “Son of man, this is the place of my throne and the place for the soles of my feet. This is where I will live among the Israelites forever. The house of Israel will never again defile my holy name—neither they nor their kings—by their prostitution and the lifeless idols of their kings at their high places. 8When they placed their threshold next to my threshold and their doorposts beside my doorposts, with only a wall between me and them, they defiled my holy name by their detestable practices. So I destroyed them in my anger. 9Now let them put away from me their prostitution and the lifeless idols of their kings, and I will live among them forever.
10“Son of man, describe the temple to the people of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their sins. Let them consider the plan, 11and if they are ashamed of all they have done, make known to them the design of the temple—its arrangement, its exits and entrances—its whole design and all its regulations and laws. Write these down before them so that they may be faithful to its design and follow all its regulations.
12“This is the law of the temple: All the surrounding area on top of the mountain will be most holy. Such is the law of the temple.
13“These are the measurements of the altar in long cubits, that cubit being a cubit and a handbreadth: Its gutter is a cubit deep and a cubit wide, with a rim of one span around the edge. And this is the height of the altar: 14From the gutter on the ground up to the lower ledge it is two cubits high and a cubit wide, and from the smaller ledge up to the larger ledge it is four cubits high and a cubit wide. 15The altar hearth is four cubits high, and four horns project upward from the hearth. 16The altar hearth is square, twelve cubits long and twelve cubits wide. 17The upper ledge also is square, fourteen cubits long and fourteen cubits wide, with a rim of half a cubit and a gutter of a cubit all around. The steps of the altar face east.”
18Then he said to me, “Son of man, this is what the Sovereign LORD says: These will be the regulations for sacrificing burnt offerings and sprinkling blood upon the altar when it is built: 19You are to give a young bull as a sin offering to the priests, who are Levites, of the family of Zadok, who come near to minister before me, declares the Sovereign LORD. 20You 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. 21You are to take the bull for the sin offering and burn it in the designated part of the temple area outside the sanctuary.
22“On the second day you are to offer a male goat without defect for a sin offering, and the altar is to be purified as it was purified with the bull. 23When you have finished purifying it, you are to offer a young bull and a ram from the flock, both without defect. 24You are to offer them before the LORD, and the priests are to sprinkle salt on them and sacrifice them as a burnt offering to the LORD.
25“For seven days you are to provide a male goat daily for a sin offering; you are also to provide a young bull and a ram from the flock, both without defect. 26For seven days they are to make atonement for the altar and cleanse it; thus they will dedicate it. 27At the end of these days, from the eighth day on, the priests are to present your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings on the altar. Then I will accept you, declares the Sovereign LORD.”
Original Meaning
WE NOTED IN the previous section the similarities between the world-constructing vision of Ezekiel 40–48 and Genesis 1–2. A further similarity emerges in Ezekiel 43–46 as the account of the formation of the different spaces in chapters 40–42 is followed by an account of their filling, just as the spaces formed in days 1–3 of Genesis 1 were subsequently filled in days 4–6.1 An empty temple is, by itself, worthless; it was made to be occupied. The logic of the description starts from the center with the filling of the Most Holy Place (Ezek. 43:1–9) and ends at the corners of the outer court, with the description of the activities in the kitchens (46:24).
The return of the glory of the Lord to the new temple is the high point of chapters 43–46. This return, which reverses the abandonment of the temple and its destruction described in equally visionary form in chapters 8–11, is the fulfillment of the central promise of restoration: the Lord dwelling in the midst of his people forever (37:26–28). The connection with the previous visions is made explicit in 43:3: “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.”
The glory returns to the temple through the east gate, from the same direction in which it had earlier left (Ezek. 10:18–19).2 Whereas its departure was slow and halting, however, its return is rapid and direct. On its return, the glory of God not only fills the temple, as it had filled the Solomonic temple at its consecration (1 Kings 8:10–11), it even causes the land itself to shine (Ezek. 43:2). As with the other visions, the prophet’s response to the revelation of God’s glory is to fall on his face (43:3b).
The overwhelmed prophet is once again picked up by the Spirit and dropped in the inner court, in order for him to hear the word of the Lord (43:5). That word is an assertion of the Lord’s kingship and of his “liv[ing] among the Israelites forever” (43:7). As King, the Lord is marking out his territorial claim to the areas defined in the vision, with the new temple as his throne room and footstool.3 But what is new is not the Lord’s claim to kingship or the area over which he makes that claim, it is the assertion that his kingship will be exercised there forever.
In order to ensure that his reigning presence remains with his people forever, it is necessary to guard against any repetition of the abuses of the past. This involves once more redefining the nature of the areas around the divine throne room and limiting access that might endanger their sacredness. In the past, the house of Israel and their kings had defiled the Lord’s name by their prostitution (i.e., their spiritual adultery with the gods of other nations, as in ch. 23) and by setting up memorial stelae4 to their monarchs within the temple grounds (43:7–8).5
There is no room for these stelae in honor of the human king in the place dedicated to the worship of the divine King. Henceforth they will be banished. Indeed, the whole former social geography of the temple mount, where the house of the divine King was merely a (smaller) neighboring residence to the palace of the human king, will be swept away. Because the former kings defiled the Lord’s name by their detestable practices, their position in the future kingdom will be further removed from the center.6 This is a necessary precondition for the Lord’s perpetual dwelling in the midst of his people (43:9).
Verses 10–12 sum up the rationale for the temple vision: Ezekiel is being shown these things so that he can relay them to his own generation. They must consider the design and “be ashamed of their [former] sins.” The temple vision is not a building plan or a prediction of the future but rather a powerful symbol that addresses the people in Ezekiel’s day. What specifically about the temple design is to move them to shame? They must consider in particular its “plan” (43:10), its “arrangement,” its “exits and entrances,” along with its “regulations and laws” (43:11). In other words, the temple vision is a pedagogical tool that speaks by its shape and size, and particularly by its permission or denial of access (“exits and entrances”).7 These regulations all serve a single overriding purpose: that the whole area all around the temple may be most holy. In order for God to continue to live in their midst forever, regard for his holiness must govern not simply access to the Most Holy Place, but the entire temple mount (43:12).
Removal of sinners to a safe distance is only one aspect of maintaining the holiness of the temple area; the other, more positive, aspect is through the reestablishment of the sacrificial system. For this reason, Ezekiel’s attention is now drawn once more to the altar in the inner court, the central piece of furniture mentioned in the earlier tour. The importance of this altar to Ezekiel’s plan is evident not merely from its detailed description but also from its place at the geometric center of the temple complex. The contrast is made clearer by the fact that in the tabernacle the altar was the least sacred of the cultic articles, located in the outer court; its geometric center pointed rather to the ark.8 Once more this represents an overall raising of the standards of holiness compared to the old ways, assigning the altar an equal sanctity to the furnishings of the Most Holy Place.
The nature of this altar is a three-or four-layer square construction, depending on whether the ḥêq (v. 13) is interpreted as a “gutter” (NIV) or a “base” (NRSV). The dimensions of the altar are 18 cubits by 18 cubits (31.5 feet square) at the lowest level and 14 cubits by 14 cubits (24.5 feet square) at the highest (43:13–17). At each corner of the top level there are projections, or “horns,” to which blood is applied during some aspects of the ritual (43:20). The whole edifice stands nine cubits (about fifteen feet) high and is approached by a flight of steps from the east. This is a reversal of the normal ancient Near Eastern practice whereby the priest faces east when offering sacrifices. In Ezekiel’s temple the priest faces west, toward the Most Holy Place, thus avoiding any suggestion of a repetition of the sun worship of 8:16, the crowning abomination of the earlier temple vision.
Having described the new altar, Ezekiel is then given instructions for the eight-day purification process that fits the altar for sacred use (43:19–27). He himself is assigned a key role in this consecration process, just as Moses had instituted the cult given on Mount Sinai.9 On the first day he is to offer an unblemished bull as a purification offering (ḥaṭṭāʾt),10 while on days 2–8 he is to offer a male goat as a purification offering and a bull and a ram as burnt offerings. The blood of the purification offerings is to be applied to the altar at the topmost extremities (the four horns), the lowest extremities (all around the rim), and four middle extremities (the four corners of the upper ledge, 43:20).
Zimmerli notes a parallel between this procedure and the ordination of Aaron and his sons to the priesthood, in which blood is smeared on the right ear, the thumb of the right hand, and the big toe of the right foot (Lev. 8:22–23).11 The body of the purification sacrifice is then disposed of by burning it outside the sanctuary. The burnt offerings are also to be offered with salt (Ezek. 43:24). Salt was the preservative par excellence in the ancient Near East and seems to have featured prominently in covenant ceremonies.12 Although it is elsewhere only specifically required in the regulations for the cereal offering (Lev. 2:13), it may well have formed part of all of the offerings made by fire.
The purpose of this ritual with the repeated presentation of purification offerings is to “purify the altar and make atonement [kipper] for it,” so that the holy space can be used for the regular ministry of offering sacrifices (Ezek. 43:20). The concept of making atonement (or expiation) expresses the idea of ritually wiping away the impurities and sins that adhere to a person or object.13 Israel’s past sins have penetrated even to this heavenly sanctuary and must be cleansed before the work of the cult can be restarted. Without a spiritual spring cleaning of the altar, none of the offerings made on it will be acceptable to God. Once Ezekiel has completed his inaugural ministry, assisted by the Zadokite priests (43:19), the priests will be able to carry out their task of offering burnt offerings and fellowship offerings on the altar, the ongoing means of assuring God’s blessing on his people. They will once more be acceptable to God (43:27).
Bridging Contexts
PRECONDITIONS FOR THE return of God’s glory. The glory of God is an intangible concept for most contemporary Christians. We may pray for God to be glorified in us and in the world, but the idea of glory tends to be somewhat ethereal. In contrast, in the Old Testament the glory of God was a substantial, even tangible, presence. When Moses went up on Mount Sinai, he had an encounter with God’s glory that made his face radiant (Ex. 33:18–23; 34:29–30). At the completion of the tabernacle, the glory filled it to such an extent that even Moses could not enter (40:34–35). When Solomon finished constructing his temple and dedicated it, God’s response was to descend in glory to fill it (1 Kings 8:11). In Old Testament times, God’s glory was the visible manifestation of his presence in the midst of his people. Thus Isaiah’s vision of the glory of God filling the temple (Isa. 6) forms the basis for his confident assertion in the following chapter of “God with us” (“Immanuel,” Isa. 7:14; 8:8).
But the immanent presence of God with us is not necessarily good news for sinners. That is why Isaiah fell on his face, proclaiming the covenant curse on himself: “Woe to me! . . . I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty” (Isa. 6:5). He was afraid that the vision of God’s glory would not merely make his face shine but would incinerate him. In Isaiah’s case, the solution to his needs was at hand in a fully functional altar, from which the seraph brought a live coal to touch his lips and purify him of his sins (Isa. 6:7).
In Ezekiel’s vision, although the fundamental concepts are similar, the situation is more complex. The danger with which he is concerned is not so much the presence of God as the absence of God. Though the wrathful presence of God had already led to the destruction of Jerusalem for her sins, the permanent absence of God is an equally fearful prospect. Without the presence of God at the center of the life of the community, there can be no life. There will simply be a collection of dry bones. Ezekiel’s vision of the return of God’s glory is the theological prerequisite for the restoration of the people, just as surely as his vision of the departure of God’s glory from the Jerusalem temple was a theological prerequisite for its destruction. It is a statement that the Lord is still King—an issue addressed in his victory over the nations in Ezekiel 38–39. Specifically, the Lord is King over Israel and will continue to be their King forever. Never again will they experience total abandonment, the absence of God.
Just as God cannot speak through a prophet with unclean lips, however, but must first cleanse them (Isa. 6:7), so he cannot dwell in an unpurified house. The altar is as necessary in Ezekiel 43 as it was in Isaiah 6. But whereas in Isaiah 6 the prophet saw a fully functional heavenly cult that merely needed to be applied to his condition, in Ezekiel the heavenly cult itself is in abeyance and needs to be reconstituted. In Ezekiel, it is not just the prophet who needs to be cleansed; the heavenly altar itself has been defiled by the sins of the people and needs to be ritually purified before true worship can begin once again.14
This is a task in which Ezekiel is called to share. Having been faithful in his commission as a watchman in the earlier part of the book, his reward is access to the heavenly altar and a key role in the reinauguration of heavenly worship. It is as if the worship of heaven itself has been halted while God’s people are in exile and Jerusalem is in ruins. But now, the vision depicts the resumption of heaven’s worship, which carries with it the assurance of a new era in the earthly worship of God’s people.
Jesus and God’s glory. The testimony of the New Testament is that the new era has dawned in the coming of Jesus Christ. The glories of heaven, depicted in shadowy forms throughout the Old Testament, have now broken into history. Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise of Immanuel; in him, God is with us (Matt. 1:23). In Jesus, the glory of the high and holy God has come and lived in our midst, just as Ezekiel foresaw. As the apostle John testifies, “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory” (John 1:14). In the language of the writer to the Hebrews, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being (Heb. 1:3). The first of Jesus’ miracles, in which he turned water into wine, was not merely an exercise in fulfilling the felt needs of those around him; it was nothing less than a display of his glory (John 2:11).
In general, Christ’s glory was veiled even from his closest associates, but on the Mount of Transfiguration the veil was taken away for a moment and the three disciples beheld his radiant presence (Matt. 17:2). On the first Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem in kingly triumph—from the east!—and then entered the temple. There he exercised his royal authority over it by throwing out the merchants and the money changers (Matt. 21:1–13).
But in order for his presence with sinful humanity to be for their blessing and not judgment, before his work was complete, Jesus had to offer the perfect sacrifice on the cross. The purpose of this sacrifice was to provide the cleansing blood that might be applied not only to sinners, but also to the heavenly sanctuary itself so that it might be purified (Heb. 9:23). From the perspective of the writer of Hebrews, Jesus is the one who fulfills the prophet’s actions in purifying the heavenly altar, only he does his work not with the blood of bulls and goats but with his own blood (9:12). That once-for-all sacrifice is fully efficacious; it does not merely cleanse the sanctuary so that the endless round of animal sacrifices may begin again; rather, it brings that endless round to a final stop (10:11–12).
This is a sacrifice with power beyond the wildest dreams of the Old Testament prophet. Yet it is a sacrifice that brings about precisely what Ezekiel envisages, for now we may have confidence in God’s lasting presence with us forever. Indeed, having sent them out to accomplish the task of proclaiming his lordship over all nations, Jesus’ final words to his disciples are these: “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matt. 28:20).
Contemporary Significance
CONTEMPORARY UNDERSTANDINGS OF God. The modern world believes increasingly in a God who is not there. Though the opinion polls repeatedly demonstrate that a high proportion of people in the West still “believe in God,” the nature of that God has shifted dramatically. In place of the old certainties of a transcendent God, people have come to believe more in an immanent God, a God who is not “there” any more than he (or she) is “here.” God is now perceived more as a universal life force than as a personality.15 The heart of such a creed is expressed in the familiar benediction from the Star Wars films: “May the Force be with you.”
One of the consequences of that societal shift is a loss of belief in moral absolutes and a correlative absence of any sense of guilt over personal wrongdoing. If God is not outside me, then there is no basis for a morality outside me. Whereas the “modern” generation sought empowerment to live lives that were “good” according to some objective standard, the “postmodern” generation seeks freedom to follow whatever personal whim drives them. Although the postmodern generation might not find the music to its taste, their attitude is admirably summed up in the lyric from The Sound of Music: “Climb every mountain; ford every stream; follow every byway; ’til you find your dream.” The idea that God is absent from us because of our sin and cannot be found by us no matter how diligently we search is alien to our contemporaries.
In contrast to the vague pantheism of so much postmodernism, Christians believe in “the God who is there,” in Francis Schaeffer’s classic phrase.16 A life lived without reference to this God is a life lived without its center. He is the mountain peak for which all climbers are unwittingly looking, the country on the other side that the forders seek, the goal in search of which those wandering the byways travel, the reality behind every dream. This, however, does not mean that “all roads lead to God.” Far from it; because of sin, the most accessible and well-traveled roads lead away from God (Matt. 7:14). Left to ourselves, the natural result of all of our searching is futile thinking and darkened hearts. By nature, we continually suppress the truth, exchanging God’s glory for diverse idolatries (Rom. 1:21–23).
However, the truth of God’s existence does mean that we can proclaim to the restless wanderers of the postmodern generation that there is rest and real freedom to be found only in Christ. God is neither dead nor absent, nor is he silent. He is there and constantly speaking to us, addressing us through the glories of creation and the powerful proclamation of his Word (Ps. 19). As creatures we were made to serve somebody, and we cannot escape that destiny. Whatever we value in this world becomes our idol and master, even the pursuit of freedom and liberty itself. True freedom and true fulfillment come ironically only as we submit ourselves to the One we were made to serve. As John Donne put it:
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.17
Approaching the God who is there. But if God is objectively there, if his Word is objectively true, and if life may only be found through his presence in our hearts, then the question of how we may approach such a God becomes pressing. Here the need of the postmodern person is the same as the modern, the notorious sinner the same as the righteous-living Pharisee, for “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). All have sinned, and the least sin is sufficient to drive away the life-giving presence of the only true God. How then can we stand in his presence? The only way is to come to the altar. If God is to dwell in our hearts, those hearts must first be cleansed by him. We need the blood of purification applied to our hearts and lives by Jesus Christ, wiping away our sin.
It is that blood that cleanses us of all unrighteousness, making our hearts fit places for God to indwell. It is that blood that is at work in our lives, erecting a wall between us and sin so that sin will not have dominion over us (Rom. 6:14). To be sure, that wall is not yet complete in this life, as we might wish. Sin remains ever with us, our constant unwelcome companion. But the assurance of the new temple is that if Christ has entered our hearts and begun the good work of purification, he will not stop until the wall between us and sin is higher and more effective than that which Ezekiel saw in his new temple.
But when Christ comes into our lives, he does so in only one role: as King. One of the problems that existed in Judah was a confusion over who was really sovereign, a confusion that demonstrated itself in the proliferation of memorial stelae glorifying earthly kings in a building intended to glorify the heavenly King. That may seem an alien problem to us until we start to examine our own hearts and ask how much of our lives are lived to our own glory and how much to God’s glory. Who is really sovereign in your decision-making? Who calls the shots in how you spend your money and your time? Who is Lord in how you arrange your priorities? Who occupies the center of your thoughts? All of a sudden, the questions strike closer to home. Although we may confess with our mouths that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, all too often our lives tell a different story.
We can also ask the same question of our churches. Who is really being glorified in what goes on in our worship services? How many of our songs and hymns focus on ourselves, on how good knowing God makes us feel? How many, on the other hand, exalt him for who he is and for what he has done for us in Christ? How often do we emerge from a service more impressed by the skills of the preacher, the musicians, or the soloist than we are overwhelmed by the grace and glory of God? How much of our church’s activities are focused on bringing glory to God, compared to how much time, effort, and money are focused on meeting our various needs?
I suspect that we too have our memorial stelae that need to be swept away, if we wish to experience the Spirit of God powerfully at work in our midst. We too have domesticated the church of God, turning it from his kingdom into a little extension of our own kingdoms. But God will live in our midst only as the King, nothing less.