Ezekiel’s Temple Prophecy: Was It Ever Fulfilled?

On a side note, I think these chapters are among the hardest in the Bible to read.  It’s like a technical manual; my mind wanders. 

Yet it was included in God’s word for a reason. 

Ezekiel, and the people with him, were at a low point in Israel and Judah’s history.  In fact, at that time, Israel and Judah didn’t exist anymore as nations.  They had been invaded and conquered.  Ezekiel and the people were carried away in exile to a foreign, pagan land.  They knew that Jerusalem and the temple had been destroyed and burnt. 

At this lowest of low points God gave Ezekiel a prophecy of a glorious new future temple where things would be done right.  There would be no more desecration of the temple by idols, and the priests would do their jobs carefully and sincerely.  It was a prophecy of hope. 

But there are problems.  First, all Bible scholars agree that this temple was never built.   This is not a description of the second temple built in the days of Haggai and Zechariah, nor by Herod’s massive expansion and remodeling of it. 

Ezekiel’s temple was never built!  And it never will be built…at least not literally.

So how was the temple prophecy fulfilled?  In three ways:

In Christ Himself.  Christ is the new temple of the people of God.  John 2:19-21 says, “Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days’…the temple he had spoken of was his body.”  Jesus fulfilled all the temple ceremonies in Himself.  His death on the cross marked the end of any need for future temple sacrifices.  He also embodied a new kind of priesthood (Hebrews 7).  God has done something new and there was no going back.  In the light of this, rebuilding a temple would be a step back to a covenant that was no longer in effect.  Worse, building a new temple at this point would be sinful–a failure to acknowledge what God has done in Christ. 

In our bodies.  1 Corinthians 6:19 says, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?”  We don’t have to go to a building to encounter the Spirit; the Spirit lives within us.  This should guide our conduct wherever we are. 

In the church; (not the building, but the people).  2 Corinthians 6:16 says, “… For we are the temple of the living God.”  And 1 Peter 2:5 says, “… you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

So, we see that there is a threefold temple fulfillment, just not of a physical building. 

At the heart of Ezekiel’s prophecy is the spirit of worship in the new temple.  Things would be done right.  Worship would be pure again.  No longer would people be using the temple to make religious appearances to cover up sinful lifestyles.   Worship would be sincere, from the heart, instead of from external expectations or–far worse–hypocritically using religion to cover up sin. 

Future followers of God would worship from the inside out.  The spirit of worship of this temple would be pure and true and sincere. 

A few chapters before this temple prophecy, the prophet predicts what God would do at Pentecost (Ezekiel 36:25), “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.”  I believe that both passages (the clean water/the glorious temple) speak of the same thing: a day would come when God would be worshipped sincerely, from the heart. 

Jesus said, “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth,” (John 4:24). 

The question arises: how are we doing at that? 

It is all too easy to fake it.  To put on appearances and act better in public than you are in private, to hold on the to the externals of faith while violating the content of it. 

There are plenty of ways to feel religious without really being religious.  We might have strayed in our faith and fervency while taking comfort in our baptism done years ago.  Or maybe we comfort ourselves with the fact that we are still on the rolls as a church member, though we haven’t been through doors in years. 

If there is no active life in us, we have fallen short.  To worship in spirit and truth might require course corrections, or even repentance. 

While we wrestle with interpretation of a difficult passages like Ezekiel 40-44, we must not miss its point: that there would come a day when God’s people are fully equipped to worship Him in spirit and truth. 

We are living in that day.  Again, how are we doing at that?  Some questions to consider:

• Do we trust in a social Christian culture or Bible belt culture to substitute for a vital internal faith?
• Do we have a daily prayer and Bible reading time, even if no one else knows we do?
• Do we make moral decisions based on an internal compass or from peer pressure?