Well, in our evening services over the past five weeks, we've been looking at what we've
called epic images from the prophecy of Ezekiel. Ezekiel's a vast book, 48 chapters long, it's
one of the longest books in the Bible, and we've just, in so many ways, just dipped into
it to look at some of the powerful and vivid imagery that is set before us in this Old Testament
prophecy. We've gone through various images. In chapter one, we looked at that astonishing
image of God, which is full of motion and power, wheels and wings and all sorts of astonishing
imagery before us. Then we looked at the quite shocking image of an abandoned baby in chapter 16.
We then looked at the watchman speaking of the responsibility of the prophet and also the need
to listen to God's warnings. Then we came to the shepherd and chapter 34, that remarkable chapter
that rebukes the leadership of Israel and in response, God says, I myself will be the shepherd.
Then last week, I was away, but you were looking at the valley of dry bones, that remarkable chapter
speaking of God, breathing new life into deadness through word and spirit.
Tonight, we come to the final image, the new temple. I'm just going to read a couple of
verses again from chapter 43. Then he led me to the gate, the gate facing east, and behold, the glory
of the God of Israel was coming from the east, and the sound of his coming was like the sound of
many waters, and the earth shone with his glory, and the vision I saw was just like the vision
I'd seen when he came to destroy the city, and just like the vision that I'd seen at the Hebar
Canal, and I fell on my face, and the glory of the Lord entered the temple by the gate facing east.
The spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court, and behold, the glory of the Lord
filled the temple. The first five images that we looked at are in many ways very vivid and powerful.
This last one is maybe a wee bit different because it's perhaps a wee bit less exciting.
If you read through Ezekiel, particularly if you read through the 30s, the chapters 30 onwards,
it's dramatic, it's stunning, it's vivid. Then you come to the 40s, and it's maybe not quite so
fast-paced. It can almost seem a little dry. Reading through chapters 40 through to 48,
there's lots of measurements, and there's lots of descriptions of walls and rooms, there's lots of
duties explained, and in chapter 48 there's one of these big long lists of names and tribes and
all sorts of stuff like that. It can almost seem a wee bit dry, but what I hope that we'll see
together tonight is that the new temple is possibly the most epic image of them all.
We're going to look at this in many ways in terms of the big picture of the whole imagery that the
Bible gives us of the temple. While there's loads of detail in chapters 40 through to 48
in Ezekiel and the passages that I've read picked out some of these details, in many ways we're
taking a wee bit of a step back from that, and we're looking at the bigger picture. I want us
to start by just thinking about the story of the temple in the Old Testament, because that's a
fascinating theme that runs through scripture. The key point that we must recognize is that the
story of the temple begins at the very beginning, because the first temple is the Garden of Eden.
Now that's not explicitly stated when you read the descriptions of Eden, you won't see the word
temple, but when you look a bit more closely it becomes very clear that Eden was in fact a temple,
because if you ask the question what is a temple, the answer is that a temple is a place where God
dwells and where we can meet with Him and worship Him, and that is exactly what the Garden of Eden
was. It was a place where God and humanity dwelt together. It's really fascinating that if you
look back into Genesis chapter 3 you'll see that it says that the Lord God walked in the Garden,
and then if you jump forward to Ezekiel, in other words to Leviticus 26, when God is talking about
making His sanctuary, His tabernacle, He says, I'll make my dwelling among you, my soul shall not
abhor you, and I will walk among you and will be your God. The same word, same idea, this idea of
God and humanity being together. And it's actually a fascinating study to explore the similarities
that exist between the Garden of Eden and the later tabernacle and temple in the Old Testament.
A good place to go is Exodus chapter 25. There God describes what his tabernacle is supposed
to be like, and there's many similarities. There's cherubim, there's gold and precious stones,
there's this lampstand that's shaped like a tree with branches and flowers. The same thing again
is seen in Solomon's temple. I'm going to read a few verses from 1 Kings and listen for the kind
of garden language that is throughout this. Around all the walls of the house he carved engraved
figures of cherubim and palm trees and open flowers in the inner and outer rooms. The floor of the
house he overlaid with gold in the inner and outer rooms. For the entrance to the inner sanctuary he
made doors of olive wood, the lintel and the doorposts were five-sided. He covered the two doors
of olive wood with carvings of cherubim, palm trees and open flowers. He overlaid them with gold
and spread gold on the cherubim and on the palm trees. If you'd been able to walk into the temple
it would have been full of echoes of Eden with the garden imagery, with the gold, with the cherubim.
And there are many, many more fascinating connections. Eden was a temple. God was dwelling with humanity.
So if you like, that's the kind of starting point of the story of the temple in the Old Testament.
God and man dwelling together in a temple, in a garden. So what happens in the rest of the Old
Testament? Well there's various stages that we can go through. As I'm sure you know,
in Genesis chapter 3 Adam sins and the result of that is that he is driven out of the garden,
driven out of God's presence, driven out of the temple. Genesis 3 24, he drove out the man and at
the east of the Garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword. In fact there's another
similarity again. When Ivor read, where was the gate? Which direction was it? It was east
and of course the entrance to Eden was in the east as well. Another connection.
Anyway, I'm getting distracted. Man was driven out and it's clear that now it's impossible for God
and humanity to dwell together. So the relationship is severed and the temple access is completely
restricted and that's where humanity is left as a result of the fall. The next major
temple moment in the Old Testament comes at Mount Sinai just after the Israelites have come out of
Egypt. You'll remember that under Moses' leadership the people came out of Egypt, they were led through
the wilderness and came to Mount Sinai and there in Exodus chapter 19 we read that God's presence
returned to earth again. I'm going to read some verses, I want you just to let the description
paint an image in your mind. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God and they
took their stand at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the
Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln. The whole
mountain trembled greatly and as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder Moses spoke
and God answered him in thunder. The Lord came down on Mount Sinai to the top of the mountain
and the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain and Moses went up and the Lord said to
Moses go down and warn the people lest they break through to the Lord to look and many of them perish.
Also let the priests who come near to the Lord consecrate themselves lest the Lord break out
against them and Moses said to the Lord the people cannot come up to Mount Sinai for you yourself
warned us saying set limits around the mountain and consecrated and the Lord said to him go down
and come up bringing Aaron with you but do not let the people the priests and the people
break through to come up to the Lord lest he break out against them. Now there is a temple moment
because God himself came down to the top of that mountain and the whole emphasis is keep back
and so instead of walking with God like you have in the Garden of Eden here you have this
immensely strong emphasis on inaccessibility the one thing you did not do before that smoking
shaking mountain you did not go near it and so you can see the problem and dilemma that exists
God wants to dwell among his people but as a sinful people that cannot happen
and there's this incompatibility between the holiness of God and the fallenness of humanity
but God's desire is still that he would be among his people and so that brings us to the next stage
of the temple story God gives instructions to Moses to build a tabernacle and he gives very
specific instructions as to how that's to be built that's really what the whole of the second half
of Exodus is all about chapter 25 right through to 40 that describes how it should be built
and then in the book of Leviticus God gives very specific instructions regarding how he
is to be approached and the holiness of God the seriousness of sin means that that an elaborate
and complex sacrificial system is necessary if the people are going to be able to approach God
so instead of God being at the top of a mountain like Sinai God is now going to come right into
the midst of the camp but the restrictions are still very, very high and the instructions have
to be followed with absolute precision and when that tabernacle was made God's presence came and
filled that tabernacle. Exodus 40, 34 then the cloud covered the tent of the meeting the glory
of the Lord filled the tabernacle so if you just think about it if you could be a time
thavallar I know that's impossible but just imagine that back to the future was through and you could
jump into the car and if you could go back to Eden and you would say where's God you'd say well
he's in that garden if you came to Sinai and said where's God you'd say well he's at the top of that
mountain if you could then come to the camp and say where's God you'd say he's in the middle of that
tabernacle tent that's in the midst of our camp that tabernacle was designed for traveling because
the people were on the move eventually when they had settled in the promised land the tabernacle
was replaced with a permanent temple built in Jerusalem that was built by Solomon it served
the same purpose and once again God's presence was there second chronicle seven as soon as Solomon
finished his prayer fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices
and the glory of the Lord filled the temple God dwelt there in the midst right in the middle of
the temple in the holy of holies among his people but again again access was so restricted
the temple curtain kept people out the sacrificial system made sure that that access was very very
limited and so you can see in terms of this story of the temple there's an alienation between God
and humanity created by sin but in the Old Testament the temple is functioning to go some way towards
restoring that it's not the same as Eden it's not as good as it was there are so many more
restrictions and difficulties but God's presence in his temple was a key part of the nation of
Israel it was a key privilege that they had it was it was a step towards solving the problem
that sin had created and that temple had a crucial function in the life of the people it was well it
was many things I'm going to say that it was four things it was a place of worship their God was
worshiped their offerings were poured out their thanksgiving was offered their fellowship was
shared it was a place of worship it was also a place of purity and so whenever you read about
the temple whether it's in Exodus or Leviticus or whatever it in for the tabernacle or later on
for the temple there's this immensely strong emphasis on cleanliness and purity the temple
was a holy place it was a place of purity there was no casualness everything was kept pure
the temple was also a channel for mission and that's a very important point to emphasize
when Israel had the privileged status of having God's temple in their capital at the center
of their nation that wasn't just for their benefit it was to be a blessing and a light for all the
nations of the world fulfilling the promise that God gave to Abraham Isaiah 56 speaks of that it
says the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord to minister to them to love the name of the
Lord and to be his servants everyone who keeps the Sabbath and not and does not profane it and
holds fast my covenant these I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of
prayer their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar for my house my
temple my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples ultimately it wasn't just for the
Israelites it was it was pointing towards a mission to reach all nations so it was a place of worship
purity mission and fourth it was a place of community when God said I want to make a sanctuary it
was so that he might dwell in their midst at the heart of the temple was God's glorious presence
among his united people and so if you can carry on in your your time traveling and you were to
come into Jerusalem and say the year 930 ish it would have been BC that is and you said where's
God they're appointed to the temple he's in there Israel enjoyed that extraordinary privileged
status because they had the temple but as is the case with all of Israelite history in the
Old Testament the story of the temple was one of failure the people repeatedly turned away from God
and they continually rebelled against him and the eventual consequence of this
was that they lost the temple and God withdrew his presence from among the people
and Ezekiel is the prophet that describes this moment chapter 10 18 to 19 is Ezekiel is seeing a
vision then the glory of the Lord went out from the threshold of the house and stood over the
cherubim and the cherubim lifted up their wings and mounted up from the earth before my eyes as
they went out with the wheels beside them they stood at the entrance of the east gate of the
house of the Lord and the glory of the God of Israel was over them it's a description of the
withdrawal of God's presence from the temple and in the years when Ezekiel was a prophet
the Babylonians came laid siege to Jerusalem and eventually took the city destroyed it and
destroyed the temple God's presence was no longer among the people and so we've got
up just a wee summary there for you as to what I've said at Eden God and humanity were together
the fall separated that at Sinai comes a wee bit closer together in the sanctuary a wee bit more
closer together the temple a wee bit more because it's a permanent place where God dwells but the
exile ends that and God's presence is withdrawn and the privileged status of Israel in terms of
having the temple is shattered now after the days of Ezekiel when some people returned from exile
to Jerusalem they began to rebuild the temple but it's interesting in the prophecy of Haggai we
read a description of that and it talks about rebuilding the temple and yet it says who is
left among you who saw this house in its former glory how do you see it now is it not as nothing
in your eyes where did it all go wrong well we said that the the the temple was was four key
things a place of worship purity mission and community Israel failed in all four of these
areas in terms of worship they turned from the living God and they went after idols worshiping
the gods of the nations around them in terms of purity they defiled themselves and one of the
passages I think it was 43 spoke a little bit about that how the people defiled themselves
by turning away from God's law and indulging in all sorts of immoral and sinful practices
in terms of mission instead of being a light to the nations around them they had just become
like the nations around them and they just wanted to conform to what other people were doing and as
a community they were divided and broken the nation disintegrated the family of God made up of this
great structure of 12 tribes ended up eventually at war with one another alienated as a family
and separated from God and as we've been saying Ezekiel is kind of the the low the low point
of all of that and we said maybe a couple of weeks ago that that the history of of the people of
history in the Old Testament is a bit like the shape of a Nike tic if you've got a pair of Nike
shoes you can look at them and see that it's kind of down down down down down to the lowest point
and then it's a tiny wee upward bit at the end where people return from exile but at the lowest
point you have the destruction of Jerusalem the destruction of the temple at the time of Ezekiel
and Ezekiel comes with a message of judgment because the people had abandoned God and walked
away from their covenant relationship with him but at the same time as bringing a message of
judgment he comes with a message of salvation and hope because although the people had abandoned
God he had not given up on them and here in Ezekiel chapter 40 through to 48 at the time when the
temple lay as a pile of rubble we have this description of a glorious new temple set before us
and as we read in chapter 43 once again God's presence will fill this temple that whole problem
of the fact that God and humanity cannot dwell together is going to be solved although the
physical temple in Jerusalem has fallen God's plan is not over and God and humanity are going to
dwell together again now it's very important to recognize a very small word right at the very
start of the passages that we read if you look at this passage on your bulletin you can see in
verse two that Ezekiel saw a vision and he saw something like a city and the wee word like is
so important because it's reminding us that what has been described before us here is not to be
taken literally it's not saying that that the people should build a building according to the
outline and the measurements that's been set before us here in Ezekiel in fact the emphasis is not
that people build it the emphasis is the fact that God has already built it it's there and it's not
instructions for building it's a description of something that has been divinely appointed it's
not a literal building that's been described it's a symbol of something else and it's telling us that
God's plans for the temple are bigger than just a spectacular building in the middle of Jerusalem
and of course the fulfillment of that does not lie in the return from exile the fulfillment of that
lies in the New Testament and when you come to the New Testament we see very quickly that at the
heart of Jesus's role Jesus is many things but one of the things that Jesus is is a fulfillment
of the temple prophecies in the Old Testament so you'll remember at the incarnation when we think
of Jesus coming into the world in Matthew 1 23 it says behold the virgin shall conceive and
beta son they shall call his name what was it? Immanuel which means God with us that's temple
language God dwelling among his people and then there's another key version John 1 14 it says the
word became flesh and dwelt among us we've seen his glory glorious of the only son from the Father
full of grace and truth now remember glory that's a key temple concept God's glory dwelling among
the people and hidden in that verse is another crucial clue when it says the word became flesh
and dwelt among us the word dwelt literally means tabernacled among us again temple language later
on Jesus himself says destroy this temple I will rebuild it in three days the Jews said it's taken
46 years to build this temple and you'll raise it in three days but Jesus was speaking about the
temple of his body Jesus is a fulfillment of these temple prophecies Jesus is the presence
and the glory of God among people and so things are getting closer now Jesus comes and God walks
among humanity again he speaks to humanity he's there right among the people but it doesn't stop
there because not only does Jesus bring God's presence to us in his own body he also opens up
full access to God remember when we said spoke about Sinai and about the tabernacle and about the
temple on all of these things there's like a massive no entry sign from God access is absolutely
restricted Jesus transforms that through the cross he opens up access to God what happened when Jesus
died what happened to that big curtain that effectively said no entry at the temple it was
torn into and access was opened up Hebrews chapter 10 emphasizes that very powerfully says
therefore brother since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus now
that to Old Testament years is unthinkable to just walk into the holy place where God dwells
and yet we have confidence to do it by the blood of Jesus by the new and living way that he opened
up for us through the curtain that is through his flesh since we have a great high priest over the
house of God let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith with their heart sprinkled
clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water so Jesus is coming into the world
God is among us through Jesus's death access is being opened up through the cross we're being
brought closer and closer but the question then arises if you think of the narrative of redemptive
history at this point Jesus returns to heaven and so that key temple fulfillment where he's
among us he's gone again and he's now back at the right hand of God he's no longer there so
you ask where is God's presence now well here we come to the next key key temple moment in the
history of the Bible the day of Pentecost what happened on the day of Pentecost? God's spirit
God's presence was poured out on all believers and ever since then whenever someone comes to faith
Jesus Christ comes to faith in Jesus Christ the Holy Spirit comes and dwells in your heart and do
you see what that means it means that the presence of God is coming closer and closer and closer he's
now as close as possible to you as a believer because he's in your heart God's presence God's
glory is dwelling in you that's why Paul says do you not know that you are God's temple and God's
spirit dwells in you what we lost at Eden has been restored through Jesus back in Eden