Ezekiel 41:1 - Homiletics

The new temple.

Ezekiel is a priest ( Ezekiel 1:3 ). It is natural that his thoughts should run on the lines of his professional occupations, and travel to the familiar haunts of his old life. Thus we find that with him the picture of the restoration centers in a glorified temple, just as to Isaiah the statesman of war-times it appears as an era of unparalleled peace ( Isaiah 11:6 ), and as to Daniel the minister of a foreign court it appears as a kingdom conquering the great world-empires ( Daniel 7:27 ). The happy future is so rich and wide and manifold that it has room for all of these prophecies. Each prophet may conceive it in his own style. We must combine all their various visions if we would gain anything like a complete idea of its character, and even then we shall fail, for "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him" ( 1 Corinthians 2:9 ). Let us now consider the special suggestiveness of the restored temple. We know that a new temple was built on Mount Zion. But the very building of it enshrined large ideas concerning God's great and perfect restoration of his people.

I. THE PRESENCE OF GOD . The temple is more than a place of assembly. It is a house in which God dwells. The tabernacle in the wilderness was called the "teat of meeting," i.e. the tent in which God meets man. There is no temple in St. John's new Jerusalem, because God fills the whole city with his presence, i.e. the whole city is a temple. The Christian Church is growing into a great, temple for the dwelling of God. God dwells now in the midst of his people. This is their highest privilege. The dwelling of God in heaven constitutes its bliss.

II. HOLINESS . The temple was sacred. It had its holy place reserved for the priests, and its holy of holies into which only the high priest could enter, and he but once a year. Even the court of the congregation was strictly confined to Jews, and for a Gentile to enter it was accounted a dreadful profanation—as we see in the case of the attack of a mob on St. Paul, on the ground that he had been a party to such a profanation ( Acts 21:28 ). Now God calls his people to holy living. They are to be all priests, with free access to his presence ( Hebrews 4:16 ). Their holiness is to be real and spiritual, not ritual and ceremonial like that of the priests of Israel. The sanctity of the Church is just the holiness of the lives of her members. It. is not the church that sanctifies the worshippers, but the worshippers who sanctify the church.

III. WORSHIP .

1. There were sacrifices in the temple. Christ is our Sacrifice, and he is in his Church. The ordinance of the Lord's Supper commemorates that one supreme sacrifice. We have now to offer our bodies as living (not slain) sacrifices ( Romans 12:1 ).

2. There was service in the temple. Levites as well as priests worked there. It was a busy scene of activity. Christ's people are all priests and Levites. They are not called to gaze at a spectacle, but to take an active part in the work of the Church.

3. There was praise in the temple. The sons of Korah and their later representatives made its walls resound with loud, if not always with what we should call sweet, music. The Christian life should be as a glad psalm of praise.