In the seemingly, never-ending quest to biblically establish the structure and purpose of God’s people coming together, we are provided with a glimpse into something that has deeper meaning than merely directing traffic. God’s people aren’t supposed to come together as some sort of insulation against the world, acting one way when in the world and another when gathered together in His presence, but are supposed to go from His presence changed and refusing to go back to the ways from which they came. It was supposed to be a source of strength for going out into the world and living according to God’s Word and ways, not restricting God’s Word and ways only to their gathering together.
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Through Ezekiel, God provides a contrast of the characteristics of a true priesthood that is doing His will according to His Word to that of the historically corrupt priesthoods experienced by nearly every generation. This is fascinating stuff if you consider that God communicated through Peter that we “are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood”. :”(1 Peter 2:5)”: Many of the underlying principles of the Old Testament priesthood teach something about the New Testament priesthood. To what degree do you suppose that we, too, are responsible to “teach My people the difference between the holy and the profane”?
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I don’t know the exact date and time when it happened, but a fundamental attitude of the church changed in later generations than existed neither in the 1st Century New Testament church nor in the gathering of Old Testament Believers. In those original models, God’s people went OUT to contact and convert non-Believers, whereas the strategy changed to get them to come TO the Believers. The original requirements involved dedicating one’s self to God in advance of coming to the meeting place, which was not originally intended to operate in accommodation of attendees who are the least undecided — and therefore neutral in their ability to join in worship — and in some cases actually working outright against the Word and ways of God.
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In the course of His First Coming, Christ fulfilled over 300 specific prophecies concerning Him in the Old Testament. 300! It didn’t seem to matter what “kind” of a Jew one was at that time — liberal, conservative, mainstream, or marginal — there were very, very few who DIDN’T believe the Messiah was about to come. Daniel and the prophets had provided a time line and specific details, the signs of the times were ripe and pointing to the fulfillment of all things, and here comes the carpenter from Nazareth, fulfilling these things left and right. Except that in spite of their awareness of Scripture and desire to see it fulfilled, most of them completely missed it. Don’t judge them too harshly…we’re in the same predicament today.
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When we first started the Walk with the Word reading schedule, the sneaky local pastor looked far enough ahead to ask me to fill in for him on a Sunday on which he planned a vacation. I refuse to retract “sneaky” ’cause after agreeing I looked at the reading schedule and discovered this weekend corresponded to teaching from 1 Chronicles 1-9, a relentless description of Israel’s genealogy. Most people get to that section of Scripture and skip on past. I actually made the faith step that if “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness”, :”(2 Timothy 3:16)”: that it had to apply to the many genealogies contained therein as well. It’s actually been a blessing and people are amazed at how much practical application I can extract from them. So what’s the deal with this temple and all these measurements?
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During the times of the existence of the temples on earth, it was a common Jewish teaching that the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies was the place where God rested His feet. It was a teaching to visualize the fact that God’s actual presence could not be contained in the temple proper but that He extended His glory from heaven above to the earthly temple below. In His description through Ezekiel of the temple built to host the actual presence of the Messiah, we clearly see that all these things spoken through Ezekiel are quite literal, that this is “the place of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell”.
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There are a lot of precise, measured plans and designs documented in Scripture. Examples are Noah’s ark, the tabernacle and all the things in it, the temple and all the things in it, the walls of Jerusalem, and the division of the land of Israel among the tribes. When God provides specifications, He expects them to be followed precisely. Several times in Scripture, when speaking of the future, God shows His messengers how He minutely scrutinizes whether something meets His specifications by measuring them, sometimes with a rod and sometimes a line. It has a dual meaning to teach us that God is holding us accountable for both our overall obedience to His Word as well as to every single, minute detail contained therein.
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