The Future Temple Of God

The Temple of Ezekiel 40-48: Physical Building or Spiritual Construct? 1:27

That brings us to chapters 40 through 48 of Ezekiel. See, 40 through 48 contains a vision that we can all be sure of. It involves a temple. If you talk to any commentator, any theologian of any time, they'll say, well, it involves a temple.

We know that because the word comes up time and time again. We know this text is talking about a temple, but what kind of temple is this? What kind of temple are we seeing here? When was this to be built?

Remember the historical situation. The temple had just been destroyed in Jerusalem. There was no temple. So everyone in that time had no clear picture of when or what or how this thing would be built in the time yet to come.

And the question was at that point, and even in our point centuries later, is the temple in Ezekiel 40 through 48, is it a real physical building or is it some sort of spiritual construct? Well, if you line up 10 theologians, and you ask them all those questions, how many answers do you think you'll get?

You'll get 11, because one guy won't make up his mind. You'll probably get more than that. Here's the thing. We have conjecture.

We've got different ideas about what this might mean. Now, certain conjecture is better than other conjecture, right? Certain ideas are better than others. But this passage is notoriously difficult.

With that said, in today's study, I hope, if God should grant us the discernment and wisdom to do so, I hope we'll get a clearer picture than maybe we had before over what the city is that Ezekiel saw and what the temple is within it.

The Vision Introduced: Taken to a High Mountain 2:57

“In the visions of God He took me into the land of Israel and set me on a very high mountain; on it toward the south was something like the structure of a city.”

— Ezekiel 40:2 (NKJV)

All right, I'm going to reread now verses 1 through 5, and then we'll go from there. Verses 1 through 5. In the 25th year of our captivity — this is very late in Ezekiel's ministry, very late. At the beginning of the year, on the 10th day of the month, in the 14th year after the city was captured, on the very same day the hand of the Lord is upon me, and He took me there.

So God takes him, as He had in other occurrences, to a different place. In the visions of God, He took me into the land of Israel, and he set me on a very high mountain — not just a foothill. He set me on a very high mountain, and on it towards the south was something like the structure of a city.

Remember that phraseology. It was something like the structure of a city. He took me there. Behold, there was a man whose appearance was like the appearance of bronze.

He had a line of flax and a measuring rod in his hand, and he stood in the gateway. And the man said to me, Son of man, look with your eyes, hear with your ears, fix your mind on everything I show you, for you were brought here so that I might show them to you.

Declare to the house of Israel everything that you see. Now there was a wall all around outside the temple, and in the man's hand was a measuring rod, six cubits long, each being a cubit and a hand breadth, and he measured the width of the wall structure, one rod, and the height, one rod.

All right, let me stop there.

The Departed Glory: Why the Old Temple Was Destroyed 4:13

Assuming that today's passage deals with a temple, a new temple of some kind, then we need to stop and ask ourselves, what happened to the old temple? Because that's a huge part of the whole book of Ezekiel that we've been studying for the past nine weeks. What happened to the old temple? Well, to refresh us, if you recall, at the start of Ezekiel's ministry, the people had done bad.

They were sinful, they were violent, they were idolaters, and in the temple of God, they had begun to bring their idols in the courtyards around, and they inscribed in the walls what Scripture calls abominations and creeping things. So the people, for a long period of time, not just this narrow window, but for a long period of time, they had been sliding, right?

The slippery slope's a real thing. They had been sliding — declension — they'd been going in the wrong direction, the bad trajectory. Things have been getting worse and worse. And even though the prophets told them, hey guys, not a good idea, not a good idea.

God is holy. God is righteous. God is just, and He will deal with us. And even though the prophets warn the people that — don't do this — what do they do?

Well, they killed the prophets. They didn't listen to the prophets. They rejected the prophets. And so in time, God says, well, if you like the pagan idols so much, if you like those pagan nations and all the things that they're doing, as much as you apparently do, well, I got a deal for you.

I'll let you see firsthand what it's like to live in that sort of society or that sort of culture. And so God appoints a nation, as He often did throughout Scripture, He appoints a nation, in this case it's the Babylonians, to come in and to assault and attack His own people, to refine it, to discipline them.

And initially they took a number of the Jews away out of Jerusalem and into exile. And Ezekiel, who at that point had been training to be a priest, he was one of the first guys taken because he was young and he was bright and he was smart. They took him. He was by the river Chebar in an exile camp in Babylon.

Now, several years later, several years later, as we see in the text that we just read, the Babylonians, they came and finished the job. They came in and destroyed the balance of the city. And Ezekiel had a particularly terrifying vision. And it wasn't just a vision of the people being assaulted and attacked by the Babylonians.

His vision was this, that in the temple, in the temple where God's manifest glory had long dwelled, that the glory had gotten up, so to speak, on a chariot of fire and had left the threshold and had ascended away out of Jerusalem. The glory had departed in Ezekiel chapter 10. See, the Israelites made a terrible trade, a terrible trade.

They traded the glory of God, the presence, the manifest glory of God, in their own city, in their own temple. They traded that, and in turn, they received the Babylonians. God left, the Babylonians showed up, and when they showed up, they leveled everything that they saw, including the temple. Now, if you're a Jew of that age, one of the remaining few Jews who has been taken off into exile, if you're a Jew that age, this is just the worst.

For a long period of time, you believed this could never happen. You believed, nah, nah, nah, and God won't let us. He might let our neighbors down the road. He might let some other city or village get taken out, but not Jerusalem, right?

Not the temple, because that's where His glory is, and He's never going to allow anything like that to happen. Well, is that what transpired? No. God, in fact, did remove His own glory and did allow the temple to be destroyed. And if you were an Israelite in exile, you thought this is game over.

You thought this was game over. You thought that this event, the destruction of the temple, God's glory having been departed, was the end of your faith and of your future. And the first bulk of — the bulk of Ezekiel is the prophet desperately warning and telling people about what's going down. And then even after it happens, he explains why it happened.

And then he also talks about judgment to the nations all around. So the first number of chapters, the first three quarters of the book deals with God's anger and hatred of sin and how he will judge.

The Covenant Promise: God Will Restore His Remnant 8:20

But as we talked about over the past couple of weeks, the encouraging thing was that God had made His own people a promise. And the promise was this, that even if He was to discipline and refine them at some point, that He would not wipe them from His hands. He made a covenant with them that was not contingent on their faithfulness but on His, and so He'd always promised them that if something like this were to occur — and you see shadows of it even in the writings of Moses — there was an understanding that in the future this very well might happen.

In fact, it would happen. But God says that when it does happen, I'm not going to be done with them. I will in time restore them, and in time I will bring them back. And Ezekiel's contemporary Jeremiah looked to that day as well.

A day would come when better days would occur, when a new covenant would be ushered in. There was all manner of wonderful things on the radar, even if they couldn't see it in the present. Well, when we get to Ezekiel 40–48, it's on the heels of terrifying, terrible judgment. But God now wants His remnant in Babylon to remember that the future is still bright.

The future is still bright because He's going to honor the promise that He has made. And that's what we're seeing here. There is the start of chapter 40. Ezekiel says, look, we've been in captivity on the 10th day, the 14th year after the city was captured.

Something happened. Specifically, he says, God came to me. After 25 years combined in captivity, Ezekiel has another vision. It's a career-capping vision.

It's the last major vision that he would have. And it says that he saw — he was taken to a high place, a high mountain, and he looked out to the south, and there was something like the structure of a city.

What City Is This? Ezekiel and John's Parallel Visions 10:11

Now we need to ask ourselves another question: what city is this? What city does he see? Now, they come out of Jerusalem, right? They come out of Jerusalem — temple's in Jerusalem — that was home base.

But that said, what city is this? Is this Jerusalem that Ezekiel is seeing at the start of chapter 40? Well, maybe, maybe not. And that's because the city is not named in these eight chapters, or at least it's not named Jerusalem.

And it's also because certain geographical features really don't line up, including this description that we see in verses one through five of a high mountain somewhere to the city's north. That doesn't line up. If you've been to Jerusalem, you know that doesn't line up. Now with that said, remember one of the most helpful things you can do when it comes to Scripture is to take one passage that's particularly challenging and look to see if there's anything else in Scripture that might address that particular issue or text or passage.

Well, fortunately for us, there is such a passage. However, it comes at the very end of the entire book, at the end of Scripture. We have a similar vision, a similar vision given to someone else centuries and centuries after this initial vision given to Ezekiel. A vision also of a prophet, of one being taken — an apostle in this case — being taken to a high mountain to look out at — guess what?

Revelation 21 and the New Jerusalem Descending from Heaven 11:24

“And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her light was like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal.”

— Revelation 21:10-11 (NKJV)

A city. In Revelation 21, the apostle John says he was taken up to a high mountain and he saw a city. Specifically, it says this: God carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain and He showed me the great city, holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God.

Her light was like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. Now, on the one hand, Ezekiel also said that God, through Spirit, He took me up in a vision, He took me up to a tall mountain, and when I was up on the mountain, I saw what? I saw a city.

Both of these texts, they match up almost exclusively, except in this regard. Ezekiel, when he talks about what he saw, it's like the frosted glass was particularly strong that day, because he says, he took me up on a high mountain, and towards the south, I saw something, something like, something like a structure of a city.

It's like he couldn't quite make out or at least understand. He couldn't express in fullness what he was seeing. Well, John says in Revelation, He carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain. He showed me a great city.

Now, he identifies this as the Holy Jerusalem, which is somewhat different from the earthly Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, and her light was like a precious stone, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. John apparently had a little more clarity than Ezekiel did in terms of what he was seeing.

And because that's true, it's helpful for us to evaluate chapters 40-48 of Ezekiel in light of Revelation chapter 21. Both Ezekiel and John are taken to a high mountain. From that vantage point, they saw a city. However, in John's case, the city that he sees appears to have spiritual composition.

In Revelation 21, he's describing some future spiritual Jerusalem. Does it mean that he and Ezekiel were looking at the same thing? Some people say yes. I'm inclined to believe that the answer is yes.

Some, however, they say, well, wait, hold the phone here. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. No, no, no, no, no. No, you see, John's city is entirely different from what Ezekiel saw. And what they'll say is this.

They'll say, look, the Jewish people are waiting for a new temple, right? And they are. That's beyond a doubt. The last two they've had have been razed to the ground.

They're awaiting a new temple. And so a lot of folks, particularly if they're dispensational, pre-millennial dispensationalists, they will look at this text and they'll say, well, Christ is going to come and reign and return here on earth for a thousand years. And when he does so, He's going to need a place to reign in.

And because of that, this temple that apparently is going to be built is the temple in which He will be. This whole construction here is a real, literal, physical building or construction or city that will be built at some point in the future. There's some who believe that very strongly, that that's what Ezekiel 40 through 48 is all about, that this is a real construction at some point that will exist.

Now, one variation on that is that some people say, well, I don't know if it'll ever exist, but it was given to Ezekiel to tell the people that that's what they should have built, and then when Ezra and Nehemiah and Zerubbabel showed up, they just built something far smaller. You understand what I'm saying?

Some people interpret this entire eight chapters and say that, you know, this was the ideal plan. This was the blueprint God gave them, but, you know, when they came out of exile, they were just tired and weak and weary, and they decided to build something much smaller, and so this text is only helpful for us to understand what they should have done but didn't do.

That is the worst way. Remember we said there's 11 different ways you could look at this stuff? That's the worst — that, I think, has the least credentials. Whatever the case, some people, they look at this text and they say, look, this is too real to spiritualize here.

This is not talking about the church or heaven or Christ or any of that stuff. It's a real building in a real place. And they'll say, look at the specifics with which God describes this temple. Now, to demonstrate some of those specifics, let me scooch ahead here.

Chapter 41, I'm going to read seven verses from chapter 41, verses 13 through 20, so you can hear some of the specifics that were given to Ezekiel, a vision that he had of this temple. Chapter 41, verse 13. So he measured the temple, 100 cubits long; the separating courtyard with the building and its walls was 100 cubits long.

Also the width of the eastern face of the temple, including the separating courtyard, was a hundred cubits. He measured the length of the building behind it, faced the separated courtyard with its galleries on one side and on the other side, a hundred cubits, as well as the inner temple, the porches of the court, their doorposts, and the beveled window frames.

And the galleries all around their three stories, opposite the threshold, were paneled with wood from the ground to the windows. The windows were covered from the space above the door, even to the inner room, as well as the outside, and on every wall all around, inside, outside by measure, and was made with cherubim and palm trees, a palm tree between cherub and cherub.

Each cherub had two faces, so that the face of a man was toward a palm tree on one side, and the face of a young lion toward a palm tree on the other side. Thus it was made throughout the temple all around.

Blueprint or Tour Guide: Description Versus Prescription 16:13

All right, let me stop Now, that's some details. But that said, there is a big difference between handing someone a blueprint and handing them a map — handing them a blueprint or a tour guide. They're very different, very different things. You see, a blueprint, you give someone when you expect them to build from it.

You say, this is the vision of what is not yet, but could be, and this is how to construct the step-by-step process, which we'll get from A to B. A blueprint anticipates something that is yet to be constructed, but if you give someone a tour guide, if you show up at some famous castle or something, they give you a map, not a blueprint.

They show you where to go and what to see and all the things that are in the various rooms. These are very different things. Now, are there any blueprints in Scripture of anything that God wanted His people to make? Yes.

They think of the tabernacle. Just go to the book of Exodus, like the whole last part of the book of Exodus. That's usually where people start to stumble a little bit, because God is talking about the tabernacle. And he is very particular.

God really has a way of doing things. And in the book of Exodus, he says, this is how you do the tabernacle. You're going to get this wood. You're going to use this material.

The priestly garbs are going to be just like that. There's going to be the pomegranates here and here. It's a blueprint of what tabernacle worship would look like, what the tabernacle would be like. Now, a lot of those specifications carried over to Solomon's temple.

With that said, God gave them ahead of time a blueprint of what he expected and wanted them to do. However, when we come to Ezekiel 40 through 48, and there's this discussion of this temple, if you were to read these chapters, do these chapters read like a blueprint of expectation of what Ezekiel and his contemporaries were to build?

Or Ezra and Nehemiah — is that rubble unlike what they should have done? Is it a blueprint or is it a vision of something that already exists? And what's the difference? What's the difference between describing the temple and prescribing how to build it?

Well, the difference is seismic. It's huge. Because God here does not seem to be prescribing construction. You get this?

If this was some real building, a future — some construction that was actually supposed to exist in Jerusalem — if this was an actual construction he anticipated and desired them to build, you would think it would read more like a blueprint, and you would think there'd be more prescription. Prescription. He's prescribing what to do.

Instead, we see description. Ezekiel comes in, and hey, this is what it was like. I saw this, and I saw that, and I saw the other thing.

A Figurative Temple Pointing Beyond Itself 18:50

Now, why is that important to make that distinction? Because here's the thing. If this temple wasn't going to be built by human hands, then — if God didn't intend to prescribe how human hands should operate, if this temple wasn't going to be built by human hands — then it opens up the possibility that maybe this isn't a conventional building at all.

But maybe, just maybe — bear with me — this is a figurative, symbolic description meant to point to something other than itself, even with all its details. Maybe it points to something else.

The Glory Returns: God's Throne Among His People Forever 19:29

“Son of man, this is the place of My throne and the place of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever.”

— Ezekiel 43:7 (NKJV)

Let's consider that possibility as I jump ahead to Ezekiel 43, verses 1-7. This is still part of his vision of this temple. 43, verses 1-7. Afterwards he brought me to the gate, to the gate that faces towards the east.

And behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east, and His voice was like the sound of many waters, and the earth shone with His glory. It's like the appearance of the vision which I saw, like the vision I saw when I came to destroy the city.

The visions were like the vision I saw by the river Chebar when I fell on my face. In other words, Ezekiel is saying what I saw here, it's like what I saw way back when, when God first came to me in the chariot of fire on the clouds. And the glory of the Lord came into the temple by the way of the gate which faces towards the east.

And the Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the inner court. And behold, the glory of the Lord filled the temple. Then I heard Him speaking to me from the temple while a man stood beside me. And He said to me, Son of man, this is the place of My throne and the place of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever.

No more shall the house of Israel defile My holy name, they nor their kings, by their harlotry, or the carcasses of their kings on their high places. Way back in chapter 1 of Ezekiel, the prophet had been given by God his vision of God riding on a chariot of fire. Remember we talked about it in the first two weeks.

God shows up. There's Ezekiel. He's moaning and griping and groaning. It's his birthday.

It's his 30th birthday. The very day he was supposed to become a priest in a temple that he could no longer travel to. God shows up in this chariot of fire. This chariot is constructed by wheels within wheels.

These cherubim are holding up this firmament or this platform. On top of the platform is a throne, and on that throne is God. God came to him, and when God first came to him, God had a message of judgment. He told him, this is what's about to happen.

Years pass, years pass, and exactly what God told Ezekiel would happen did happen. But now, now, interestingly, Ezekiel is given, towards the end of his life, towards the end of his ministry, he's given a new vision, and this vision is so much more encouraging. The time for judgment has passed, and the time for healing up wounds has come.

And God comes into this temple and says, here's where I'm going to dwell for all the time with My people. No longer is it going to be like it once was. Better days are ahead. In chapter 43, Ezekiel sees this chariot one final time.

And this time it's not departing God's people, it's returning to His people. And again, God says that there are better days coming before us. He says, I'm going to dwell with My people. He says, look, this temple that My glory has now come into, it's never going to leave again.

This is my throne. This is where the soles of My feet shall stand in the midst of My people, in their very midst. Now let's go back. Remember a little while ago we read from Revelation 21?

We said, hey, maybe there's a relationship between Revelation 21 and Ezekiel 43-48. Well, what does it say in Revelation 21? Well, God declares this. I heard a loud voice from heaven.

God declared, behold, the tabernacle of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people. God Himself will be with them, and they will be his God. See, at the start of Ezekiel's vision here, he's taken to a mountain.

He sees a city. Same thing with John. They see the same thing. And in both passages, we also see that God declares that a day is coming when God will dwell with His people in safety and in comfort.

He'll dwell with His people, apparently, apart from any sin that would otherwise separate them. And that that's the way it's going to be on into perpetuity. He says that this is where I will be forever, which is a sign that maybe the temple that's being talked about here is not just another building of stone that won't last.

That won't last when fire consumes the whole of the earth. Let's do ourselves a helpful favor as we start down the final lap of this text. Let me go back and give you a little more details from Revelation 21. I want you to see everything that we're seeing in Ezekiel through the eyes of John and the vision he was given centuries after the fact.

The Bride, the City, and the Church Made One 23:50

Revelation 21: then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls of the seven last plagues came to me. Remember, this is judgment. Those things involve judgment. But the angel came to me and says, come, come — I'm going to show you the bride, the Lamb's wife.

Who's the bride? The church. Write that, sign that, describe that, tattoo it. The bride is the church.

This is what he's seeing. The angel tells him that. He says, come, I'm going to show you the bride, the Lamb's wife. Remember the great wedding supper of the Lamb?

The groom is Christ and the church is the bride. So then he takes me away. In verse 10, he took John away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain and he showed me the great city. So the angel says, I'm going to show you the bride, which is the church.

And then what does he show him? He shows him a city. Is there some possibility that they're one and the same? I think so.

I think we're meant to see it that way. He carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain and he showed me the great city, holy Jerusalem, or Zion. That's a picture of the people of God just descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her light was like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone clear as crystal.

She had a great and high wall with 12 gates, 12 angels of the gates, and names written on them, which are the names of the 12 tribes of the children of Israel. Three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south, three on the west. See, there's also specifics about this city and this temple here.

There are specifics. So that means that when we see the specifics given to Ezekiel's temple, it can also be spiritualized. In fact, it is spiritualized. Now the wall of the city had 12 foundations, and on them were the names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb.

And he who talked to me had a gold reed to measure the city. We read about this guy who had this line, the flax and the like, meeting with Ezekiel. He who met with me had a gold reed to measure the city, its gates and its wall. The city is laid out as a square, which is also Ezekiel's measurements.

It's a square. What Ezekiel saw, if you were to actually build it, would be a square. It would be huge, though. It would be monstrous.

The thing Ezekiel saw — the temple, the construction, the courts — if you were to actually try to build that in Jerusalem, it would extend way, way, way, way past the city walls of yore, not just the temple walls. It would have filled miles of territory, a great measure. So the city is laid out as a square, its length as great as its breadth, and he measured the city with a reed, 12,000 furlongs.

Its length, breadth, and height are equal. Then he measured its one wall, 140 cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of an angel. The construction of its wall was jasper, and the city was pure gold, like clear glass. The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with all sorts of precious stones.

The first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald, the fifth sardonyx, the sixth sardius, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst. The twelve gates were twelve pearls. Each individual gate was one pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.

No Temple in the City: The Lord God and the Lamb Are Its Temple 26:46

But — now listen to this — but, as he's seeing the city — but I saw no temple in it. I saw no temple in it. He's describing this amazing city, this beautiful city we've already been told is the people of God. All this stuff's meant to point to the people of God.

The city is pure, it's clean, it's restored, it's beautiful in the eyes of the groom. That's the church. That's us after we get all cleaned up and sanctified and glorified. That's the people of God that he sees here.

And amidst the people of God, he says, stop the presses. He says, this is what I saw, but, but — verse 22 — I saw no temple in it. Why? He answers his own question.

He says, I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. Understand what John is seeing? He's seeing the same thing Ezekiel sees. He's seeing a city that is the people of God, descended from God.

But in this case, there's no more building in the middle. There's no building with walls that are meant to exclude people from access to He who is within. There's no temple. Instead, God is the temple.

And if you go to Revelation 7, verse 15, we see that it talks about the tabernacle — God as the tabernacle spreading its wings over the people.

The Church as a Living Temple in Christ 28:11

This is depiction of a living construction, and you see that elsewhere in Scripture, don't you? Don't you see that in Ephesians? And Ephesians chapter 2 — you, meaning the church — you're no longer strangers and foreigners like you once were, but you're fellow citizens with the saints, you're God's household, having been built on the foundation — the apostles and the prophets — Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole building being fitted together is growing into what?

Into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. That's the sort of city that Ezekiel saw. That's the city that John saw. Is there a temple in the midst of the city?

Is there a temple in the new heavens? Well, the answer to that is yes, but it's not like the temple in the Old Testament. The temple now is made out of flesh. The temple now is the Lamb of God.

You see, when you think to the temple, what was in the temple? Name me one thing that was in the temple. The ark, we see the lampstands, right? We see the altar, we see sacrifices, priestly hats, all of it.

What was that stuff meant to point towards? Jesus. All of these things existed for all time to point people to Jesus. Everything in the temple existed to point people to Jesus.

Christ the Fulfillment: Access to God Through the Veil of His Flesh 29:35

So when we're in heaven, do we still need a temple? No, because we have Him. We have Him who those things pointed towards. The future — we're not talking about a temple in the traditional sense of some building that we hope they raise up in the Middle East, that maybe then God will return.

Wrong. The temple is doing just fine. It's in heaven, and in due time — in due time — we will see it, or we will see Him, for what it is, for who He is. Now the Jews at that time, the Old Testament, hundreds of years before Christ, had no picture of that.

And so Ezekiel describes the temple. He does the same thing John does: through the frosted glass, he gives a description of some of the things that pointed to Jesus. He just gives this description to broken-hearted Jews about better days, of a temple that we restore that would be so much better than any temple.

And if you heard that news as a Jew in exile, you would have said, you know, amen and amen. You would have said, this is great. The temple will be back. Of course, you didn't understand it for what it would be.

Because at this point, you're still operating in the shadows of the old covenant, the Old Testament. In that context, this prophecy would have made as much sense as it was going to be. But you and I, centuries later, we have the benefit of God's revelation through the New Testament, through the New Covenant, through John here, that gives us a greater ability to see what they dreamed of seeing centuries before Christ came.

The priest, the sacrifice, the altar Ezekiel saw were all meant to point to something better than themselves. They are meant to point to the personal work of Jesus Christ. Every last window in this text, every last vestibule, every last corner in these chapters points to who? Points to Jesus.

Points to Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. In heaven, we do not need — we do not want — a temple made out of brick and mortar. We do not want one in part, as I said before, because we don't want some building in heaven by which God exists behind a wall that you can't access him.

No, that's not what we need. That's not what we want. What we want is access to God that's made possible through the veil of His flesh, not a curtain in a building. You understand?

And that's what we have. Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of Ezekiel and John's vision. And that's what John was trying to say when he declared about heaven. He says, I saw no temple in it.

The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city is the church. The city is the church. The temple is Christ.

When you and I are in heaven, we will not be separated from God by walls. We will not be separated from God by veils or any other obstacle from buildings of antiquity. Instead, we will be able to worship our God in His presence. Let's pray.