Temple
So, Ezekiel was kind of a nutjob, huh? No disrespect to the prophet, of course. After all, it was the Lord who was instructing him to do all kinds of wacky things as part of his prophetic ministry.
Anyway, the other day I read through chapter 44 of Ezekiel in my devotional time. (Yeah, kind of random.) I’m always really struck by how seriously God takes the duties of the priests in the OT. If you were a priest, you couldn’t just flim-flam around and be willy-nilly about the temple. I mean, it was serious! In chapter 44, God takes issue with the priests because of their negligence and carelessness.
“…Enough of your detestable practices, O house of Israel!” (v. 6)
“…you brought foreigners uncircumcised in heart and flesh into my sanctuary, descrating my temple…” (v. 7)
“Instead of carrying out your duty in regard to my holy things, you put others in charge of my sanctuary.” (v.8 )
They were not doing what they were supposed to do, and were doing things they were not supposed to do. Consequently, God’s temple was being desecrated. I think it’s easy for me gloss over all this business about the temple. But when I call to mind all the OT laws established regarding the temple, I’m reminded of how important this was. And then I fast-forward to 2 Corinthians 3:16: “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s spirit lives in you?”
And I sensed God asking me some questions. Are you faithfully discharging your duties concerning your temple? Do you take seriously the responsibility of keeping your temple undefiled? What is profaning you?
I’m thankful for this gentle discipline.
Another random question from Kyle. Do you think God takes the order of his Church as seriously under the Gospel as he did in the Old Testament? Is there a sense where Ezekiel 44 shouldn’t just be about the “spiritual temple” but teaches us about the order and duty of the Gospel Church?
I’ve begun to think about this more and more over the past several months, mostly because of my recent interest in liturgical churches. But I don’t have an opinion on this (yet). In general, I understand the Gospel Church as a people and not a place or thing. And so, in terms of who we are, I do believe God takes that seriously. But if we are talking about church as something we “do”, then I don’t know. I suppose God takes it seriously enough to have told us whatever we need to know (which doesn’t seem like much compared to what we know about OT temple regulations).
Concerning Ezekiel 44…I feel inclined to say that it is indeed about more than just the “spiritual temple”. I wouldn’t know how to apply that though. I mean, there is this sense of responsibility that we expect pastors/priests/ministers to have when it comes to the church and what they let in or out, what they permit, etc. Yet, it doesn’t seem like the NT fleshes that out nearly as much as the OT did for the temple.
All that to say, I have no idea
What are your thoughts?