NOTES for Eze 43:1-27
Just as Ezekiel saw the Glory of the Lord leaving the Temple, he also sees its return. The prophet himself emphasises the sameness of the two visions. The Lord withdrew from His House and His people only for a little while, so that Israel might repent and be cleansed. His faithfulness to the Covenant with Abraham, Moses and David proved stronger than everything; even the complete and final downfall of the chosen people did not overcome it. This vision of the return of God’s Presence does not undo everything that happened to Jerusalem or cancel the tragedy of its fate. But in the darkness of this history a light appears which people had no right to expect and did not dare hope for. The vision of the return of the Glory of the Lord completely changes the emotional tone of the whole book of the prophet Ezekiel. Filled with dread before God’s searing Holiness, it becomes good news of hope.
But the Lord, as is almost always the case, speaks of more than simply restoring the covenant that was trampled upon and broken. If the people are ashamed of their deeds, He commands the prophet, show them the Temple to come. But God’s dwelling place, the Holy of Holies, is no longer confined within it to a small chamber deep inside the building: the whole area around it is the Holy of Holies. In this sacred space of the Presence, the Lord gives new ordinances for sacrifices. What matters here is not so much the details of the ordinances in themselves as the fact that this is about communion with God. For in the Old Testament, a sacrifice is first and foremost a meal to which we humbly invite the Almighty, and He condescends to accept our modest gifts. It is hardly accidental that the centre of life in the New Covenant proclaimed by Ezekiel will be precisely a sacred meal at which, in the Apostle Paul’s words, we become members of God’s household.
Chapter 43 contains another small but very important detail that prevents us from regarding the prophet’s vision as a mere renewal of what existed before the Babylonian captivity. The Lord says that in the renewed Jerusalem, the Temple will no longer stand wall to wall with the king’s house. Thus the kingdom of this world, though it continues to exist, is set apart from the Kingdom of God. Still important and necessary, it ceases to be an essential part of the people’s spiritual life. The light of Jerusalem, to which Second Isaiah will call all the nations of the world a little later, shines only from the Temple, because it is the Light of Christ, and He is worshipped in spirit and truth.