The Millennial Temple – From Ichabad to Chabod
Ezekiel 40–48
God's Plan for the Ages – Dispensations Lesson #34
December 16, 2014
www.deanbibleministries.org
"Our Father, we’re also very grateful for Your grace in our lives; that You have given us everything that we need for life and godliness. You have given us a salvation that is complete that is not dependent in any way upon our owe efforts but is dependent solely upon the work of Jesus Christ on the Cross. The only issue is what do we think about Jesus? Believing in Him for eternal life. Now Father, as we study Your Word and continue our study in terms of Your plan for our lives, Your plan for history, we pray that You might continue to enlighten us as we come toward the end of this study. We pray this in Christ’s Name, Amen."
If you want to open your Bibles you can open them to Ezekiel 43, but we’re really not going to look specifically at one text this evening. However, just as a word of sort of warning and encouragement. What we are covering tonight fits and builds upon what we studied last Tuesday night dealing with the spiritual life in the Millennium and getting into the Millennial temple, but it also fits and builds on what we studied on sacrifice on Thursday night. So since that sacrifice lesson on Thursday night is a sort of a stand-alone message for those who are listening and this is just out as part of the series and they can go listen to that as well to get more insight into this topic related to sacrifice. I am calling this lesson Millennial Temple from Ichabod to Chabod (slide 2). The word chabod in Hebrew is the word for “glory” and when the ark of the covenant was captured by the Philistines it was said to be ichabod. The “I” prefix in Hebrew means “no glory.” When the glory of the LORD departed from the temple in 586 B.C. it has yet to return and does not return until we’re in the Millennium with the Millennial temple. We will at that point go from ichabod, no glory of God on the earth, to chabod.
This is an artist depiction of the size of the temple during the Millennial Kingdom (slide 3). The temple plus the New Jerusalem will encompass about a 2,500 square mile area. That is an enormous area. The temple precinct itself measures about 50 miles square, which is much larger than the old city of Jerusalem. At the center of that is the temple court itself, which measures a mile square. When we come to a study of the Scripture this is a controversial area related to how to understand this section of Ezekiel 40–48. We have nine chapters that describe a future temple and the operations of that future temple. It talks about the necessity of the future temple and the reality of that future temple. It also talks about the priesthood that will serve in that future temple. There is actually a restoration of an active Levitical priesthood and the restoration of animal sacrifices. That is really the most important, the most controversial area as we will see. The Scriptures make it clear that there is going to be a future temple. I talked about this last week. There are four temples:
1. The first is Solomon’s temple, which was destroyed in 586 B.C.
2. The second temple was much more modest and was built by Zerubbabel when you had the early return under Zerubbabel from Babylon in 538 B.C. They built the temple and dedicated the temple in 516 B.C.
That was the temple that was modified and rebuilt to a much grander level by Herod the Great. In fact, it was considered one of the wonders of the ancient world because of what he had done. One of the facts that I haven’t covered is that we often hear the fact that we read in Scriptures that they had not finished the temple in John 1. It indicates that it’s not completed yet in John 2. But the temple itself, the inner sanctum, the main sanctuary was completed by 16–17 B.C. That part had been completed. Some of the additional buildings, the courtyard, additional aspects was not completed until somewhere around A.D. 42–43. The centerpiece was completed much earlier, long before the birth of Christ. It is called the second temple throughout that whole period from 516 B.C. all the way until its destruction in A.D. 70 because the sacrifices never stopped. There was a continual daily sacrifice through that period. Herod’s temple is simply a renovation and expansion of the temple of Zerubbabel.
3. There will be a third temple which is the Tribulation temple, which will be an apostate temple. That is described in passages like Daniel 9:26–27; 2 Thessalonians 2:4.
4. There will be a fourth temple which is the greatest temple. That’s the one that is built by the Lord Jesus Christ at the beginning of the Millennial Kingdom. That is the one we are talking about. Passages like Isaiah 11:9 (slide 4) talk about this future temple.
In Isaiah 11:9 the LORD says, “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain” and that is a reference to the location of the temple. In the Tribulation period there are going to be an enormous number of geological upheavals. There are going to be these massive earthquakes that take place not only in the Middle East, but all around the world. There are going to be earthquakes in Jerusalem. As a result of this, the topography is going to be radically changed from what we see today. There’ll be a massive uplift that takes place at the end of the Tribulation period and this will raise an area plateau, which will be the location for the Millennial temple.
We looked at passages like Isaiah 2:2 (slide 5) “It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the LORD’S house” this emphasizes again that this is the temple. The LORD’S house references the temple. In Isaiah 2:3 we read that many people shall say come and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD’s to the house of the God of Jacob. Passages like Isaiah 32:15; Isaiah 44:3 (slide 6) also talk about the spiritual life in the Millennium is going to be based upon God the Holy Spirit. Ezekiel 39:29 (slide 7); Joel 2:28–29 (slide 8). All these passages reinforce the fact that it’s going to be a distinctive period, a distinctive spiritual life, although it is energized and empowered by God the Holy Spirit, it is to a greater degree and a different manifestation than what we see today. So we can’t draw analogies. I think in the past there have been a number of dispensational theologians who have drawn too tight a connection and I think it is going to be very, very different.
But the real controversial area comes when we talk about the situation with the sacrifices and the restoration of animal sacrifices. The reason is that when we look at Hebrews 4–7 it seems like there is a very strong statement there that the sacrificial system has ended because Christ has finally paid for sin and He has. But what we have to come to understand as we discuss this is the issue of this terminology that is used in the Old Testament (OT) to describe the function of the sacrificial system in the Millennial Kingdom and that revolves around the main word, which is “atonement. Let me just give you a glimpse of some of the statements that are made against dispensationalism and in opposition to the idea that there are going to be literal animal sacrifices in the Kingdom:
1. The first quote is from Floyd Hamilton (slide 9) who’s written several books against dispensationalism. He said, “the restoration of the whole sacrificial system seems to dishonor the sacrifice of Christ…. According to a literal interpretation of Ezekiel 40–48 the whole ceremonial law is to be again set up in Israel.”
Notice how even amillennialists recognize that if you’re going to hold to a literal interpretation of Scripture that that means that there will be a restoration of the sacrificial system in the future Millennial Kingdom because they’ve developed a theological conclusion based on their study of Hebrews 4–7 as well as their theological amillennial system and their partial allegorical system of interpretation. When they come to a passage that doesn’t fit their system they just, oh, we’re not going to interpret that literally. We’re going to interpret it figuratively. That is what happens.
2. Philip Edgcumbe Hughes who used to teach at Westminster Seminary stated, “to restore all these today… would be apostasy.”
3. Another well known amillennial writer was Oswald Allis (slide 10) who was a professor at Westminster Seminary back in the 1930s and 1940s wrote, “It is true that the Old Testament predictions of the restoration of the temple and of the Mosaic ceremonial law have occasioned them no little embarrassment…. Literally interpreted, this means the restoration of the Aaronic priesthood and of the Mosaic ritual of sacrifices…. The author to the Hebrews warns his readers most earnestly against returning to this system which has been done away.”
Well, it has and it hasn’t. We have to look at what the Scripture teaches and what the Scripture says about these particular things. Several years ago now, Tommy Ice was being interviewed by Hank Hanegraaff on the radio show the Bible Answer Man. Right in the middle of the interview Hanegraaff, for some reason, asked Tommy if he believed that there would be a restoration of sacrifices in the Millennial Kingdom. When Tommy said yes, Hanegraaff called him an apostate over the air and a heretic. This is a real division between dispensationalists and non-dispensationalists. But it comes back to, “How do you interpret Scripture?” It is very important to work our way through this systematically.
As I pointed out earlier, there’s this emphasis on a restored future temple. What is a temple? A temple is a place where the Divine dwells upon the earth. In the OT you had an interesting pattern that takes place. God begins to dwell upon the earth in the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden was planted east of Eden. Eden is viewed as the dwelling place of God upon the earth. I believe that after the sin, when man is kicked out of the Garden and this army of cherubs is placed around the Garden, that God’s presence is still there. There is no system of adjudication or law established to govern the affairs of man between the Fall and the Flood. I believe that God still adjudicated the affairs of man. You have a statement in Genesis 6 translated wrongly in the King James Version that “My Spirit will not strive with man anymore.” It should be translated, “My Spirit will not abide with man.” The word that is used there in the Hebrew is what’s called the HAPAX LEGOMENON, which is a fancy Latin term for a word that is only used one time anywhere; but it has parallel cognates in other languages which mean “to dwell or abide.” It doesn’t have the idea in any other language of “strive.” That was just a guess on the part of the translators of the King James Version.
It indicates that there is a presence of God still upon the earth. Enoch did what? Enoch, who was the great grandfather of Noah, walked on the earth with God. God walked with him and one day “Enoch was not, for God took him.” You clearly have this indication that God’s presence is still on the earth. It left at the Flood. When does it come back? At the tabernacle on Mt. Sinai. When God’s presence comes in the year after He gave the Law and they completed the building and construction of the tabernacle. Then the Shekinah, the dwelling presence of God, came upon the earth and took up residence in the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle and then in the first temple. Ezekiel describes the departure of that presence in Ezekiel. It was gradual. He sees the Shekinah leaving the Holy of Holies and going to the outer gate and then going across the Kidron Valley to the Mount of Olives. Then going up to the top of the Mount of Olives and ascending, which is roughly the same thing that happened with Jesus when He left. He follows that same pattern.
Then you have the presence of God leaving in 586 B.C. or prior to 586 B.C. leaving Jerusalem open to judgment. Then you have the dwelling presence of God which occurs that very first Christmas when the Second Person of the Trinity is born upon the earth. Then you have the dwelling presence of God in the incarnation in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ during His time upon the earth. Then when He ascended He sent what? Another Comforter of the same kind Who indwells us and makes our body a temple for the dwelling of the Holy Spirit. That is going to end when the Rapture occurs and the church, the body of Christ, all the believers whose bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, are taken out of the earth, and then there is no dwelling presence of God upon the earth during the Tribulation period until the Lord Jesus Christ returns at the Second Coming.
4. Then He is back dwelling upon the earth and establishes this fourth temple (the Millennial temple).
It looks forward to this. It all fits together in a pattern that God wants to dwell with His creatures and have fellowship with His creatures. We see indications of the prophesy for this house of the LORD in a number of different passages (slide 11), Joel 3:18 looks forward and says, “It will come to pass in that day” speaking about the Millennial Kingdom, “that the mountains shall drip with new wine, the hills shall flow with milk, and all the brooks of Judah shall be flooded with water.” It is not exactly the scenario that you see in Israel today even during the rainy season. “A fountain shall flow from the house of the LORD.” That is the temple. It is interesting that there is a spring deep below the surface of Mount Moriah, which is were the Dome of the Rock is located, where the temple was located. At one time there was actually a spring that could be accessed from the top of Mount Moriah. Isaiah 60:13, “The glory of Lebanon shall come to you, the cypress, the pine, and the box tree together, to beautify the place of My sanctuary.” Again emphasizing this future dwelling place of God upon the earth.
Isaiah 56:6–7 (slide 12), just looking at the verse on the screen, Isaiah 56:7, God says, “Even them I will bring to My holy mountain.” This is a reference to the location of the temple in the Millennial Kingdom. “I will bring them to My holy mountain and make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices.” Now notice, here is where we start getting indications that when we get into the Millennial Kingdom there will be sacrifices. It is not just Ezekiel 40–48 that talks about a restoration of the Levitical priesthood and the sacrificial system, but it is indicated in a number of other OT prophecies as well. “Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on My altar.” There is going to be an altar. There is going to be burnt offerings, and that is the first type of offering that’s described in Leviticus 1. That was the type of offering that Abraham was supposed to give of Isaac. It’s a burnt offering. Everything is put upon the altar once it is killed. Everything is burnt up indicating complete and total devotion and dedication to God. Isaiah 56:6–7 indicates the function of this temple will also include burnt offerings and sacrifices.
Haggai (slide 13), another book you probably read way too much over the course of your spiritual life. Some of you probably wonder, wait a minute, I think I saw that in the table of contents one time. Haggai 2:7, God says, “I will shake all nations, and they shall come to the Desire of All Nations,” which is another title for the Lord Jesus Christ, “and I will fill this temple with glory,” says the LORD God. That is talking about the Millennial temple. Haggai 2:9, “The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former … ‘And in this place I will give peace,’ says the LORD of hosts.” It is clear that there is going to be this future temple. We look forward to that future temple and that future temple will include a unique priesthood. The next thing we want to do is just understand the significance of this future priesthood because the Bible talks about that this is going to be a Zadokite priesthood. A lot of people don’t understand what’s so great about this Zadokite priesthood. Who is Zadok?
It is not the jewelry store that you find down in the Galleria area. This is probably related to the same family. They are descendants. That family name probably indicates that they are in the line of Zadok and they are probably in the line of Levitical priests. Hebrew or Jewish names like Cohen or Cowen or Levi; these are all family names that would indicate a heritage within the tribe of Levi. Let’s just understand how this fits together in terms of God’s plan for the Aaronic priesthood.
Aaron is the older brother of Moses, who went with Moses when he went to challenge the Pharaoh. I don’t know if they have Aaron anywhere in the new Exodus: Gods, and Kings movie. Has anybody seen that yet? Nobody has seen that yet? [Someone from congregations says “It’s horrible!” yet has not seen it….] Do you always believe what you read? I want somebody who is an eye witness, not somebody who is a secondary witness. That doesn’t carry weight. I want somebody who’s actually seen it. No, we have got to go with eye-witness reports.
Exodus 40:13–15 (slide 14) Aaron’s priesthood is established and we have his consecration and his anointing. Exodus 40:13–15 “You shall put the holy garments on Aaron, and anoint him and consecrate him,” that means to set him apart; “that he may minister to Me as priest. And you shall bring his sons and clothe them….” His sons Eleazar and other sons like Ithamar are going to be brought and clothed as well as Korah [from the line of Levi]. “You shall anoint them, as you anointed their father, that they may minister to Me as priests; for their anointing shall surely” last for how long? To “be an everlasting priesthood throughout their generations.” There is this indication in Exodus 40 that this is an everlasting priesthood. In other places where we talk about the Abrahamic Covenant, the Davidic Covenant, the New Covenant, the Land Covenant being everlasting covenants, we always interpret that as being something that is going to go on for eternity. Here we see that there is a promise being made to Aaron that his descendants will be an everlasting priesthood. We have to investigate that a little bit.
I know I told you to open your Bibles to Ezekiel and you can hold your place there. I want you to turn to Numbers 25. We’ve gone through an extensive study of covenants in the OT. Those covenants begin with the Creation or Edenic Covenant. The next covenant is what? The Adamic Covenant in Genesis 3. The next covenant is the Noahic Covenant in Genesis 9. The next covenant is the Abrahamic Covenant in Genesis 15 and Genesis 17 primarily; indicated or foreshadowed in Genesis 12. That promise is three things: land, seed, and blessing. The land is expanded on in the Land Covenant in Deuteronomy 29–30. The Davidic Covenant is in 2 Samuel 7. The New Covenant is in Jeremiah 31–33. Those are the covenants. Guess what? There is another eternal covenant mentioned in the Bible. One that I don’t think I’ve ever taught. We are going to spend some time looking at this. We are in Numbers 25.
Numbers 25 is one of those bizarre little episodes that occur in the OT that just drives liberals crazy. They point out what a terrible God we have and all these other things because they don’t understand the significance of being set apart to God and the role of Israel as a priest nation in the OT. What happens is that this is after the situation with Balaam. Balaam is the prophet that Balak tried to bribe to curse Israel. There were the three different visions related to the oracles of Balaam. Finally, Balaam just couldn’t curse Israel because God wouldn’t let him. So he came up with a scheme that would bring about the destruction of Israel. That scheme was to get them involved in sexual sin that was a compromise of their religious beliefs. This would then destroy the purity of Israel and they could eventually be wiped out. Balaam told Balak what he had in mind and this is what is described in Numbers 25.
We look at Numbers 25 and what we see is that this takes place in a location identified in Numbers 25:1 as the acacia grove, which is just below Mount Nebo (for those of you who went to Israel recently). When we stood on Mount Nebo we were looking down. As you look to the north, probably about 8–10 miles, that would be the location of where Israelites crossed over the river Jordan. This is near that location. At this point the Moabites had trotted out all of their women to entice and seduce the Israelite men in sexual immorality; but it wasn’t just about sex. It was about religion because the prominent cult at that time was what we refer to as the fertility cult and it is manifested in the worship of Baal, and there are different Baals related to different cities, and the worship of the Asherah. All of this is involved in these various fertility religions. They were enticed by the women of Moab to these sexual fertility rituals, which indicates that it wasn’t just about sex. It was about completely abandoning Yahweh in favor of Baal of Peor.
We read in Numbers 25:2, “they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods.” It was a huge sexual orgy. Numbers 25:3, “and Israel was joined to Baal of Peor and the anger of the LORD was aroused against Israel.” One of the ways this is manifested, we infer from a few verses later, is that God brought a plague upon them and 24,000 are killed during that plague. This is a religious act where they have committed treason against the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who rescued them from slavery in Egypt. They are now giving their devotion to the fertility god, Baal. This is part of this ancient practice of worshiping god for fertility, for productivity, and it’s the ancient version of the modern prosperity gospel heresy. God is going to make you healthy, wealthy, and wise. This is just the ancient version of that heresy.
For those who were involved in this in Numbers 25:4 (KJV), God demanded that all of the leaders of the people were to be hanged. In the NKJV it states but rather the leaders of the people were to hang all of “the offenders before the LORD, out in the sun, that the fierce anger of the LORD may turn away from Israel.” What happens is that this is like a cancer and God says you’ve got to go in and do radical surgery and completely amputate these people from the body of the congregation of Israel. That is what they did. As we read through this, Numbers 25:5, Moses says to the judges of Israel, “Everyone of you kill his men who were joined to Baal of Peor.” Numbers 25:6–7 “And indeed, one of the children of Israel” while he is instructing this there is this probably a drunk Israelite with his Midianite religious prostitute and he starts pulling her out in front of the congregation and showing her off to everybody and bragging about it. And immediately Phinehas or in Hebrew it is Phineas; “Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose from among the congregation and took a spear in his hand” and very graphically he goes into the tent where this man is copulating with this religious prostitute and he drives the spear through both of them. He just skewers them in one swoop and executes them both.
The conclusion is at the end of Numbers 25:8–9, “So the plague was stopped among the children of Israel. And those who died in the plague were twenty-four thousand.” Because Phineas understood his role as a priest to execute the sinners and to bring God’s judgment upon the people, God rewards him with an everlasting covenant in Numbers 25:12 (slide 15). This is the only other eternal covenant I am aware of in the Scripture and I’ve never taught it. In Numbers 25:12–13 we read, “Therefore say, ‘Behold I give to him My covenant of peace;' ” The I who is speaking is God, Yahweh, and the one He is speaking about is Phineas. “I give to him My covenant of peace; and it shall be to him and his descendants after him a covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because he was zealous for his God, and made atonement for the children of Israel.” What did he do? There is that word kfr, which we will look at again in just a minute. It means to bring cleansing to people. Not this idea of paying the price for sin, but cleansing.
This is one of the important words for understanding this whole debate. It is that for a long time we have misunderstood the significance of the Hebrew word kfr. Often it’s been translated as “to cover.” It is actually two words. They are homonyms or homophones and one word does mean “to cover.” That is used in Genesis 6 when Noah covered the ark with pitch. But this word doesn’t mean cover. I will show you why in just a little bit. It has the idea of cleansing or purification. He has “cleansed” the people from their sin because of the way he fulfilled the command of God. What is significant about this is that Aaron had several sons (slide 16). The two that this chart focuses on are Eleazar and Ithamar. Ithamar is serves as high priest and his line goes down through Eli. We are going to go over this again when we get into our study on 1 Samuel, but Eli is the high priest at the time of Samuel, at the beginning of the book of 1 Samuel. Eli has two extremely rebellious apostate sons, Hophni and Phineas. It is at that time that Eli is high priest that the Israelites are going to lose the ark in battle to the Philistines. This is why Phineas’ wife gives birth, and because the ark is taken that child is called Ichabod, “no glory.”
That line, going from Ithamar down through Eli, goes down through Ahimelech and Abiathar. Abiathar is removed from the priesthood at the time when Solomon ascends to the throne. On the other side, as a descent from Eleazar through Phinehas I, the covenant that I just spoke about, at the time Abiathar had also violated David’s trust and that is why Solomon removes him from the high priesthood. Abiathar had disobeyed David and had gone with Absalom. The high priesthood is given to Zadok. Zadok is in the direct line of Eleazar. It is the descendants of Zadok, the Zadokites, that are the ones who represent the purity of the priesthood. Zadokite priests dominated the high priesthood until 586 B.C. when the temple was destroyed. Then when the Israelites returned from the captivity in 538 B.C. the new high priest was still a Zadokite until you get to the time of the Hasmoneans. After the Maccabean revolt with the rise of the Hasmonean rulers, they would appoint high priests on the basis of their political agenda. They were no longer concerned about their purity or their Zadokite descent. That gives you this background.
There will be a restoration of that Zadokite priesthood in the Millennial Kingdom, emphasizing the purity of that future priesthood. Ezekiel clearly states that the restored priesthood in the future is going to be that of the Zadokite priesthood. In Ezekiel 40:46 and Ezekiel 44:15 (slide 17). We’re told in Ezekiel 40:46, “The chamber which faces north is for the priests who have charge of the altar; these are the sons of Zadok, from the sons of Levi.” This is a fulfillment of that everlasting covenant with Phineas. In Ezekiel 44:15 they are the ones who “shall stand before Me.” The verse begins, “But the priests, the Levites, the sons of Zadok, who kept charge of My sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray form Me, they shall come near Me to minister to Me; and they shall stand” Where? “before Me to offer to Me the fat and the blood.” This is talking about the Millennial Kingdom. There is definitely going to be the animal sacrifices again affirmed by the role of the priesthood.
What do we see as we go into our study? We see a restoration of the Levitical priesthood (slide 18), but there are these various prophecies related to a Millennial temple, as well as prophecies of future sacrifices outside of Ezekiel. This doesn’t stand or fall with Ezekiel 40–48. There are references to a restoration of the temple and a restoration of animal sacrifices in other places. The four passages on the slide in terms of prophecies of a restored Millennial temple are Joel 3:18; Isaiah 2:3; Isaiah 60:13; Haggai 2:7; Haggai 2:9. Some of those we have looked at already; some of them we haven’t. Then there are prophecies of future sacrifices in Isaiah 56:6–7; Isaiah 60:7; Jeremiah 33:17–18 is a crucial central passage; and Zechariah 14:16–21.
What we should understand as we talk about this is the central role that sacrifices play within what I’ll call for lack of a better term right now, biblical Judaism, as opposed to rabbinical Judaism or post-second temple Judaism. In biblical Judaism, sacrifices were integral to the Mosaic Law. Some of you know this. How many commandments are there in the Mosaic Law? 613 commandments. What portion, what percentage of those laws relate to the temple service and sacrifices? A third of them, a third of them, 30%. So roughly 200 of those 613 commandments are related to temple service and sacrifice. Here is the question, pay attention! If you are Jewish and you can’t get forgiveness of sin unless there’s a sacrifice and the temple is destroyed, how are you going to feel about that when you can’t take a sacrifice to the temple anymore?
A couple of Jewish writers wrote the following: “How can we possibly sense the terror that must have gripped a person who had to atone for his sins, but was unable to do so?” They aren’t believers. They are not accepting that Jesus died on the Cross for their sins, but within their framework of thinking they still have to atone for their sins. There is no forgiveness anywhere else. That is why last week when I was talking on sacrifice on Thursday night, and I talked about the film that Joel Kramer did on a sacrifice. What is so revealing in that is that he goes to the Samaritan community up on Mount Gerizim and every year on Passover they still sacrifice lambs; one for every family. There are about 700 of them; so they sacrifice right now about 54 lambs. They kill them all simultaneously. Then what happens? It is so weird to us. They immediately erupt into shouts of joy and they dance around and they rub the blood on their foreheads.
The purpose of that film is not to say this is something that is good or legitimate or we can practice it, but it gives us a window into the kind of thinking that characterized a pre-Christian era Jew. They understood that when that lamb is sacrificed at Passover it reminds them that they were given freedom from slavery in Egypt. That is like the 4th of July. When that lamb is slaughtered they are reminded. Now they are free from slavery. When the sacrifices are slaughtered at Yom Kippur they have forgiveness of sin for another year. We’ve lost sight of that dimension. That is one of the reasons I think that film (The Sacrifice) is significant; because it puts us in touch with something that we’re not so mindful of. How many people when they get saved are really excited! I think a lot of Christians are. But it is not long before that excitement sort of wears off. What these guys are pointing out is the fact that if you can’t atone for your sins and you have a biblical understanding of sin, as something that separates you from God, what are you going to do?
This is one of the problems that you’ve got with Judaism, post-second temple Judaism, is there’s no temple; there’s no sacrifice; there is no way to get forgiveness of sin. That’s why you get these movements right now of some of the more orthodox Jews that want to have the privilege to have sacrifices on the Temple Mount. About two weeks before we went to Israel this last November, about mid-October, a rabbi by the name of Yehuda Glick, who is known, from what I have read about him, he is a very gentle, quiet, soft-spoken guy, but he is very firm in his conviction that the Jews need to be able to offer sacrifices on the Temple Mount. He was leaving a synagogue service, I believe, one night and a Palestinian pulled up and called his name and he turned around and he was shot several times. He managed to survive his wounds. But he is also, interestingly enough, pictured in that film, The Sacrifice, that Joel Kramer made. He has heard that there were some Jews that were going to sacrifice a lamb and he managed to find out where they were going to do it and got permission and went there to see it. Yehuda Glick was a rabbi who was involved with that.
These two Jewish writers bring this point out. They say, “How can we possibly sense the terror that must have gripped a person who had to atone for his sins, but was unable to do so (slide 19)? The Jew who lived at the time of the temple’s destruction did not have other methods of atonement developed by generations of halakhic legislation….” That’s rabbinic laws, oral laws, developed over the years. “That generation of Jews had to grapple with a new reality which appeared to deny any possibility of religious wholeness. An individual who sinned would have to continue to live with his sin. This factor contributed to the doubts which assailed many Jews of this period as to whether there was any point – or indeed any possibility – of maintaining a religious way of life.” As far as they were concerned there’s no way to have your sins atoned for, no way to be purified.
The point is: sacrifice is inherent in the age of Israel. The age of Israel ended prematurely with the death of the Messiah, Daniel 9:24–27 talks about the time period of the 490 years for Israel. We’ve studied that many times. The last seven years are cut off. That is restored at the end in the later days. That refers to the seven years of the Tribulation period. But the Millennial Kingdom then comes in and how does a Millennial Kingdom fit? The Millennial Kingdom has a Davidic king ruling from Jerusalem with a restored Levitical priesthood and a restored temple. Is this like the Church Age? No. One of the distinctives that we see here is in the Church Age Gentiles become one with Jews in the body of Christ. Jew and Gentiles are united and that distinction is no longer spiritually significant in the Church Age. But is that the case in the Millennial Kingdom? No. In the Millennial Kingdom there is a role and a place for Gentiles, but the Gentiles are included within the Kingdom. They do not become united with the Jews in one new body. They are included within. So we go back to a period in the Millennial Kingdom that is more of an extension of the Age of Israel than one that is related to the Church Age. You have a temple and you have this restoration of sacrifice.
Here is a slide (slide 20) I developed some more from the other night on sacrifice. What does this word mean? The English word “sacrifice” comes from the Latin word sacer, which means “holy” and “holy” means “to be set apart” for something. So sacer means “holy” and facere means “to make.” Sacrifice means what? It means “to make something 'holy' or to make it 'set apart' to God.” That’s the meaning. The Hebrew word is hekdesh; kdesh is the root; kdosh or kdesh, is the word in Hebrew “to make holy,” so hekdesh is a form of that word, which means “to make” something “holy” or “set it apart” to the service of God.
1. It is the act of killing an animal as an offering to God. That’s the English concept.
2. The second meaning is an act of giving up something of value for the sake of something that is of greater value.
That’s the basic idea of sacrifice. The biblical sense is to make something holy. There are two things that are emphasized in sacrifice:
1. The first idea is of substitution. Something is killed instead of the person who is offering the sacrifice. Instead of me having to die, something dies in my place. Substitution is there.
2. The second idea is purification.
In the OT the English translators didn’t really know how to translate that word kfr so they translated it with the word “atonement.” Atonement was a made-up English word. It was coined to translate that word. You can look until you are dead and you will never find the word “atonement” in the New Testament (NT). It is an OT concept but the English word really didn’t capture it. They coined this word “at-one-ment” and it had a more theological concept of reconciliation and theologically it came to refer to the whole work of Christ on the Cross. They related it to the meaning of kfr as covering, but they missed the boat on that. Numerous studies have come out in the last number of years indicating that kfr doesn’t mean to cover. It means to purify or to cleanse. I will show you some verses on that in a minute.
But as we look at sacrifice in the future temple:
- All but one chapter (slide 21) of the nine chapters in Ezekiel that deal with the future temple, all but one chapter, Ezekiel 47, mentions the sacrificial system. So this isn’t something that is just sort of a secondary or tertiary feature within those chapters. It is central to understanding the function of the temple.
- New moons, Sabbaths, and the appointed feasts are mentioned in Ezekiel 44:24; Ezekiel 45:17; Ezekiel 46:3; Ezekiel 11–12.
- Daily offerings are mentioned in Ezekiel 46:13–14.
- Burnt offerings, grain offerings, and libations, those are drink offerings, are mentioned in Ezekiel 45:17; Ezekiel 46:2–3; Ezekiel 46:11–15.
- Blood sacrifices are mentioned in Ezekiel 43:20.
- An altar for the burnt offerings is mentioned in Ezekiel 40:47; Ezekiel 43:13–27.
There are many other things that are related to the sacrificial system that are mentioned, but that gets you the main idea. This is a central feature in these nine chapters of Ezekiel.
One of the key verses that indicates this outside of Ezekiel is Jeremiah 33:17–18 (slide 22). There we read, “For thus says the LORD: ‘David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel'.” What covenant is that? Davidic, that’s the Davidic Covenant. “Nor shall the priests, the Levites, lack a man.” Not only will there be a Davidic king on the throne, but Jeremiah 33:18 indicates that the priesthood is going to be activated during his reign. “Nor will the priests, the Levites lack a man to offer burnt offerings before Me, to kindle grain offerings, and to sacrifice continually.” That is a pretty strong statement that there is going to be a restoration of a sacrificial system with burnt offerings, grain offerings at least in the Millennial Kingdom.
In Ezekiel 43:20–26 (slide 23) God instructs in relation to these future sacrifices, “You shall take some of” the blood from the sacrifice “and put it on the four horns of the altar, on the four corners of the ledge, and on the rim around it; thus you shall cleanse it and make atonement for it. The word “cleanse” there is used in parallelism with making atonement. This is one of the reasons we understand that atonement has to do with cleansing and purification. It is ritual cleansing and purification as opposed to real cleansing and purification. When God dwells in a sinful world where there are sinful people, then there has to be a ritual purification and cleansing of the temple. Not only the people, but also the utensils and the temple. In Ezekiel 43:26 “seven days they shall make atonement.” That’s the word kfr, which means also “to purify, cleanse, or to make atonement.” That’s how it is translated. “For the altar and purify it, and so set it apart (consecrate it).”
You see this reference to different sacrifices that are made in the Millennial Kingdom. In Ezekiel 45:15 (slide 24) we read, “And one lamb shall be given from a flock of two hundred, from the rich pastures of Israel. These shall be for grain offerings, burnt offerings, and peace offerings, to make atonement for them.” And then in Ezekiel 45:17, “Then it shall be the prince’s part to give burnt offerings, grain offerings, and drink offerings, at the feasts, the New Moons, the Sabbaths, and at all the appointed seasons of the house of Israel.” So there is clearly a restoration of something that is similar to the Levitical ritual calendar and ritual sacrifices. “He shall prepare the sin offering, the grain offering, the burnt offering, and the peace offerings to make atonement for the house of Israel.”
Notice that language because one of the things that you were probably taught and I was taught and I heard and was very common and is a fairly workable solution for this problem was the idea that these sacrifices were going to be literal, but they were memorial sacrifices similar to the Lord’s table. The problem with that view is that the language doesn’t reflect that. You don’t have memorial language. When we celebrate the Lord’s table what did Jesus say? He said, “Do this in remembrance of Me.” You don’t have that terminology anywhere in Ezekiel 40–48. You don’t have memorial or remembrance terminology at all; but the language that is used, the instructions that are given, are syntactically the same as what you have in Leviticus. In terms of vocabulary, these are the same as you have in Leviticus. Look at how we read this in Ezekiel 45:15, these offerings are “to make atonement for them.” When we come down to Ezekiel 45:17, these offerings are “to make atonement for the house of Israel.”
Look at what Leviticus 1:4 says (slide 25) in describing the burnt offering, the olah offering, “He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, that it may be accepted for him to make atonement on his behalf.” It is the same language. You can’t allegorize this or spiritualize it in some way to make it fit a memorial sense of the purpose of these sacrifices. Here is an important verse in Ezekiel 43:20 and Ezekiel 43:26 (slide 26), which I was just talking about a minute ago. The word, “you shall cleanse it and make atonement for it.” The first word, “cleanse it” is this word hata. This is the same word that translated means “sin.” It means “to miss or miss the mark, sin, incur guilt;” but it is also used in ritual passages to indicate “purification from uncleanness.” That comes from the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. Then that is used in a synonymous parallelism with “atonement” here. To “cleanse it and make atonement for it.” That is the word kfr. Then in Ezekiel 43:26, “They shall make atonement for the altar and purify it.” That is the word taher, which also has that idea of purification.
This word taher, as well as the word kfr, are translated into the Greek Septuagint by guess what word? You’ve heard some of this so much even though you don’t know Greek you ought to know this. KATHARIZO, where we get the translation, “If we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and” to what? “cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” So atonement isn’t talking about a phase one payment for sin sacrifice. It is talking about phase two spiritual life, on-going cleansing, and ritual cleansing for the ritual worship of God in the temple or the tabernacle.
As I pointed out last Thursday night, one of the primary words for sacrifice in the Hebrew is the word qorban (slide 27), which means “to draw near.” What does sin do? Sin separates us from God. We’re spiritually dead. We’re separated from God. What does a sacrifice do? It’s called a qorban. Often it is translated “offering.” It is designed to bring us “near to God.” The only way to restore that broken fellowship with God because of sin is through an offering or through sacrifice that brings us back together. So that is a great picture.
The other night we looked at the different sacrifices that we have in Leviticus. The burnt offering, the grain offering, the thanksgiving offering, the peace offering, the guilt offering, the trespass offering, so what do we have in Ezekiel?
- In Ezekiel (slide 28) it talks about the olah or the burnt offering. That whole offering to God. This is listed in Ezekiel 40:38-39; Ezekiel 40:42; Ezekiel 43:18, 24; Ezekiel 43:27; Ezekiel 44:11; Ezekiel 45:15; Ezekiel 45:17; Ezekiel 45:23-25; Ezekiel 46:2; Ezekiel 46:4; Ezekiel 46:12-13; Ezekiel 46:15. You all need to write all that down. That is impressive! How many times in these chapters does it talk about or prescribe or describe a burnt offering? Ezekiel 45:17, “He shall prepare the sin offering, the grain offering, the burnt offering, and the peace offering to make atonement.” The same language that we have in Leviticus.
- Then we had the sin offering (slide 29) called the qorban chatat from hatah for sin. That is mentioned in Ezekiel 40:39; Ezekiel 42:13; Ezekiel 42:19; Ezekiel 42:21-22; Ezekiel 42:25; Ezekiel 44:27; Ezekiel 44:29; Ezekiel 45:17; Ezekiel 45:19; Ezekiel 45:22-23. Wow! All through here. This doesn’t fit the idea that there’s no sacrifice in the Millennial Kingdom.
- Then you have the guilt offering (slide 30) called the qorban ‘asham mentioned in Ezekiel 40:39; Ezekiel 42:13; Ezekiel 44:29; Ezekiel 46:20.
- Again you have almost all the sacrifices from Leviticus mentioned again. You have the grain offering (slide 31), the qorban minchah, mentioned in Ezekiel 42:13; Ezekiel 44:29; Ezekiel 45:15; Ezekiel 45:17; Ezekiel 45:24.
- Then the peace offering (slide 32), the qorban shelamim, in Ezekiel 43:27; Ezekiel 45:15; Ezekiel 45:17; Ezekiel 46:2; Ezekiel 46:12.
I am running through those verses quickly. You don’t really need to look at them because you can look it up in a concordance and find those if you are interested. I want you to recognize how many times these different sacrifices and offerings are mentioned in Ezekiel 40–48. This isn’t something that is just a minor idea mentioned in this text. It is essential to the whole understanding of that future temple. These passages (slide 33), I’ve mentioned some of these already, a lot of them are the same passages that just list these various offerings and sacrifices and they are all designed to make atonement.
As I have thought about this, why are we doing this?
1. Well, for one thing, we have a restoration to ritual when God dwells among sinful people. In a sinful world there has to be cleansing from sin ritually, ritually.
There is a difference between ritual and real. A person is saved by trusting in Jesus as the Messiah and His complete payment on the Cross. That’s as true in the Millennial Kingdom as it is true now. But we’re going to have a physical temple with a physical Shekinah dwelling of God in the temple in the Millennial Kingdom, and so there has to be a ritual cleansing because the priests who serve in the temple are going to sin and they are going to need to have ritual cleansing for serving in the temple.
2. But I think there is another reason, and that is that, as I pointed out the other night when we were talking about sacrifice, that we’ve become pretty distant in the Church Age from the reality of animal death and what happens in an animal sacrifice.
Some of you are here and you’ve got a background in hunting or you grew up on a farm, and the idea of an animal dying is not foreign to you. Some of you have never seen an animal die and it would be a real shock to your system to watch an animal sacrifice, which was a daily thing in the OT. The realization that every time you sinned there were consequences and you had to sacrifice an animal because of your selfish nature. That is a real learning point. Today we’ve gotten so distanced from it that most people go to the grocery store and they buy chickens, and they buy roast, and they buy hamburgers, and they never think about where the meat came from and what was involved in getting it from the farm into their hamburger or onto their grill.
But think about what it is going to be in the Millennial Kingdom. How many things are going to be dying in the Millennial Kingdom? Not very many. So when the Bible talks about death, and remember, physical death is a consequence of sin, but it’s not the penalty for sin. Spiritual death was the penalty of sin. Physical death was the consequence, but physical death is used again and again in the OT as a training aid, as a visual aid to teach about the horrors of spiritual death. But if you are living in the Millennial Kingdom in perfect environment and you hear the word “death” how are you going to relate to that? In the Church Age it is bad enough. Nobody sees their parents or grandparents die hardly anymore. It used to be that everybody was born in the house and died in the house, and everybody was fairly familiar with death, animal death or human death; but not anymore.
But in the Millennial Kingdom it is going to be much, much worse. The word death is almost going to have no meaning for most people. So you go to the Millennial temple and you have to bring a sacrifice. It is a training aid to understand the penalty and consequences of sin; that it brings death. So this then becomes a training tool to communicate the gospel and the need for faith in Jesus Christ as your Messiah in order to have eternal life.
Let’s bow our heads and close in prayer.
"Father, we thank You for this opportunity to teach through this material and to study and to come to an understanding of Your plan and purpose as the history that culminated in this almost perfect dispensation. And even at that time there is going to be a need to emphasize that the penalty for sin, the reality of sin, and the need for a substitute; so that people will recognize that they have to trust in Jesus Christ alone for their salvation. Help us to assimilate these doctrines and relate them to our own spiritual life; and we pray this in Christ’s Name, Amen."