New Jerusalem

40:1-4 – Ezekiel is taken in a vision to see ‘buildings that looked like a city.’

40:5-42:20 – Ezekiel is shown the design of the temple, shown the exact measurements of every room and gate and courtyard. A building with symmetrical proportions, built exactly according to the architect’s design. He notices regularly that the walls are decorated with palm trees: this Temple is an oasis; the source of water for those who have been wandering in a barren dry wilderness.

43:1-12 – God’s glory returns to the Temple; God declares His intention to dwell permanently among His people in a Temple never to be defiled again. ‘Let them consider its perfection…’

43:13-27 – The Altar and sacrifices are restored

44:1-4 – God’s presence confirmed. The door is shut. Only one person may eat in the Lord’s presence – the Prince.

44:5-45:6 – Priesthood restored under Zadok’s descendants (Zadok was High Priest during the time of David, and his line remained loyal.)

45:7-46:24 – The kingship is restored: the Prince will bring justice and fairness, and ensure that true worship is maintained by leading the people in it, including offerings, sabbaths and festivals.

47:1-12 – The river flowing from the Temple. The presence of God brings fruitfulness to the land and healing for the people.

47:13-48:29 – The land is allotted to the retuned tribes. Each tribe is given an equal portion (47:14). Foreigners living in the land are to be included, considered as native-born Israelites! (47:22)

48:30-35 – The Gates and New Name of the City: THE LORD IS THERE.

Some ways these chapters have been understood by Christians:

• Rebuilding and resettling instructions for the returning exiles 45 years later. 

Problems with this view:

1. The retuned exiles (see Ezra & Nehemiah) were either completely ignorant of Ezekiel’s prophecy or disregarded it completely, as there’s no indication they followed this design.
2. Some aspects of this temple are impossible for people to manufacture – eg. the water flowing from the top on the mountain, enough to turn the Dead Sea fresh.
3. Ezekiel 37:26-28 makes it clear that this is something God will do: It is more of a description than an instruction.

• A description of a literal temple and resettlement, yet to take place in a thousand-year period between the ‘rapture’ and Jesus’ return; the means for Jewish people to come to Christ.

Problems with this view:

1. Does not match with passages in Hebrews which says the Temple system is done away with in Jesus, and Revelation which describes a city with no temple.
2. Based on a way of interpreting the Bible that is fairly recent (100 years) and is not help by many Bible-believing Christians.

• A symbolic representation of the church. Favoured because John’s vision in Revelation of the New Jerusalem (not heaven, but God’s people) has very similar imagery, obviously designed to make the reader think of Ezekiel’s vision (eg. Rev 22:1-2/Ez 47:1-12, Rev 21:3/Ez 43:6-7).

Problems with this view:

1. It’s hard to see how some of the images (eg. restored priesthood, resettlement of the land) directly correspond to the church.

So how should we interpret it?

The best way to understand these chapters is to set them in the context of the whole structure of the book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel depicts a deconstruction of Israel, with a systematic removal of all the key aspects of what it meant for them to be God’s people: God’s presence and glory depart; the King and leaders are exiled; the line of David is cut off; the people are judged for their sin and removed from the land; The surrounding nations are judged; the city is destroyed; and the Temple is destroyed, and with it the priesthood and its sacrificial system.

The book then goes on to give promises of the reconstruction of Israel by God, according to His design: The atonement for the sins of the people; their revival and resurrection and return to the land; the reunification of the divided kingdom; the defeat of all of God’s enemies; the return of God’s presence among them; the rebuilding of the Sanctuary (Holy place) amongst them; and the establishment of the reigning Son promised to David.

All of these promises are designed to give the people a hope for their future, an assurance that even though they deserve God’s abandonment, He will stay true to His covenant for the sake of His glory, and because of His promises to Abraham that all the nations of the earth will be blessed through him. And they are all wrapped up together in a visual picture of a land in which all the tribes live with equal shares of land, ruled over by a just, wise and caring ‘prince’, and God is worshipped truly through a restored, cleansed priesthood and perfect sacrifices offered in a perfectly proportioned temple.

What is God doing here? He is giving a picture of, ‘…the messianic future, but in the symbolic categories of Ezekiel’s present.’ (D. A. Carson) Or in other words, the Kingdom of God that will break into human history through the coming of Jesus Christ.

Jesus used this approach all the time in his parables, saying, ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is like…’ and then telling stories of people getting married, holding banquets, farming the land, fishing, discovering buried treasure, doing business, making bread, etc. He did not mean us to understand that the Kingdom of God will be literally the identical to the pictures he painted from life in first century Palestine, but rather, to understand the dynamics of the image and see how it illustrated the nature of God’s kingdom.

We sit in what has been called ‘the overlap of the ages’. We look back to the moment when Jesus (the Son of David) turned up and announced, ‘“The time has come: The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’ (Mark 1:15), and we look forward to the moment when we will hear the announcement, ‘“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever!’ (Revelation 11:15). The kingdom has dawned in Jesus (Carson), and we see the dynamic of Ezekiel’s vision become a reality for us whose faith is in Him:

• He is the true Temple – we don’t go to a building in order to find the presence of God, we come to Jesus.
• In Jesus we see a restored and purified Priesthood – He is our great High Priest who has offered to perfect sacrifice to atone for our sin – so perfect in fact that it has done away once and for all with the need for any more sacrifices (See Hebrews!)
• He is the Prince who bring justice and equity, and who enables and leads the people to come and worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth.
• Jesus is the source of ‘living water’ that brings renewal and healing to people from all nations.
• Jesus defeats all of our enemies – sin, death, the devil, all through his cross. By dealing with sin, he removes the judgement for sin (death) and disarms the Accuser (Devil).
• Jesus is ‘Immanuel’ – God with us. In Jesus God has come in to dwell with His people and he has shut the door behind Him, never to leave again.