May 26, Ezekiel 42
He measured it on the four sides. I had a wall around it, 500 cubits long and 500 cubits broad, to make a separation between the holy and the common. - Ezekiel 42:20
When Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the garden of Eden, their sin made a separation between God and themselves. God began from that time to teach sinful humans that any approach to or relationship with him would require mediation and sacrifice.
So animals died to provide adequate covering for Adam and Eve's nakedness. Abel demonstrated his faith by offering the firstborn of his flock. All the sacrifices offered by the patriarchs on their family altars were illustrations of faith in atoning blood. Those animal sacrifices could not really take away sins or close the gap between a holy God and sinful humans. But they suggested that such an effective sacrifice could and would be made someday. Abraham, Jacob, Moses and the other patriarchs had a strong sense of the holiness of God at places where God appeared or spoke to them and where they offered their sacrifices to the Lord.
When God came to make a covenant with Israel and give them the law through Moses at Mount Sinai, he told Moses to make a wide boundary around the base of the mountain to keep the people from coming too close and being consumed by God’s awesome presence. The tabernacle was designed to illustrate the separation of holy and common. The most holy place contained the ark of the covenant and only the high priest could enter that sacred space only one time each year. The other priests ministered in a restricted area called the holy place where only they could enter. Gentiles who lived among the Hebrews could not go as close to the holy place as the covenant people could go. The ceremonial law emphasized the distinction between clean and unclean to constantly remind them that God was holy and they were called to be holy as well.
Later, Solomon's temple followed the basic design concept of the tabernacle, but on a larger scale. That first temple in Jerusalem maintained the distinction between the holy and the common.
When Israel turned to idols, they profaned the temple of God by worshiping idols alongside God, and even bringing abominable idols into the temple as well. God showed Ezekiel in an earlier vision how even the priests had desecrated the holy temple by their idolatry.
Chapter 42's vision temple also had provisions for sacrifice, and space for priests to do their work. There was dedicated space for living quarters, where the priests ate the holy sacrifices and stored the holy offerings. The whole compound was surrounded by a wide court and a massive wall that enclosed the entire area, to emphasize the distinction between the hold and the ordinary.
If the emphasis of near encounters with God under the Mosaic covenant was, "Stay back," the emphasis of the New Testament is "Draw Near." How could that reversal come about? Our Lord Jesus Christ is the answer to that question. Through his sinless life and atoning death, he made a way for fallen, sinful humans to be cleansed from the sins that separated us from God. The blood of all those animals that were sacrificed under the Old Covenant could not take away sins. But they pointed to and prefigured the power of the blood of Christ to take away the sins that deliver us and separate us from a holy God. God has not changed; his holiness is uncompromised. But by his grace and through the sacrifice of his own Son, he made a way for defiled, estranged sinners to come back to him. We are called into fellowship and holy living by the gospel. The promised gift of his Spirit within us enables us to live holy lives. Because of what Jesus did for us, we can live in God's presence, no longer excluded. Through the saving work of Christ, the separation is removed. Once estranged, we were reconciled to our holy God by the death of his own Son in our place. Praise God!
Copyright © 2024 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—May 2024
East Tallassee Church of Christ
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