The book of Ezekiel begins and ends with visions. The opening visions are of God: "Now it came about in the thirteenth year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was by the river Chebar among the exiles, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God" (1:1). The visions of God are as intricate and specific as the visions related to the temple in Ezekiel 40-48. Any attempt to construct a physical representation of the visions of God would have missed the intended picture of glory found in the visions. Ezekiel tells us that the visions of the temple were "like the vision which I saw by the river Chebar" (43-3c). In Ezekiel 40-48, Ezekiel is shown a vision of the future in the form of a Temple and City. Like the visions in the first chapter, the elements of these visions were not to be built. The vision pictures the glories of the New Covenant that is realized n the person and work of Jesus Christ who is the ultimate manifestation of the temple, sanctuary, city, land, and people. To be "in Christ" is to be in the temple, sanctuary, city, and land. Just like the image of God is magnificent, so is the reality of the New Covenant in Christ. Only Jesus could fulfill the reality of the sanctuary, temple, land and city.
And He said to me, "Son of man, this is the place of My throne and the place of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell among the sons of Israel forever. And the house of Israel will not again defile My holy name, neither they nor their kings, by their harlotry and by the corpses of their kings when they die, by setting their threshold by My threshold, and their door post beside My door post, with only the wall between Me and them. And they have defiled My holy name by their abominations which they have committed. So I have consumed them in My anger" (Ezek. 43:7-8).
Israel was to see Jesus as this temple and the fulfillment of the shadows of the Old Covenant: "When He said, 'A new covenant,' He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready (lit. near) to disappear" (Heb. 8:13). It was ready to disappear in the first century because of the person and work of Jesus. The outward manifestation of the Old Covenant did soon disappear when the temple was torn down stone by stone in A.D. 70. Paul M. Hoskins, writing in "Jesus as the Fulfillment of the Temple in the Gospel of John argues that the combined evidence from passages like John 1:14, 1:51, 2:13-22 and 4:20-24 "suggests that the coming of Jesus inaugurates a new phase in the relationship between God and his people. In these verses, Jesus fulfills and surpasses prophecies and patterns associated with the Temple. In doing so, Jesus appears to be the fulfillment of the Temple who has come to take its place." In Ezekiel 47 we read about the water that was "flowing from under the threshold of the house" (47:1). "Jesus alludes to the water flowing from Ezekiel's end-time temple in John 7:38 and interprets it of himself and of the Spirit in relation to believers, a passage that further develops the 'living water' theme of John 4."
Quoting Isiah 49:8, Paul writes, "And working together with Him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain -- for He says, 'At the acceptable time I listened to you, and on the day of salvation I helped you'; behold, now is 'the acceptable time,' behold, now is 'the day of salvation'"
(2 Cor. 6:1-2). The New Testament brings to a climax what was promised under the directives of the Old Covenant. The New Testament, as promised, is the Old Covenant fulfilled.
(Gary DeMar - 10 Popular Prophecy Myths Exposed and Answered)
No comments:
Post a Comment