Nov. 9, 2014

Background Scripture: Ezekiel 43:13-21

Ezekiel’s book falls into three divisions. Chapters 1-24 contain his warnings of doom for Israel. Chapters 25-32 are a series of dirges and warnings pronounced against Israel’s neighboring nations.

Our study of Ezekiel this month is focused on the third section, chapters 33-48, in which Ezekiel proclaims the coming of a New Israel out of its Babylonian exile into a new era in which, as Dwight E. Stevenson puts it: “Israel would first repulse the desperate onslaught of heathen nations, thus ending war and ushering in the reign of universal peace.”

There were three temples in Jerusalem’s history. The first was built by Solomon in the second half of the 10th century B.C. This was the temple destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. The second temple was built by Zerubbabel in 515 B.C.

In 20 B.C., the “New Temple” to which Ezekiel refers, King Herod greatly expanded and rebuilt. It came to be known as the Third Temple, which Jesus knew. In 70 A.D. Roman armies sacked Jerusalem and destroyed it.

Ezekiel 40-48 focuses upon the centrality of the New Temple of Jerusalem that is to be built to replace the ruins of the old temple. God will return to the Jerusalem Temple, so it must be built according to exact measurements and detail, because this will not just be a restoration of the old temple worship, but a new beginning.

In the midst of the gloom of their captivity, the people have something to which they may look forward as God has promised.

That was then …

Upon graduating from seminary and ordination, I was assigned by my bishop to an old country church just outside Harrisburg, Pa. It was located in a setting that was about to become suburban. Part of my task as pastor was to hold before this congregation the image of what Charlton Church could and would become.

Recently, as I read this week’s scripture passage from Ezekiel 43, I couldn’t help thinking that if I had held before my new congregation the images Ezekiel described in 43:13-21, Charlton Church would not have been reborn.

Why? Because my people would hardly have identified themselves with Ezekiel’s depiction of the altar of the New Temple:

“Its base shall be one cubit high, and one cubit wide, with a rim of one span around its edge. From the base on the ground to the lower ledge, two cubits, with a width of one cubit; and from the smaller ledge to the larger ledge, two cubits.” (43:13-17).

What’s wrong with that passage? Nothing, really, except it is unlikely to speak to us as it did to Ezekiel and his people – because the time, situation and personnel are different from our own. Church building committees today would likely want to know who drew up those specifications.

And even the style of worship described in 43:18-21 is not only alien to most of us, but repugnant: “You shall give to the Levitical priests of the family of Zadok, who draw near to me to minister to me, says the Lord God, a bull for sin offering. And you shall take some of its blood and put it on the four horns of the altar … thus you shall purify it and make atonement for it. You shall also take the bull of the sin offering, and it shall be burnt in the appointed place  belonging to the temple outside the sacred area.”

So this oracle, so strange to our ears and experience, was probably the right message for the time, circumstances and people involved. People in those days were accustomed to animal and even human sacrifice. So God had to work with the people who were there. Yes, we Christians today still worship, but the manner of our worship is very, very different from that of  the Jews of the 8th century.

This is now

And yes, we still believe in atonement for sin, but the atoning sacrifice for our sins was made on Calvary by Jesus. Yes, the temple was still the principal place of worship in Jesus’ own day, but less than a half-century after his birth, the temple lay in ruins, destroyed by the Romans. No temple was ever built in Jerusalem again.

Already, during the life of Jesus, the synagogues were growing in importance and the early churches to a degree were patterned after them. In a sense, the Romans did both Jews and Christians a favor in encouraging the synagogue and church to become the focus of religious life. Temple worship was finished.

There is an issue that swims just below the surface of Ezekiel’s message on Temple worship. Perhaps as few or even no one before him, Ezekiel emphasizes something usually overlooked: We sin as both individuals and members of groups. So, we have moral responsibility for both our personal sins and the sins of the groups in which we participate.

Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr said people are more likely to sin as members of a group than as individuals: “There is an increasing tendency among modern men to imagine themselves ethical because they have delegated their vices to larger and larger groups.” People will often do in a corporation or an organization what they would not do as individuals.

Niebuhr also observed that World War I was “made inevitable, not by ‘bad’ people; who plotted against the peace of the world, but by good people who had given over their conscience into the keeping of their various political groups.”

Our ways of coping with the fact of human sin may differ radically from those of Ezekiel in 8th century B.C. Israel. But the reality is still the same. As human beings we must constantly be on guard against the human weaknesses and deceptions within us.

And constantly, we must offer them up on God’s altar and ask for His mercy. Only then can we experience the “New Beginnings” that God alone can offer us.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Those with questions or comments for Rev. Althouse may write to him in care of this publication.