The Measure of God’s House – New Testament Fellowship

The Measure of God's House

A Message about the Temple and the Church from Ezekiel, Chapters 40-47

By Jaan Vaino

We’ve heard already this morning about the prophet Haggai’s exhortation to the rulers and people of Israel, returned from the Babylonian captivity, to tend to their neglected mission—the rebuilding of the Lord’s house at Jerusalem. We’ve also heard of a revival of the knowledge of God’s neglected and lost word, and of obedience to it, during the reign of Israel’s King Josiah, before the captivity. We’ve heard too about the tendency of our personal inclinations and preferences to get in the way of real service to God.

God is in the Details

Here’s a passage of Scripture that speaks of the same things—about caring for the Lord’s house, and seeing it rebuilt—as He has instructed, not in the shape of our own inclinations. It speaks of obedience to God and to a lost but, God grant, re-discovered instruction. This also may strike us as a rather unexciting and uninviting passage at first— the latter part of Ezekiel, starting in chapter forty.

Ezekiel’s book spans a consequential period of transitions. His prophesying starts before the captivity of Judah and the destruction of Jerusalem. Ezekiel went into Babylon with the people, and he prophesied some time into that captivity, and was shown extraordinary heavenly visions. These closing chapters of his book carry elements familiar to us, but he is an unfamiliar source for them, and the message is couched in unfamiliar terms.

Let’s start in chapter forty. The Lord has taken Ezekiel, in a vision, back to Israel and to Jerusalem. In verse four, Ezekiel writes: “The man said to me, ‘Son of man, look with your eyes and hear with your ears and pay attention to everything I am going to show you, for that is why you have been brought here. Tell the house of Israel everything you see.’”

At the end of verse three, we see “a man whose appearance was like bronze.” This figure stands in the gateway—with what? What does this supernatural servant of God have in his hand? Yes, a yardstick—a reed of six long cubits, about ten and one-half feet. It is a measuring stick and what makes this series of chapters that follows seem a bit tedious is that it consists of so much use of this measuring reed. In Ezekiel’s vision, everything in the temple he is shown is measured. We read verse after verse, chapter after chapter of this. For example, in verse twenty of this chapter forty, “He measured the length and width of the gate facing north, leading into the outer court. Its alcoves—three on each side—its projecting walls and its portico had the same measurements as those of the first gateway. It was fifty cubits long and twenty-five cubits wide.” And we can go on and on. There’s the south gate, there is the gate to the inner court, there are rooms for preparing sacrifices, rooms for the priests and so on. The text is filled with measurements and descriptions of a grand temple—empty, interestingly, of people.

Here are rooms for priests and for singers and places for the preparation of sacrifices—all measured and placed where they belong in the plan of the temple. These chapters are simply filled with measuring.

What do you make of this?

What do you make of this? Let’s start with the most basic things. Here is exactness, a complete plan, care and precision [man: “carefulness and love”]. Here are a specific size and proportions. [man: It’s the opposite of grandiose; this is beauty, but like the Lord Himself; it is practical.] And about God himself we can observe, at a minimum, that with all of this careful description, these chapters of measurements and dimensions, He cares about this stuff! He cares about all of these details!

If He did not care, He might have given us a one-sentence description of this temple, or perhaps a single paragraph (He is very good at editing a matter to its essence). “There’s the temple,” He might have said, “It’s wonderful.” End of story. But the description is specific, it is detailed—and what does that tell you? God cares about it. These instructions are meant to be followed, to be obeyed.

Neither we nor the Jews know exactly what the plans in these chapters are for. Some think they are a blueprint for the next temple to be built in Jerusalem. Some might say that they are instructions for the second temple, which had not yet been built when Ezekiel prophesied this. Some say this doesn’t correspond to anything on earth. This is a spiritual description, and we can’t say exactly what this is—unless we have revelation. But we do know that God cares about the form, the appointments, the proportions, the balance, the measure, the specifics of His house.

You know that in book publishing, there are design conventions for page layout that have been in use for centuries. These govern the proportions of a page, and of the type and spaces on it. There is something called the golden rectangle which has certain proportions, 5 by 3, and there are others. People find, when they use these rules that, yes, the page looks graceful. It seems appropriate when these certain proportions are followed, but when you veer too far from them, it looks sort of rakish, maybe a bit disturbing. There is a lot of room for variety in graphic design, of course. But many design schemes aren’t appropriate—or just don’t work. Here in Ezekiel, God describes a design and proportions that please Him, and work perfectly.

Here’s another passage, chapter 43, verses 10-12, where the Lord indicates how important it is to Him that His people understand, respect, and adhere to the design of His house. The sight of it is such that it should convict God’s people of their responsibility to Him: “Son of man, describe the temple to the people of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their sins. Let them consider the plan, and if they are ashamed of all they have done, make known to them the design of the temple—its arrangement, its exits and entrances—its whole design and all its regulations and laws. Write these down before them so that they may be faithful to its design and follow all its regulations. This is the law of the temple: All the surrounding area on top of the mountain will be most holy. Such is the law of the temple.”

So the very description of this plan: these measurements, these proportions, the appointments of the rooms—all of this—he was to write down and show to the people of Israel. “If they are ashamed of all they have done, make known to them the design of the temple.” “Let them know,” He says, “what my house is like and how it is to be made.” That, the Lord said to Ezekiel, was vital for them to know. This, after all, is God’s house—God’s own house!

Israel was the people among whom God’s set His house. They were His people. To ignore, to live without a careful, working knowledge of His house, would have been be to disown their chief purpose. To neglect God’s house, whether on purpose or out of ignorance, would have been to sin against the Lord.

Chapter 44, verse 5 reiterates, “Then the Lord said to me, ‘Son of man, look carefully, listen closely and give attention to everything I tell you concerning all the regulations regarding the temple of the Lord. Give attention to the entrance of the temple and all the exits of the sanctuary.’”

In Chapter 43, verses 3 and 4, Ezekiel describes seeing the glory of the Lord enter this temple. God fills it with the glory of His presence. Earlier in his prophesy, Ezekiel described the departure of the glory of the Lord from the temple in Jerusalem—the temple that had been built for Him, but for whose destruction God called because it had become filled with whatever wicked things any king and the people wanted to put into it. They brought idols into it, side by side with the Holy Place. They did whatever they wanted. They had no regard for the sanctity and holiness of God’s own house, and the specificity of God’s plan for it. They simply did whatever they wanted and defiled it. He did not accept it; He destroyed it. He wiped it out and sent the people into captivity. That is where they were when Ezekiel received this vision and was told to make it known to the people—if they would be ashamed and repent.

A Blueprint from Heaven

Now, I think you know where I am going with this.

David told Solomon to build the temple in Jerusalem, His house, according to plans and specifications that he received from the Lord—not out of his own imagination. In 1 Chronicles 28, verses 11 through 19, we read: “Then David gave his son Solomon the plans…. He gave him the plans of all that the Spirit had put in his mind for the courts of the temple of the LORD…. ‘All this,’ David said, ‘I have in writing from the hand of the LORD upon me, and he gave me understanding in all the details of the plan.’” We all remember that this started with David, with what seemed to be his own impulse. He was thinking about living in his paneled palace, and he thought, “God’s Ark is going about in a tent. There is something not right here. I’ve got it too good and the Ark has it too bad. God belongs in the prime place.” And we know that God asked Nathan the prophet to speak to him and said, “I have never commanded this; you’ve done well, but you won’t build it. You have been a bloody man, you’ve had wars. Solomon your son will build it.”

But though the idea of a temple seemed to originate in David’s heart, we see that David later said that he got the specific plans from the Lord. The Lord owned it, though David seemed to have thought of it himself. And think about the tabernacle; we read how often the Lord said to Moses, “See that you build it according to the pattern shown to you in the mountain.” It is a chorus; we hear it again and again and we hear finally that they did build it that way, and God’s glory filled it.

Well, we have a house of God. We are being built into a house that surpasses any of these. It is not made with hands; it is made by the Holy Spirit. We are His house.

In Hebrews we read that we are His house, if we “hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end” (Hebrews 3:6). We are His house. Peter says (1 Peter 2:5), “We are living stones, we are being built into a holy temple, a habitation of God by the Spirit” (also Ephesians 2:22). That’s us!

And how should this house be built? Has God spoken about this? “Hath God said?” (to ask in a different way one of the first questions ever asked). There are so many different churches! They vary greatly in their polity, their doctrine, their governance, their concept of worship. Has God really, in the kind of detail we find in Ezekiel, in the Law of Moses, in David’s temple, specified what his church is to be like? He has! He has—and in many ways. Jesus said He would build it, and the gates of hell would not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18). He said, when a couple of the disciples were fighting about who was going to be the greatest, “Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but… whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:25-26).

He did say, “What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church,” and much more. There is lots of description. So why is that instruction not followed at large? And it is not. Why? [John: Tradition!] [Phil: Substitution!]

It is so much like the law that was lost and forgotten by the time of King Josiah. With God’s temple, people finally did what they wanted. They neglected the house of God, they brought into it what they wished, they let it lapse into ruin. The law remained there, but it was lost to them. It was hidden from their eyes. The very people of God lost the law and it was no longer theirs.

Where Josiah got his care for the temple, I don’t think we are told, but somehow, he began to be concerned about the house of God. He got that from somewhere, maybe his mother, I don’t know, but from God for sure. And he began to say, “This house needs repair, so let’s start collecting the money again and put it into the hands of workmen.” That’s very practical—people with trowels and plaster and plumb lines and measuring reeds and the like. They began—they just started to care.

Josiah started to care for the house of God as God meant it to be. He wanted it at least to be in good repair, and not full of cracks and plaster falling on the floor, and so on. He just began to exercise care, to have a heart for God’s house. And what happened? They discovered the law! It wasn’t hid from them. They read it and were convicted to their hearts. “We are in big trouble,” they concluded, “We are in danger.” They saw it right away. They thought, “Because we have not obeyed these laws and commandments, God’s wrath against us is great, and we had better pull ourselves together and repent.” And so they did, and Josiah started tearing down idols all over the country. There was revival, just because the King had some care in his heart towards the house of God and began to serve Him.

What about the condition of Christians and our churches today? Strip away the tradition, the familiar way things are, and the fact is that believing Christians—as well as many who are called Christians but don’t have the life of Christ in them— have lost this law. Here, it is plainly before our faces. It is all here in the Scriptures. We Christians of almost every variety will read First Corinthians and Ephesians; we may read it over and over, reading right through passages of Scriptures that reveal to us from heaven what God’s house and His people are like, in their ministry one to another and to the Lord. But does it register? For the most part it does not. Strangely, what these Scriptures reveal is rendered inaccessible; minds are dulled; hearts are thick; because real life is quite different in Christians’ churches, and Christians are taught contrary to what is written.

In the Crosshairs—but Why?

And why is it so? Why is it so hard to get this right? For one thing, can we name anything in all the earth and in all of history more important to God and to man, than His church, His body? Is there anything, anybody? If there is nothing in all of history and in all the world that is more important and more precious to God, is there anything that is going to be more sorely and subtly attacked, fought, and campaigned against? No, I don’t think so.

One almost need say no more to suggest why it is so difficult—while outwardly seeming so calm. There is nothing going on here, the enemy says, nothing at all. It’s just natural, he suggests, that the house of God should be the most divided house on the face of the earth, and through all of history! At least, that is the accusation unbelievers hurl at us. And I think they probably are not wrong; the most divided house on the face of the earth. And whether through plain disobedience or through ignorance or loss of the truth, this is disobedience of a high order. It is disobedience, and God’s people must come round to obeying Him in this thing above all—in the matter of His house. How can we not? We surely must obey God in the building of His own House!

What’s the consequence? Well—compare the Christian church at large today to the church in the book of Acts, the same church reflected in the epistles, and told of by the Lord Jesus. What do we see? What comparison can there be? Reaching for something yesterday I thought, well, how about comparing a broken down 1943 Volkswagen Beetle that barely can putt, to a brand-new shiny Mercedes sedan? There’s got to be a better comparison than that, but let’s stick with this one for a moment. We will find people with a straight face claiming that the ’43 Volkswagen we are trying to coax into running order today is actually better than the new Mercedes. It is, we are told, a more perfect and more powerful vehicle than the Mercedes sedan right off the assembly line now.

Some will say that the supernatural things the Scriptures display at work within the church, including the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, were all for “back then,” in the infant church of the first century. Some say that once the canon of Scripture was complete, there was no longer any need for the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, certainly no need for prophecy. Excuses, eloquent excuses, are made for the Beetle. We are supposed to be convinced that “it’s better—just trust me!” “You don’t see it, but trust me! It really is better and, in any case, it is what we’ve got, folks; it’s what we’ve got, and it’s right.”

It is so difficult in part because the church, and being a member of the church, is finally so unpalatable to an ego, to a comfortable life, to so much that the flesh wants. It is a sad fact that a “Christian church” can be found to suit practically anyone, regardless of their predilections or aversions. Flesh, with various shades and degrees of inclinations—some preferring just plain rest and laziness, others taking pleasure in meddling or criticizing—pet inclinations of every sort will find a suitable church somewhere.

But none of this fits in the church of Christ—none of it fits. And that’s also why it is so hard to see the body of Christ established, because all along the way, people choose another place—a place of rest, silence, ease, a place of no responsibility. Be a Christian, but take no responsibility for God’s house, we are told. Some succumb to a different temptation, being so ready to take all the responsibility they can get, with the result that there is none left for anyone else.

It is so easy for the flesh to profess resignation to Jesus, but to grasp something else along with Him that’s satisfying and fitting to it. The church of Christ cannot be built, and I cannot be built into it unless I am willing to know the Cross as my friend, and to embrace it, thereby finding my place, whether it means that I must speak, and I am not inclined to speak or even able to do so. I must, and if I am too inclined to do so, I must curb myself! Whatever shoe fits needs to be worn. But it is a matter of obedience. For Israel the Lord said, “Show them this house, write it down, make it known to them if they are ashamed of their ways and what they have done.” It seems clear that a large proportion of that generation’s shame—and ours, too—has to do with how the people called by God have treated His house.

A Call to Repentance and Obedience

I don’t know how to speak (though I am sure one could), about Israel with regard to all of this right now. I am speaking with regard to God’s house at large, if one can speak in that way, about Christians. (And this is not intended in any way to imply that the church has replaced Israel as heir to the promises made to Israel. It has not.) Christians at large—we need to obey this instruction. We need to build the house of God in the way that God has said that it must be built.

We must do this more widely. It applies here, in the ways and in the degree that it does apply here, just as it applies anywhere else.

What will be the consequence, if we build in this way? We must build this way for the church—particularly in the end time, where we are—to be what God has said she will be and must be. A synthetic church will burn under the pressure; it will not be able to stand up. It will not be able to do what God will have his people do in the balance of this age. It’s time! God grant that, as under Josiah, when they discovered the law and repented and obeyed, that there come an awakening among Christians, that they discover and be shown the law of the house—God’s house, and repent. Let many do the hard thing, the thing that will be anointed with God’s oil—let us build His house. It is a matter of obedience, a matter of repentance, a matter of revelation, and a matter of the highest importance. Amen.