Ezekiel 43:24, commentary and pictures

The verse prescribes that bulls and goats be presented before the LORD in a seven-day service for purging, purifying, dedicating and consecrating the altar, with the priests casting salt upon them and offering them as a burnt offering before the altar was ready for the regular daily offerings. It was given fourteen years after the sanctuary had been destroyed as a conditional promise to captive Israel, depending on shame for iniquity, repentance and obedience, to be literally fulfilled in the past during the Mosaic dispensation while animal offerings and the Levitical priesthood were still in force. Because Israel went on in apostasy and refusal to be ashamed, the sanctuary as shown was never built as originally offered, and what was built under Zerubbabel and Ezra was only a feeble faint shadow falling far short of its pattern and glory. Those salted burnt offerings belonged to a first-covenant ceremonial shadow pointing forward to Christ, whose blood alone takes away sin, so that since He by one sacrifice forever perfected them that are sanctified the offering of beasts forever ceased and cannot operate alongside His unchangeable priesthood after the order of Melchisedec. The unfulfilled vision stands as a spiritual prophecy to be grandly realized in the New City and future kingdom of God, not in a future literal sanctuary nor as a prophecy of a change of the Sabbath to the first day.

Altar Dedication Ceremony

Ezekiel 43:24 commands that bulls and goats be brought before the LORD as animal victims, that the priests cast salt upon them, and that they then offer them up as a burnt offering in the temple shown in Ezekiel 40-48. The salted burnt offerings stand within the seven-day purification and consecration of the restored altar, before regular temple service is resumed. Those animal offerings of bulls and goats were only symbols of faith in Christ, shadows pointing toward the substance, and were never effectual or necessary to take away sins, because the blood of bulls and of goats cannot take away sins.

The instruction belongs to the service for purging, purifying, dedicating and consecrating the altar, a definite service continued for seven days, and not to a weekly act of worship. It is part of the prescribed temple ritual for dedication, in which for a whole week special offerings purge and purify the altar, with the salted burnt offering as part of that seven-day cleansing. After that ceremony the altar was ready for the usual daily offerings.

During the seven days appointed to purge the altar and purify it the priests consecrate themselves, under the ordinances of the altar in the day when it is made, to offer burnt offerings thereon and to sprinkle blood thereon. When these seven days of sanctification are expired, upon the eighth day and so forward every day the priests make the regular burnt offerings and peace offerings described in the law upon the altar, and God accepts the people. That eighth day is the eighth day of that series for purging the altar, not the eighth day of the week, and has nothing to do with the Sabbath.

Like the tabernacle and the temple, the building in the vision consisted of two holy places, with the most holy place the same size as that in Solomon's temple, and it is called the sanctuary. The pattern was given fourteen years after the sanctuary had been destroyed, to show to the house of Israel in captivity. The verse also belongs to the sanctuary vision given as part of the conditional promise to Israel, in which the described temple and its prescribed worship with its restoration would have been realized if Israel had returned to God and been faithful, and it is at times included in that promise without separate explanation of its salt or its offering.

Vision Historical Setting

The pattern in Ezekiel 40-48 was given fourteen years after the sanctuary had been destroyed, to be shown to the house of Israel in captivity. What this verse describes was offered to Israel after the Babylonian captivity as a conditional promise, depending on their being ashamed of iniquities, repenting, putting away sin, reforming, and exercising faith, obedience and full yielding to God, so that if they failed fulfillment was not obligated. That temple and its sacrifices were provisional, and the command concerning animal victims belonged to that conditional offer. What the verse prescribes would have been literally fulfilled in the past, during the Mosaic dispensation when animal offerings and the Levitical priesthood were in force and before those practices and institutions were abolished.

In its full form the promised restoration would have brought the twelve tribes back to their land and to the mountains of Israel to do better for them than at their beginnings. It would have rebuilt the temple more glorious than ever for God's overpowering glorious presence to dwell in the city named Jehovah Is There, and would have displayed God's glory among those brought back from many nations. It would have raised the dead as in Ezekiel 37, destroyed Gog and Magog and other menacing northern enemies with plagues, cleansed the land, redivided it among the twelve tribes, and sent Israel out to convert the nations. The vision from Ezekiel 40 onward pictures God's purpose for Jerusalem and is the counterpart to the measuring of Jerusalem in Zechariah 2. It was given concerning the future of Jerusalem on condition that God's people put aside their sins and come up to the full measure of children of God.

Conditional Promise Forfeited

The sanctuary described was offered to Israel on condition of repentance, shame for iniquity, obedience and yielding fully to God, but because the people went on in apostasy, wickedness and refusal to be ashamed those conditions were not met, so it was never built as originally offered and will never be built to fill the place designed for it. That unbuilt sanctuary cannot now be built, because its plan provides not only for a building but for the old sanctuary service with animal sacrifices and the Levitical priesthood, and to offer such a burnt offering now would make void the once-for-all sacrifice offered by Christ the Lord. The vision therefore does not belong to the gospel dispensation or to an immortal future state, but to a literal, conditional arrangement under the Levitical priesthood that would have been fulfilled in the past during the Mosaic dispensation.

Because Israel failed to meet those conditions, only about forty thousand returned from Babylon, and the promised fullness of restoration was not realized. What was built under Zerubbabel and Ezra was only a lesser, feeble, faint shadow of the wonderful structure shown, falling far short of its pattern, glory and prosperity, with only partial victory and only the faintest shadow of the promised glory. If Israel had forsaken sin, been ashamed and confounded for their ways, and returned to the Lord with all their hearts, the temple built by Zerubbabel would have been far greater and grander, Israel would have been the joy of the whole earth, and marvelous things would have been wrought in the Holy Land with northern enemies conquered. As it was, the restored temple never saw the glory of Solomon's temple except in the person of Jesus Christ, whom the temple-keepers rejected.

The vision is of a temple grander than the one rebuilt after the captivity, showing God's design for a more magnificent house, and the house later built under Herod was honored by Christ's presence. The grand and magnificent temple that Israel might build at Jerusalem after the captivity was destined ultimately to become the house of prayer for all nations. The prophecy predicts the building of a greater temple and is fulfilled in Herod's rebuilt temple, as do some of the minor prophets; it gives the fact of the building but does not reveal the process by which the work was to be done, and the circumstances attending the work are secondary to the fact itself.

Later Spiritual Fulfillment

Though never built as first offered, the temple vision remains as a spiritual prophecy of greater things God will do for His people through Christ. The promises to the true Israel will yet be fulfilled in a later form under greater conditions, not in every detail described in Ezekiel, with some of the former details omitted. Where the prophecy failed for old earthly Jerusalem it will be grandly realized in the New City that awaits the true Israel of God. That holy city has been prepared in heaven to descend to earth, since the city that Jerusalem could have become was never built. God's kingdom of peace, which would have been established on earth if His people had met the conditions, will instead be fulfilled more gloriously in the new earth.

Ezekiel 36-48 is only faintly typical, not in detail but in great general promises, of what God will do for His children at the second coming of Jesus Christ and the events connected therewith, for the type is never the perfect antitype. What God was prepared to do when Israel came up out of Babylon, if they had been ashamed of their iniquities and returned to the Lord with all their hearts, was to restore them to their land, rebuild the temple more glorious than ever before, slay Gog and Magog and all menacing northern nations, cleanse the land, redivide it among the twelve tribes, raise the dead as in Ezekiel 37, and send Israel out from that glorious city to convert the nations. Because Israel was not ashamed and failed, that sanctuary was never rebuilt, the glory of God did not rest upon His children, the resurrection did not take place, and the work dwindled to the smaller temple actually erected by Zerubbabel with only the faintest shadow of the promised glory and prosperity. That greater fulfillment comes without the local conditions of the prophet's day, with no burning of weapons and no cleansing of the land by human hands, for the fires of the last day will consume sin out of the world and melt the earth with fervent heat. In this sense the vision in Ezekiel 40-48 is a vision of the future kingdom of God.

Like the wilderness sanctuary and Solomon's temple, the glorious temple shown as the center of a restored Jerusalem was an ordained object lesson to impress that the only holy, worthy thing is that in which God dwells, to lead man to yield himself as a dwelling-place, temple and sanctuary of God. Its great truth is Jehovah is there, whose presence would heal all barren land, all salt marshes and all impure waters and give life to all. That temple was never built and never will be built, because Israel would not yield all to God so He could come in and dwell among them, and He could not have a temple built for His name for a half-hearted people to dishonor. Hence the temple built at the restoration from Babylon fell far short of Ezekiel's pattern and never saw the glory of Solomon's temple except in the person of Jesus Christ, whom the temple-keepers rejected.

Christ and Sacrifices

The salted burnt offerings belong to a literal Levitical arrangement for Israel under the first covenant, whose animal blood, including that of bulls and goats, could not in itself remit sin or take away sins and was never effectual or necessary for that purpose. That service was conditional and forfeited, and cannot belong to the gospel dispensation or to an immortal future state, nor be revived after Christ's actual atonement and the close of His heavenly ministry. Those rites were ceremonial shadows and symbols of faith in Christ, pointing forward to His atoning offering and intended for the time before His death, not for a later age. Since Jesus Christ suffered death as the Sacrifice to which all others pointed, and by one sacrifice for sins forever perfected forever them that are sanctified, the offering of beasts as acceptable to God forever ceased.

The temple service, if faithfully performed, would have received God's blessing, but its animal offerings could not be approved alongside Christ's work as high priest pleading His own blood, for the two sacrificial systems could not operate at the same time. The presence of Levites serving as priests shows the temple could not belong to any period after the opening of the Christian dispensation, because when Christ was crucified and ascended the law of the priesthood changed, Levi was no longer priest, and Christ became priest forever after the order of Melchisedec with an unchangeable priesthood that does not pass from one to another, continuing with the everlasting gospel until probation ends. To build that sanctuary now and offer animal sacrifices such as the salted burnt offering would annul and make void and of none effect the offering made once for all by Jesus Christ, and to go back to bulls and goats as effectual for cleansing sin denies Christ as Saviour. Their proposed continuation after His once-for-all sacrifice would imply a renewed need for an atoning sacrifice, and without making void the sacrifice Christ the Lord offered there can be no more sacrifice such as the burnt offering described.

Because Christ's death fulfilled the sacrifices, the offerings are not a future sacrificial requirement and prove the vision does not refer to a future sanctuary, nor to the gospel dispensation or an immortal future state, nor to a temple God would again ordain. Ezekiel 43 is one of the two Old Testament passages that describe the cleansing of the sanctuary, which is the priest's work of mediation cleansing the sanctuary from the people's sins through sacrifice. The earthly sanctuary was purified with the blood of animals, while Christ cleanses the heavenly sanctuary by His own blood in the antitypical Day of Atonement before His second coming.

No Sabbath Change

Ezekiel 43:24 describes an offering with salt as part of the instructions for dedicating and purifying the altar, not a weekly act of worship. It belongs to a definite service continued for seven days to purge and purify the altar, after which the altar was ready for the usual daily offerings. The verse therefore concerns that dedication service, not a weekly day or a change of the Sabbath. The ordinances cover the altar in the day when it is made, to offer burnt offerings and sprinkle blood thereon, with seven days appointed to purge the altar and purify it while the priests consecrate themselves, and when those seven days of sanctification are expired, upon the eighth day and forward the priests make burnt offerings and peace offerings upon the altar and God accepts the people. It concerns altar consecration and sacrifice and does not prophesy a change of the Sabbath to the first day.

The priests' salted burnt offerings stand within the altar's seven-day purification as part of the prescribed temple ritual, not evidence by themselves for observing the first day as a Christian Sabbath. To treat the eighth day as a symbol of first-day observance would also imply a literal altar and literal burnt offerings.