Ezekiel 44:19, commentary and pictures

Priests serving inside must change out of their holy ministering clothes, store them in the holy rooms, and go out to the people in the outer court in ordinary clothes so that holiness is not passed to the people by touch.
The rule belongs to the great temple of Ezekiel 40 to 48 shown during the Babylonian captivity as what Israel might build at Jerusalem after the return to be a house of prayer for all nations.
It was offered on condition of shame for sin, repentance and full obedience, with the same purpose toward Jerusalem shown in Zechariah 2 to teach that the Lord's presence there would heal the land and waters and give life.
Because Israel did not repent and yield but continued in apostasy, that temple as described was never built and its Mosaic garments and typical sacrifices, now fulfilled in Christ, will never be ordained again.
What was built by Zerubbabel was only a feeble shadow of it, and the pattern cannot be built literally in the future, since renewing its animal sacrifices would make Christ's once-for-all offering of none effect.
Its promise stands in spiritual type for greater things through Christ for the true Israel, grandly realized in the immortal inheritance and the healing of earth in the new heavens and new earth, though some hold it was earthly Jerusalem as it would have been if all had left Babylon and that God instead prepared the holy city in heaven to descend.

Garments and Promised Sanctuary

When the ministering priests go forth into the outer court to the people, they are to put off the garments in which they ministered and lay them in the holy chambers, and to put on other garments for going among the people. Those sacred garments used in sanctuary service are to be left stored in the holy chambers and not worn into the outer court. The change is required so that the priests do not make the people holy by contact with their sacred garments.

The regulation concerns literal Levites ministering in an earthly sanctuary with holy chambers and changes of garments, not immortalized saints from all nations made priests in the future age. Similarity to other visions does not prove identity with the New Jerusalem of Revelation, nor does it prove restoration of the Jewish people. The Levitical sacrificial system of Leviticus cannot be revived after Christ's heavenly ministration and real atonement.

The rule belongs to the sanctuary described in Ezekiel 40 to 48. Jerusalem, the temple, and the sanctuary were destroyed in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, B.C. 588, and fourteen years afterward, B.C. 574, Ezekiel among the captives described the remarkable sanctuary Israel was to possess. It is part of the last nineteen chapters concerning the reign of Christ, the inheritance of the saints, and the return of the Jews, given during the Babylonian captivity to encourage the captive Jews. It describes in detail a grand and magnificent temple that Israel might build at Jerusalem after the return from captivity, a temple that would ultimately become a house of prayer for all nations. Its requirements, including literal circumcision, divorce regulation, clean and unclean foods, animal offerings, and a Levitical priesthood, place its fulfillment by its own specifications in the past dispensation when those practices were in force, not in the present gospel dispensation, not in the future immortal state, and not as a description of Christ's future reign.

The sanctuary, city, land, and service of Ezekiel 40-48 were offered conditionally to be fulfilled literally at the restoration from Babylon after the seventy years. The condition was that Israel be ashamed of iniquities, put away sins and wickedness, repent thoroughly and reform, return wholeheartedly, yield all to God, and keep His ordinances in faith and obedience. The vision beginning in Ezekiel 40 covers the same period and shows the same purpose of God toward Jerusalem as Zechariah 2, the one being the counterpart of the other so they belong together. It set the glorious temple pattern at the center of a restored Jerusalem to teach that Jehovah is there and that His presence would heal all barren land, all salt marshes and all impure waters and give life to all.

Forfeiture and Greater Fulfillment

The glorious temple described was never built as described and never will be built, because its fulfillment was conditional on Israel being ashamed of iniquities, putting away sins and wickedness, repenting thoroughly, returning wholeheartedly and yielding all to God in faith and obedience to keep His ordinances, and Israel did not meet those conditions but departed from His ordinances and continued in apostasy. Its priestly garments and ordinances belonged to the Mosaic dispensation when the Levitical priesthood was in force, not to the future age, and its prescribed typical sacrifices, now fulfilled in Christ, show it is not a temple God would ordain again. What was built at the restoration fell far short of the pattern and was only a feeble, partial realization, a mere shadow or shadow of greatness erected by Zerubbabel.

The vision cannot be fulfilled literally in the future, whether in the present gospel dispensation, the future immortal state, or a thousand-year earthly reign, for no such city or sanctuary stands today. Renewing thousands of sheep and oxen sacrifices would make Christ's once-for-all offering of none effect, build again what was destroyed, and return from sunlight to shadow. That application would make Christ's reign less glorious than the gospel age, because it returns to the ordinances of the first covenant pointing to Christ which were taken away when He offered His body once and sat at the Father's right hand. The law's yearly sacrifices can never make the comers perfect, while by one offering Christ has perfected forever the sanctified, so restoring them would require a second Messiah to expiate sin, and the passage gives no separate explanation of the garment rule apart from that unrestorable service.

The vision was the city and temple as Jerusalem would have been built on earth if all Israel had left Babylon in response to the three calls of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes. It was not built, not because God changed His mind, but because Israel loved Babylon more than Jerusalem and failed to do their part. Because of that failure God had to prepare the holy city in heaven instead, which will descend to earth, and the ancient calls out of Babylon are an object-lesson of the last call now sounding before utter destruction on those who linger in Babylon. As Israel according to the flesh did not yield, according to Jeremiah 18:7-10 God did not then do all that is promised in Ezekiel 36 to 48. The literal details will never be fulfilled because of that failure, but the prophecy stands in its spiritual aspect as a faint type, not to be fulfilled in every detail or under local conditions, of greater things God will do through Christ for the true Israel according to later revelations, with a small-part fulfillment then and a greater fulfillment connected with Christ's second coming.

What failed for old earthly Jerusalem will be grandly and more gloriously realized with the future glory and fullness of the immortal inheritance for the faithful, including the raising of the righteous dead, subjection of the northern kings and all enemies, a new division of the land, restored Palestine with long life, and God's manifest presence and healing life upon Palestine and earth. That peaceful condition of the Messiah's kingdom would have been established gradually on this present earth if the Jews had yielded to God, with the water of life healing marshes, deserts, and salt lands and righteousness taming wild beasts, but because the conditions were not met it will be fulfilled more gloriously in the earth made new where absolute peace presides in the new heavens and new earth. Its provision for sacrifices was fulfilled when Jesus died on the cross, and its former details will be largely set aside under greater conditions.