Ezekiel 46:1, commentary and pictures

The east gate of the inner court stays shut through the six working days and is opened on the Sabbath and on the new moon, with the Sabbath opening lasting until evening to mark sacred time from sunset to sunset. The six days are man's given time for all ordinary labor and stand as common and secular, while the seventh day alone stands apart above them as the holy Sabbath of the Lord. That difference rests on Creation itself, because God worked the first six days and rested on the seventh, blessed and sanctified it, and reserved it for Himself as long as His law stands. The temple order to which the gate belongs was a conditional promise offered to Israel in captivity that was never built literally because they did not repent, and it cannot be restored literally with its mortal prince and animal offerings without denying Christ's once-for-all sacrifice and unchangeable priesthood. Sunday belongs among the six working days when the gate is shut, so to make it or any other working day a substitute Sabbath tramples God's holy day, while the six days of work followed by rest also point to six thousand years of trial followed by the thousand-year Sabbath of rest.

Gate and Its Setting

The east gate of the inner court that faces east is to stay shut through the six working days and to be opened on the Sabbath and on the day of the new moon. This opening on the Sabbath and new moon belongs to the sanctuary service and worship shown in Ezekiel 40–48, which was offered to Israel after the temple’s destruction on condition of repentance and putting away sin, but the sanctuary as shown was never built because the conditions were not met. The shutting on the working days and opening on the Sabbath draws a marked distinction by divine naming between the six working days and the seventh day as the Sabbath of the Lord, so that the days must not be confounded and the first day of the week stands among the working days. Sacrifices belonged to that envisioned service, yet it cannot now be built as a functioning sanctuary to take its intended place, since to continue those sacrifices would make void Christ’s sacrifice.

The gate opened on the Sabbath remains open until evening, and its shutting during the six working days with its opening on the Sabbath and new moon marks the division between common time and sacred time at evening. The day therefore begins at sunset, the Sabbath is kept from sunset to sunset, and the Sabbath ends at evening when the working days begin.

The Sabbath named here is the weekly Sabbath of the Lord, not a festival sabbath or a sabbath of the land. It stands among the Bible’s appointed times running through Scripture, with the opening of the gate placing the Sabbath among the times of worship. The seventh day is holy, while no holiness or promise of release is revealed for the first day.

The new moon and the Sabbath are paired together in worship, and that pairing shows the Sabbath in 2 Kings 4:23 is the Sabbath of the Lord. It shows the Hebrews were accustomed to visit God’s prophets on the Sabbath for divine instruction, which explains the command to let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.

Conditional Temple Promise

The east gate of the inner court belongs to the temple, city, sanctuary and its service set forth in Ezekiel 36-48, even 37-48 and 40-48 and 40-46, offered to Israel while captive in Babylon as a conditional promise. The condition was that they be ashamed of iniquities, put away sins and wickedness, repent, return to God, yield in faith and obedience, keep the whole form and all the ordinances of the house, and fully follow Him. If they had met God's conditions and returned wholeheartedly from captivity, the sanctuary with its detailed pattern, restored worship, division of the land, subjection of enemies, resurrection of the righteous dead, and healing power would have been literally built and established with the twelve tribes restored to their own land under wonderful glory. Because Israel did not repent, was not ashamed, did not put away iniquity, and disregarded the condition, the city and sanctuary as shown were never built and the offered glory was never inherited.

The sanctuary as shown will never be built literally in any period after the opening of the Christian dispensation, and its sanctuary service with Sabbath and new-moon worship belonged to the offer made after the temple's destruction that failed for lack of meeting its conditions. Its animal sacrifices, with Levites serving as priests, cannot be restored or continued as literal offerings without denying Christ's once-for-all, effective offering, of which the earlier offerings were only shadows. When Christ was crucified and ascended the law of the priesthood changed, so Levi was no longer priest and Christ became priest forever after the order of Melchisedec with an unchangeable priesthood that does not pass to another, an earthly order that cannot be restored after His atonement and ministry. The vision does not belong to the future glorified age, for there Christ is Prince and Shepherd over Israel and marriage and death are unknown, while this vision presents a poor frail mortal prince offering a sin offering for himself and gives laws for marriages, divorces, widows and death.

What was realized was only a diminished, feeble and partial fulfillment in the return of about forty thousand from captivity and the temple built by Zerubbabel, which was only a mere shadow of the envisioned greatness and glory. Because they continued in apostasy and failed to forsake sins and return to God, the glorious temple with its Sabbath and new-moon worship was not built, and the temple and its promised glory were realized only in diminished form. That temple with its sacrifices will never now be literally built because Jesus Christ by His death on the cross fulfilled all sacrifices, and to offer sacrifices now would annul His offering.

If accepted, the vision would have been fulfilled in the Mosaic dispensation when circumcision, divorce laws, distinctions in meats, offerings of beasts including burnt offerings and sin-offerings of bulls and goats, the Jubilee and the Levitical priesthood were in force, with the prince's appointed gate of entrance and appointed services and sacrifices and oblations and priesthood continuing as of old until the Prince, the Messiah, should come. In that glorious kingdom with a true-hearted people life would have been lengthened, the character of the people would have taken hold upon the animals themselves, the manifest presence of God and Shekinah glory would have been constantly seen in a cleansed city and temple filled with glory, with no hurt or destroying in the holy mountain where God dwelt, and the city named Jehovah is there. The city was never built because Israel failed to do its part in answering the calls to leave Babylon, not because God changed His purpose, and because they failed the promised rebuilding and indwelling glory did not happen then. Prophetic silence and darkness followed for four hundred years until John and the gospel of the Son of God.

The unfulfilled details will not be fulfilled as described under the local conditions of Ezekiel's day or of Palestine and the Jews in Isaiah's time, but will be fulfilled under far greater conditions with more or less of the former detail eliminated. The prophecy is not fulfilled in every detail, yet its broad promises faintly point to greater spiritual fulfillment through Christ and to what God will do for His people at the second coming. Those purposes will be realized in the New City for God's true Israel, and the future glory and immortal inheritance promised to the faithful will instead be fulfilled as later revelations describe, only faintly typical of what will take place in the new heavens and new earth when God restores all things by His mighty power, leaving absolute joy and peace and harmony among all God's creatures. Those who held the age-to-come claim associate the vision of the city and its ordinances with a restoration of Jerusalem and its sacrifices in a future age.

Six Working Days Distinguished

The east gate shut on six days and opened on the Sabbath sets those six days apart from the Sabbath and proves there are only six working days in the weekly cycle, leaving one day in each week that is not a working day. Six days are for work and one day is for rest, so all days are not alike, and if all days were working days such definite language about the six working days would have no meaning. God appointed the six days for work and set them in the widest contrast with the seventh day, so that in every seven days there is one day that is not a working day. To deny the Sabbath contradicts that record and reduces the weekly cycle to six days instead of seven.

The six days besides the Sabbath are given to man as man's time, described as days given to human work and placed in man's keeping, distinct from the Sabbath which is God's day and a rest day. In them a person is permitted to labor and do all work on any part or the whole of them, and God lays no more claim to Sunday than to Monday or Wednesday. The phrase every day alike means every one of those six working days, including ceremonial feast days, fasts, and yearly sabbaths, and does not include the weekly Sabbath.

The first day of the week belongs among those working days when the gate is shut, distinct from the Sabbath and the new moon when it is opened, and throughout all Old Testament history it stood as one of the six working days. It is called a working day, which is the only title the Bible ever gives it, marking it as a day for work on which God set the example of working. This stands in contrast to the seventh day, which is called the Sabbath fifty-nine times and is given names and titles of sacredness ending with the Lord's day, and which remains as God's unchangeable institution never called Jewish. God therefore permits work on the first day while commanding observance of the seventh-day Sabbath, supporting calling the first day a working day, not a Sabbath.

Six days of the week are working days and the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord, drawing a marked distinction by divine naming between the Sabbath and the other days of the week that must not be confounded. The Sabbath of the Lord is set apart from and above the six working days, which hold the rank of secular, common days, while the seventh day alone is the Sabbath to be kept holy, sanctified to God as His blessed, holy rest day. The verse is one of several allusions to the Sabbath of the Lord and to the festivals of the Hebrews, and it is worthy of particular notice for the distinctness with which it discriminates between the Sabbath and the other days of the week. The six days are given for work and the Sabbath is set apart from them as a day God commands people to keep holy.

Each week is divided into six working days and the Sabbath, the seventh day, with each week culminating in the Sabbath and a new week beginning after it has passed. Since the six days are already appointed for work, the Sabbath made for man must be the seventh and last day of the weekly cycle, embraced as one whole day of rest. Sabbath signifies rest, and God employed one whole day for rest, made that seventh day the Sabbath for man, placed His blessing upon it, sanctified it by setting it apart to sacred and holy use, and instructs man how to use it.

Sabbath Origin and Permanence

The six days are working days because God worked during the first six days of Creation, and therefore the first day and the days that follow are working days for people as well. The seventh day was born a Sabbath day because God rested on it when creation was finished, and blessed it and sanctified it, so that the difference between the days exists in the nature of things and always continues. This distinction rests on eternal and unalterable facts that cannot be changed, just as a birthday cannot be changed to a day on which no birth happened, for the seventh day alone is unchangeably fixed as the Lord's Sabbath because God rested only on the seventh day, and the first day can never become His rest day because He never rested on it. The Sabbath is a divine institution from the beginning that continues while days succeed each other on this earth, which will be purified and become the everlasting abode of the righteous, where from one Sabbath to another all flesh will come to worship. The lasting distinction between the day the Creator reserved for Himself and the six days He gave to man for their own affairs continues as long as the law of God maintains its authority, with the seventh day remaining the Lord's day and the first six days remaining appropriated to man's use.

The Sabbath is the specific seventh day on which God rested, not any one-seventh portion of time, and it does not belong to the rank of common working days but stands as a sacred day distinct from them. To teach that the first day absorbed the sacredness of the seventh at the Saviour's resurrection would abase the Sabbath of the Lord to the rank of an ordinary working day. The mention of offerings made on the Sabbath when the gate was opened does not show that the weekly Sabbath was ceremonial or merely Jewish. According to those who held the opposing view, sacrifices were offered on the seventh-day Sabbath without exception, and because those sacrifices pointed forward to Christ as the one great sacrifice and High Priest, the Sabbaths on which they were offered are shadows that reach to Christ as their substance and then terminate with no binding force after He came.

The verse belongs to the record concerning the Sabbath in Israel's later history, when the people neglected to keep the day holy and God called them to keep it. In that record the Sabbath appears as a better day, devoted to higher and holier uses than the working days.

Prince Priesthood and Sacrifices

The prince of the chapter who is commanded to bring offerings for himself, including a sin offering, is a poor frail mortal ruler and not Christ reigning in an immortal state. That mortal prince belongs to a vision that presents marriage and death as still known, with laws given for marriages, divorces and widows, whereas in the future glorified age Christ is Prince and Shepherd over Israel and marriage and death are unknown. If the vision had been fulfilled it would have belonged to the Mosaic dispensation, when circumcision, divorce, distinction in meats, offerings of beasts, the Jubilee and the Levitical priesthood were in force.

The offerings of the vision, including burnt offerings and sin-offerings of bulls and goats presented by the prince for himself, belonged to a sanctuary system in force under the Mosaic dispensation. That system would have been realized during the Mosaic dispensation if Israel had accepted it, and would still have been carried on by the sons of Levi if Israel had yielded to God in faith and obedience. Christ caused those offerings to cease at His death, so they are no longer acceptable to God and belong to the past dispensation rather than to a prophecy of Christ's work in the future state. The sanctuary therefore cannot be built as a functioning sanctuary with its sacrifices continued, for to continue the blood of bulls and goats even as a type would make void Christ's sacrifice, while what they pointed to will be fulfilled even more gloriously in the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.

When Christ was crucified and ascended the law of the priesthood was changed, so Levi is no longer priest and Christ became priest forever after the order of Melchisedec with an unchangeable priesthood that does not pass to another. For that reason the temple and its service are never to be built in any period after the opening of the Christian dispensation, since they are part of a system in which Levites serve as priests. The vision as a whole describes an earthly order that cannot be restored after Christ's atonement and priestly ministry.

The prince's appointed gate of entrance with his appointed services, together with sacrifices and oblations and priesthood continuing as of old, proves the planned temple belonged to the time before Messiah came. The prince was to stand before Israel until the Prince, the Messiah, should come. The gate and its services belonged to a grander city and finer temple cleansed from commercialism and unholiness and filled with the Shekinah glory of God's presence, given only on condition that God's people put away their sins, be ashamed of all they had done, and keep the whole form and all the ordinances of the house. Because they failed, the promised rebuilding and indwelling glory and the city named Jehovah is there did not happen then, and prophetic silence and darkness followed for four hundred years until John and the gospel of the Son of God.

Types Connections and Application

The six ordinary workdays followed by rest typify six thousand years of probation, work and trial followed by a seventh thousand-year Sabbath of rest, when labor ends and human destiny is settled. The close of the six days marks the end of probation, and the seventh day represents the coming Sabbath rest, when the saints are safe from evil and spend the millennium in the New Jerusalem.

The phrase every day in Romans 14:5 means every ordinary working day and does not include the weekly Sabbath, whose blessing, claim and distinct place in God's law remain. The six non-Sabbath days are distinguished from the Sabbath by the shutting and opening of the gate, so every day can mean the six working days excluding the Sabbath rather than treating the Sabbath as an ordinary day. Every day alike means every one of those six working days placed in man's keeping, including ceremonial feast days, fasts and yearly sabbaths, and does not include the weekly Sabbath which is God's day. Applied to Israel in the desert, the six working days are the days on which manna was given, with a double portion on the sixth day and none on the Sabbath, proving the Sabbath is a definite seventh day in fixed order with six days for work.

People honor God by working on each of the six days as He worked, and by resting on the seventh because He rested on it and blessed and set it apart as His own memorial of finished work. Christ's life applies the distinction, in that at Nazareth He worked as a carpenter on the six working days and did not work on the Sabbath, when He went to worship. Keeping the pattern of working six days and resting the seventh bears witness through action that God made the world in six days and rested the seventh, while resting on the first day instead gives false testimony about the day of God's rest.

Resting on the first day or any other working day as a substitute for God's holy rest day is not acceptable because He never commanded it, for He commanded rest on the seventh day on which He rested. Sunday is one of God's six working and laboring days and not the Sabbath, so trying to make a Sabbath out of Sunday to take the place of God's day is a human effort that fails and leaves Sunday sabbathless. God puts no distinguishing honor on any day except the Sabbath and the new moon and reckons all other days with the six working days, so it is folly to treat resting on His blessed and sanctified Sabbath as a galling yoke of bondage while treating observance of an unhonored working day as easy and compatible with gospel freedom. Keeping Sunday in place of the Sabbath tramples God's holy day under foot and exalts a laboring day in its stead. To teach that the first day absorbed the sacredness of the seventh at the Saviour's resurrection would abase the Sabbath of the Lord, which is separate and sacred and does not belong to their rank, to the rank of an ordinary working day. The Sabbath coming after six days of work brings refreshment and repose and opportunity to read and meditate upon the glorious works of God and His goodness and mercy in giving a rest-day, and it is to be loved with the whole heart.