Ezekiel 46:12, commentary and pictures

The verse describes the prince preparing a voluntary burnt offering or peace offerings to the Lord, for whom the east gate is opened so he may prepare them as on the Sabbath day, after which he goes forth and the gate is shut behind him. The doing as on the Sabbath day means the weekly Sabbath of the Lord, and the orderly opening and shutting shows God is a God of order. It belongs to the temple, sanctuary, city, offerings and division of the land vision of Ezekiel 40 to 48, offered to Israel in Babylonian captivity as a promised restoration on condition that they be ashamed of their iniquities and return to God in faith and obedience. The prince is not Christ but a frail mortal who must offer for himself under a mortal Levitical order, whose beasts and blood belonged to the first covenant and have been fulfilled and caused to cease by the once-for-all offering of Jesus Christ. Because Israel was unwilling and did not meet the conditions the sanctuary was never built literally, but the vision stands in its spiritual aspect to be grandly realized for the true Israel in the New City and the new heavens and new earth, not according to every local detail.

Ritual and Sabbath Sense

When the prince prepares a voluntary burnt offering or peace offerings voluntarily to the Lord, the gate facing east is opened for him, he prepares his burnt offering and his peace offerings in the same manner as on the Sabbath day, then he goes out, and after his going out the gate is shut. This regulation belongs to Ezekiel's sanctuary order, to the sanctuary plan in Ezekiel 40-48 with its sacrificial services and system of worship. It belongs to the dispensation when animal sacrifices and offerings and Israel's ceremonial ordinances were still in force.

The phrase as on the Sabbath day means the weekly Sabbath, the Sabbath of the Lord, not a festival day or a sabbath of the land. It stands as one of eighty-one Old Testament references to the weekly Sabbath. It is one of several allusions to the Sabbath of the Lord and to the festivals of the Hebrews within the offer made to the Hebrews while captive in Babylon to restore them to their own land and give them again a city and a temple under circumstances of wonderful glory.

The exactness of the procedure shows that God is a God of order. The particular directions about the prince's voluntary offerings and the east gate are left without separate explanation. What is explained of the related altar service is that after seven days of altar purification offerings are made regularly from the eighth day onward, and that eighth day is not the eighth day of the week and has nothing to do with the Sabbath.

Conditional Vision Setting

Ezekiel 46:12 belongs to the great temple, sanctuary, city, offerings, and division of the land vision in Ezekiel 40 to 48, also described as Ezekiel 36 to 48. It was offered to Israel in Babylonian captivity as a promised restoration to their own land with a rebuilt sanctuary and a glorious order of worship. It was an offer to restore the Hebrews to their land and give them again a city and a temple under circumstances of wonderful glory, with God's glory resting on the city as never before. It was the sanctuary and worship God would have established, and the sanctuary plan that would have been built on the present earth, if God's people had met the conditions for the Messiah's kingdom. It was the vision of Jerusalem in the last nine chapters that would have been built if Israel had responded to the calls to leave Babylon. That Jerusalem restoration never took place, and its temple was never built, because Israel would not yield fully to God, and the temple built after the exile fell far short of the pattern.

The vision was offered on the conditional promise that Israel should be ashamed of their iniquities, put away wickedness and sins, and return to God wholeheartedly in faith and obedience. The sanctuary would be established and the twelve tribes would return if Israel became ashamed of its sins and put them away. The promised restoration and sanctuary, with its ceremonies and offerings, would have been fulfilled literally if Israel had been faithful and had returned wholeheartedly from the captivity. This restoration depended on Israel being ashamed of their iniquities and putting aside their sins to come up to the full measure of children of God.

Israel was unwilling, did not repent and did not meet the conditions, so the sanctuary described was never built and never will be built literally. Because they continued in apostasy instead, the sanctuary and its promises were only weakly realized in the temple built by Zerubbabel. Only about forty thousand returned from captivity and the promises were not realized in their fullness, and only a lesser shadow of it was erected by Zerubbabel, which fell far short of the pattern. The Jerusalem restoration described in the vision never took place, and its temple was never built, because Israel would not yield fully to God.

The vision beginning in Ezekiel 40 features a man with the appearance of brass holding a line of flax and a measuring reed who measures the temple and city of God. That vision covers the same period and represents the same purposes of God toward Jerusalem as Zechariah 2, where a man with a measuring line measures Jerusalem, and the two are counterparts to be studied together.

The pattern teaches Jehovah's presence among His people to heal barren land, salt marshes, and impure waters and give life. It pictures lengthened life, a true-hearted people whose character takes hold upon the animals themselves, and the manifest presence of God constantly seen in His holy mountain where nothing hurts or destroys. The returned people could have built a grand temple to become a house of prayer for all nations.

Mortal Levitical Order

The prince who prepares the voluntary burnt offering and peace offerings is not Christ but a poor frail mortal who must offer a sin offering for himself. He is forbidden to oppress the people or to take their possessions to give inheritance to his sons, being allowed to give them only of his own possession, whereas Christ will have the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession. In that future glorified age Christ Himself is to be Prince and Shepherd over Israel, which this prince cannot be.

The whole order around him is mortal and Levitical, where marriage, divorce, widowhood and death still continue. Its priests are Levites who marry and who can die, wholly unlike those immortalized at the second advent who neither marry nor die anymore. For that reason the vision cannot describe the New Jerusalem of Revelation nor the future reign of Christ and His saints.

His offerings belong with circumcision, divorce regulations, distinction in meats, offerings of beasts, the Jubilee, and the Levitical priesthood to the Mosaic dispensation while Israel's ceremonial ordinances and animal sacrifices were still in force. They would have been fulfilled then if the conditions had been complied with. That system of burnt offerings and sin offerings, including offerings made for the prince himself and voluntary offerings for which the east gate is opened and then shut after he goes out, is no longer acceptable to God after Christ's sacrifice caused the other sacrifices to cease.

That temple has Levites serving as priests, but 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 to another. Christ's priesthood and the everlasting gospel are contemporary, with Christ as the great High Priest, and when His priesthood ends there is no more probation. No return to that Levitical service is therefore possible without preaching another gospel.

Sacrifice Fulfilled in Christ

The offerings of the east-gate service belonged to the time then present and to the first covenant, shadowing forth the only effectual offering, that of Jesus Christ. That effectual offering was Christ offering Himself once for all, and by that one offering perfecting forever them that are sanctified and then sitting down at the right hand of God. No such city or sanctuary as Ezekiel described stands today, so the vision has not been fulfilled, and it will never be fulfilled literally.

To renew its thousands of sheep and oxen sacrifices would make the offering of Christ once for all of none effect, building again what was destroyed and returning from sunlight to shadow. To resume those offerings and sacrifices in a future age would imply that Christ's sacrifice was not sufficient and that another Messiah would still be needed to atone for sins.

Christ's sacrifice on the cross caused the other sacrifices to cease, so the blood of bulls and goats is no longer acceptable to God even as a type. The prince's voluntary burnt offerings and peace offerings, with the east gate opened for the offering and shut after he goes forth, belonged to a mortal Levitical order and to the Mosaic dispensation while Israel's ceremonial ordinances were in force. They were never restored after Israel failed to repent, and God would not ordain that temple with its burnt offerings and peace offerings again.

The prescribed sacrifices prove the vision concerned a provisional sanctuary of that time, not a future temple, since offering sacrifices now would annul Christ's offering. The temple of Ezekiel 46 with its provision for burnt offerings and peace offerings will never be built literally, because Jesus Christ by dying on the cross fulfilled all sacrifices. A type cannot follow its fulfillment, and in the gospel repentance and confession precede remission, so that typical atonement cannot be revived after Christ's ministration in heaven has made the real atonement.

Future Spiritual Fulfillment

Because Israel was unwilling to return wholeheartedly, the temple vision stands in its spiritual aspect as prophecy of greater things the Lord will do for His people through Christ. It is also a type of God's future work for His people at the second coming and in the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Its details are not a precise description of that future fulfillment and will not be fulfilled according to every detail or under the local conditions of Ezekiel's time. Because Israel did not repent the sanctuary described was never built and the offerings were never restored, and the blood of bulls and goats being no longer acceptable even as a type, the chapter cannot be fulfilled literally in the future, but its promises will be fulfilled even more gloriously in the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

If Israel had yielded to God the promises and figures would have been fulfilled literally then in the sanctuary, city, and land. The vision beginning in Ezekiel 40 features a man with the appearance of brass holding a line of flax and a measuring reed who measures the temple and city of God, covering the same period and the same purposes toward Jerusalem as the man with the measuring line measuring Jerusalem in Zechariah 2, and the two are counterparts to be studied together. The vision was given concerning the future of Jerusalem on condition that God's people put aside sins and come up to the full measure of children of God. The people of that time failed to come up to that standard and forfeited its privileges, so what failed for old earthly Jerusalem will be grandly realized in the New City that awaits the true Israel of God.

The promises concerning the true Israel will be fulfilled in the future, but not according to every detail of the description. They include resurrection of the righteous dead, subjection of enemies, healing power upon the land, and peace, faintly typical of what God will restore by His mighty power in the new heavens and new earth. Because Israel did not meet the conditions of faith and obedience the prophecy including its temple sacrifices will never be fulfilled as described, and only a shadow was erected by Zerubbabel; God's purposes for the true Israel will instead be fulfilled in a more glorious inheritance, the earth made new. That kingdom with its sanctuary plan was not established on the present earth in this way then, but its peace will be fulfilled more gloriously in the new earth.

It pictured lengthened life, a true-hearted people whose character takes hold upon the animals themselves, and the manifest presence of God constantly seen in His holy mountain where nothing hurts or destroys. Because Israel did not accept God's conditions for a restored Palestine in unsurpassable glory it was not fulfilled then. It will be fulfilled under far greater conditions with much of the former detail eliminated, leaving absolute joy and peace and harmony among all God's creatures in the new earth state.