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Devotional thoughts (Monday through Thursday mornings) from the pastor of Exeter Presbyterian Church in Exeter, NH // Sunday Worship 10:30am // 73 Winter Street

Monday, July 07, 2008

Ezekiel 46

In this world, we who deserve only God’s wrath and curse enjoy many blessings from His hand. Yet it is undeniable that there is a problem all around us. How can we move past the barrier of death? If we were able to do this, could there be any guarantee that the world that we would enter would be truly good? God has given us a weekly sign of the final plan of His goodness since the earliest days of human existence. A day of rest that came after six days of work was a powerful symbol of the perfect Sabbath rest that man desires. In the temple that Ezekiel describes at the end of this book, the gate of the inner court that faces east, the direction from which the prince comes, will be closed except on the Sabbath day and the day of the new moon.

We still long for the perfection of Sabbath rest and for the beginning of a new day that every month symbolizes. Somehow that new day is connected with the prince. We long for that gate to be opened and for the prince to lead the way for us. Christ, we are told in Hebrews, has entered into the heavenly temple. He made the way for us through the blood of His sacrifice. He came through the gates of His righteousness, and now we may go in. There is something of this world of peace that is already ours now through Him, though we still live in a world of death. Because of our connection with Him, we have peace.

The Lord Jesus is the Prince over His gospel kingdom even now. He will surely reign forever when the fullness of His resurrection kingdom comes. He has an excellent vantage point over all the affairs of His temple. He was the first to enter on behalf of His people. He came not only as Prince, but also as Priest. He took His own offering of Himself and presented it before God. After He made peace with God for us through this perfect offering, we were brought into the celebration, with a fullness of every good thing for our communion with Him.

Provision is made in Ezekiel’s vision for the large movement of crowds of worshippers on Sabbath days. The people are to enter through one gate and to exit through the gate on the other side. The presence of the Prince with His people is noted, and we remember that our access to God is through this one Lord Jesus Christ. Christ has won for us our Sabbath rest. We now gather together on the day of His resurrection. Crowds of people from all over the world are led into the presence of God every Lord’s Day through our ascended Prince. The details of the offerings are different in Ezekiel vision than they were under the Law of Moses. There is something new pictured here. We experience the reality of that newness in the church now in ways that were pictured in the shadows of Old Testament ceremonies in the days of Ezekiel.

As was the case during the Old Testament era and in the early years of the New Testament era, the worship of the Lord is not only from Lord’s Day to Lord’s Day, but morning by morning. Ezekiel presents the regulations of these daily offerings as a perpetual statute. As we live in this world now, we feel our own weakness in so many ways. Do we have the energy, or even the desire, to worship God with greater frequency? Yet there is something pictured in this vision of a more continuous experience of the life of worship which we will know when all our sin and the weakness of this age of death are far from us. The continuous blessing of the life to come is also symbolized in the security of the Prince’s inheritance through the year of liberty. As the sons of the Prince, we are joint-heirs of the kingdom with Christ forever. We ourselves are called His inheritance, and it is a comfort for us to meditate on the fact that we will always be His. The final verses of the chapter speak of the work of the priests in preparing the offerings, and the space reserved for kitchens in this new temple. It is amazing to think of the enjoyment of a meal with the Lord and His people in the life to come. Even now we have fellowship with God and with one another in Jesus Christ. What will it be like in the age to come?

All of this is a challenge to us in our sin today. Even now we could be enjoying greater communion with God and with one another, yet we generally choose to limit our engagement with Christ and His family, making it a more manageable part of a balanced life. At least in part, this is due to the limitations of living in a world that is still feeling the effects of the fall of Adam. Yet we must also admit that this is also a result of our own sin.

It is a cause for great rejoicing that God has addressed both of these issues through the victory of the salvation won for us by Christ. The Lord will one day remove from us every sinful impulse. Our desires, thoughts, determinations, and actions will be completely holy. We will also live in a place of such perfect provision and communion with the Almighty that there will be no remaining limitation upon our enjoyment of God and His people. This is the Lord’s eternal plan and His sovereign promise. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus Christ has moved us past the barrier of death, and has secured for us an age of overwhelming and delightful goodness.

posted by Pastor Magee @ 7:00 AM

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