THE PROBLEM OF MESSIANIC JUDAISM
APPENDIX: PART 2
EZEKIEL’S TEMPLE VISION AND THE RECONSTRUCTIONIST DILEMMA, CONT.
The remaining
problems for Messianic reconstructionism can be subdivided into six broad
categories of quandaries.
· The Quandary of Location
Messianism draws on
Ezekiel’s vision for supporting Zionist attempts now to build another
manufactured temple on Mt. Zion in Jerusalem. Some Messianics teach that the
next temple will in its initial state not be the millennial temple (as Yeshua
will not have returned to “build the temple”), but that it will later be
“rebuilt” and cleansed by Yeshua to become the millennial temple—similar to the
way Zerubbabel’s temple was eventually reconstructed by Herod. Others believe
the Lord will just bring the new millennial temple down from heaven to the
present Mt. Zion—the same temple Ezekiel saw.104
Regardless, the truth
is that Ezekiel’s vision—if it indeed depicts the millennial temple—disproves that the millennial temple
will be built on what is currently Mt. Zion in Jerusalem and can’t be used to
justify support for building any such temple now.
Ezekiel locates the
visionary temple in the vicinity of an undefined “structure” on the southern
end of a plateau of a “very high mountain” somewhere unspecified in the Land of
Israel. The mountain is unnamed and the name “Mt. Zion” appears nowhere in the
vision. The structure is described as something “like a city” (40:2) also to
which no name is given.
Later, the Lord says that the temple is to be established on a portion of land separated for priestly dwellings only, outside of and entirely apart from ground apportioned for an associated unnamed “city” (45:4-6).105
Not only is this temple outside of any city, but the unnamed city in its glorified state is finally given the name Adonai Shamah (“Yahweh Is There”). The name Jerusalem is nowhere associated with this city, is used only once in the entire vision—and at that only as a reference point for defining the time when the vision was given.All of this is beside
the fact that the dimensions proposed for the temple compound simply can’t fit
on present day Mt. Zion.
Undoubtedly, though
unnamed, Ezekiel’s mountain and quasi-city correspond to the millennial Mt.
Zion and Jerusalem identified by the other prophets. But regardless, if
Ezekiel’s temple is to be taken as the millennial temple, then its dimensions
and its position relative to the city prove that it has no correspondence to today’s Jerusalem and its temple mount, and so
cannot be used to support the idea of a millennial temple there.
What is more, if Ezekiel’s mountain and city are indeed the millennial Mt. Zion and Jerusalem spoken of by all the other prophets, then it means millennial Jerusalem is a regenerative city built after Yeshua’s return in a different location on a newly formed (or re-formed) Mt. Zion resulting from the final earth convulsions of the Last Days. This means that none of the restoration prophecies about millennial Jerusalem and Mt. Zion can be used to support the glorification of present day Jerusalem and its temple mount! In this, Ezekiel’s vision actually does more damage to the Messianic view of modern Jerusalem than it does to bolster it.
NEXT – APPENDIX: PART 3: THE QUANDARY
OF MOSAIC “INALTERABILITY”
104 The tension between these views exists because on one hand,
the temple Ezekiel saw already existed—built by God—and there was no specific
command to build that temple, nor could a command to build something that
already existed have made sense. On the other hand, later language in the
vision assumes that some future temple is to be built on the fashion of the one
Ezekiel tours. How this tension is resolved will, for our study, prove
immaterial.