Six Quandaries, Cont.

· The Quandary of Mosaic “Inalterability”

Messianics look to Ezekiel’s vision to prove that in the Millennium, Yeshua will restore the Mosaic legal order, particularly its order of sacrificial rites. But using Ezekiel to prove Mosaic restoration is problematic in the extreme. His vision in fact disproves the possibility of Mosaic restoration, proving instead the case for regenerative interpretation.

Keep in mind that Messianics say the Mosaic Law will not pass away until “every joy and tittle” is fulfilled in a future age. Part of that Law insists that “you shall not add to nor take away from it” (Dt. 12:32). Yet the system of worship Ezekiel presents, while containing similarities to the Mosaic system, strays from the Mosaic system so far as to render it a different system altogether.

The severity of this problem is witnessed by the original debate that swirled about Ezekiel’s admission to the Jewish canon. The rabbis who first approved Judaism’s canon were so perplexed by Ezekiel’s divergences from Moses that only with great reservation did they finally accept his book into the body of Jewish scripture.106

(A similar problem exists with Zechariah’s prophecy of restored sacrifice (14:16-21) in conjunction with the Feast of Booths. Moses prescribed no sacrifice with this feast, but Zechariah does. Zechariah’s vision is therefore clearly “extra-Mosaic,” altering the “every jot and tittle” of the Mosaic Law.)

What does this mean for the case for eventual Mosaic restoration? It totally undoes it. How? Here are the options:

A. If Moses’ is to be reconstructively restored so as to be fulfilled “to the jot and tittle,” then Ezekiel (and Zechariah) must be retroactively dismissed from the canon as false prophecies because of their departures from the Mosaic system. By a standard of literal unchangeability, they can only be concluded to be spurious. (Nevertheless, even Judaism accepts them.)

B. If Ezekiel and Zechariah are allowed as genuine prophecies, thus admitting of changes to the Mosaic Law within the body of the Law and the Prophets itself, then Messianism has no way to dismiss the possibility of further change to the Mosaic order later and beyond what Ezekiel saw.

Said differently, if Ezekiel’s later revelation is able to alter Moses, nothing can prevent still further revelation (such as Yeshua’s unforeseen Incarnational Temple and the Book of Hebrews) from adding to and altering the elements of Ezekiel’s own revelation. And if so, then Ezekiel’s vision cannot be established as the “final unalterable word” on what millennial worship will look like.

In lobbying for Mosaic inalterability through Ezekiel, Messianism is trapped by its own concessions to regenerative prophetic reality. First, just by accepting Ezekiel as a legitimate book, Messianism has to regeneratively accept a vision that is “beyond Moses,” because it makes changes to Moses. This alone kills the case for reconstructive Mosaic restoration.

Second, by proposing the divine sacrifice of Yeshua and allowing for His Incarnational Temple (the church) which not even Ezekiel sees, Messianism has to regeneratively accept a revelation that is “beyond Ezekiel” himself. Messianic logic is dependent on the possibility of further elasticity in Ezekiel’s already divergent vision just to be able to advance their core belief.

To claim Yeshua was to be God’s true sacrificial Lamb (for which Ezekiel makes no room), and to make room for Yeshua’s Incarnational Temple-Church (even if they think it only consists of Gentiles!), Messianics have to regeneratively interpolate Him and it into the Ezekian cosmology, arguing that “Ezekiel did not see the whole picture.” And they expect Judaism should accept their claim on that basis.

But if Ezekiel’s vision is silent on the One Whose Sacrifice is to inescapably affect the meaning of access, acceptability and atonement as applied in the vision (see below ), what is to say Ezekiel’s entire visionary system can’t and won’t be regeneratively altered by that unforeseen Sacrifice by the time it comes into millennial manifestation? In making regenerative room in Ezekiel’s vision just to account for the unforeseen Yeshua and His church, Messianics have no basis to argue against any equally unforeseen regenerative alteration of the entire system (as put forth by Hebrews).

But if Messianics still maintain Ezekiel portrays the inalterable “truth and the whole truth” about millennial worship, then his vision argues against their own interpolation of Yeshua’s sacrifice itself into the vision. The heart of their belief system is defeated by its own standard of interpretation. From their own stance of unbending inalterability, Ezekiel argues that animal atonement is the only atonement there can ever be right through the Millennium, and that a manufactured temple (somehow “turned” glorified) is the only temple there can ever be. Belief in Yeshua as an atoning sacrifice and in His Incarnational Temple is therefore an utter crock.¹⁰⁷

o Revelational Change within the Vision

Not only does Ezekiel’s temple vision enact changes to the “inalterable” Mosaic pattern, but it displays changes within the body of its own development. The vision contains its own inexplicable “morph”-ology.

This morph-ology is seen, for example, by differences in the description of the temple grounds as first measured at the opening of the vision and then later described in relationship to glorified land conditions. At first, in 42:20, the area immediately outside the temple compound is defined as “profane.” But later, in 45:4, the same area appears in a context of glorified land allocation that is now holy. No explanation is given for this change.

In a smaller regard, when Ezekiel is first brought out to the growing water course outside the east gate, he witnesses no trees along the banks (47:3-6a). But when he comes back out of the river and is “returned to the banks,” suddenly he sees fully grown trees with fruit on them (47:6b-7). Talk about sudden change! Again, no explanation. (Did Ezekiel pass through a time warp?)

These changes may seem insignificant in the big picture, but they are actually quite instructive about the “fluid” changeable nature of prophetic vision. The truth is that if any part of the vision demonstrates itself subject to changeability, then all the elements of the vision may be subject to changeability, even if that changeability is not apparent at the time the vision is given.

The changes Ezekiel did see allow for the possibility of unforeseen change in the entire meaning and fulfillment of the system after him. Such change is certainly possible—in fact mandatory—between the temple’s conditions relative to Ezekiel’s immediate time and its conditions in millennial glory at the end of the vision (more below).108

o Revelational Change Outside the Vision

Many elements of Ezekiel’s temple vision—like those of the other prophets—are mirrored in the later more developed revelation given to the apostle John. Like Ezekiel, John sees a divine temple, a divine city with walls named with the twelve tribes of Israel, and even the river of life with its trees of healing. As a more developed yet compatible revelation, John’s Revelation is authoritative in confirming whether Ezekiel’s vision inalterably portrays the reinstatement of the Mosaic system of worship. What then do we find?

In John’s Revelation, all descriptions of both the heavenly temple and its service of worship center, not on humanly wrought materials and natural animals, but on the redeemed saints. It is saints who make up the pillars of the house (3:12), who comprise the tabernacle itself (7:15; 13:6), and it is the souls of slain (martyred) saints which appear under the altar (6:9-11). Indeed, John envisions the sacrificing only of humans, not animals in the New Testament future.

In other words, the worship system as Ezekiel saw it is not confirmed in the visions of the temple its sacrifices as John saw them. This supports the case for unforeseen regenerative dispensational change to what Ezekiel saw. If God intended all which Ezekiel saw to stand forth in the Millennium as he saw it, John’s vision of the heavenly temple would have shown it also.¹⁰⁹

In its conclusion, John’s vision of the New Jerusalem finally persuades us of changeability in what Ezekiel has seen. For there, the city pictured by Ezekiel has now grown or been replaced by another 1,000 times in size, and the temple before time constructed of gloried substances finally disappears altogether.¹¹⁰

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In every way then, reconstructionist interpretation of Ezekiel proves a no winner for Messianics. Because a) Messianics accept the authenticity of Ezekiel despite his changes to Moses, b) they regeneratively accept Yeshua’s sacrifice despite no mention in either Ezekiel or Moses, c) Ezekiel’s own vision is subject to internal revelational changes, and d) John’s superior millennial revelation differs from and does not confirm all the elements of Ezekiel’s vision, therefore Messianics cannot use Ezekiel’s vision—or any other prophecy that appears to predict restored Mosaic legality—to summarily prove eventual reconstruction of the “inalterable” Mosaic system contrary to Paul and the Book of Hebrews.

NEXT – APPENDIX: PART 4: THE QUANDARY OF INCOMPATIBLE DISPENSATIONAL CONDITIONS

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