Six Quandaries, Cont.

·        The Quandary of Cleansing

o       Cleansing of the Sanctuary

In 45:18-20, Yahweh instructs Ezekiel on the sacrificial ritual for annually cleansing the sanctuary:

18 'Thus says the Lord GOD, "In the first {month,} on the first of the month, you shall take a young bull without blemish and cleanse the sanctuary. 19 "The priest shall take some of the blood from the sin offering and put {it} on the door posts of the house, on the four corners of the ledge of the altar and on the posts of the gate of the inner court. 20 "Thus you shall do on the seventh {day} of the month for everyone who goes astray or is naive; so you shall make atonement for the house.

If this is to be taken as the millennial temple system, then there are grave problems. For Hebrews tells us that Yeshua has cleansed the heavenly sanctuary once and for all with His own blood, and instructs us in the principle of System Unity whereby the heavenly temple can be cleansed only by heavenly sacrifices while manufactured temple “copies” are cleansable only by animal sacrifices:

9:23 Therefore it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be cleansed with [animal blood], but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.

Since animal blood cannot cleanse heavenly materials and Yeshua’s blood does not cleanse manufactured materials, only a couple possibilities exist for reconciling Ezekiel with the Hebrews System Unity principle—neither of which favor restoration of sacrifices in the millennial temple:

1. The heavenly temple cleansed by Yeshua is not the same as the earthly millennial temple which Ezekiel saw (which Zechariah says Yeshua “the Branch” is to build).

If this is true, it means we are to believe that Yeshua—having already cleansed the heavenly temple with His own sinless blood, is going to come back to build (or “rebuild” as some believe) a manufactured millennial temple that requires effective cleansing from sin with (inexplicably) animal blood entirely outside the realm of cleansing He has achieved. (To confound things further, it is really the resurrected Ezekiel, not Yeshua, that is to do this cleansing.) However, none of this is possible for, as the Quandary of Construction below will show, Yeshua will not return to build a manufactured temple.

2. The heavenly temple cleansed by Yeshua is the same as the earthly millennial temple which Ezekiel saw. 

If this is true, it means that, since only Yeshua’s blood can cleanse the heavenly temple, the cleansing ordinances Ezekiel received concerning this temple were only given as a pattern (like as Moses was given the pattern) that was to literally apply, not to the actual heavenly temple He was touring, but only to the earthly copy assumed would be made by the returnees in his own time—AND/OR it means that the ordinances Ezekiel was given were to undergo regenerative transformation of meaning and application by the time the temple appears in the Millennium.

o       Cleansing of the Altar

A similar problem exists with the cleansing of the altar. This is the one artifact from the vision that Ezekiel is actually commanded to build. The Lord tells Ezekiel he is to personally officiate at the cleansing of the altar, serving as the initiating instrument of cleansing for the priests, after which the priests will be qualified to offer burnt offerings, including for Ezekiel (43:19-27).

But In the millennial era of resurrection, Ezekiel will be a glorified immortal entirely free of all sin. As such, he will not at all be offering sacrifices for sin of any kind, and certainly none shall be offered for him! How then can this system refer to Millennial Age worship?

It is plain that Ezekiel’s altar cleansing instructions apply only to an altar he is to build in his own mortal time, and/or that any corresponding cleansing of the heavenly / millennial temple altar seen in 40:47 must be by a different unrelated heavenly cleansing to come. And if so for the altar in chapter 43, how much more so for the entire sanctuary in chapter 45?  

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The quandary associated with these sacrificial cleansings leads to the next set of quandaries all centered on the blood of Christ.