A great and beautiful temple, framed in detail in the counsel of God,
is to be set up in Jerusalem in the millennial age,
for the setting forth of the truths of God’s Word.
Ezekiel 1
1 Then he brought me forth into the utter court, the way toward the north: and he brought me into the chamber that was over against the separate place, and which was before the building toward the north.
2 Before the length of an hundred cubits was the north door, and the breadth was fifty cubits.
3 Over against the twenty cubits which were for the inner court, and over against the pavement which was for the utter court, was gallery against gallery in three stories.
4 And before the chambers was a walk of ten cubits breadth inward, a way of one cubit; and their doors toward the north.
5 Now the upper chambers were shorter: for the galleries were higher than these, than the lower, and than the middlemost of the building.
6 For they were in three stories, but had not pillars as the pillars of the courts: therefore the building was straitened more than the lowest and the middlemost from the ground.
7 And the wall that was without over against the chambers, toward the utter court on the forepart of the chambers, the length thereof was fifty cubits.
8 For the length of the chambers that were in the utter court was fifty cubits: and, lo, before the temple were an hundred cubits.
9 And from under these chambers was the entry on the east side, as one goeth into them from the utter court.
10 The chambers were in the thickness of the wall of the court toward the east, over against the separate place, and over against the building.
11 And the way before them was like the appearance of the chambers which were toward the north, as long as they, and as broad as they: and all their goings out were both according to their fashions, and according to their doors.
12 And according to the doors of the chambers that were toward the south was a door in the head of the way, even the way directly before the wall toward the east, as one entereth into them.
13 ¶ Then said he unto me, The north chambers and the south chambers, which are before the separate place, they be holy chambers, where the priests that approach unto the LORD shall eat the most holy things: there shall they lay the most holy things, and the meat offering, and the sin offering, and the trespass offering; for the place is holy.
14 When the priests enter therein, then shall they not go out of the holy place into the utter court, but there they shall lay their garments wherein they minister; for they are holy; and shall put on other garments, and shall approach to those things which are for the people.
15 Now when he had made an end of measuring the inner house, he brought me forth toward the gate whose prospect is toward the east, and measured it round about.
16 He measured the east side with the measuring reed, five hundred reeds, with the measuring reed round about.
17 He measured the north side, five hundred reeds, with the measuring reed round about.
18 He measured the south side, five hundred reeds, with the measuring reed.
19 ¶ He turned about to the west side, and measured five hundred reeds with the measuring reed.
20 He measured it by the four sides: it had a wall round about, five hundred reeds long, and five hundred broad, to make a separation between the sanctuary and the profane place.
Ezekiel 1 – J. Vernon McGee
Ezekiel 42:13—The priests that approach unto the LORD shall eat the most holy things.
Every believer is a priest unto God. He may not exercise his priesthood; but when he was washed from his sins in the blood of the Lamb, he was constituted a priest unto God, even the Father. We are called, not to offer propitiatory sacrifices—there is no need for this, since Jesus when He died offered the one sufficient oblation for the sins of the world—but to present ourselves living sacrifices, to offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually, and to do good and communicate of our substance to the help of others.
Are you near unto the Lord? Hath He chosen you to stand before Him, and know his will, and hear the word from his mouth? Then most certainly you will often enter into the inner chamber to eat of the most holy things. These are enumerated as the meat-offering, the sin-offering, and the guilt-offering. We must have fellowship with God in his joy over the spotless character and lovely human life of Jesus, which may be compared to fine flour. We must have fellowship in the atoning death of our Substitute; feeding on all the sacred meaning of the wondrous Cross. We must avail ourselves of Jesus as our guilt-offering; making propitiation for our mistakes, negligences, and infirmities (Leviticus 2; 4; 5).
If you would be near to God, feed on the work of Jesus; if you are near to God, you cannot live without it. To muse on the propitiatory aspects of the death of Jesus is as necessary for the strength of our inner life as food is to the body. Let us beware of imitating the mistake of Leviticus 10:16-20; and let us be very careful to eat of the wave-breast and the heave-thigh, which stand for the love of Jesus for our affections, and the might of Jesus for our strength (Leviticus 10:14). —Our Daily Homily