Ezekiel 40:1
1 In the five and twentieth year of our captivity, in the beginning of the year, in the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after that the city was smitten, in the selfsame day the hand of the LORD was upon me, and brought me thither.
How can these prophecies be understood literally when the NT declares that the sacrificial system has been abolished by Christ’s death?
PROBLEM: Ezekiel seems to predict that, in the messianic period, the sacrificial system used by the Jews before the time of Jesus will be reinstituted (chaps. 40–48). However, the NT in general and the Book of Hebrews in particular is emphatic in declaring that Christ has by one sacrifice forever done away with the need for animal sacrifices (10:1–9).
SOLUTION: There are two basic interpretations of this passage of Scripture. Some take it spiritually and others view it literally.
First, some argue for a spiritual interpretation that these sacrifices are not to be understood literally, but only as symbols or foreshadows of what was fulfilled in Christ’s all-sufficient sacrifice on the Cross (Hebrews 1:1-2). They give the following reasons for their view.
1. The NT teaches that Christ fulfilled and abolished the OT sacrificial system and priesthood (Hebrews 8:8-10).
3. Ezekiel portrays the Gentiles as excluded from Israel’s temple, which is contrary to the NT teaching that Jew and Gentile are one in Christ (Galatians 3:28; Ephesians 2:12-22).
4. The NT speaks of the church as a spiritual Israel in which OT predictions are fulfilled (Galatians 6:16; Hebrews 8:8-10).
The literal interpretation looks to an actual restoration of the temple and sacrificial system,just as Ezekiel predicted it to be fulfilled during Christ’s millennial reign on earth (Revelation 20). They support their position with the following points:
3. The Bible distinguishes between Israel and the church (1 Corinthians 10:32; Romans 9:3-4). Promises unique to Abraham and his literal descendants, such as the Promised Land (Genesis 12:1-3), are not fulfilled in the church, but remain yet to be fulfilled in the future (Romans 11; Revelation 20).
4. The picture in Revelation 21 is not that of the millennium (Revelation 20), but of the eternal state that follows it. Ezekiel’s prediction (40–48) will be fulfilled in the millennium. Later, in the new heaven and the new earth, there will be no temple or sacrifices.
6. The rest of Ezekiel’s prophecy will be fulfilled in a literal 1,000-year reign of Christ (Revelation 20:1-7) as He sits on a literal throne with His 12 apostles sitting on 12 literal thrones in Jerusalem (Matthew 19:28). If so, then there is no reason not to take the prophecy about the sacrifices as literal too.
7. The OT did not foresee how Jew and Gentile would be joined together (cf. Ephesians 3:4-6), but it did envision that the Gentiles would be blessed (Isaiah 11:10-16). Ezekiel’s presentation does not exclude this later revelation (cf. Colossians 1:26).