Ezekiel 45

Ezekiel 45:1

C. The Millennial Administration (Chaps. 45, 46)45:1 In the center of the land of Israel, a piece of land will be set apart for the LORD as a holy . . . district. It will be twenty-five thousand cubits by ten thousand. 45:2-5 It will be divided into two strips. The top half will contain the sanctuary, and will also be for the priests. The lower half will be for the Levites. 45:6 At the bottom of the square will be a third strip, a common place, which will include the city of Jerusalem. 45:7, 8 All the land to the east and west of this square, as far as the boundaries of the land, will belong to the prince. 45:9-12 The princes of Israel are to execute justice in their dealings (v. 9), using honest scales and measures. 45:13-17 In these verses, all the people are required to offer a certain percentage of their crops to the prince in Israel in order to provide for the regular offerings and appointed seasons. 45:18-20 On the first day of the first month, the sanctuary is to be cleansed, and on the seventh day of the same month, the people are to be cleansed of sins committed unintentionally or in ignorance. 45:21-25 The Passover is to be kept on the fourteenth day of the first month and the Feast of Tabernacles on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. No mention is made of the Feast of Pentecost, the Feast of Trumpets, or the Day of Atonement. In the light of all these rituals and holy days how grateful we should be for the once-for-all substitutionary work of Christ on our behalf!

MILLENNIAL SACRIFICESIn Eze_43:20, Eze_43:26; Eze_45:15, Eze_45:17 some of the offerings that will be presented during the Millennium are distinctly said to be for the purpose of making atonement. How can this be reconciled with Heb_10:12 : “But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God.” Or Heb_10:18 : “Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin?” As used in the OT, the word “atonement” (lit., covering) never means the putting away of sins. Heb_10:4 reminds us that “. . . it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.” Rather the sacrifices were an annual reminder of sins (Heb_10:3). What then did atonement mean? It meant that the sacrifices produced an outward, ceremonial cleanness. They conferred a ritual purification on people, enabling them to draw near as worshipers in fellowship with God. The sacrifices even made atonement for inanimate things, such as the altar (Exo_29:37), where there could be no thought of remission of sins. All it means is that the altar was cleansed ceremonially and thus made fit for God’s service. When we read of the forgiveness of unintentional sin in connection with atonement (Lev_4:20), it can only mean the removal of ceremonial defilement so that the person could draw near in worship. In our day the word “atonement” has acquired a much wider and deeper meaning. It is used, for instance, to describe the entire sacrificial work of Christ by which our sins are put away and we are reconciled to God. But it never has this meaning in the Bible. (In Rom_5:11 KJV, the word “atonement” should be “reconciliation,” as in NKJV and other versions.) The sacrifices in Israel’s history looked forward to the perfect and complete sacrifice of Christ. The sacrifices in the Millennium will commemorate His work on Calvary. They will be memorials for Israel just as the Lord’s Supper is for us. The passages in Hebrews do not rule out any sacrificial ceremony in the future. But they insist that no future sacrifices can ever deal effectively with sins, any more than they did in the past.