EZEKIEL 44
3 It is for the prince; the prince, he shall sit in it to eat bread before Yahweh; he shall enter by the way of the porch of that gate, and shall go out by the way of the same.
...the most interesting and significant part of the subject. The Prince is unquestionably Christ. Sound brethren have had no doubt on this from the beginning. It is obvious beyond question to all who understand the Truth. Bro. Thomas so applies it in Elpis Israel as a self-evident fact (p. 297, 1910 edition).
First of all, if the Prince isn't Christ, then Christ-who is the heart and center of the whole picture-doesn't appear at all. This is impossible. Secondly, of itself, and even more so in the light of other Scriptures, an individual introduced into the center of the Temple picture without any explanation, as "THE Prince," cannot be other than Jesus.
Modern usage of the term "prince" may take some of the force away. Scripturally used, "prince" meant the Supreme Ruler, the Principal, the Head, the Chief-of whatever was being considered. It was not a secondary title, as it is today.
Christ is "Messiah the Prince" (Dan. 9:25). He is "Prince of the kings of the earth" (Rv.1:5)-the superior of all kings. He is "Michael the great Prince" who stands up to deliver Israel at the Last Day (Dan. 12:1). He it is whom God hath exalted to His right hand-the place of highest majesty-to be a "Prince and a Saviour" (Acts 5:31).
And thirdly, the very first mention of the Prince in Ezekiel's Temple chapters is in itself conclusive (44:2-3)-
''The East gate shall be shut ... no man shall enter by it, because Yahweh Elohim of Israel hath entered by it ... It is for the Prince.''
For 'hath entered,' Rotherham has 'doth enter,' which is both more accurate and more significant. The East gate is that by which Yahweh Elohim doth enter, it is for the Prince, no man shall use it.
The fact, too, that the East Portion of the Temple is associated with the Prince, both here and later, and not with the people generally, is another proof he is Christ, the High Priest. (His brethren, of course, are included with him in all).
The Mosaic Tabernacle and the Temples all faced east. East was the front, the side of honour and preeminence.
Here originally dwelt Moses the great Mediator, and Aaron the first High Priest. Here, in Tabernacle and Temple, was the main entrance-the only entrance-into God's House. East is Sun's Rising.
On every sabbath and new moon, the worship is centered around the Prince, who leads it (46:1-7). Likewise he leads the worship on the great yearly festivals of Passover and Tabernacles (45:21-25). Mosaically, this was the work of the High Priest, and none else. There can be no High Priest but Christ.
The Prince possesses the central royal portion of the land, the site of the Throne of David. The Holy Oblation and the Temple are IN his Portion. His portion is the same as God's: Judah,
"His portion in the Holy Land" (Zec. 2:12).
The highest priesthood in this Temple, the heart-center of the rulership of the Kingdom, must be immortal (1 Cor. 15:50). Where are they in all this service, if they be not the Prince and the Sons of Zadok?
Bro Growcott - BYT 4.18.
There is no difficulty in Christ as Yahweh eating before Yahweh. He is both the manifestation of God, and the Son of God. Before men, he bears the Name of God: before God, he is the ever submissive Son. Similarly, the Christ-Priest offered the Christ-Sacrifice on the Christ-Altar. There is no difficulty in his simultaneous fulfillment of many different types and shadows, for all converge in him.
He certainly does not eat bread in the East Court alone. Apart from the fact that he does nothing alone, we have his specific promise that he would partake of the Memorials anew with his brethren in his Kingdom (Mt. 26:29), and that the faithful should eat bread there.
In this first reference to the Prince in the Temple, we have the great Marriage Supper of the Lamb. The Memorials terminate with this joyful reunion, for their purpose is to keep in memory ''until he come," but the Marriage Supper is but the beginning of an endless companionship of never-diminishing bliss.
Bro Growcott - BYT 4.18.
5 And Yahweh said unto me, Son of man, mark well, and behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears all that I say unto thee concerning all the ordinances of the house of Yahweh, and all the laws thereof; and mark well the entering in of the house, with every going forth of the sanctuary.
1. Ezekiel is styled " Son of man."
2. Deep and sincere concentration of mind is essential for the comprehension of the vision.
3. Such comprehension can only come by carefully collating every fact stated, even to the minutest detail, and that such a conspectus must include every "law" every " ordinance" every "coming in," and every "going forth" of the sanctuary.
4. All Ezekiel saw and heard he was to make known to the house of Israel.
Ezekiel will be there, and take a prominent part in the organisation of the Temple worship.
He thus stands forth as a representative of the resurrected class, and therefore is a man of sign to the Spiritual House of Israel, as he was to the natural descendants of Abraham. From
this, it would follow that the injunction given to Ezekiel is also intended for every prospective constituent of the spiritual house, of which he forms a part.
Bro Sulley
10 And the Levites that are gone away far from me, when Israel went astray, which went astray away from me after their idols; they shall even bear their iniquity.
It is clear ... that the racial descendants of Zadok cannot all have remained faithful. The sons of Zadok, therefore, must be sons of Zadok on another principle, and immortal. But there is a sense in which the Levites as a race under the law went astray.
...Now if the Levites were spoken of in an undivided sense, and were in that relation to bear their iniquity, what would be the result?-Death surely. In view of this and what we read in verse 11, we must conclude that the prophecy relates to the natural descendants of the Levites as a class, who thus bear the condemnation of their fathers.
... the way in which Phineas appears to be related to "an everlasting priesthood" by covenant is indicated in Psalm 106:30-31.
"Then stood up Phineas, and executed judgment, and so the plague was stayed. And that was counted unto him for righteousness, unto all generations for evermore."
This involves his resurrection from the dead, and a participation in the priesthood of Christ the "Just One."
Questions answered by Bro Henry Sulley
The Christadelphian, June 1888
PRIESTLY SERVICES DEFINED
It is a service not of spiritual sacrifices, but of bloody sacrifices of spiritual significance. The lower order of the prieshood, mortal Levites, slay them for the people, and pass the fat and blood from the tables at the north gate to the Altar where they are burned and sprinkled by the higher or immortal priests "the seed of Zadok," before the Lord.
The past sins of the nation having been amnestied at the delivering of the Covenant, there is henceforth no more remembrance of sins once a year. The old Mosaic annual atonement on the tenth day of the seventh month, at which the tribes were to "afflict their souls," is not revived under the New Covenant. It will form no part of the service then. It was one of those things made, or appointed, that was removed when the Lord shook the Mosaic heaven by the Roman power.
There will be no laver of water between the Temple and Altar for the seed of Zadok to wash themselves before they enter the temple. These washings and carnal ordinances are also abolished; for those who approach the altar and enter in are like their Prince, holy and undefiled, being devoid of evil in the flesh.
"Faith in the Last Days,"
15 But the priests the Levites, the sons of Zadok, that kept the charge of my sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from me, they shall come near to me to minister unto me, and they shall stand before me to offer unto me the fat and the blood, saith Adonai Yahweh
THE SERVICE of The temple
to be performed within its courts and walls by the "priests to God" and to the people. These, as we have shown, are immortal and mortal men, the sons of Zadok and the sons of Aaron. So long as sin and death are in the world, the Melchisedec service of the Messiah-erected temple will continue; and the sons of Zadok, the Prince, or Just One, members of his immortal flesh and bones, will also with him be sacerdotally regarded as identified with the sins and trespasses of the people.
Therefore it is, that the priesthood under the New Covenant of the kingdom is not purely immortal, but of a mixed character. A priesthood composed entirely of resurrection men, of angelic or spiritual nature, in whose flesh there was no sin or evil principle, would not be in harmony with the institution, and therefore unfit to perform a service for the purification of the erring and the ignorant; for priesthood must be sympathetically related to the ignorant who worship through it, having infirmity in itself, that it may offer for itself as well as for the people.
The infirmity of the New Covenant priesthood of the kingdom resides not in Zadok and his sons, but in the priests, the Levites, who minister to the people, and perform the humbler duties of the order. Nevertheless, the Just One and his sons are represented in the service as offering their burnt offerings, and peace offerings; not for themselves as individuals and sinners, but only in their priestly capacity as part of a priesthood of mixed character, which partakes of Christ's mortal flesh, as well as his immortal nature, in reckoning the mortal descendants of Levi and Aaron among its constituents.
It would be discordant with the fitness of things that the priesthood should be wholly mortal, or entirely constituted of immortals, seeing that the kingdom itself is a mixed institution the subjects thereof being Israelites in flesh and blood; and its higher order of kings or rulers, incorruptible men. The Twelve Tribes will then be obedient, and keep the covenant of Yahweh, and be "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." This is said of Israel in flesh and blood subsisting. They will be the secondary kings and priests over the nations; the intermediate order between these and Zadok and his sons, the kings and priests to God over them and all the earth.
The kingdom and priesthood under the Mosaic law was of an unmixed character, the members of its civil and ecclesiastical orders being all of them subject to death. Not so, however, with the kingdom and its orders in the Age to Come. Its subjects and inheritors are an intermingling of flesh and spirit, until the kingdom shall be surrendered to the Father at "The End;" when the people, and all their superiors worthy of exaltation, shall be all spirits, or incorruptible men; and priesthood and priestly service, but not the royalty, will be done away.
Israel and the nations subjected to them will bring of the flocks and herds of Kedar, and of the rams of Nebaioth, and present them for sin offerings, and burnt offerings, and thank offerings at the north gate of the inner court of the temple; and present them to the Levites of Aaron's seed. These, who are not permitted to approach the altar, nor to minister before the Lord in the temple, will have the "charge at the gates of the house, and minister to the house" "for all the service thereof, and for all that shall be done therein."
They will therefore take charge of the people's gifts; and "they shall slay the burnt offering and the sacrifice for the people, and they shall stand before them to minister unto them." They will slay the sacrifices, namely, "the burnt offering, and the sin offering, and the trespass offerings," upon the eight tables of hewn stone in the porch of the north gate, and at the right and left side of the north entrance without. They will then wash them in the place appointed at this gate; and divide a portion to the people, and reserve that devoted to the Lord.
The people's part of the sacrifices they will boil in the corner courts of the paved outer court of the sanctuary; but "the most holy things," or parts of the sacrifices and offerings dedicated to the Lord, of the meat offering, the sin offering, and the trespass offering, will be boiled and baked in "the holy chambers of the priests" on the two sides west of the inner court, and eaten there by the sons of Zadok, "the priests that approach unto the Lord." After this arrangement will
"all they that sacrifice come and take of the pots of the Lord's house, and seethe therein"-Zechariah 14: 21.
While the Levites are slaying the sacrifices and passing to and fro in the inner court, they are to wear linen garments that perspiration may not be produced. But they are not to go forth into the outer court with these upon them; but to put them off "and lay them in the holy chambers, and put on other garments:" and the reason given is, that "they shall not sanctify the people in their garments."
It will be their duty after washing the sacrifices, to transfer the fat and the blood to the sons of Zadok, who on the Eighth Day, which is our First Day of the week, and the Sabbath of the Age to Come, instead of the Seventh, as under Moses' law-on the Eighth, shall they burn the fat upon the altar, and sprinkle the blood upon it.
This is the duty of Zadok's seed. They are privileged to approach the altar and to enter into the temple, and stand before the Lord; but not the Levites, the people's priests. They are ministers of death to the sacrifices before the people; but the sons of Zadok, everliving ministers, salvation-clothed, before the Lord. The former slay the unblemished yearling lamb for the daily morning offering by fire, the voluntary offerings of the Prince, and the things devoted of the people; while the latter cause their rich odour to ascend in clouds from Hah ariail haharail, the Altar, or Lion of the Mountain of God.
The Herald of the Kingdom and Coming Age, Sept 1851
Sacrifice and offering in the Millennial Age
They will be "pure" and "pleasant" offerings to Yahweh; because they will be perfect offerings, and offered in righteousness by a purified priesthood. They will be perfect, because they will be perfected by the sacrifice of Him whose expiatory death they represent.
They will be pure offerings and pleasant, because the offerers will present them with enlightened faith and purified hearts.
...Such however, was not the case in the Mosaic Age. The offerings were neither perfect, pure, nor pleasant to Yahweh. They were imperfect, not having been perfected by the expiation they typified; but keeping up a remembrance of unpardoned offences every year.
This will not be the case with the perfect offerings of the Age to Come. These will not be remembrances of transgressions unforgiven; but memorials of pardon through the sacrifice of Messiah the Prince.
There is no day of annual atonement in the future age. Israel's offences are blotted out once for all as a thick cloud when the New Covenant is made with them on their re-settlement in
the Holy Land when that age begins; a forgiveness of national offences which lasts for ever, as it is written,
"I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and iniquities I will remember no more."
- "Faith in the Last Days."
16 They [THE SONS OF ZADOK] shall enter into my sanctuary [THE MOST HOLY], and they shall come near to my table, to minister unto me, and they shall keep my charge.
The mortal priests "they shall not come near unto me" 41: 22. This privilege is for the sons of Zakok
22 Neither shall they take for their wives a widow, nor her that is put away: but they shall take maidens of the seed of the house of Israel, or a widow that had a priest before.
The Ezekiel Law of Marriage
The solution of the difficulty concerning the marriage of the parties named in Ezek. 44:22, will be found in a right division of the word. The fifteenth and sixteenth verses refer to "the sons of Zadok;" from the ninth to the fourteenth, inclusive, and from the seventeenth to the end of the chapter, the subordinate rank of the priesthood, is the subject of the legislation.
They are not only not to take for their wives a widow other than the widow of a priest, but they are to drink no wine on entering the inner court.
"They shall stand before the people to minister for them;" but, "they shall not come near unto me, saith the Lord, to do the office of a priest unto me, nor to come near to any of my holy things, in the most holy." "But the sons of Zadok shall stand before me, to offer unto me the fat and the blood, saith the Lord, they shall come near to my table,"
which will be in the most holy place.-41:22.
Here are evidently two classes of priests, one that may enter the most holy, and the other that may not. The Lord's table is in the most holy, and he said to the apostles,
"Ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom;"
but the others may not drink, and may not come beyond the inner court. They are, therefore, not the sons of Zadok, of whom marriage is affirmed; for they who may not drink are they who may not marry any other widow than the widow of a deceased priest.
Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, Feb 1857
23 And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean.
This is the whole purpose of life and learning. There is unclean, and death; and there is clean, and life. True knowledge consists of knowing the difference; true wisdom consists of choosing the clean. Everything falls into one category or the other.
God tells Ezekiel to show Israel the pattern of the House, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities (43:10). How would it make them ashamed? How would it make us ashamed?
By its glory and greatness and goodness. It is a beautiful center of goodness and joy and mercy and forgiveness, and of learning to choose the good and eschew the evil. It is a glorious provision and manifestation of God's love and care for Israel and the world. It is such a wonderful contrast to man's present evil condition and ways.
It is the heart of the Divine Promise and Purpose from the beginning that-
"All nations of the earth shall be blessed" (Gen. 12:3)
...The old Temple was gone. It had been desecrated beyond the possibility of redemption. It had been filled with blood and corruption.
But in a new day to come, there would be a new House of Prayer, far more spacious and splendid, not just for Israel but for the whole world - the center of an earth at rest in holiness and peace.
Bro Growcott - Prophecies in the captivity