What is your view of Ezekiel's Temple?
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Right. It's not only that you don't know of any place in scripture--- it's that it doesn't exist in scripture. You might simply acknowledge that. So while you imply that we can't know something that isn't said, we absolutely can know the things that are said. Just go with the textual proof and stop speculating on things that were never written or even suggested in the scriptures.
Wrong. What makes you think that God needed a house on earth at all, never mind "preferring a particular design?"
I asked you about this previously, but you conveniently side-stepped my question about God's commandment to NOT build a copy of anything seen in the heavens. Moses got this wrong and proceeded to make earthly copies of everything he saw in heaven. He thought to put God in a to-go-box to carry along for 40 years of wandering. To his credit Ezekiel didn't follow suit.
When David said he wanted to build 'a proper house' for God, God's response was "Do you really intend to build a house for me to live in? I have not lived in a house from the time I brought the Israelites up from Egypt to the present day. Instead, I was traveling with them and living in a tent. Wherever I moved among all the Israelites, I did not say to any of their leaders whom I appointed to care for my people Israel, “Why have you not built me a house made from cedar?”
The temple David decided to build and that he passed along plans for to his son Solomon, was a vanity project, not something God instructed him to do. Like Moses, he intended to copy heavenly visions-- it all became one big religious mess.
In the new testament, Stephen testified to the truth, quoting Amos 5-- and they killed him for it. He explained the tragic mistakes of temple worship and pointed out what it really was.
-God turned away from them and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: ‘It was not to me that you offered slain animals and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, was it, house of Israel? But you took along the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of the god Rephan, the images you made to worship, but I will deport you beyond Babylon.’ Our ancestors had the tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness, just as God who spoke to Moses ordered him to make it according to the design he had seen. Our ancestors received possession of it and brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our ancestors, until the time of David. He found favor with144 God and asked that he could find a dwelling place for the house of Jacob. But Solomon built a house for him. Yet the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands, as the prophet says,
‘Heaven is my throne,
and earth is the footstool for my feet.
What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord,
or what is my resting place?
Did my hand not make all these things?’
“You stubborn people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are always resisting the Holy Spirit, like your ancestors did! Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold long ago the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become! You received the law by decrees given by angels, but you did not obey it.”
Wrong. What makes you think that God needed a house on earth at all, never mind "preferring a particular design?"
I asked you about this previously, but you conveniently side-stepped my question about God's commandment to NOT build a copy of anything seen in the heavens. Moses got this wrong and proceeded to make earthly copies of everything he saw in heaven. He thought to put God in a to-go-box to carry along for 40 years of wandering. To his credit Ezekiel didn't follow suit.
When David said he wanted to build 'a proper house' for God, God's response was "Do you really intend to build a house for me to live in? I have not lived in a house from the time I brought the Israelites up from Egypt to the present day. Instead, I was traveling with them and living in a tent. Wherever I moved among all the Israelites, I did not say to any of their leaders whom I appointed to care for my people Israel, “Why have you not built me a house made from cedar?”
The temple David decided to build and that he passed along plans for to his son Solomon, was a vanity project, not something God instructed him to do. Like Moses, he intended to copy heavenly visions-- it all became one big religious mess.
In the new testament, Stephen testified to the truth, quoting Amos 5-- and they killed him for it. He explained the tragic mistakes of temple worship and pointed out what it really was.
-God turned away from them and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: ‘It was not to me that you offered slain animals and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, was it, house of Israel? But you took along the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of the god Rephan, the images you made to worship, but I will deport you beyond Babylon.’ Our ancestors had the tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness, just as God who spoke to Moses ordered him to make it according to the design he had seen. Our ancestors received possession of it and brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our ancestors, until the time of David. He found favor with144 God and asked that he could find a dwelling place for the house of Jacob. But Solomon built a house for him. Yet the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands, as the prophet says,
‘Heaven is my throne,
and earth is the footstool for my feet.
What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord,
or what is my resting place?
Did my hand not make all these things?’
“You stubborn people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are always resisting the Holy Spirit, like your ancestors did! Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold long ago the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become! You received the law by decrees given by angels, but you did not obey it.”
God told Moses to make it according to the pattern, and God put wisdom in two men to make the components. Why do you say Moses got it wrong? They were commanded not to make images and bow down to the images and serve them. They were commanded to make images that were incorporated into the tabernacle design. You are not presenting a very convincing case for your position.
I agree. Ezekiel was not told to build it. But he was told to give the design to the Jews and they were told by God in Ezekiel's prophecy to carry out its ordinances. I don't think anyone will be carrying out those ordinances regarding sacrifices after Jesus' perfect sacrifice for sins has been made already. I think that would dishonour the once for all sacrifice.
No. The Jews returning from exile did not even begin to build according to the pattern shown to Ezekiel. So, they should not have expected the results promised to the Jews if they had done so.
Eze 43:7 And he said unto me, Son of man, the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever, and my holy name, shall the house of Israel no more defile, neither they, nor their kings, by their whoredom, nor by the carcases of their kings in their high places.
Eze 43:8 In their setting of their threshold by my thresholds, and their post by my posts, and the wall between me and them, they have even defiled my holy name by their abominations that they have committed: wherefore I have consumed them in mine anger.
Eze 43:9 Now let them put away their whoredom, and the carcases of their kings, far from me, and I will dwell in the midst of them for ever.
Eze 43:10 Thou son of man, shew the house to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities: and let them measure the pattern.
Eze 43:11 And if they be ashamed of all that they have done, shew them the form of the house, and the fashion thereof, and the goings out thereof, and the comings in thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the laws thereof: and write it in their sight, that they may keep the whole form thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and do them.
BTW. It seems to me that the Ezekiel temple of 17.6 acres could fit on the 37 acre flat top of the temple mount. And the entire facility could be built to extend down the hillsides with terraces to appear from above with the required . I don't think Ezekiel said the entire area of 500 reeds x 500 reeds, or 55.5 acres had to all be flat.
Eze 43:7 And he said unto me, Son of man, the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever, and my holy name, shall the house of Israel no more defile, neither they, nor their kings, by their whoredom, nor by the carcases of their kings in their high places.
Eze 43:8 In their setting of their threshold by my thresholds, and their post by my posts, and the wall between me and them, they have even defiled my holy name by their abominations that they have committed: wherefore I have consumed them in mine anger.
Eze 43:9 Now let them put away their whoredom, and the carcases of their kings, far from me, and I will dwell in the midst of them for ever.
Eze 43:10 Thou son of man, shew the house to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities: and let them measure the pattern.
Eze 43:11 And if they be ashamed of all that they have done, shew them the form of the house, and the fashion thereof, and the goings out thereof, and the comings in thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the laws thereof: and write it in their sight, that they may keep the whole form thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and do them.
BTW. It seems to me that the Ezekiel temple of 17.6 acres could fit on the 37 acre flat top of the temple mount. And the entire facility could be built to extend down the hillsides with terraces to appear from above with the required . I don't think Ezekiel said the entire area of 500 reeds x 500 reeds, or 55.5 acres had to all be flat.
This seems to be referring to some/many(?) Israelites who left Egypt with Moses, who brought with them some of their pagan paraphernalia and continued to offer pagan worship as they wandered through the desert. God seems to be reminding the Israelites that even immediately after they had been delivered from slavery by Yahweh, they had divided loyalties that were treasonous. And this treason has been recurrent ever since. And as a result of their habitually withdrawing from God, He was about to allow them to be taken away from their land to beyond Babylon.
It seems a stretch to read this as referring to the tabernacle Moses ordered built at God's command.
It seems a stretch to read this as referring to the tabernacle Moses ordered built at God's command.
It's 100 percent referring to the family of Israel, and not some unmentioned portion. Amos says-- "Woe to those who are wishing for the day of the Lord." -- they have no idea what it is they are wishing for, because it brings judgment on God's family. The message refers to the Israelites-- their festivals, religious assemblies, burnt offerings, grain offerings, peace offerings, praise music and the forty years that they spent wandering with the tent/tabernacle/altar of Moses.
