TEMPLES, PRIESTS AND TRUTH

BEFORE YOU BEGIN 

The quotes from the Bible have been translated by myself from the Hebrew and Greek. I do this partially because I enjoy it, partly so as not to have to bother about copyright, and also because I want to use the kind of language that we normally speak. It is therefore not a word-for-word translation, but I try hard to keep the right meaning.

At the end of a quote from the Bible I give the ‘reference’, telling you where it came from. I give only the name of the book and the chapter number, but not the verse. There is at least one English version of the Bible which does not have verse-numbers anyway. You don’t need to look up a references at all, but if you do, it is good to see what’s around it.

One of the Hebrew names for the Living God is ‘Yahweh’, and that is what he is very often called in the Old Testament. Most English Bibles have ‘the Lord’ (in small capitals) where the Hebrew has ‘Yahweh’. There is a reason why the early English translators did this, but it is a pity. ‘Lord’, of course, means someone who is in command, and that is true of God; but it is not what the word ‘Yahweh’ means. Instead it means (more or less) ‘He Exists’ (and has existed, and will exist). The word is therefore is saying some very important things. First it is saying that he is the Real God. The Egyptians alone had thousands of gods, and India has huge numbers now, but Yahweh is the one who is really there. Secondly, he really IS there. The earth, planets and stars, and all other material things, work like a machine, but Yahweh isn’t part of it, and neither is he tied by it. He made it, and he can do what he likes with it, which is a very good thing, because machines can’t think or make decisions, and they wear out in the end anyway.

People are small models of Yahweh and not just part of the machine. They make decisions that affect it. Most people have rejected this wonderful God, and the world is in a mess, but there is hope - he is able to put things right, and our prayers can make a difference.

So what are we going to call him? In French Bibles he is often called ‘l’Eternel’ (the Everlasting One), and Italians do the same in their language. That is much closer to the real meaning of the Hebrew Word than ‘the Lord’. But, like some other translators, I have just kept the Hebrew word as it is, and hope that this little booklet will help you to see more of his wonders and fairness. He doesn’t just tell us what to do. He is the expert in saving, and getting people out of a mess; stepping down into history and doing impossible things. That’s how the nation of Israel first got started - out of a a bunch of slaves working on building sites in Egypt; and it is also how we can now be given real life and freedom, instead of being slaves of the Enemy.

Yahweh is the hero of all heroes. But there is just one problem - he is also the judge. That is why people try to forget him, and invent stories instead. A lot of people pretend that the machine is all there is and hide away in that. But that is death, and stupid. A machine cannot make itself. Happily, if we throw away our silly stories, and turn to our Maker, he will save us from judgment and destruction, and turn us into something creative.

Whatever Yahweh is, Jesus is; and whatever Jesus is, Yahweh is. Yahweh, for example, said he was a spring of Living Water, and Jesus said the same about himself (as you can see in Jeremiah chapter 2, and chapters 4 and 7 of John’s gospel).

Like most translators of the Bible, I often write ‘he’ or ‘him’ when it could be ‘she’ or her’ (and so on). I hope no one will be offended. Treat the words as simply meaning a ‘human being’. Anything else seems to be too clumsy.

This little book is about true religion, which is not mainly words or programs, but power - the power of the Living God to change people who will trust him, and to give them everlasting life.

Let us pray that he will give us eyes to see him and his power, so that we share his glory. 

Part One - Israel’s Temples

For about four hundred years, the people of Israel lived In Egypt. At first they were welcomed, but later they were used for slave labour.

No doubt they saw plenty of temples.

The Egyptians were clever people, and some of their public and religious buildings were massive and wonderful. Many can still be seen. One of the most amazing is a temple carved out of a limestone cliff, at a place called Abu Simbel, beside the River Nile. On the front are four massive statues of king Rameses 2^nd, each about twenty metres high. Each one is sitting on a throne, with little statues of the members of his family standing beside his feet. Inside is the temple itself, stretching sixty metres into the cliff. It has now been drowned by a dam across the river, but the carvings on the front were sawn off first, and put together again higher up.

The people of Israel would probably not have seen it. They escaped out of Egypt, with the help of Yahweh, about the same time as it was built.

A temple is a house for a god - or gods. The one in Abu Simbel is chiefly dedicated to the sun-god, but there were others as well. The innermost room, or ‘Holy of Holies’, contained the statues of these gods, and the king. At sunrise a shaft of light, from outside, lit this room up.

The Egyptians had hundreds of gods to choose from.

When the Israelites were in the Sinai desert, on the way from Egypt to the land God had promised to give them, Yahweh told them to make a temple for him. It had to be for him only.

It was a huge tent, made of parts that could be carried. Wooden frames, around the side, kept it rigid. Each of these was about five metres high and 70 centimetres wide, with two silver stands to keep it upright, and fastenings on the edge to attach it to the next one. On the north side there were twenty, and the same on the south side. On the west there were eight of them. The east side was the opening. There were five poles, covered with gold, and gold bases for them to stand on. Curtains were held up on golden hooks.

So the whole tent was about fourteen metres by five.

To keep it rigid, there were long poles, covered in gold, connecting up the frames - three of them for each side and the rear. These were fixed to the frames by rings of gold. The whole of the inside was lined with huge, colourful lengths of cloth, each about fourteen metres long and two metres wide, with loops and golden clasps to join them together. On the outside there were sheets of goats’ hair, joined together with loops and bronze clasps, and the the roof was in two layers, each made of skins from the cattle and sheep.

There were two rooms. The smaller one, at the west end, was called the Most Holy Place.

‘The length, breadth, and height of it were the same.

It was like the innermost room of the Abu Simbel temple, but there were no statues of gods in there, and certainly not one of a man. The real God is not part of nature. He made it all. He cannot have a shape. If he had, he couldn’t be everywhere. (When he talked to people and wanted to be seen - then he took the shape of a man, and was called the ‘Angel of the Lord’).

Instead of a statue, God told them to make a box, a bit more than a metre long, and about 70 cm. wide and 70 cm. high, made of wood, and covered with gold inside and out. In English Bibles it is usually called the ‘Ark’. The Hebrew word just means a chest, or large box. All its parts and contents say something about God.

Inside were ten basic rules, or ‘commandments’, about respecting God and being fair to other people. They were engraved by God, on two stone slabs.

This tells us that God is perfect, and wants us to be perfect.

But there is a problem. The first man and woman had turned away from the Real God, and no longer had his perfect life in them. So they became bad. Now, all the rest of us have inherited this spiritual death. We must have laws to tell us what we ought to be doing - or not doing, but we can’t keep them.

If that was all there was, there’d be no hope for us. We must somehow get linked up again with the God who made us and can put us right.

That is where the lid of the box comes in. It has a name. In some English versions of the Bible it is called the ‘Mercy Seat’. There is a reason for that, but it is not what the Hebrew word means. The word sounds something like ‘Kappohreth’, and comes from a family of words which are about cancelling guilt and ‘covering up’ the things we do wrong, so that they are all paid for and we can go free. It also means a ransom price, to get a person out of trouble. There are lots of places in the Old Testament where this family of words is used, and they all seem to be about getting people out of trouble which they really deserve, because their guilt is covered up and forgotten.

Of course there is a price to pay, and no one could donate that but God himself. All over the world people are trying to cancel their guilt, or justify themselves, but it cannot be done. The price is too high. Only the Son, by being sacrificed himself, can free us, and this generous gift is valid since before the world started, as you can see in chapter 13 of Revelation, the last book in the Bible.

We begin to see what a wonderful picture of God we get, in this box.

But that’s not all there is to the lid. Of one piece with it, at each end, there was a creature with wings, made of pure gold. In Hebrew they were called ‘cherubim’ (not ‘cherubs’ - the Hebrew language does not put an ‘s’ at the end of a word. And don’t be misled by pictures and ideas of ‘cherubs’ which have nothing to do with the Bible). The real cherubim are very powerful beings. The first time we find them is near the beginning of the Bible. God stationed two of them to stop the first man (and probably the woman too) from getting to the Tree of Life, after they had turned against him. This was a very responsible job, and also very necessary. We have already seen that Man has become bad, and separated from God. If we lived for ever in that state we’d all be doomed. We must somehow die and start again. Through Christ, that is possible. He died the death for all of us - and rose up indestructible. Any one who turns back to God, and relies on him, shares that death and everlasting life. It always has been so, even before Jesus arrived here - it was all part of the plan.

You might like to look in Matthew, chapter 16 and Galatians, chapter 2, towards the end of both those chapters.

So, this box, in the place where the god, or gods would be in other temples, tells us at least four things about the Real God:

1. He is Precious and wonderful (the gold)

2. He is Perfect (the Ten Rules)

3. He is a Peace-Maker (the ‘Mercy Seat’ which is about cancelling guilt),

4. And he is Powerful (the Cherubim).          

Is that not what we want and need most?

What a terrible thing it is to reject this Real God and choose man-made things and stories to take his place! .

The ‘Most Holy Place’ was separated from the rest of the tent by a screen, hung by golden hooks on five wooden pillars covered with gold, which stood in bases made of bronze.

Cherubim were embroidered on it, and on all the the inside fabrics of the whole tent. Surely this is important. Remember that they were a symbol of power, under the authority of the Creator. True religion is not mainly about what we do for God, but for what he does for us. He has the power to transfer us into his Kingdom, and make us into people who are really good, and a benefit in this world. It is all a free gift. We only have to ask. Jesus has paid for it all. Only then can we give things to God, and give him pleasure.

The only person allowed through the curtain into the ‘Holy of Holies’, or ‘Most Holy Place’ (except when the whole tent had to be taken apart for moving) was the High Priest, once a year. There is a meaning here. This kind of religious routine, for a whole nation, will never get a person to God. It can only be a picture of the real thing.

The rest of the tent was twice as long, and called the ‘Holy Place’.

On the south side, there was a golden lamp-holder holding seven lamps, fed with olive oil; and on the north side was a table, together with various plates and bowls, all made of gold. Loaves of bread, for the priests, were put on it.

At the west end was a small altar for burning incense on. The smell was supposed to please God, whose ‘mercy-seat’ was the other side of the curtain.

The incense altar and the table were made of wood covered in gold, and the lamp-holder was solid gold, made all in one piece.

The entrance to the building was at the east end, where there was another curtain, hung on five wooden pillars covered with gold.

Around the tent was the court, about 50 by 25 metres, surrounded by linen hangings, which were supported on bronze pillars. At the east end there was an opening, with a curtain hung on four pillars (which seems to make my picture wrong at that point).

In the court, near the opening, was a large altar where animals, or parts of them, and cereal, could be burned as gifts to God. Between the Holy Place and the altar was a golden basin for the priests to use for washing.

You’ll find more details of the construction in the book of Exodus, Chapter 25 to the end.

Only priests were allowed into the tent or its court. When the Israelites were on the move, the priests’ helpers, the Levites (who belonged to the same tribe as the priests) had to carry everything. The golden box, the incense altar, the lamp-holder, and the table had rings on each corner, and carrying-poles were passed through them. These items had first to be covered with special cloths, before the Levites could carry them. Otherwise, said God, they would die.

There were regular offerings, by the priests, each day. On the Sabbath, and other holy days, there were special offerings, and more animals were sacrificed. Any time in the year, any Israelite could bring to the priests an animal to be sacrificed, for various purposes. The most common one would probably be a ‘Peace Offering’ (different translators give it different names). In this case someone brought an animal to be slaughtered. He would keep most of the animal, but the priests would get a share. The fat, and other parts that we don’t normally eat, were burned on the altar as a present for God, who was supposed to enjoy the smell. Together with the meat, wine was poured out on the altar, as a drink-offering, and some flour mixed with olive-oil. It was rather like sharing a meal with God.

So the Temple area was a kind of slaughterhouse, where anyone living close enough would bring his animal to be killed. The bit given to the priest was part of his salary.

A person could also bring an animal to be entirely burnt. He brought it to the door of the court, and killed it. The priests then cut it into sections and burned them on the altar in the court. It was a way of showing devotion to God.

Then there was the sin offering, for someone who had done something wrong - but only if he had done it by mistake. The guilty person must bring his animal to the door of the court and kill it. The priest would burn unwanted parts of the animal on the altar, and then the meat was his.

If the person had done his crime on purpose, no sacrifice could help him. He was to be ‘cut off from his people’. A more powerful sacrifice is needed for that kind of person, and the temple couldn’t provide it.

Not all offerings were of animals. A person could bring a grain-offering of flour or cakes. A very small part was burnt on the altar, as a present for God, and the rest was for the priests.

You’ll find more details in Leviticus, chapters 1-3 and 7:11-36, and parts of Exodus and Numbers.

God gave strict orders that there must only ever be one place for making sacrifices, and that was the temple. This worked while Israelites were on their journey, because the camp was arranged around the tent-temple, but things were quite different when they were settled in their new homeland on the two sides of the Jordan River.

Temples were costly, as Israel’s one was, so when Israel arrived in the country there were not a lot of them, but there were altars or monuments everywhere, where people could bring presents to the gods and hope to get good luck. The gods were not good, and did not even pretend to be. If you read the stories about the Canaanite, Greek or Roman gods, you’ll find that they tricked, murdered, were greedy, and so on, like blown-up human beings. Yahweh told his people to have nothing to do with them. They were not the Truth. They could not put new life in you, as the real God can. They were a bad influence.

Things are no different today. All around the earth, people have to invent stories, which they may call ‘science’, because the idea of a perfect god is too much of a problem. There is guilt. The Israelites knew that the Creator wanted fairness, kindness and truth. It was written in their Ten Laws. But you don’t even need to know those. We all know how we would like other people to treat us, and we don’t come up those standards ourselves. There must be a Maker who looks at us and doesn’t like what he sees. The gods seem to take the pressure off. They are just as bad as we are. People feel they have to do something to get the real God out of their thinking; but the stories do not tie up to reality, and they have no excuse.

And Israel joined the gang.

But not everyone

Not many important people trust the Living God, but King David did. He lived about 300 years after Israel had escaped from Egypt.

For him, Yahweh was exciting - someone he could love, who was really good, and could get a person out of a mess. You can see it from the poems he wrote.

Here is the beginning of one of his psalms (number 37):-

Don't get annoyed at people who do wrong.

Don't envy unfair men.

For they will soon wither like a plant,

and fade away like grass.

Trust in Yahweh, and do good.

Stay in the land, and keep doing right.

Learn to enjoy God,

and he will give you what you long for.

Tell the Yahweh what's on your mind.

Keep trusting him, and he will take action.

By David’s time, the tent-temple seems to have still existed, but the ark, which was supposed to be God’s throne, was no longer in it. It had once been taken into battle, in the hope that it would give the Israelite army good luck, but it was captured by the enemy Philistines. It brought those people some very bad luck, and they sent it back to Israelite territory, where it stayed in a town called Kirjath Jearim, about eight miles from Jerusalem. It was there for about twenty years, until David brought it to Jerusalem, where he put it in a tent that he had made for it.

David built up an empire, and became very wealthy. With the treasures that he stored up, he longed to build a grand temple for Yahweh, to put the ark in. But God would not allow him to do it, because he had fought so many wars and killed so many people. Instead, God said, David’s son, Solomon, would build it. He would be a ‘peaceful’ man (which is the meaning of his name).

Solomon used forced-labour to do the hard work, especially foreigners from countries that were weaker than Israel was.

The new temple, and its furniture, were, again, splendid and costly, with huge amounts of bronze and precious metals, as you’ll see if you read chapters 2 to 4 of 2 Chronicles. Powerful kings in the ancient world could do things on a scale which would not be possible now, and displayed the wealth of their country in temples, instead of shutting it away in vaults or banks.

One thing did not change. The ark, the symbol of God himself, was the one that came from the Tent Temple. Solomon was just building a new house for the same God to live in. No religion or philosophy can improve on him. From age to age he is the same.

Solomon’s temple was twice the size of the tent one. As well as the Most Holy Place and the Holy Place, there was a large entrance-porch. Side rooms were built onto the north and south walls. These seem to have been mostly store-rooms. There were two courts around the temple. The inner one was only for priests and their helpers, like the one around the tent-temple, but any Israelite was allowed into the outer one.

But it didn’t last.

If you build something by extortion and bullying, it will certainly crumble.

Not long after Solomon died, temple treasures began finding their way back to foreign nations by being captured or sent to a foreign ruler to get help against an enemy, or being handed over to an attacking king to try and make him go away.

About 240 years after the temple was built, most of the Israelites were taken away by the Assyrian emperor, who distributed them over his empire for forced labour, as Solomon had done when he had the chance. Judah, the tribe of David and Solomon, was left - but not for long. About 130 years later, less than 400 years after the temple was built, it was completely demolished by the army of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, who took all its treasures, together with most of the people.

The prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel lived when this was happening.

From this time on, the story is only about the Jews, which means the people of the tribe of Judah plus the few other Israelites who had joined them.

Fifty years after this, the Persians became the great power in the region, and their kings had some respect for the Jews and their religion. King Cyrus said that God had told him to build a new temple in Jerusalem, so he encouraged the Jews to go back to their country and do that. He also asked them to pray for him. The leader of the Jews was Zerubbabel (a local name, not a Hebrew one). Others stayed behind, and Cyrus asked them to give money to the ones who were leaving. He gave them back some of the temple treasures that Nebuchadnezzar had captured - but not the Ark, where God was supposed to sit. That was lost forever, so the Most Holy Place was empty.

Perhaps it is not surprising that their religion also became rather empty. The mighty God, who saves and heals, fades out of the picture, and everything becomes laws and ideas. Life becomes empty. Maybe you’ll see signs of this in our own culture.

After the Persians, the Greeks got control of the Jews. Some of them lost interest in their religion, and became part of the Greek way of life. To try to stop this, a group called the Pharisees (which means ‘separated people’) invented lots of religious laws and tried to make everyone keep them. Later, Jesus clashed with these people and their heartless program.

In the Bible, the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, and Zechariah are about this stage of history.

We do not know the details of this temple, but gold and silver were used. It remained until about twenty years before Jesus was born, when the Romans were controlling that part of the world,

The Romans called the country around Jerusalem ‘Judea’ because of the Jews. To the north was Samaria, and to the south, on the west side of the Dead Sea, was Idumea (because the people were Edomites). By this time the Jews had become quite strong, and some of them forced people in Samaria and Idumea to be circumcised and become Jewish in their religion.

At first, things went quite well between the Jews and the Romans, who gave them peace, roads, aqueducts, and fine buildings, but afterwards there was a lot of fighting in the region, until the Romans chose an Idumean, Herod the Great, to be king of Judea, about 33 years before Jesus was born. Although Herod followed the Jewish religion, most of the Jews hated and despised him. But he put up some grand buildings, and also re-built the temple in Jerusalem, which was about the same size, but taller.

The building itself was completed about 17 years before Jesus was born, but the courts were not finished about 80 years later, when Jesus had already been killed and raised up again.

There were three courts. The middle one, for Israel, was divided into two parts. One was for men only, and women were allowed in the other. The outer one was very much bigger than the other ones, and non-Jews (‘gentiles’) were allowed in it. Around the outer part of most of that court were covered areas. The roofs were held up by enormous pillars, each one said to have been about twelve metres high and carved out of a single block of stone.

The whole temple area was surrounded by massive walls, with gates at various places, except at the north-west corner, where the Romans had built a fortress.

Some of Jesus’ followers admired the temple, and thought that he would too. He he was not impressed, and told them that it would all be turned into rubble. This happened less than forty years later.

Once again, there was nothing at all in the ‘Most Holy Place’ of Herod’s temple.

About sixty years later, the emperor Hadrian had another temple built on the same site - for a foreign god.

By now we should realize that buildings cannot really do us any good. They can have a meaning, but they are not the real thing. About eight hundred years before Jesus came, God said this about Solomon’s temple and its sacrifices:-

What do I want with a whole lot of sacrifices?

says Yahweh.

I’ve had more than enough rams as burnt offerings,

and fat from calves.

The blood of bulls, lambs and he-goats

gives me no pleasure.

When you come to get favours from me,

trespassing in my courts,

who wants the stuff you’re bringing?

Stop giving me useless offerings.

Incense makes me feel unwell.

Monthly festivals, Sabbaths, and special meetings -

I can’t stand the junk,

or the assembly.

Your monthly festivals and your meetings

make me feel sick.

They wear me out;

I’m tired of putting up with them.

When you hold out your hands

I look the other way.

When you pray even more,

I don’t listen.

Your hands are covered in blood.

Wash yourselves;

clean yourselves up.

Remove your corrupt practices

out of my sight.

Stop doing wrong,

Learn to do good

Make fairness your aim;

Stop people from hurting others.

Give the fatherless a fair deal,

and make sure a widow gets her rights.

Religion cannot make up for unkindness.

About a hundred years later God told another prophet, Jeremiah, to stand at the gate of the outer court of the temple and say this to the people who were going in:

This is the message from Yahweh-of-Armies, the God of of Israel:

‘Clean up your lives, and the things you are doing, and then I’ll let you stay on in this place. Don’t put your trust in empty words - ‘temple of Yahweh, temple of Yahweh, temple of Yahweh’!

If you really clean up your lives, and the things you are doing; if you are really fair to one another, if you do no wrong to the foreigner, the orphan or the widow, if you stop killing innocent people in this place, and stop harming yourselves by chasing after other gods - then I’ll let you stay in this place, in the land which I gave to your fathers forever.

But instead you are relying on empty words, which do you no good.

Are you stealing, killing, going to bed with other people’s wives or husbands, making empty promises, burning incense for Baal, chasing after other gods which you do not know, and then coming and standing before me, in the house which is called by my name and saying ‘We’re saved!’ - only to carry on doing the same horrible things?

Are you treating this place, which is called by my name, as a safe place for robbers to hide in? (But I can see you!) - says Yahweh?

Now, go to that place in Shiloh, where my Name used to live at first, and see what I did to it because of the crime of my people, Israel.

And now, because you have done all those things, although I warned you again and again - says Yahweh - and you wouldn’t listen, or answer when I called to you, I’m going to do to this house, which is called by my name, and which you are trusting in, and to the place which I gave to your fathers, just as I did to Shiloh; and I’m going to send you away from me, just as I sent away your brothers, the whole race of Ephraim’. Jeremiah 7:3-15

‘Ephraim’ means the northern tribes who had already been dragged away as slaves by the Assyrians; and Shilo was where the tent-temple was set up when the Israelites had settled in their land.

Jesus chased cattle-dealers and money-changers out of one of the courts of Herod’s temple, saying that it had been turned into a place for robbers to do their dirty work in - just as Jeremiah had said in his day.

Nothing changed.

So what was the use of a temple and religion which were forced on the whole nation of Israel - although they did say they were glad to have it?

They cannot be the Truth about our real need, because they consist of rules, and no one can keep all God’s rules.

The Truth is a gift - otherwise no one could be saved. The Truth must be God himself. Nothing else can put us right.

Jesus said

'I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.'

His sacrifice on the cross cancels guilt forever, and he shares his new life with people who trust him.

But you can’t make a law about this. You can’t force it on everyone, because it is only for people who realize they are helpless and put their trust in him. For them there is a free gift - a power that really saves.

This includes people who lived before Jesus appeared on this earth. King David knew that animal sacrifices could not take away his guilt, and that God himself could give him a clean heart, as you can see in Psalm 51. In Psalms 23 and 27 he says he will live in God’s house for ever, but he would not have been allowed in the temple on this earth. Even Jesus was only allowed into the two outer courts of Herod’s temple. But the person who wrote Psalm 92 says that every really good person will live in God’s house:-

A person who is fair will flourish like a palm tree,

and grow like a cedar on mount Lebanon.

Those people will be transplanted into Yahweh’s house,

and put on new growth in his courts.

These people knew that there was a home where they could live with God for ever. The ones on the earth were only pictures.

But pictures can be useful - like Jesus’ stories-with-a-meaning. We get some important truths from Israel’s temples. You have to get beneath the surface, to see what they are saying. God wants people to find the truth and be saved, and the temple, with all its rituals and rules, can point the way

So, what was it saying?

(1) God is the centre of everything.

He is not just an idea.

When the Israelites escaped from Egypt, and God gave the instructions for the building of the tent-temple, he told the people to place their camps around it, in four groups, each with three tribes. It was God who had got them out of Egypt, and there he was, in the midst of them, all the way. They could not forget him.

The God of Israel would allow no rivals. There must be no other temples.

The rest of the world had idols. They were man-made gods. This does not mean that they had no idea about a Creator who made everything and was perfect. They just wanted to get him out of their minds. He is too worrying. So they invented stories to get him out of their mind, just as happens today.

In fact it was the same with Israel. They had the temple and the rules, but their heart was not there. They preferred the myths. If you look in chapter 21 of 2 Kings, and Ezekiel, chapter 5, you’ll find that they became worse than the rest of the world.

God is saying what we ought to be, but he also shows us that laws get us nowhere. There has to be something quite different.

He picks out people from every nation, and gives them a new heart which loves him:

I'll give them one heart,
and put a new spirit inside them.

I'll take the stony heart out of them,
and put a human one in.

Then they'll follow my instructions.
They'll hold onto my rules, and do them.

They'll be my people,
and I'll be their God

That prophecy was spoken to Judah, but it is valid for anyone. No one is a real ‘Jew’, or ‘Israelite’, until God makes that change in us.

You can also put the thing another way round. There are always people, everywhere, who will realize that there is a God out there who made everything and is always right and fair, and do not rest until they find him. The Book of Job, in the Bible, is about one of those people. He lived a long time ago, found that the world was a very unfair place to live in, and knew there must be a God out there who made everything, and was fair. Otherwise life was a nightmare. Everything seemed to go wrong. One of his ‘friends’ told him that people are no more important to God than maggots or worms, and it would be a waste of time trying to find him. But Job knew that God was his only hope, and he wasn’t going to stop until he found him. Finally met him - as a friend. (You might like to read my booklet about him, called ‘Looking for God’).

Not even the High Priest was allowed into the inner room of the temple - where God was supposed to be - except once a year, on the Day of Atonement. If anyone tried, he would die.

Moses warned the Israelites -

Yahweh, your God, is a consuming fire, who will not allow rivals.

Deuteronomy, chapter 4

That was the Old Testament, but the New Testament says just the same:-

Now that we have been given a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be grateful, so that we serve God as he would like us to, with respect and fear, for our God is a consuming fire.

Hebrews, chapter 12

And Jesus said -

My friends, I'm telling you this: don't be afraid of people who can kill your body, but can do no more than that. I'll tell you who to be afraid of - be afraid of Him who can not only kill you, but afterwards throw you into Hell! Yes, I'm telling you - be afraid of him!

If you are afraid of God, you don’t really need to be afraid of anything else. The worst thing you can do is try to get rid of him because he is a problem.

One person, the High Priest, was allowed into the Most Holy Place, once a year - and was not burnt up. This means that it is possible to get close to God and not die. This might encourage some people to try to reach God and get to know him, even if they were not allowed into the temple.

People are precious to God, and he longs for them to find him. But it can’t be done by laws. Laws only keep us away, because we cannot keep them all, and the temple was part of the law-system.

When the High Priest went into the Most Holy Place, once each year, on the Day of Atonement, there had to be sacrifices. He could not just knock on the door and go in. A bull and a he-goat had to be killed. Then the High Priest took some of the blood of the animals, went through the curtain, and sprinkled it on the Mercy Seat.

This sacrifice was very special. It was for taking away guilt. The death of the bull was for the priest’s failures, and the death of the he-goat was for the failures of the rest of the people. But it was only for the year up to that point - not forever. A person’s guilt was piled up again, bit by bit, until the next Day of Atonement, a year later. (You’ll find this in Leviticus chapter 16.) The name of the sacrifice may be different in your Bible, but that’s not important. The word ‘Atonement’ is made up of three English bits: - ‘at-one-ment’, meaning that we become ‘one with God’. That’s not what the Hebrew word means, so other Bible translators try to find a word that is more accurate. The Hebrew seems to mean ‘covering up’, because God is covering up all a person’s faults and failures.

It is another signpost. There has to be something better than a sacrifice which works only for a year. Job realized the problem, and asked God to pay up for him ‘out of his own pocket’, so that there could be a secure, permanent relationship between the two of them. You can find this in the book of Job, near the beginning of chapter 17 .

Of course, it is Jesus who paid up. He is God, became a man, and gave himself up as a sacrifice for us, paying the price for a relationship which we do not deserve. He opened the door for us, just as the High Priest was allowed to go through that curtain. Jesus’ victory over our guilt is valid for all believers - even people like Job, who lived and died long before Jesus did the work for us. It was all part of God’s plan.

About thirteen hundred years after after Israel’s first temple was made, Jesus died. At that moment the curtain between the Holy Place and the Most Holy place, in Herod’s temple, was torn from top to bottom. It was God’s way of saying that direct access to the Living God is now available to everybody and for ever. Jesus has made a permanent ‘atonement’ for us.

The sacrifices and offerings in the temple were not all for cancelling guilt. People brought grain or animals to the entrance of the temple court, and gave them as presents to the priests, who would burn some parts and keep the rest for themselves. The smoke that rose up was supposed to reach God and please him. Of course, God does not really enjoy smoke. Once again, it is a picture.

We’ll go to the New Testament, to see the meaning:-

Paul was in prison in Rome. A Christian group, in what is now northern Greece near the border with Turkey, sent one of its members, called Epaphroditus, to bring him a gift. It was Paul who had started that church. He sent Epaphroditus back with a letter, thanking them and giving them some teaching.

Near the end of his letter he wrote :-

I have received everything, I am full to the brim, and overflowing, now that I have what you sent me by Epaphroditus - a fragrant smell, the kind of sacrifice that God accepts and enjoys.

Helping other people, for God’s sake, is a sacrifice that gives him pleasure.

And here is another quote from the New Testament -

Let us offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, all the time - fruit from lips which are not ashamed of his name. Let us never stop being kind, and sharing, for these are the kinds of sacrifice that God enjoys.

Just before God gave the Law to the Israelites, he told Moses to say to them:-

‘You’ve seen what I did to Egypt. On the wings of eagles I carried you, and brought you to this place. And now, if you really do what I say, and keep my contract, you, out of all the nations, will be my own possession, because the whole world belongs to me. For me, you’ll be a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation’.

But Israel did not keep God’s law. Nor would any other nation. They also built lots of altars for other gods - just to be safe. But it only brought trouble. God knew they would fail. Israel is just a typical nation. If the human race had not turned its back on the Living God, then everybody on this earth would be a priest, giving him presents which he really enjoys.

In Israel’s law, only the descendents of Aaron, the brother of Moses, could be priests and work in the temple. Of course, they were ordinary people, and did not love God any more than anyone else. They were just doing a job.

But it had a meaning.

Here is Peter, writing to Christians living in various parts of what is now Turkey:-

You are a chosen race, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, a special people, that can shout about the amazing things God has done - the God who invited you out of the darkness and into his wonderful light. Once you weren’t a nation. Now you are God’s own nation. Once there was no mercy for you, but now you have received mercy.

Most of the people he was writing to were not Jews, but they were God’s people - his nation. They were also his temple, where he lived - and his priests. They shared his Spirit, and were his children.

Next, we must look at the real temple.

In the outer court of Herod’s temple, Jesus watched the traders selling animals to people who wanted to to make a sacrifice, and changing money for the kind of coins that the priests approved of. No doubt they were exploiting their customers.

Furious, he made a whip, and chased the traders out of the temple court, scattering the coins, and pushing the tables over. ‘Don’t turn my Father’s house into a market’, he said.

The Jews asked him what right he had, to do these things.

He just said:-

'Destroy this temple - and in three days I’ll put it up again.'

He was talking about his body.

A temple is a building for a god to live in. Jesus’ body was made of earthly materials, but inside was the Maker of the universe. He was the real temple.

When a seed falls into the ground, it will produce another plant like the one it came from. When Jesus died, he was like a seed. When he rose up again, lots more people became temples. They only needed to put their trust in him.

So Paul wrote, in one of his letters to Christians in Greece):-

Don’t you realize that you are God’s temple, and God’s Spirit lives in you?

I Corinthians, chapter 3. (You’ll see the same thing in chapter two of Ephesians, and chapter two of Peter’s first letter)

If Christ lives in you, then you will become like him.

Temples are not the truth -‘I am the Truth’, said Jesus. All the millions of animals that have ever been sacrificed could not buy anyone into God’s kingdom, but Jesus’ self-sacrifice did, because he is infinite and perfect. The others just remind everybody, everywhere, that there has to be a sacrifice if we are to get real and everlasting life.

Common people were not allowed inside a temple at all, but every temple, everywhere, hinted that there must surely be some way for us to be at home with the Living God himself.

Now, there’s just one more temple, in the Old Testament, which we have not yet looked at. It was never built, and never will be. It was a vision, which God gave to the prophet Ezekiel, linking the Old and the New. There are some wonderful things in there, and that’s where we go next.

The prophet Ezekiel lived in the time when the Jews had no temple. Solomon’s had been destroyed by the Babylonians, and Zerubbabel’s was not yet built. Only a few people were left in the homeland.

One of them wrote:-

The Lord has rejected his altar

and got rid of his holy place.

How could Israel function without a temple? How were people’s crimes going to be forgiven, if there were no sacrifices?

But, in the next chapter, the writer says this:-

Yahweh’s generous deeds never come to an end,

for his sympathy never dries up.

It is fresh every morning -

your faithfulness is so great.

My whole being tells me -

Yahweh is all I have;

so I’m relying on him.

Yahweh is kind to anyone who waits for him -

to everyone who looks for him.

This man knows that God enjoys saving people, not destroying them. He puts his trust in God, even though there is no temple.

No doubt there were many like him. They must have asked themselves some questions. What is the real ‘Israel’? Even when the Israelites were escaping from Egypt, and had not yet become a nation, foreigners who joined them were allowed to eat the Passover meal and become part of the nation - if the males got circumcised.

So what’s special about Israel and its temple?

Ezekiel was in Babylonia, with the rest of his countrymen, who were also without a temple. His pictures from God were signposts, pointing to the Real Thing - for the Jews, and for the rest of us.

(1) A Very High Mountain (chapter 40:1-5)

Ezekiel’s temple was on a ‘very high mountain’. Jerusalem, where Solomon’s temple used to be, is on a hill, and the River Jordan is a long way down, but it is not a high mountain.

So the city and its temple must hold some hidden meaning.

God’s real temple is made up of his people, as we have already seen, but how are they ‘very high up’? Often they are despised.

Paul wrote in one of his letters:-

Look at yourselves, and see what kind of people God has chosen. Not many are clever with a human kind of wisdom. Not many are powerful. Not many are well-born. Instead, God has chosen the simple people of this world, to embarrass the clever ones. God has chosen the feeble people of this world to embarrass the powerful ones. It's the nobodies of this world, and the rejected ones, that God has chosen - the people who count for nothing - so that those who seem to be something will end up being nothing. This means that no living being can be arrogant in front of God.

They are the really noble ones, because they have the character of Jesus, who said:-

Anyone among you who wants to be great must become your servant, and anyone among you who wants to be chief must become everyone's slave, because the Son of Man did not come here to get served, but to become a servant, and to give up his life as a ransom for many people.

They bend down to lift people up, instead of standing up tall and putting others down. So they bring healing, and are lights in a dark world. Jesus said:-

You are the light for the world. A town can't be hidden if it's up on top of a hill. People don't light a lamp, only to put it under a bowl. Instead it is put on a lamp-stand, so that the whole house gets the light. In the same way, let your light shine out to people, so that they can see the good things you do, and admire your Father, who is in Heaven.

So, Christ’s people are a city, as well as being the temple in it; and, at the same time, they are the priests inside that. The good things they do for other people are the sacrifices that make God happy, They are ‘on top of a mountain’ so that they can be seen by everyone, This means they must be out there, in the world, doing good. The main part of our religion is not what we do in a church service (though meeting with other believers is certainly important) - it’s how we live.

Real religion is a miracle from God. We trust him to turn us into something wholesome and healing, so that the world can become a kinder and fairer place. We go to him to get new life, and we go out to prove it by the way we live.

In the book of Hebrews, chapter ten, are a couple of verses which put the two together:-

Let’s think of one another, and wake each other up, to love people and do kind things. Don't stop meeting together, as some have done, but encourage one another, especially as we are all looking forward to That Day.

Like the tent-temple at the beginning of this booklet, Ezekiel’s building had a court, with a wall round it, and a gate at the eastern end, but this time there were also gates on the north and south walls. Outside that was another court with buildings round it, and gates on the same three sides. In his vision, Ezekiel was brought into the outer court by the south gate, then through the inner gate on that side, then into the temple itself. (Ezekiel would be allowed there because he was a priest as well as a prophet). Then he was led back out of the temple, out of the inner court by its northern gate, and then round to the gate on the eastern side.

What he saw made him fall down on his face. The Glory of Yahweh himself was coming into the temple, by the east gate. The Spirit lifted Ezekiel up, and brought him into the inner court. He could see the Glory of Yahweh arriving, and filling the temple itself. He heard a voice:-

‘Son of Man, this place is my throne, and the place where I stand. It is also the place where I live, among the Children of Israel, forever; and the House of Israel will no longer bring disgrace to my Holy Name’.

There are some wonderful things here, but, first, we must find out if everyone who belongs to Jesus is one of the ‘children of Israel’, or the ‘house of Israel’ (the two things are the same). We could look at this in a number of ways, but one will be enough - from Luke’s Gospel:-.

Jesus' mother and brothers arrived, but they could not get to him because there were so many people. So someone told him, 'Your mother and brothers are standing outside. They want to see you'. But Jesus replied, 'The people who hear what God says, and do it - they are my mother and my brothers'.

Now, Jesus is an Israelite, and also King of Israel, and if we are his brothers and sisters, we must be ‘Israelites’ too.

So Jesus is going to live in this temple for ever, and the temple is us - if we rely on him. It can never become worn out or destroyed like the two before it, and the two after it. If Jesus lives in us, he will not go out again. To put it another way, if we have God’s Spirit in us, then that is a guarantee that we will one day inherit the New Heavens and New Earth, where nothing ever goes wrong, as you can see if you look at Romans, chapter 8, and 2 Peter, chapter 3.

But be careful. This does not mean that everything is all right if we just believe some important things about Jesus. In chapter 44 God told Ezekiel that ‘any foreigner who is uncircumcised in mind and body will not get into my holy place’. Circumcision, for Jews, is a symbol of getting getting rid of dirt. True circumcision is getting rid of the dirt that’s inside us. Paul wrote that we get saved just because we trust Jesus; but he also wrote that an angry or greedy person, or someone who is sexually immoral, will not inherit God’s kingdom. (You’ll find this kind of warning in chapter 6 of 1 Corinthians, chapter 5 of Galatians , and chapter 5 of Ephesians.)

If Jesus really saves us, then we’ll get changed.

Everything depends on his power to turn us into something good, and he has plenty of that. Just look at all his miracles. We can rely on him. That is how we go forward - by trusting him.

Then we are really a temple for God.

(3) The Kind King-Priest ( Chapters 45, 47, and 48)

In Ezekiel’s vision, the twelve tribes of Israel are arranged from north to south, one above the other. The northern boundary is level with Damascus. On the west is the Mediterranean sea, and the eastern border runs down the rift valley, containing the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan River, and the Dead Sea. The southern border is about fifteen miles south of the Dead Sea. The north-south width of each tribe is the same - about 15 miles.

It is impossible, of course, for all sorts of reasons, but it has wonderful meanings.

In Ezekiel’s time there were very few Israelites left in that whole area. Only Judah was left, and most of that tribe had been taken away to Babylonia, where Ezekiel was. All the others were lost. In God’s picture they are here again.

But there are big differences. All the tribes are the same size. The temple is no longer in Judah, and neither is the prince. There is a special space between Judah and Benjamin. The temple, and the city around it, are in the middle of that. Around the city were special areas for the priests and their helpers, and some farm-land for food. That is the shaded area in my picture. The spaces to the east and west were for the Prince. He did not own the whole country. He could not be a bully

What does all this mean?

Four hundred years earlier, the leaders of Israel said they must have a king, to pull the nation together and fight their enemies. Samuel, the prophet, warned them that they would regret it. God was their king, he said, and they were wanting to put a man between themselves and him. The king would be hard and greedy, turning all the land into his own back garden and using his people as if he owned them. But God told Samuel to give them what they wanted - and suffer for it.

As often happens when we go our own way, things did seem to get better at first. King Saul pulled the nation together, and won some victories over the enemies. Then came David and Solomon, from the tribe of Judah. David was good in many ways, but he was a typical king, piling up a lot of wealth and forcing people to serve him and fight his battles. He even took someone else’s wife and got the husband murdered. His son, Solomon, was even more ‘successful’, and turned his country into an important nation - at a price. If you look at chapters 5 and 9 of the first book of Kings, you’ll see the huge cost in taxes and forced labour. When he died, all the tribes except his own decided they’d had enough, and formed themselves into separate nation, which lasted only two hundred years. A hundred years after that, in Ezekiel’s time, a foreign king turned the Jews into his slaves, just as Solomon had done for other countries.

But here comes something really positive.

We have a king again (or rather, a prince), but this time he has to be fair. Only a little bit of the country belongs to him.

He is a picture of Jesus, who said he was kind and gentle, not giving his people a heavy load to carry, even suffering a horrible death to give them security from everlasting punishment.

Ezekiel’s Prince must provide animals and grain for the sacrifices, including the sheep for the atonement sacrifice. You’ll remember that the atonement wiped out the guilt of all the people.

Ezekiel could not have known that the real Prince, and the High Priest, and the Lamb that is killed for the atoning sacrifice, are all one person - Jesus! You can find those things in the New Testament. For ‘King’ look at chapter 25 of Matthew, Chapter 19 of Luke, chapters 1, 18 and 19 of John, and chapter 6 of Paul’s first letter to Timothy. For ‘High Priest’ you can look at all of chapters 2-9 and 13 of the book of Hebrews. You’ll find the ‘Lamb’ in the first chapter of John’s Gospel, chapter 8 of Acts, chapter 5 of the first letter to the Corinthians, and chapter 1 of Peter’s first letter.

In Ezekiel’s time, all the twelve tribes had been grabbed by other countries, and only one of them ever returned. But here all the tribes are back again.

And what about us, who mostly do not have Jacob (also called Israel) in our family line. What right have we to get into this new and perfect country, and its temple? We have looked at this before, but there is another way of looking at it.

At the end of chapter 47 you’ll see that anyone can come and settle in this new ‘Israel’, and be part of the family. You just have to get up and go there.

So how do we do that?

We can all be sons of Jacob if we do what he did, when God changed his name to ‘Israel’ - he wrestled with God.

Jacob was not a nice person. He was a cheat (that’s the meaning of his name). He had to run away from his brother, Esau, who wanted to murder him because of his lies and tricks. After several years he had become rich, and decided to go back home again, with his four wives, their children, and lots of livestock. He got a message that Esau was coming his way, with an army of four hundred men, He was terrified. First of all, he prayed to God, admitting that he did not deserve any kindness from him, and begging him for help. He sent all his people on ahead, together with the livestock, in small groups, and was left by himself with no one to defend him. He found himself wrestling with a man he didn’t know. It was God, in the form of an angel. The angel said he was going to give up, but Jacob said ‘I’m not going to let you go until you give me a blessing’. He got what he asked for, and became a new person, with a new name - ‘Israel’, which mean’s something like ‘a wrestler with God’. He stopped being a cheat, and he and his brother became friends again.

We, also, can ‘wrestle’ with God, and not stop until he gives us his Holy Spirit, so that we become new and generous people?

Jesus said this:

If any one of you has a friend, and goes to him in the middle of the night, and says ‘Friend, let me have three loaves of bread. A friend of mine, on a journey, has come to my place, and I’ve nothing to give him to eat’. Then the friend will shout from inside the house: ‘Stop bothering me! The door is already locked. I’m in bed, and my children too. I can’t get up and give you anything!’

Now I’m telling you, even if that friend won’t get up and give him anything just because he’s a friend, he’ll get out of bed and give him anything he wants if the man pesters him enough.

So I’m saying to you:

Ask, and it will be given to you!
Search, and you’ll find!
Knock, and the door will be opened for you!

For:

Whoever asks will get!
And whoever searches will find!
And the door will be opened for whoever knocks!

If you’re a father - suppose your son asks you for some fish: would you hand him a snake instead? Or if he asks you for an egg, would you hand him a scorpion? If you, who are not good, know how to give good things to your children, then how much more will the Father from Heaven give the Holy Spirit to anyone who asks him!

Now, let’s see what is happening here.

First, the man is not wanting something for himself, but for someone else, and he just hasn’t got what his friend needs.

We also are selfish creatures, who cannot give what the world around us needs. We are unkind and greedy, cold and hard-hearted, wrapped up in ourselves, as Jacob was. We need something to make us builders instead of destroyers, givers instead of grabbers, Israel instead of Jacob. Only God’s Spirit can make that change in us - and that’s the same thing as Jesus coming to live inside us. He was kind even when people were hating him and wanting to kill him. When people came to arrest him, and Peter slashed off the ear of one of them, Jesus put it on again. When he was hung up on a cross to die, he was caring for other people. He loved his enemies.

Now that’s the way we must live - otherwise we end up in the fire, as Jesus and John the Baptizer said (ten times in the book of Matthew, alone). We reap what we sow. But here is Jesus saying there is a way out - and it’s himself, coming to live inside us. He called himself the Bread of Life. We must keep on asking till we find ourselves changing and can see that Christ is in us. All our trust is in Jesus, for we can do nothing without him. He said it himself -

I am the vine; you are the branches. If anyone stays in me, and I stay in that person, then he or she produces plenty of fruit. Without me you can produce nothing at all. Any one who doesn't stay in me, gets thrown out, like a branch, which then withers. The branches get picked up and thrown into the fire, where they get burned.

‘Staying in Jesus’ means trusting him - relying on him to do what we cannot do by ourselves. Jesus did lots of miracles, even getting people up when they had died. These things are a picture of the change that he can make in us, so that we bring healing into this sad world instead of just having good ideas. Then we become God’s ‘Israel’, and no longer a ‘Jacob’.

It is a way of life. We do not become perfect at once. We are thankful for what God has done in our lives, but we keep on asking for more, like the man knocking at the door and refusing to take ‘no’ for an answer. Jesus said, ‘Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect’. Our faults are harmful for ourselves and for other people, and we want to become really whole, so that rivers of living water will flow from us. Jesus promises to do that for us if we keep coming to him for a drink, as you can see in John’s gospel, chapter seven.

And that brings us to another wonderful section of Ezekiel’s Vision - the last one that we’ll look at.

(5) The River of living water (first half of chapter 47)

Jerusalem is about 800 metres above sea level, on a range of hills running north and south. To the east the ground slopes steeply down towards the Dead sea, whose surface is 394 metres below sea level - the lowest place on the planet. If you work it out, you’ll find that Jerusalem is nearly four thousand feet above the level of the Dead Sea. The slope is sheltered from the westerly winds, it gets very little rainfall, so not much grows there.

The greatest depth of the Dead sea is 393 metres (more than a thousand feet). Every day the river Jordan pours six million cubic metres of water into it - and none of it flows out. It just evaporates, which means that the sea gets saltier and saltier. So nothing much can live in that either.

There is a valley on the east side of Jerusalem, called Kidron. In the winter, if it rains hard enough, there is water in it, which flows down the valley to the Dead Sea.

In his vision, Ezekiel saw water flowing out of the door of the temple, through the east gates of the two courts. Remember that the temple was on a ‘very high mountain’. It would have to be a miracle, but miracles are just what we need. Without them we are lost.

The stream got deeper and deeper (without any rain, of course), until, after 4000 cubits (which is about two kilometres), it was so deep that Ezekiel couldn’t wade through it. The angel, who was showing him around, took him back up the river, and there were trees everywhere, where there used to be empty wilderness. What a delight!

The angel told him that the river was bringing life and health wherever it went. The Dead sea would become a sea of life instead of death, so people could catch fish there. That would be a problem for people who fetched salt from around the dead sea, so some nearby salty swamps would stay as they were. The trees, which grew up everywhere, not only produced fruit all year round - their leaves would be for healing.

A wonderful picture.

Over 600 years later:-

Jesus shouted out,

‘Any one who’s thirsty - come to me, and drink. Rivers of living water will flow out of any one who trusts me, just as the Scripture says’.

Jesus was talking about the Spirit, which everyone that trusted him would receive. The Spirit was not at that time available, because Jesus had not yet received his glory.

John was surely thinking of Ezekiel’s picture of the healing river.

Jeremiah was a prophet who lived at the same time as Ezekiel, but stayed in Jerusalem. God put this into his mouth:-

My people have done two things wrong -

they have abandoned me,
the spring of living water

and they have dug out storage tanks for themselves

cracked storage tanks
that can hold no water.

So, the living water flowing from the temple is God’s own life, but it also flows from people who have God’s Spirit in them. The world is a sad and dried-up place, because people are separated from God; but the remedy is free - you just have to come to Jesus and tell him you are thirsty, and ask him to live inside you, then you also will spread life and healing into this world.

It’s hard work digging a water-storage tank, and when you have made one it may not even hold the rainwater that flows into it. Drinking from Jesus costs nothing, He paid for it all.

He said:-

I’m telling you the absolute truth; unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has everlasting life, and I’ll raise him up on the Last Day; because my flesh is the real food, and my blood is the real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood stays in me, and I stay in him.

At the same time, he said he was the bread of life.

Water, bread, flesh, blood - they are all part of the same thing. Jesus’ body was broken, and his blood poured out - and that is the reason why the whole package is free. And the packet is Jesus himself.

Here’s God speaking through the Prophet Isaiah, about 130 years before Ezekiel was prophesying:-

Hi! Every one who’s thirsty,
come to the waters!

Any one with no money, come!
Buy grain, and eat!

Come, get grain, with no money!
Wine, and milk, with nothing to pay!

Why do you pay out,
for something you can’t eat,

and work hard
for something that does not satisfy?

Listen! Listen to me!
eat what’s good,
and delight yourself with rich food.

Prick up your ears,
come to me.

Listen, and you’ll come alive,
and I’ll make an everlasting agreement with you,
to be friends for ever
as I did with David.

(Isaiah, chapter 55)

These things are wonderful. The living water is free, and, when we drink, we ourselves become part of the stream.

But there is another side. Jesus promised that we’ll be useful, if we drink from him, but he did not say that we’ll have a pleasant time on this earth. Instead, he said, we’ll have trouble, and Ezekiel gives us a hint about this.

You’ll remember that the other temples had plenty of gold and silver. Ezekiel’s temple was just made of stone and wood, as you can see in chapter 41. Even the altar in front of the Most Holy Place was made only of wood. God himself lives there, but his house is cheap.

Paul said that our bodies are God’s temples, if his Spirit lives in us; but he also said they are fragile clay pots.

When he became a Christian he had a very hard time:

We are hard pressed in all sorts of ways, but not crushed. We hardly know which way to turn, but we are not completely lost. We are harassed, but not left alone; knocked down, but not killed. We are always carrying around in our bodies the death of Jesus, so that his life will also shine out in our bodies. We who are still alive are all the time handed over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life will shine out in this body, which will one day going to die.

But he also said

We know that if this tent, which we live in here, on earth, gets destroyed, we have a house, provided by God, waiting in Heaven. That house was not made by human hands, and it will last forever.

The Lord Jesus Christ will change these lowly bodies of ours to be like his wonderful body. He will do this by his own power - the same power that makes it possible for him to get everything under his control!.

That’s if we really suffer with him, so that we share his glory.

2 Corinthians, chapter 5, Philippians, chapter 3, and Romans, chapter 8

A temple which will never decay.

There must be more secrets to be found in the pictures that God gave to Ezekiel, but I’m stopping here.

The next, and last section of this booklet will be about sacrifice. But this time it is the sacrifice of you and me.

Part 5 - The Sacrifice of Us

The last quotes in Part 4 were about having a hard time. Unless we share Christ’s pains, said Paul, we won’t share his glory.

When Jesus started out teaching and healing, it was not long before he got hated by some people. Three years later he was so unpopular that he was handed over to the Romans to be nailed to a cross till he died - even though the Roman Governor didn’t want to do it. The world is at war with the real God, and we cannot escape some hatred if we are on the side of Jesus.

About 32 years after Jesus was killed, Paul was put in prison, for the last time. He stayed there for some years before getting the death-sentence. Just before he was killed, he wrote a second letter to his great friend, Timothy. In it, he wrote this:-

I am already being poured out as a drink-offering, and it is now time for me to leave this life. I have fought the good fight. I’ve reached the end of the race. I have kept the faith. Now I’m waiting for the crown of goodness, which the Lord, the fair judge, will give me on That Day. And I’m not the only one - the crown is for everyone who’s been longing for Him to arrive.

You’ll remember that a drink-offering was wine, and was part of the peace-offering.

Paul’s life, from the time when he put his trust in Jesus, was given to God, as a present - a sacrifice.

I must explain what Paul meant by a ‘crown’ of goodness. Paul saw his life as a race for a prize. The Romans were keen on outdoor games and races, in huge arenas, or ‘amphitheatres’, with lots of space for spectators. Sometimes they were arranged by the Emperor. Paul was a Roman citizen as well as being a Jew, and he seems to have been excited by the games. The prize for winning a race was a crown. Sometimes it was a wreath, made of leafy twigs, and sometimes it was made of metal in the shape of a wreath. After Paul became a believer, he saw his life as a race for a prize.

This world is upside-down. It has turned it’s back on the Real God. This means that most people are heading for destruction, and that is not funny. This is not the time for sitting down and making life comfortable. There are some very important things to aim at. Jesus said, ‘Anyone who isn’t with me is against me, and anyone who isn’t gathering with me is scattering. We either do good or do harm, and doing what God wants will bring us into some trouble.

This does not mean that we must always be doing what we don’t want to do.

Paul wrote this, from prison in Rome, to the group of Christians in Philippi:-

My dear people, you’ve always listened and obeyed when I’ve been with you, and even more when I’ve been away. So now, with fear and trembling, carry on working at your own healing, which means God working in you, so that you want to do - and then do - whatever he would like you to do.

That is a wonderful thing. Even if we are hated, and the good things that we do are resented by some people, God can encourage us to go on doing what he wants. That is a miracle. It means sharing the life of Christ, who loved the people who killed him, and and then rose up again to to make it possible for anyone to to get a new kind of life.

There is something wonderful about being a sacrifice - a present that gives God pleasure.

The last word of this little booklet comes again from Paul:-

I’m asking you, my brothers and sisters, because of all the kind things that God has done for us, to hand yourselves over as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. It’s the only reasonable service we can give. Don’t let yourselves be shaped by this present world, but be re-shaped into something new in your attitudes, so that you can get to know what God wants - everything that’s good, and wholesome, and perfect.

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