Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And the heathen shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore (Ezekiel 37: 26-28) KJV
This is wonderful in essence, however there are both positive and negative aspects to these wonderful truths. We must ask a very pertinent question: What would it take for God to set an “invisible” and “spiritual” sanctuary in their midst?
Well first of all the majestic and glorious sanctuary built by Solomon was by now demolished. So there were no physical reference points as in the image above. God is to be met with in the Sanctuary of His choosing. Now He is saying that He is going to set a Sanctuary in the midst of the Captives. For Him to do that it is to desire and seek for one. God’s people up to the Captivity had disregarded and placed the Temple in very low priority. So something had to shake their priorities so that they would begin to desire His Sanctuary. What a wonderful prospect! What a wonderful transformation, formerly idolaters now desiring God Himself.
What did it take for them to experience this transformation? Loss of all material things.
When you then compare this process, a tough letter sent by Jeremiah, and that which Paul writes to the Phillipians he is perfectly mirroring this process, whilst the Captives LOST everything because of sin, Paul CHOOSES TO LOSE ALL so that he may gain the greatest thing desirable; the fellowship and intimacy with Christ.
How many times we have referred to our spiritual journey? How many times we focus on the cost? Here for the Captives it happened TO them, for Paul it happened FOR him, and we won’t go back to that message as we have just spoken about that in the chapters of this series. However the contrast is to be noted. That is, Paul embraced the losses in that they occurred because his pursuit was for something that noone else could see but he had seen and known through his Damascus Road experience. For Paul, he is stopped on a way to do a task he thought was noble, then to find that in doing so put himself in opposition to Jesus, the Son of God!!!
We see Paul in Galatians explain 3 years spent in Arabia, unlearning what he had learned so that he could place what Gamaliel had taught him many many years, and how Jesus, the Messiah and God’s plan, how it all fit together. We see how long it took, all of 3 years for Paul to understand how the Messiah would fit in, how consistent this New Covenant would be in context in completing the Old Covenant, when others would teach either the New was false, or to access the New they would need to follow the Old.
And when we remember that Paul was a Pharisee, and of high calibre, took him 3 years to unlearn what he had learned and learn what he did not know, for God to then reunite him in the Old Covenant learning and how a Messiah had not come to abolish the Old Covenant, but rather complete it.
It has been said, with all Paul’s theology, and the emphasis on feelings and experiences today, for Paul to go through 3 years of this process, we may dismay and conclude we don’t need theology. I have heard this said and it is understandable but dangerous to conclude this.
It is the weaving of God for Him to take us on a spiritual journey in the Word that we come to understand that we cannot interpret theology based upon today’s happenings and think we have worked it out.
In fact imagine the amazing amount of hours Paul studied the Old Covenant through the Law, Psalms and the Prophets. How little today our time is taken with this activity, a thorough study. I think its a wonder why ignorance is so in abundance if what we do is depend on sermons at Church, they must supplement not substitute the need for a commitment to pursue God in His Word.
Coming back to the Captivity, we understand that for us to see them discern out God’s invisible Sanctuary they must read into their losses their hidden potential for great gains! In the letter of Jeremiah in chapter 29, it is stated emphatically that this undoing process would take 70 years, for them to be even in a position to contemplate being part of the rebuilding.
Jesus once said He was the door of entry. Then to the Church of Laodiceia He says He was knocking on their “door” so they could let Him in, as for us to come into the purest and deepest fellowship we must know the doorway and open.
So much I could write concerning the Sanctuary itself. I have been talking about discerning the doorway through loss, sadness and insecurity to seek the God of Israel who allowed them to lose everything, to even begin to contemplate the purpose of this Sanctuary. It is that however majestic the Temple was, was not enough for the longevity of their commitment to the Covenant, which was confirmed by fire and glory.
The sanctuary is to meet with Him, see what He has done to bring us close, by His own Sacrifice, then for us to take in the scent of the incense that burns in our midst, rising up as a perfume. Lifting us into the invisible realms of heaven. Then to come to His table of the Word, the bread of life itself, then gaze upon the light of the Lampstand, that stands before the covenant, the Ark, behind the veil. This in the Captivity was now spiritual, no longer a visible reality. And the utensils, taken to Babylon, becoming mocked in the feast of Belshazzar, becoming the downfall of Babylon in one night. Yet for the Captives they had to imagine that God was now bringing this to them in the Spirit. Only this way would they be prepared to return.
There are things happening globally that astound us. The Buddhist temples of Mayanmar were falling just the other day because of earthquakes, to show us we can build our “sanctuary” but if we put our security in that earthly representation God may see fit to allow it to fall, to see what depth of walking with Him is left.
In Hebrews 11:1 it talks of the “substance” being part of faith, the Greek word being hupostasis, but denotes what we stand on, what God has put as a foundation. What are we resting our lives on? What do we have peace and security in?
Our lives of trusting that what is heavenly will descend one day, that which is invisible becomes visible, we know that we have discerned the doorway to His Sanctuary in our midst. And those who sought their own majesty in priestly robes, majestic abbeys, as cited in Ezekiel 44, may have abandoned their Levitical call, because they could not understand God’s ways and therefore discern God’s doorway.
If those same robes and majestic temples and Abbeys are with love and walk with God they are to be celebrated. May we see them as signs of His invisible Temple in our midst.
May we discern Him setting His Sanctuary in our midst.
Hereford Cathedral, wonderful place of worship.
Maranatha!
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