New Temple Design

In the realm of scholarly debate, Ezekiel is a hotbed of activity. Ezekiel has gone to great lengths to outline specific details regarding the new Temple. Recall that the Temple Solomon built was destroyed in the Babylonian invasion. Following the exile, the Jews did return to Jerusalem and did rebuild the Temple, but not to these specifications. But if Ezekiel is to be considered a true prophet, and Jesus legitimized his status by quoting from the book of Ezekiel, then his prophecies must be proven true. So how do we reconcile the difference between what was predicted and what actually happened? Below is a summation of the four theories about this prophecy as found on www.soniclight.com.

There have been several different conclusions about the interpretation of this section of
the book that interpreters have reached as they have studied it. Four major views follow.

1. Some have felt that what Ezekiel predicted was fulfilled when the exiles returned
and reestablished life in the land. However nothing that took place after the return
from Babylon matches the details of these predictions. Neither the temple built
under Zerubbabel's supervision nor the temple as expanded by Herod the Great
looked like what Ezekiel described here. In fact, there has been no fulfillment of
these predictions in any literal sense so far in history.

2. Others have interpreted this section spiritually; they have explained these
predictions as fulfilled in a spiritual sense by the church.549 This approach also
fails to explain the multitude of details, such as the dimensions of various rooms
in the temple complex. Ezekiel's guide was careful to make sure that the prophet
recorded these details exactly (40:4). Also most interpreters who hold this view
erroneously presuppose that the church replaces Israel in God's program and that
all God's promises concerning a future for Israel find fulfillment in the church in a
spiritual sense.

3. Still others believe these chapters describe a yet future, eschatological kingdom,
but they do so only symbolically. These interpreters believe the measurements,
for example, represent spiritual truth concerning the coming kingdom, but they do
not look for a literal temple complex and worship. This view also trivializes the
amount of detail, so much detail that one could almost use these chapters as
general blueprints to build the structures in view (cf. the biblical descriptions of
what the tabernacle and Solomon's temple were to look like). This view also tends
to blur the distinction between Israel and the church. One advocate of this view,
for example, took these chapters as teaching only that Israel will experience
cleansing and restoration in the future by the use of detailed rhetorical cartoons.550

4. Many take this passage as a prophecy, set in the apocalyptic literary genre, that
anticipates a literal fulfillment in the future. Some of the descriptions have
symbolic significance as well as literal reality, and some teach spiritual lessons.
Nevertheless the revelation concerns a future temple, worship, and physical
changes in the Promised Land when Israel, not the church, dwells there securely
(i.e., during the Millennium).551 This is the reading of the text that seems most
consistent with the rest of the book and the rest of Scripture.