Many study Bibles have some sort of diagram summarizing Ezekiel’s description of the Temple in these chapters. And let’s face it – such pictures really help us make sense of his vision. So, why in the world didn’t God just tell Ezekiel to draw us a picture instead of going through such a complicated and often confusing explanation?

And don’t we have the same question when we read the description of the Tabernacle and all its furnishings in Exodus 25 through 27? So why does God insist on using so many words when a few pictures would have been so much more efficient?

Well, we can’t doubt that God is quite partial to words – after all, Genesis chapter 1 tells us that it was the Word of God that spoke the universe into existence. Moreover, in the Second Commandment, God specifically rejected the use of any images in worship (Exodus 20:4-6). So, we shouldn’t be surprised that even though Ezekiel saw a vision of the Temple, the Lord insisted that he use words instead of pictures to explain what he saw.

Okay, but why did Ezekiel emphasize some of the details and not others? After all, he spends almost a whole chapter just describing the gateways through the inner and outer walls (Ezekiel 40:6-37). Surely the Temple at the center of the complex would be more important, right?

Well, think about the two things that gateways do: they provide access to the Temple, but they also guard the Temple from invasion. In fact, that’s the main purpose of the outer wall of the Temple as a whole: to “separate the holy areas from the common” (Ezekiel 42:20). So all these gates and gateways send two messages at once: access to the Temple is available from north, east, and south, but access to the Temple is also carefully guarded.

And this gives us a clue to one of the main things we can learn from Ezekiel’s vision: it helps us understand what the modern Temple, the Church is supposed to be like. For aren’t all people welcome who are willing to bow the knee to Christ and acknowledge Him as Savior? But at the same time, don’t we need to make sure that people truly understand the gospel and truly receive Christ before admitting them to membership and to the Lord’s Table?

So, just as Ezekiel’s Temple had all those gateways, the Church still needs to guard the truth even while we share that truth with a sinful world – at least, if we want to be the ideal dwelling place for God that Ezekiel so carefully described.

Ezekiel 40:1-10 (NASB)

In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was taken, on that same day the hand of the LORD was upon me and He brought me there.
2 In the visions of God He brought me into the land of Israel, and set me on a very high mountain; and on it to the south there was a structure like a city.
3 So He brought me there; and behold, there was a man whose appearance was like the appearance of bronze, with a line of flax and a measuring rod in his hand; and he was standing in the gateway.
4 And the man said to me, “Son of man, see with your eyes, hear with your ears, and give attention to all that I am going to show you; for you have been brought here in order to show it to you. Declare to the house of Israel all that you see.”
5 And behold, there was a wall on the outside of the temple all around, and in the man’s hand was a measuring rod of six cubits, each of which was a cubit and a handbreadth. So he measured the thickness of the wall, one rod; and the height, one rod.
6 Then he went to the gate which faced east, went up its steps, and measured the threshold of the gate, one rod in width; and the other threshold was one rod in width.
7 And the guardroom was one rod long and one rod wide; and there were five cubits between the guardrooms. And the threshold of the gate by the porch of the gate facing inward was one rod.
8 Then he measured the porch of the gate facing inward, one rod.
9 And he measured the porch of the gate, eight cubits; and its side pillars, two cubits. And the porch of the gate was faced inward.
10 And the guardrooms of the gate toward the east numbered three on each side; the three of them had the same measurement. The side pillars also had the same measurement on each side.