Question

My question comes from Ezekiel Chapter 44. There is one verse here that seems kind of contradictory to what God’s intending. God is speaking to Ezekiel and I am curious as to why He would say this. In verse 44:19, it says, “And when they go out into the outer court to the people, they shall put off their garments in which they have been ministering and lay them in the holy chambers. Then they shall put on the other garments, that they may not transmit holiness to the people with their garments.” Now it seems to me that God would want the people to be holy, I mean, that’s part of His desire, and yet here He says he doesn’t want holiness transmitted.

Answer

Let me just give you a general feeling for that section of Scripture. Ezekiel 40 to 48 is a description of the Millennial Temple. It’s a description of the temple that is to come, that is to be built during the time of the Millennium and in that Millennial Temple, there will be a re-institution of symbolic activity that was a part of the old covenant. That shouldn’t surprise us, because as Christians, in the New Covenant, we have a symbol, which we engage in all the time, being the Lord’s Table. We actually go through symbolically the blood and the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we know that that only happened once, and we don’t do what the Catholics do, we don’t transform that into the real body and the real blood of Christ. We understand it to be symbolic as a way of remembering the great thing that God has done. In the Old Testament, what was the greatest act of deliverance God did in the Old Testament? The deliverance out of Egypt, so the remembrance of that was built around the Passover and the Passover was a symbolic feast, which caused the people to remember the delivering power of God. Communion is a similar thing.

Now, I believe that when we get to the Kingdom, when we enter into our relationship with Jesus Christ in the fullness of our glorified form, there will be a glorious temple created in that future time. And in that time, I believe two things will occur. One, we will be having communion, because the Lord said, “Do this until I come and do it with you in my Kingdom”. So, there will be, I believe, in the coming Kingdom of Jesus Christ, the activity of the communion as a remembrance of the cross and I also believe that according to Ezekiel 40 to 48, in that Millennial Temple there will also be a reenactment symbolically of the significance of the worship of the old covenant. 

So, what you have there, in a symbolic form, is the activity of the temple and there will be, apparently, on the basis of that verse… the idea of holy here does not mean that the people are unholy, they are all holy because they are, I believe at this particular point, and it’s a little bit debatable as to where this Millennial Temple is, but let’s assume it’s occupied by the holy redeemed of God… they’re all holy people, but in a sense, apparently, there will be within that function of that temple in the glorified state certain people, set apart for certain priestly function, which is unique to them and the garments of which belong uniquely to them and not to the other people. So, I don’t think that it’s talking about transmitting holiness to those other people, in the sense of righteousness, but the idea is that a priest who functions in the Millennial Temple, in the wonderful symbolism that goes on there, will be uniquely a priest and the other people cannot commingle with that priestly function. And so that’s why when he goes out among the people he sets aside his priestly garb, because it is indigenous, if you will, to that function alone. O.K? Good question.