Crystallization-Study of Ezekiel (2)
Message Eleven
The Holy Temple and the Holy City in the Holy Land
Scripture Reading: Ezek. 47:13-20; 48:8-20, 31-35; Rev. 21:12-13
I. The holy temple and the holy city, which typify the church (Ezek. 47:13; 1 Cor. 3:16-17), are the issue of the Holy Land, which typifies Christ; the church is the issue of the enjoyment of the riches of Christ (Eph. 3:8):
A. When God’s chosen people partake of and enjoy the riches of Christ, they are constituted with those riches to be the church, through which God’s multifarious wisdom is made known to the angelic rulers and authorities in the heavenlies; hence, the church is the wise exhibition of all that Christ is—v. 10.
B. The good land is a land flowing with milk and honey, typifying the riches of Christ; both milk and honey are products of two kinds of lives—the animal life and the vegetable life—Exo. 3:8; cf. S. S. 4:11:
1. Milk is produced by cattle that feed on grass, and honey is made by bees from the nectar of flowers.
2. Milk and honey signify the riches of Christ, which come from the two aspects of His life—His redeeming life for His judicial redemption, typified by the animal life (John 1:29), and His generating life for His organic salvation, typified by the vegetable life (12:24).
3. Thus, the good land is a spacious land of the all-inclusive Christ in His full salvation—in His judicial redemption and in His organic salvation—cf. Rom. 5:10.
C. The recovery of the land signifies the recovery of the enjoyment of Christ’s riches; Christ Himself cannot be lost, but in our experience Christ can be lost (Gal. 5:2-4).
D. Once the land has been recovered, the temple and the city can be built on the land; the good land, the land of Canaan, is a full, complete, and consummate type of the all-inclusive Christ, who is the embodiment of the Triune God (Col. 2:9) realized as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17), as the inheritance allotted to God’s people for their enjoyment (Col. 1:12; 2:6-7; Gal. 3:14; cf. Deut. 8:7-9).
E. By enjoying the riches of the land, the children of Israel were able to build up the temple to be God’s habitation on earth and the city of Jerusalem to establish God’s kingdom on earth; likewise, by enjoying the unsearchable riches of Christ, the believers in Christ are built up to be Christ’s Body, the church, which is Christ’s fullness, His expression (Eph. 1:22-23), and which is also the habitation of God (2:21-22; 1 Tim. 3:15) and the kingdom of God (Matt. 16:18-19; Rom. 14:17).
F. The sanctuary, the temple, is God’s house for His rest, and the city is God’s kingdom for His authority; both typify the church as God’s house and God’s kingdom, which will consummate in the New Jerusalem in eternity for the fulfillment of God’s eternal economy—Ezek. 48:8, 15; 1 Tim. 3:15; Rom. 14:17; Rev. 21:2-3, 22; 22:1, 3, 5.
II. The good land is situated between the waters of the Mediterranean Sea on the west (Ezek. 47:15) and the waters of the Dead Sea and the Jordan River on the east (v. 18):
A. For the land of Canaan, an elevated land (20:40-42; 34:13-14; 37:22; Deut. 32:13), to be surrounded by water indicates that it is surrounded by death; thus, the good land typifies the resurrected Christ, who was raised, elevated from the dead; this also indicates that the enjoyment of Christ is closely related to His death, and it must be in the sphere, the territory, of His death (cf. Phil. 3:7-11).
B. On the north side of the good land, there is no river as a border; instead, there is Mount Hermon, a high mountain, which signifies the heavens, from which the dew of God’s grace descends on the mountains of Zion, typifying the local churches (Psa. 133:3); the elevated good land with Mount Hermon signifies the resurrected Christ, who has ascended to the heavens.
III. The picture portrayed by the allotment of the land (Ezek. 48:1-35) shows that, in the restoration from Dan in the north (v. 1) to Gad in the south (v. 27), all the Israelites will enjoy Christ, but their nearness to Christ will not be the same:
A. The nearness of the tribes to Christ is determined by their importance; the most important are the priests, who are the closest to Christ and who maintain the fellowship between the people and the Lord; the Levites, who maintain a service to the Lord, are next in nearness to the Lord.
B. Then the workers for the city, who maintain God’s government, are the third closest to the Lord; in addition, there is the royal family with the king and the kingship.
C. The fellowship of the priests, the service of the Levites, the work to maintain God’s government, and the kingship all come out of the riches of the land; according to spiritual significance, this means that in the church all the fellowship, service, work, government, royalty, lordship, and kingship come out of the enjoyment of the riches of Christ.
D. The more we enjoy Christ, the closer we are to Him; and the closer we are to Him, the more important we are in His purpose.
E. The most important are the priests and the kings; according to the New Testament revelation, all the New Testament believers should exercise to be priests and kings—1 Pet. 2:5, 9; Rom. 15:16; Phil. 3:3; Rev. 1:6; 5:10; 20:6; 22:3b-5.
IV. The city with twelve gates (Ezek. 48:31-34; cf. Rev. 21:12-13), on which are the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, must be Jerusalem; this city will be the dwelling place of the restored Israel with God in the earthly part of the millennium; as such, it typifies the overcomers in the church and the overcoming saints of the Old Testament, who will be the New Jerusalem as the mutual abode of God and the overcomers in the heavenly part of the millennium (cf. Rev. 3:12), which is the manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens:
A. That the number of the gates is twelve, composed of three times four, signifies that God’s holy city, the New Jerusalem, is the mingling of the Triune God (three) with His creature man (four).
B. The number twelve also signifies absolute perfection and eternal completion in God’s administration; this indicates that the New Jerusalem is not only the eternal mingling of divinity with humanity but also a perfect government that comes out of this mingling; this city will exercise full authority for God’s complete administration in eternity—22:1, 3, 5.
V. The history of Israel is a full type of the history of the church:
A. The history of Israel began with Israel’s corporate experience of the passover during the exodus from Egypt (Exo. 12) and will continue with the Lord’s second coming, at which time Israel will be restored and will build the earthly Jerusalem with the twelve gates.
B. The history of the church also began with the Passover, which is the Christ who has been sacrificed (1 Cor. 5:7), and will go on until the millennium, in which the overcoming saints will be the heavenly Jerusalem, the New Jerusalem, with its twelve gates.
C. After the one thousand years the heavenly Jerusalem will be enlarged to become the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and the new earth; she will include all the redeemed ones from both Israel and the church to be the expression of God and the mutual dwelling place of God and His redeemed in eternity future (cf. Dan. 12:1, footnote 3).
VI. At the end of Ezekiel God obtains a holy temple (chs. 40—44) and a holy city in the Holy Land (chs. 47—48):
A. God dwells in the temple, and He dwells also in the city; in the temple God has fellowship with His people, and in the city God reigns among His people; this indicates that in the temple and the city God has come down from heaven to live with man.
B. The temple and the city typify the church in the present age as the center for the fellowship with God and for the reigning of God—1 Cor. 3:16-17; Heb. 12:22-23:
1. In the church as the temple and the city, which is in Christ as the good land, God has His expression, and God and His people enjoy one another and have mutual satisfaction.
2. The church as God’s temple and God’s city will ultimately consummate in the New Jerusalem for eternity—Rev. 21:3, 22.
VII. “The name of the city from that day shall be, Jehovah Is There” (Jehovah-shammah, Heb.)—Ezek. 48:35:
A. The New Testament economy begins with Jesus, Jehovah the Savior and God with us (Matt. 1:21, 23), and ends with the New Jerusalem, “Jehovah Is There” and “the City of Jehovah,” the city of the great I Am (Ezek. 48:35; Isa. 60:14).
B. Jehovah is a person, and There is a person; Jehovah Is There means that Jehovah is in His redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified tripartite people and that they are in Him—Rev. 21:3, 22.
C. Because Jehovah is There, when people see Jehovah, they see us, and when they see us, they see Jehovah.
D. “Jehovah Is There” is actually the presence of Jehovah Himself united, mingled, and incorporated with His redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified tripartite people to be one entity, a great corporate God-man; this corporate God-man is the mutual abode of God and man, the dwelling of God in man and man in God—vv. 3, 22.
E. By enjoying Him as grace, as everything to us for our enjoyment, every positive thing in the universe will praise God for what He has done in us to make Him and us one entity, the New Jerusalem, the city of glory—Eph. 1:6; Rev. 21:10-11:
1. At that time, the whole universe will be filled with the praise of Jah (a shortened form of Jehovah); for all that He is to us, for all that He is doing in us, and for all that He will do for us for the sake of His heart’s desire, we must declare in thanksgiving and worship to Him, “Hallelu-Jah, Praise Jah, Praise Jehovah!” (19:1, footnote 1).
2. We must exclaim with the psalmists:
a. “Let everything that has breath praise Jehovah. / Hallelujah!”—Psa. 150:6.
b. “Blessed be Jehovah the God of Israel, / From eternity to eternity. / And let all the people say, Amen. / Hallelujah”—106:48.