What can we learn from the holiness, order, and guarded access of God's presence in the temple? How does this contrast with eternity? Let’s look at Ezekiel 41.
What did the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies look like, inside the visionary temple shown to the prophet Ezekiel?
Then he brought me to the sanctuary, and he measured the side pillars: six cubits wide on each side was the width of the side pillar. The width of the entrance was ten cubits and the sides of the entrance were five cubits on each side. He also measured the length of the sanctuary, forty cubits, and the width, twenty cubits.
Then he went inside and measured each side pillar of the doorway, two cubits, and the doorway, six cubits high; and the width of the doorway, seven cubits. And he measured its length, twenty cubits, and the width, twenty cubits, before the sanctuary; and he said to me, “This is the Most Holy Place.” (Ezek 41:1-4 NASB)
What was the design of the side-rooms surrounding the temple?
Then he measured the wall of the temple; it was six cubits thick, and each side room around the temple was four cubits wide. The side rooms were on three levels, one above another, thirty on each level. There were ledges all around the wall of the temple to serve as supports for the side rooms, so that the supports were not inserted into the wall of the temple.
The side rooms all around the temple were wider at each successive level. The structure surrounding the temple was built in ascending stages, so that the rooms widened as one went upward. A stairway went up from the lowest floor to the top floor through the middle floor. (Ezek 41:5-7 NIV)
What did the raised foundation of the temple look like?
I also saw an elevation all around the temple; it was the foundation of the side chambers, a full rod, that is, six cubits high. The thickness of the outer wall of the side chambers was five cubits, and so also the remaining terrace by the place of the side chambers of the temple.
And between it and the wall chambers was a width of twenty cubits all around the temple on every side. The doors of the side chambers opened on the terrace, one door toward the north and another toward the south; and the width of the terrace was five cubits all around. (Ezek 41:8-11 NKJV)
Was there a mysterious, large building on the west?
The building that was before the separate place at the side toward the west was seventy cubits wide; and the wall of the building was five cubits thick all around, and its length ninety cubits. So he measured the temple, one hundred cubits long; and the separate place, and the building, with its walls, one hundred cubits long; also the width of the face of the temple, and of the separate place toward the east, one hundred cubits. (Ezek 41:12-14 WEB)
What were the interior materials, and wood paneling of the inner building and galleries like?
Then he measured the length of the building facing the yard that was at the back and its galleries on either side, a hundred cubits. The inside of the nave and the vestibules of the court, the thresholds and the narrow windows and the galleries all around the three of them, opposite the threshold, were paneled with wood all around, from the floor up to the windows (now the windows were covered), (Ezek 41:15-16 ESV)
What were the interior walls of the temple carved with?
reaching to the top of the entrance, and as far as the inner temple and on the outside. On every wall all around, on the inside and outside, was a pattern carved with cherubim and palm trees. There was a palm tree between each pair of cherubim.
Each cherub had two faces: a human face turned toward the palm tree on one side, and a lion’s face turned toward it on the other. They were carved throughout the temple on all sides. Cherubim and palm trees were carved from the ground to the top of the entrance and on the wall of the great hall. (Ezek 41:17-20 HCSB)
What was the interior architecture of the main hall like?
The door posts of the main sanctuary were square. Each door post was identical in appearance to the others. The altar was made of wood, three cubits high and two cubits long. Its corners, base, and sides were of wood. He told me, “This table stands in the Lord’s presence.” (Ezek 41:21-22 ISV)
What did the large doors, carvings, and frames of the main hall look like?
And the temple and the sanctuary had two doors. And the doors had two leaves apiece, two turning leaves; two leaves for the one door, and two leaves for the other door.
And there were made on them, on the doors of the temple, cherubims and palm trees, like as were made upon the walls; and there were thick planks upon the face of the porch without. And there were narrow windows and palm trees on the one side and on the other side, on the sides of the porch, and upon the side chambers of the house, and thick planks. (Ezek 41:23-26 KJV)
Is God’s plan to eventually dwell openly among us forever?
And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them” (Rev 21:3 LSB)
What can we learn from the holiness, order, and guarded access of God's presence in the temple? How does this contrast with eternity? You decide!
