Ezekiel 43:1 - Meaning and Application

After Ezekiel carefully surveyed God’s temple, the highest glory on earth, he was brought into a higher vision and honored with a look at the glory of the heavenly world. He was told, “Come up here.” He had seen that the temple was large and splendid, but until God’s glory filled it, it was only like the bodies in his earlier vision in chapter 37, which had no breath until the Spirit of life entered them. So now he sees God’s house filled with God’s glory.

I. He sees the glory of God itself (Ezekiel 43:2), the glory of the God of Israel, the God who is in covenant with Israel and whom they serve and worship. The idols of the nations have no glory except what they borrow from the craftsman who made them. This, however, is the glory of the God of Israel. It came from the east, so Ezekiel was brought to the gate facing east to watch for its coming. Christ’s star was seen in the east, and he is also the other angel who rises from the east (Revelation 7:2). He is the morning star, the sun of righteousness.

Ezekiel noticed two things in this appearing glory. First, he heard the power of God’s word. His voice was like the sound of many waters, heard far away and full of force. The sound of a gentle stream is pleasant, but the roar of the sea is fearsome (Revelation 1:15; Revelation 14:2). So Christ’s gospel, in the glory of which he shines, was to be announced openly and heard far and wide. For some, it is the smell of life, and for others, the smell of death, according to their response.

Second, he saw the brightness of God’s appearance. The earth shone with his glory, for God is light, and no one can endure the brilliance of his light. No one has seen it fully, and no one can. Note that the glory of God shining in the church also shines on the world. When God appeared for David, the brightness before him drove away the clouds (Psalm 18:12).

Ezekiel saw that this appearance of God’s glory was the same as the vision he received when he first got his calling (Ezekiel 1:4), by the river Chebar (Ezekiel 43:3). Since God does not change, he was pleased to show himself in the same way. “It was the same,” Ezekiel says, “as what I saw when I came to destroy the city,” that is, when he foretold the city’s destruction. He spoke with such authority and power, and the event matched the warning so surely, that he could be said to have destroyed it. As a judge speaking in God’s name, he pronounced the sentence, and it was soon carried out. God appeared in the same way when he sent Ezekiel to speak words of terror and when he sent him to speak words of comfort, because in both cases God is glorified. He kills and he makes alive. He wounds and he heals (Deuteronomy 32:39). We must look to the same hand that struck us for our rescue. He has wounded, and he will bind up.

II. He sees this glory entering the temple. When Ezekiel saw it, he fell on his face (Ezekiel 43:3), unable to bear the brightness of God’s glory, or rather willing to give God the honor due to him through humble worship. But the Spirit lifted him up again (Ezekiel 43:5) after the glory of the Lord had come into the house (Ezekiel 43:4), so that he could see the house filled with it. He had already seen the glory of the Lord leave the temple in grief, because it had been polluted. Now he sees it return in joy. See Ezekiel 10:18-19; Ezekiel 11:23. Though God may leave his people for a little while, he will return with lasting love.

God’s glory filled the house, just as it had filled the tabernacle Moses set up and the temple Solomon built (Exodus 40:34; 1 Kings 8:10). We do not read that the Shechinah, God’s visible glory, ever took possession of the second temple in this same way. So this vision must point to the greater glory of God’s grace that shines so brightly in the gospel church and fills it. There is no mention here of a cloud filling the house as before, because now we behold the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, in the face of Christ, not through the cloud of symbols.

III. He receives direct instructions from the glory of the Lord, as Moses did when God took possession of the tabernacle (Leviticus 1:1): “I heard him speaking to me out of the house” (Ezekiel 43:6). When God’s glory shines in the church, we should expect to hear God’s own message from there. The man stood beside me. We could not bear to hear God’s voice any more than we could bear to see his face, if Jesus Christ did not stand beside us as Mediator, one who brings God and people together. Or, if this was a created angel, it is worth noting that when God began to speak to Ezekiel, the angel stood by and stepped aside, having nothing more to say.

Indeed, he stood beside the prophet as a learner with him, because even angels learn through the church the many-sided wisdom of God, even though they themselves long to look into these things (Ephesians 3:10). The man stood by Ezekiel to lead him where he would receive further visions (Ezekiel 44:1).