Ezekiel 43:7 - Meaning and Application

God is, in effect, renewing his covenant with his people Israel as he takes possession of the temple again. Ezekiel speaks for God here, much as Moses did before. This would greatly help the captives when they returned, giving them both guidance and courage. It also reaches farther, to those who enjoy the blessings of the gospel temple, so they may know how they should live before God.

God first reminds them of their old sins, the sins that had long kept them under signs of his anger. This warning is meant to clear the way for the comfort he plans to give them. Though God gives and does not reproach, we should still blame ourselves when he forgives us for our wrongs. So let them remember, first, that they had defiled God's holy name, profaning the sacred things through which he had made himself known among them (Ezekiel 43:7).

They and their kings had brought shame on the religion they claimed to follow, and on their covenant relationship with God, through spiritual adultery, idolatry, and worship of images. They called those images their kings, for that is what Moloch means, or their lords, for that is what Baal means. Yet these were really like dead bodies, lifeless, useless, and foul, set up on their high places in their honor. They had polluted God's name by their detestable practices.

Their sin was that they set their threshold by my thresholds and their doorposts by my doorposts. That is, they added their own ideas to God's commands and pushed everyone to accept them as if they had equal authority and power, teaching human commands as doctrines (Isaiah 29:13). Or, even worse, they set up altars to their idols right in the temple courts, which was an open insult to God's glory. In this way they built a dividing wall between God and themselves, which blocked his favor and ruined their worship. See how sinners insult God by raising their own walls against his and forcing him out of what belongs to him. See too how they harm themselves, because the closer they come to God with their sins, the farther they push him away.

Some take the meaning to be this, that even though their houses stood right next to God's house, with their doorposts and thresholds close together, so they were almost his next-door neighbors, there was still only a wall between me and them. That is, they lived near the temple and should have known him well and tried to please him, yet they were not even neighborly toward him. It often proves sadly true: the nearer a person is to the church, the farther he may be from God. By outward profession they were in covenant with God, yet they had defiled the place of his throne and his feet, his temple, where he both lived and ruled. Jerusalem is called the city of the great King (Psalm 48:2) and his footstool (Psalm 99:5; Psalm 132:7). When God's commands are profaned, his holy name is polluted.

Second, God says that because of this he had been in conflict with them in their recent troubles. They could not rightly accuse him, because he had only brought on them what their sins deserved: wherefore I have consumed them in my anger. Those who pollute God's holy name come under his just anger.

Then he calls them to repent and turn from their sin, and to do that they must be ashamed of what they have done (Ezekiel 43:9). Now they must put away their adultery. Now that they have felt the pain of it so deeply, and now that God is returning to them in mercy and setting up his sanctuary in their midst again, they must cast away their idols and have nothing more to do with them. In that way they will not again lose the privileges whose worth they have learned by losing them. They must put their idols, those foul bodies of their false kings, far from him, so they will no longer provoke him.

This was wise advice now that the prophet had the temple pattern before them. If they see that pattern, they will surely be ashamed of their sins (Ezekiel 43:10). When they see what mercy God is preparing for them, even though they do not deserve it at all, they will feel shame over their unfaithful behavior toward him. God's goodness to us should lead us to repentance, especially to humble shame.

Let them measure the pattern for themselves and see how much better it is than the former one. Let them judge from that how great the things are that God has prepared for them. That will surely put them to shame when they think of what their sins deserved. Then, if they are ashamed of their sins, they will be shown more of the pattern (Ezekiel 43:11). If they are ashamed of all they have done after seeing God's goodness in general, then they may be given a fuller, more detailed view of the temple. Those who make good use of what they already know of God's goodness will learn more of it. We are fit for God's favors only when we are truly humbled for our foolishness.

Show them the plan of the house, so they may see what a noble structure it will be, and also show them its rules and laws. With the promise of comfort, it is right that we also learn our duty. With the privileges of God's house, we must also learn its order. Show them these rules so they may keep them and obey them. We are taught our duty so that we may do it and be blessed in what we do.

Finally, God promises that they will become what they ought to be, and then he will be to them what they want him to be (Ezekiel 43:7). The house of Israel will no longer defile my holy name. This is the grace of the gospel. The law says, You must not defile my name. The gospel says, You shall not. What the covenant requires, the covenant also promises (Jeremiah 32:40).

Then I will live among them forever, and he says the same again in Ezekiel 43:9. God secures his good will toward us by working his good work in us. If we do not defile his name, we may be sure he will not leave us.

The general rule of God's house is then stated (Ezekiel 43:12). Before, only the sanctuary, or holy place, was most holy. Now the whole mountain of the house will be holy. The entire area, including all the courts and chambers, will be like the most holy place. This shows that in gospel times, the whole church shares in the privilege of the holy of holies, meaning close access to God. All believers now have boldness to enter the holy place (Hebrews 10:19), not through the blood of bulls and goats, but through the blood of Jesus, and wherever we are, we have access to the Father through him.

It also shows that the whole church is under a strong duty to press on toward complete holiness, as he who called us is holy. All must now be most holy.

Holiness is fitting for God’s house forever, and it is even more so in gospel times. This is the rule for the house: no one should expect its protection unless they are willing to live by this rule.