Do you have a Scriptural reference? I've always assumed that the 3rd Temple that is desecrated is used by Jesus Christ during the 1,000 yr reign.
Do you have a Scriptural reference? I've always assumed that the 3rd Temple that is desecrated is used by Jesus Christ during the 1,000 yr reign.
The mere size of Ezekiel's Temple would make it impossible for it to be on the Temple Mount. It's way bigger than the entire Temple Mount and if I remember correctly, I believe it's bigger than the city of Jerusalem. So, the size of it makes it impossible to be the same Temple as that one in the Tribulation and/or previous ones.
But, there are also discrepancies with Ezekiel's Temple and the previous ones that make it impossible to be one and the same, much less a future one, because they wouldn't be building the future one (in the Tribulation) differently than the ones they had before or using a different model.
Here's a paper by Randall Price, who is a very good resource to have for further information. His website is World of the Bible.
One of the most crucial texts for the futurist interpretation of prophecy concerning Israel is the vision of the prophet Ezekiel in chapters 40-48. In this text the prophet presents God’s instructions for the construction of a new Temple to be built as part of the promise of Israel’s divine restoration. The concern of the exiles, as exemplified by Daniel’s prayer, was for a literal rebuilding of both the city of Jerusalem and its Temple (Daniel 9:3-19). Ezekiel’s prophecy of the Temple, delivered to these exiles, should be interpreted in light of this literal concern. Recognizing that the Second Temple constructed by the Jewish remnant that returned from the Exile (538-515 B.C.) did not implement Ezekiel’s detailed plan, Futurism, therefore, interprets the literal fulfillment of this prophecy eschatologically with the erection of a restoration Temple in the earthly Millennial Kingdom. This text is crucial to futurism because if literal interpretation fails with respect to this prophecy, then there is no reason to insist on a literal interpretation of any Old Testament prophecy, including messianic prophecy, which is an inseparable part of the restoration prophecies.
Despite this caution, the symbolic interpretation of this portion of Ezekiel’s prophecy is the dominant view advanced by critical scholars and conservative non-futurists (historicists, preterists, idealists) based on their contention that prophetic visions employ apocalyptic language that uses the literary device of hyperbole (exaggerated speech) to convey idealistic or symbolic, rather than literal, concepts. Therefore, non-futurists explain that the reason why the builders of the Second Temple did not follow Ezekiel’s plans for the Temple was because the Jewish audience understood apocalyptic as symbolic rather than literal. However, the symbolic school of interpretation is divided on what this symbolism was intended to portray. Some interpreters believe it was meant to preserve the memory of the First Temple through an idealistic remembrance, others say it idealistically describes the Second Temple, which was constructed upon the Jews return to Judah after the Exile (538-515 B.C.), while others see it illustrating a spiritual ideal (God’s dwelling in holiness in the midst of His people) or a spiritual reality (heaven, the eternal state, the Church). It is necessary to evaluate the symbolic school’s interpretive theories of this pivotal text and compare it with the literal school’s interpretation, to determine whether the intended fulfillment is to be understood as timeless (idealistic), to have occurred in the past (with the First or Second Temples), or is reserved for the eschatological age (the Millennial Temple).
An Idealistic Remembrance of the First Temple
This view draws its support from the need of the returning exiles, some of whom wept when the foundation of the Second Temple was laid, because they had seen the greater grandeur of the First Temple, and others, who born in the Captivity, lacked such a reference point in the past and therefore shouted for joy (Ezra 3:12-13), to share a common historical memory. To satisfy this need, Ezekiel shared his priestly memories in order to preserve the historical heritage of the Temple and its services for a new generation and to comfort them with the message that God was with them as He had been in the past. This interpretation raises a number of textual and historical objections.
First, Ezekiel states that this vision was communicated during the Captivity, not after the Return (Ezekiel 40:1-2). If it was given in the Exile and was meant to unite the Israelites in a common memory of the past and assure them of God’s presence, it apparently failed in its purpose since the Israelites were divided in their reaction to the construction of the Second Temple. The argument that God’s message was only received, but not delivered, by the prophet in the Exile, cannot be sustained in view of Ezekiel 11:25 which states “Then I told the exiles all the things that the Lord had shown me.” Although this applies to the judgment section of the book, is it reasonable to assume the prophet would share only the bad news (the destruction of the First Temple), but not the good news (the prophetic promise of a restored Temple)? However, it is clear that Ezekiel did deliver his prophetic vision to the exilic community, for God’s command to him was to describe the plan of the Temple to a still unrepentant “house of Israel” who had “defiled My holy name by their abominations” (Ezekiel 43:8). In fact, the purpose of Ezekiel’s description of the plans for the Temple is so “they may be ashamed of their iniquities” (Ezekiel 43:10-11). This is in harmony with the judgment of the book in which Ezekiel is commanded to deliver his message to “the sons of Israel, to a rebellious people who have rebelled against Me” (Ezekiel 2:3-4). By contrast, those who had returned to Judah to rebuild the Temple displayed repentance (Ezra 1:5; Haggai 1:12; Zechariah 1:6; cf. 2 Chronicles 6:38) and therefore could not have been the original recipients of Ezekiel’s message.
Second, there was no need for Ezekiel to give a description of the First Temple since such a description already existed, as preserved in the books of Kings and Chronicles (1 Kings 5:1-8:66; 2 Chronicles 2:1-7:22). Moreover, it is obvious from a comparison of the details given in both these texts that the description of the Temple and its services given by Ezekiel varies radically from the historical record of the construction of Solomon’s Temple and its services recorded by the traditional authors Jeremiah (Kings) and Ezra (Chronicles). These differences include unprecedented divergences in structure (immensely larger dimensions), style, and ceremony, as well as a river that flows eastward out of the Temple to refresh the arid areas of the Arabah and the Dead Sea (Ezekiel 47:1-12). Moreover, some of Ezekiel’s instructions for the Temple and its service contradict or are a departure from those in the Mosaic Law. For example, Ezekiel’s instruction to make the Altar of Burnt Offering with steps (Ezekiel 43:17) violates a specific commandment in the Mosaic ceremonial legislation against such a construction (Exodus 20:26). Some of the apparent departures from the Mosaic Law include the absence of the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies, no mention of the table for the shew-bread or lampstand in the outer Holy Place, no anointing oil within the Temple or its court, the absence of the High-Priesthood. These factors argue strongly that Ezekiel could not have had the First Temple in view since it was constructed in accordance with the Mosaic legislation (2 Kings 6:12; 8:56-58; 2 Chronicles 2:4; 6:16; 8:12-13).
A Plan for the Post-Exilic (Second) Temple
Another interpretation holds that Ezekiel’s description was a visionary plan for the rebuilding of the post-exilic (Second) Temple. This view argues that since the expectation of the exilic community was to rebuild the Temple and restore its service (Ezra 5:11-14), Ezekiel as their priest-in-exile provided these plans to enable them to do so. While this appears on the surface to be the logical position, it requires a non-literal interpretation because the post-exilic High Priest Zerubbabel did not literally employ these plans. However, the same objections to the previous view also apply, since Zerubbabel’s Second Temple was a reduced form of the Solomonic Temple and the reinstituted services were strictly in accordance with the Mosaic Law (Ezra 3:2-4; Nehemiah 8:1-18; 10:28-39). Too, if Ezekiel’s model formed the basis, even symbolically, for the Second Temple, there should have been some reference to this in the post-exilic prophets who oversaw its construction. However, Ezra, Haggai, Zechariah, and Nehemiah, who led the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the Temple, made no mention of Ezekiel’s prior instructions. This is quite inexplicable if the purpose for the prophecy was to provide the exiles returning from Babylon a description for renewing the Temple and its services. Moreover, if this were the case, these prophets, critical of the post-exilic delay in rebuilding the Temple, would certainly have included in their address to the exiles an appeal to rebuild based on Ezekiel’s Temple plans.
In response, this view has offered some areas of compatibility to the Second Temple, yet such would be expected for any rebuilding of the Temple, and again, the significant differences in topography, dimensions, details, and priestly performance with that of the Second Temple, including the fact that the post-exilic Land of Israel was never divided among the tribes as Ezekiel’s prophecy required, argue against the utilization of Ezekiel’s model. However, the most significant difference between Ezekiel’s Temple and the Second Temple was the absence of the Shekinah Glory. Ezekiel made the departure of the Shekinah the sign of God’s judgment on Israel (Ezekiel 10:18; 11:22-23) and envisioned its return as the sign of the Nation’s divine restoration (Ezekiel 43:1-7; 44:1-4; 48:35; cf. Ezekiel 37:25-28).
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The Promise of a Literal Eschatological Temple
Given the objections against the views of the symbolic school presented above, the only remaining option is to take Ezekiel chapters 40-48 literally and its application as eschatological, that is, for the period of the future restoration of National Israel during the Millennial Kingdom. A number of arguments based on internal and external evidence can be made in support of the literal and eschatological interpretation of this section.
(1) The literary unity of the book requires a literal Temple be understood throughout its chapters. Chapters 40-48 form an inseparable literary conclusion to the book. Although these chapters constitute a new vision in the prophecy, they are linked with chapters 1-39 in repeating earlier themes in a more detailed fashion. This linkage may be seen in the fact that the beginnings of both chapters 1 and 40 share a number of similar features. For example, Ezekiel’s vision of the presence of God in Babylon (Ezekiel 1:1; compare 8:1) finds it complement and completion in the vision in the Land of Israel (Ezekiel 40:2). In like manner, the problem created by the departure of God’s Presence in the opening section of the book (chapters 9-11) finds an anticipated resolution with its return in this section (Ezekiel 43:1-7). In fact, the concern for the Presence of God could be argued as the uniting theme of the entire text of Ezekiel. Without chapters 40-48 there is no answer to the outcome of Israel, and in particular Jerusalem and the Temple, no resolution to the Nation’s history of sacred scandal, and no grand finale to the divine drama centered from Sinai on the Chosen Nation.
Ezekiel’s prophecy of the future Temple is the means to restoring the Presence of God to Israel (a physical as well as spiritual concern). Its focus in the book falls into three divisions: (1) Prophecies of the Temple’s desecration and destruction (Ezekiel 4:1-24:27), (2) Prophecies of Israel’s return and restoration (Ezekiel 33:1-39:29), and (3) Prophecies of the Temple’s rebuilding and ritual (40:1-48:35). If it were a literal Temple (the First Temple) whose desecration and destruction was discussed in the first section of the book, the last section’s discussion of a Temple’s restoration would also expect a structure of the same kind. A comparative view of the exilic understanding of return from captivity reveals the prophets saw the rebuilding the physical Temple as essential to restoration (Daniel 9:20; 2 Chronicles 36:22-23; Ezra 1:2-11; Haggai 1:2-2:9; Zechariah 1:16; 6:12-15; 8:3). Would Ezekiel as a like-minded prophet (or God as the ultimate Author) have attempted to comfort his people’s physical and spiritual loss with anything other than the literal restoration of a Temple to which the Divine Presence could return?
If it is countered that chapters 40-48 are a spiritual vision and therefore not meant to be a literal reality, the literary structure of the book argues against this possibility. In chapters 8-11 all interpreters are in agreement that the literal First Temple in Jerusalem is in view. Although Ezekiel’s depiction of its desecration is visionary and serves as the basis for a spiritual warning to the exilic community of impending divine judgment, not one commentator doubts that an actual structure is described. Again, it must be emphasized that Ezekiel was not physically in Jerusalem when he reported these things, but in Babylon with the Judean exiles. It was “in the visions of God” that he was spiritually transported to Jerusalem (Ezekiel 8:3). Therefore, everything he mentions in this first section concerning the Temple, its “inner court” (8:3), “porch” (8:16), “altar” (8:16), “threshold” (9:3), and “East gate” (10:19), were all seen in a vision. Despite this fact, the symbolic school is unanimous in accepting this as a vision of the literal Temple. Why then in chapters 40-48, when the prophet, still “in the visions of God” (Ezekiel 40:2), mentions the exact same places in the same order: “inner court” (40:27), “porch” (40:48), “altar” (43:18), and “East gate” (43:3), are these structures now declared to be only spiritual symbols? If the desecration and destruction of a literal Temple was described in a vision, the vision of the restoration and reconsecration of a Temple should also be understood as literal.
(2) The context of the Temple’s restoration requires an eschatological and literal interpretation. Chapters 40-48 open with a statement marking the specific date of Ezekiel’s vision: “the tenth of the month [of Tishri]” (Ezekiel 40:1). The Jewish Sages viewed the purpose of this chronological note as marking an eschatological context, since the tenth of Tishri is reckoned as a Jubilee year [Hebrew, yovel], and the date of Ezekiel’s vision was determined to be the first Day of Atonement [Hebrew, Yom Kippur] of the Jubilee year. Together, this date prefigured Israel’s Day of Redemption in both its physical (Land) and spiritual (repentance) aspects. Rabbi Joseph Breuer notes: “On that day, which summoned the subjugated and estranged among God’s people to accept freedom and called upon all the sons of Israel to return to their God, on that day it was given to the Prophet to behold a vision of the rebuilt, eternal Sanctuary of the future and to receive the basic instructions for the establishment of the State of God that would endure forever”(Sepher Yechezkel, 353). Therefore, from the very first verse the Rabbis considered the context both eschatological and literal.
The restored Presence of God with Israel in His Sanctuary (Ezekiel 37:26-28) appears as the climatic event in the restoration context of Ezekiel 33-37 as well as in chapters 40-48 where it returns to fill the Temple and consecrate it as God’s throne (Ezekiel 43:1-7). The Ezekiel 37 text reveals its eschatological setting by describing this restoration as a time when “David will [again] be king over them (Israel)” (verse 24), an “everlasting covenant of peace” (verse 26) will be established between God and Israel, God’s Sanctuary will [again] be in their midst” (verse 26), and “the nations will know I am the Lord” (verse 28). In particular, the “everlasting covenant of peace” (the idea being of security and well-being in the Hebrew term shalom) is unique, being described in more detail in Ezekiel 34:25-29 as Land-centered, completely eliminating harmful animals, guaranteeing security from any foreign invasion, and bringing unparalleled agricultural renewal accompanied by divinely-sent seasonal rains (cf. Zechariah 14:17). Such a covenant was never enacted with Israel in the past and therefore must have its fulfillment in the eschatological age (Millennial Kingdom).
The terms used for the Temple in Ezekiel 37:26-28 likewise indicate an eschatological setting. The Temple is called a mishkan, the Hebrew word used formerly for the Tabernacle, and said to be “over them” (Hebrew, ‘lyhm). This pictures God’s “sheltering Presence” as once the pitched Tabernacle in the wilderness protected the Israelite tribes. One of the false hopes of the past was in the inviolability of the Temple and its ability to preserve the disobedient Nation simply because it existed. In the future, however, the Nation will not sin and the Temple, with the Shekinah, will serve as the source of the Nation’s, and the world’s, prosperity and peace. The Temple is also called miqdash “Sanctuary,” emphasizing its holiness, and is said to be, like the covenant and the restoration of God’s Presence, “eternal” (verses 26, 28). Again, such a Temple could only find its fulfillment in the Millennial Kingdom where the protective “Glory-cloud” of God will return to fulfill this concept of the Temple (see Isaiah 4:5-6). This Temple, presented as part of the eternal covenant, in is that which is expanded upon in greater detail in the prophecy of chapters 40--48.
[ ... and it continues in this discussion ... see the link for the full paper and discussion on it... ]
A pertinent quote here...
According to Ezekiel's text, the millennial city of Jerusalem and the Temple will together encompass a 2,500 square-mile area. The portion reserved for the priests and Levites is some 50 miles, while the Temple courts will be one mile square. These dimensions are larger than those of the modern State of Israel." (Randall Price, The Temple and Bible Prophecy, p. 531).
There is a vast difference between the Temple described by Ezekiel and that of the other Temples. For example, Temple researcher and archeologist Dr. Randall Price highlights the vast grandeur of Ezekiel's Temple compared to the others. " One of the problems for many who seek to interpret Ezekiel's vision of the Temple literally is the problem of the immense size of the building (compared to the sizes of the First and Second Temples). According to Ezekiel's text, the millennial city of Jerusalem and the Temple will together encompass a 2,500 square-mile area. The portion reserved for the priests and Levites is some 50 miles, while the Temple courts will be one mile square. These dimensions are larger than those of the modern State of Israel." (Randall Price, The Temple and Bible Prophecy, p. 531).
The vast size of the temple has led some to interpret the Temple spiritually since the current physical landscape cannot hold the structures. However, God's work during the Great Tribulation provides ample descriptions of physical changes to the earth and the Temple proper will sit higher than any structure around. That currently is not the case, so the mountains surrounding the temple mount will be split (Zech. 13:4) and the Temple mount will rise (Zech. 14:10).
Now it will come about that in the last days the mountain of the house of the LORD will be established as the chief of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills; And all the nations will stream to it. (Isa. 2:2)
There is no mistaking that "chief" hear means "at the top". This is literally translated, "…the thing being established, the Lord's mountain, the Lord's house, on the top of the mountains, and the thing being lifted up from the hill…"
Physical Size
One the greatest differences of the Millennial Temple to the previous temples is the vast size increase. The First Temple was grand at double the dimensions of the Tabernacle and triple the height, it measured 60x20x30 cubits high which converts to feet as about 90x30x45 ft and about 3,500 sq. ft.
The second Temple built by Zerubbabel was probably smaller than the first, but upon its reconstruction under Herod, the Temple dimensions proper were virtually the same size. Its surroundings, however, were larger, providing the Roman governance a strong source of management and control over Jewish worship.
The Millennial Temple's dimensions are given in royal cubits (21 inches compared to 18 inches for a standard cubit). The use of the royal cubit as opposed to a standard cubit is probably due to the fact that at the time of the prophecy they were in captivity in Babylon which is what they would understand and serves to further remove the Millennial Temple from its predecessors.
The immense size of the Millennial Temple's compound is stated to be 500x500 rods (1 rod = 6 cubits; Ezek. 40:5) or 5250x5250 ft (about a mile) or about 1 mile square (Ezek. 42:18). The whole area is said to be 50 square miles (Ezek. 48:20). The text says 25,000 with no units, so most translations add cubits, but the units should be rods not cubits since the individual items within the larger area or district would not fit within the area if it were in cubits.