Scripture Daily

Context No. 1714 of 4322 · Ezekiel

Context · Reflection

Ezekiel 43:12-17: in context

12“This is the law of the house. On the top of the mountain the whole limit around it shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the house. 13“These are the measurements of the altar by cubits (the cubit is a cubit and a hand width): the bottom shall be a cubit, and the width a cubit, and its border around its edge a span; and this shall be the base of the altar. 14From the bottom on the ground to the lower ledge shall be two cubits, and the width one cubit; and from the lesser ledge to the greater ledge shall be four cubits, and the width a cubit. 15The upper altar shall be four cubits; and from the altar hearth and upward there shall be four horns. 16The altar hearth shall be twelve cubits long by twelve wide, square in its four sides. 17The ledge shall be fourteen cubits long by fourteen wide in its four sides; and the border about it shall be half a cubit; and its bottom shall be a cubit around; and its steps shall look toward the east.”

In Ezekiel's vision of the restored temple, God gives the measurements of the altar and, before the details, a governing statement. This is the law of the house, he says: on the top of the mountain, all its territory round about shall be most holy. Then follow the dimensions of the altar, its base and ledges and horns, its hearth twelve cubits square, its steps facing east. But the framing word is the one about holiness: the whole area of God's house, all of it, is to be holy.

The phrase that governs the whole passage is the law of the house: the whole area shall be most holy. Holiness is not one feature of God's dwelling among others; it is the defining law of the place. Everything within the boundary, all its territory round about, is set apart, holy, because it is where God dwells. There are no ordinary corners in the house of God, no zones where holiness does not reach; the whole is holy, because the whole belongs to him. This has a direct bearing on us, for the New Testament says that we are now the temple of God, that his Spirit dwells in us. If the law of God's house is that the whole area shall be holy, then the holiness God calls for in us is not meant to be partial, confined to certain compartments of our lives while others are left ordinary. We are tempted to keep our religion in one room, holy on Sunday, holy in prayer, holy in the parts of life we think of as spiritual, while other rooms, our work, our money, our private thoughts, our leisure, are treated as our own, outside the reach of holiness. But the law of the house is that the whole area is holy. Where God dwells, all of it belongs to him and is to be set apart to him; there is no room in the temple that is exempt. The call this passage presses, read in the light of our being God's temple, is to let holiness pervade the whole of life, not to fence off some rooms as ours while a few are God's, but to recognize that if he dwells in us, the whole area is most holy.

Do I keep my holiness confined to certain rooms of my life, the religious parts, while treating others, my work, my money, my private thoughts, as my own and exempt, or can I take the law of God's house, that the whole area shall be holy, and let holiness pervade the whole of my life, since he dwells in all of it?

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