As Ezekiel continues to lay out the consequences of Judah’s sin, we see a sobering picture of the departure of the glory of God from the temple in Jerusalem. Ezekiel again has a vision with the living creatures, here explicitly referred to as the cherubim (10:15) and the glory of the Lord accompanies them to the east gate of the temple (10:18-19) and eventually it departs altogether (11:22-23).
Contrast this with the day of dedication. Remember, Solomon was the one who had the temple constructed as a permanent dwelling place for the glory of God, a place for His people to meet with Him, and a place to make atonement for sin. It was the first time that God had, as it were, an earthly home! Beforehand, they had the tabernacle that was a tentlike structure that was portable. On the day of the dedication, the Scripture recounts, “the house of the Lord was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God” (2 Chr. 5:13-14). It was a great day of celebration! They sacrificed animals in worship without number. It was a glorious day in Israel. God responded by a visible manifestation of His glory coming to abide in the temple, reminding the people that their God was with them. He was amongst them, and He was here to stay. Surely it was a wonderful time to be an Israelite!
Yet, because of the continual sins of the people and their leaders, the kingdom split into the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah, eventually Israel is conquered by Assyria, later Judah is conquered by Babylon. In the midst of the Babylonian exile, between the two waves of captives, before the final destruction of the temple, we see that the LORD leaves behind the temple that was once dedicated to His name.
The temple was to be a place of wholehearted devotion to the one true and living God. Yet, it was filled with idols. Finally, God determines He is going to leave. Although the temple claimed to represent Him and to be His home, it wasn’t treated as if it were His.
In the New Testament, we see Jesus bring about a similar criticism when He cleansed the temple, saying,
“Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”
Mark 11:17, ESV
Sin found in the assembly of God’s people grieved the heart of God. It became a place of profit rather than a place of worship. In the Old Testament it was a place filled with idolatry.
In the New Testament we know that we as the body of believers are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and that worship isn’t reserved for a specific place or locale…but I think it’s still helpful for us to look over our lives and our gathering and to honestly ask if what we’re doing is pleasing to God? If His glory departed from the Old Testament temple, and in the lifetime of Jesus it became a den of robbers, certainly we ought to be vigilant in how we gather (both on the individual and corporate level) when we gather to worship.
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