The exilic sanctuary

14 And the word of the Lord came to me: 15  “Son of man, your brothers, even your brothers, your kinsmen, the whole house of Israel, all of them, are those of whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, ‘Go far from the Lord; to us this land is given for a possession.’ 16 Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord God: Though I removed them far off among the nations, and though I scattered them among the countries, yet I have been a sanctuary to them for a while in the countries where they have gone.’ (Ezk 11:14-16).

i) Dispensationalists accuse amils of “spiritualizing” the temple in Ezk 40ff. However, the basic reason amils interpret the temple figuratively is because Revelation interprets the temple figuratively when John understands the Ezekielian temple to prefigure the new Jerusalem.

So that’s not an amil interpretation of Ezk 40-48. That interpretation isn’t generated by filtering Ezk 40-48 through amil hermeneutics. The amil understanding isn’t the result of an amil interpretation; rather, the amil understanding is the result of John’s interpretation.

ii) However, what about Ezekiel on its own terms? Ezekiel “spiritualizes” the temple too. Take the above passage. The unexiled Judeans equated God’s presence with proximity to the holy land. They were left behind when their compatriots were deported. They still inhabited the holy land. They could still worship in the ruins of the Solomonic temple (e.g. Jer 41:5).

They assumed the exiles were far from God because the exiles were far from the holy land. Far from the temple precincts. Banished from the presence of God.

But Ezekiel says God was present with the deportees. God himself was their “sanctuary” for the duration of the Babylonian exile. Even though that exilic sanctuary was spiritual, it was more real than the material temple, for Solomon’s temple was just a token of God’s presence rather than the reality.

The temple in general, and the inner sanctum in particular, was just a physical emblem of God’s presence. The deportees experienced the reality of God’s presence without the physical emblem. The two were always separable in theory, and in this case the separation was patent. They had access to God without the outward medium.

Of course, that doesn’t prove the figurative interpretation of Ezk 40-48. It does, however, lay the groundwork for that understanding within the same book. For Ezekiel himself articulates the principle of a spiritual temple. So viewing Ezk 40-48 as an extended metaphor is not extraneous to Ezekiel’s outlook. Indeed, a rebuilt temple would be retrograde on Ezekiel’s own terms.

Ezk 11:16 likely alludes to Ezekiel’s theophanic visions in Babylon. The theophanic storm cloud is a dynamic (rather than static) sanctuary. A portable sanctuary. Heavenly rather than earthly. He himself experienced God’s presence in exile.