Begin At My Sanctuary

The throne that arrived in chapter one had rings full of eyes. In chapter eight we find out what those eyes had been looking at.

A Bible study on Ezekiel 8–11 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 12 min read

In God And His Throne we saw that Ezekiel chapter one is a throne arriving — a chariot-throne on wheels, with rings so high they were dreadful, and those rings full of eyes round about. I said then to hold that detail, because a court that is coming to judge needs evidence.

Chapters eight through eleven are the evidence. And they are, I think, the four chapters that most Adventists have never really read — because chapter nine frightens people, and understandably so.

Read them as one unit, though, and something remarkable happens. This is not four chapters of horror. It is a single courtroom proceeding, in order: the evidence is examined, the faithful are marked, the sentence falls, the glory withdraws — and then, in the last verses, God makes the most tender promise in the entire first half of the book. Let us walk through it.

Fourteen Months Later

“And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in mine house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord GOD fell there upon me.”

Ezekiel 8:1

Ezekiel dates it, as he always does. The throne vision came in the fifth year, fourth month, fifth day. This one comes in the sixth year, sixth month, fifth day — about fourteen months later.

And look who is in the room. The elders of Judah sat before me. The leadership of the exile community has come to the prophet’s house to inquire of the Lord. They are sitting there, waiting for a word — and what they get is a guided tour of what their brethren are doing back home in the temple they are all praying toward.

That matters. This vision was not given in private for the prophet’s own information. It was given with the elders watching him receive it.

Four Doors, And It Gets Worse At Every One

The Spirit lifts Ezekiel up and carries him, in vision, eight hundred miles west to Jerusalem — and then walks him through the temple complex like a prosecutor walking a jury through a crime scene. Four times he is shown something. Four times he is told, in effect, you have not seen anything yet.

“He said furthermore unto me, Son of man, seest thou what they do? even the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary? but turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations.”

Ezekiel 8:6

The first door — the image of jealousy. At the gate of the altar, in the entry, stands an idol (8:3, 5). Not hidden in a private house somewhere in the city. Set up at the door where worshipers came in.

The second door — the chambers of imagery. Ezekiel is told to dig through a wall, and inside he finds this:

“So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, pourtrayed upon the wall round about… Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery?”

Ezekiel 8:10, 12

Seventy of the elders of Israel, each with his censer, worshiping painted animals in a sealed room. In the dark. These are not the pagans of Babylon. These are the men who were supposed to be guarding the truth.

The third door — the women weeping for Tammuz (8:14), a Babylonian fertility deity, being mourned at the door of the gate of the LORD’s house. The worship of the nation that had conquered them, imported into the courts of the God who was supposed to be their defense.

The fourth door — and this is the one the vision has been climbing toward:

“And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD’s house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east.”

Ezekiel 8:16

Read that placement slowly. The inner court. Between the porch and the altar — the holiest ground a man could stand on outside the sanctuary itself, the very spot where the priests stood to intercede for the people. And they are standing there with their backs to the temple, facing the other way, bowing to the sunrise.

You could not design a more exact picture of apostasy if you tried. They have not left the temple. They are still on the payroll, still in the courts, still at the appointed hour. They have simply turned around.

The Sentence They Passed On Themselves

Buried in the middle of the tour is the reason they thought they could get away with it. Notice what the elders in the dark room were saying to themselves:

“…for they say, The LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the earth.”

Ezekiel 8:12

And God repeats it back, word for word, when He pronounces sentence in the next chapter: “for they say, The LORD hath forsaken the earth, and the LORD seeth not” (Ezekiel 9:9).

Now put that beside the vision that opened this book. The wheels of the throne had rings full of eyes round about them four (Ezekiel 1:18). While the ancients of Israel were closing a door in a dark room and telling each other that the Lord could not see, the throne with eyes on every wheel was already rolling toward the city.

That is the hinge between chapter one and chapter eight, and it is why the two belong together. Chapter one is the answer to chapter eight’s excuse. He sees. He has always seen. The abominations in the chambers of imagery were not discovered when Ezekiel dug through the wall — they were on the record before the throne ever left heaven.

Seven Men, And Only One Of Them Writes

“And, behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate, which lieth toward the north, and every man a slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man among them was clothed with linen, with a writer’s inkhorn by his side: and they went in, and stood beside the brasen altar.”

Ezekiel 9:2

Seven figures. Six carry weapons. One carries an inkwell and is dressed in linen — priestly clothing, the dress of a man who ministers rather than destroys.

And here is the order of operations, which is the whole gospel of this chapter:

“And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.”

Ezekiel 9:4

The man with the ink goes first. The six with weapons do not move until he has finished — and when they are finally sent, they are told plainly, “come not near any man upon whom is the mark” (9:6). Mercy is not an afterthought squeezed in at the end of the judgment. Mercy walks ahead of it, through every street, and marks its own before a single blow falls.

John saw the same sequence. Four angels hold the four winds so that nothing may be hurt “till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads” (Revelation 7:3). The destruction waits on the sealing. It always has.

Those Who Sigh And Cry

So who gets marked? Not the ones with the correct membership. Not the ones who were in the building — the men between the porch and the altar were as inside as it is possible to be. The mark goes on “the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.”

Ellen White’s treatment of this passage runs through several pages of Testimonies volume 5, and it is far more searching than the summary version most of us have heard:

“The class who do not feel grieved over their own spiritual declension, nor mourn over the sins of others, will be left without the seal of God.”

Ellen G. White · Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, p. 211

Notice the order there too — their own spiritual declension first, the sins of others second. This is not a license to become the congregation’s appointed critic. Read what these sighing ones had actually been doing:

“These sighing, crying ones had been holding forth the words of life; they had reproved, counseled, and entreated. Some who had been dishonoring God repented and humbled their hearts before Him.”

Ellen G. White · Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, p. 210

They were working. They had been pleading with people, and some of those people had repented. The sighing and crying is not a mood, and it is certainly not a hobby of finding fault. It is the grief of somebody who is laboring for the very people whose condition is breaking his heart.

And there is one more line, written years later, that keeps this from curdling into a sour spirit:

“But the anguish and humiliation of God’s people is unmistakable evidence that they are regaining the strength and nobility of character lost in consequence of sin. It is because they are drawing nearer to Christ, because their eyes are fixed on His perfect purity, that they discern so clearly the exceeding sinfulness of sin.”

Ellen G. White · Prophets and Kings, p. 590

There is the test, and it is a merciful one. If your sensitivity to sin is growing because you are standing closer to Christ, that is the sighing and crying of Ezekiel 9. If it is growing because you have found a satisfying subject in other people’s failures, it is something else, and it does not come with a mark.

I have written elsewhere, in Last Day Events Examined More Closely, about why the sealing is not a switch that flips after some future crisis. It is a work of character that is running right now. Ezekiel 9 is where that doctrine comes from, and the marking there happened before the trouble arrived, not during it.

Begin At My Sanctuary

“…but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house.”

Ezekiel 9:6

Judgment does not start with Babylon. It does not start with the wicked city outside. It starts at the sanctuary, and the first ones reached are the ancient men which were before the house — the seventy elders from the dark room, the men with the most light and the most responsibility.

Ellen White does not soften this:

“Here we see that the church—the Lord’s sanctuary—was the first to feel the stroke of the wrath of God. The ancient men, those to whom God had given great light and who had stood as guardians of the spiritual interests of the people, had betrayed their trust.”

Ellen G. White · Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, p. 211

Peter says the same thing in a single sentence: “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God” (1 Peter 4:17).

This is the part of Ezekiel that people find hardest, and I want to be careful here. What happened in these chapters happened — Jerusalem was investigated, sentenced, and destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC, and the account is literal history. It stands in Scripture as a pattern of how God deals with a people who bear His name and have turned their backs on Him while remaining in His courts. It is a warning to the church, given to the church. It is not a schedule for anyone to appoint himself an executioner, and nothing in Ezekiel 9 puts a weapon in a human hand — the six men are heaven’s, and the only human being in the chapter falls on his face and begs God to stop.

Written For A Later Church

It would be easy to close these chapters, file them under ancient history, and feel that we have understood them. Ellen White does not permit that. She takes the whole scene forward and lays it on the people who have had the most light — which is to say, on us.

“But that which causes me to tremble is the fact that those who have had the greatest light and privileges have become contaminated by the prevailing iniquity.”

Ellen G. White · Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, p. 209

And then she does something I did not expect the first time I read it carefully. Having said that the ancient men of Ezekiel 9 had betrayed their trust, she tells us exactly what their betrayal consisted of — and it is not what most of us would guess:

“They had taken the position that we need not look for miracles and the marked manifestation of God’s power as in former days. Times have changed. These words strengthen their unbelief, and they say: The Lord will not do good, neither will He do evil. He is too merciful to visit His people in judgment. Thus ‘Peace and safety’ is the cry from men who will never again lift up their voice like a trumpet to show God’s people their transgressions and the house of Jacob their sins.”

Ellen G. White · Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, p. 211

Read that list again, because there is not a carved image anywhere in it. The failure she names is a failure of message. Times have changed. God does not act as He once did. He is too merciful to bring His own people into judgment. Peace and safety. And the summary charge is that these are men who will never again lift up their voice like a trumpet to tell God’s people the truth about themselves.

That is the modern form of standing between the porch and the altar with your back to the temple. Nobody has to set up an idol at the gate. It is enough to keep the office, keep the hour, keep the vocabulary — and stop saying the thing that costs something to say.

Now notice carefully what she does not do, because this is where a warning like this usually goes wrong. She hands us no list of names. She does not tell us which men, in which offices, at which address. The test she gives is not a test we are equipped to run on other people at all — it is a test of whether a voice will still be lifted like a trumpet, and every one of us who has ever softened a hard truth to keep a room comfortable knows on which side of it he has stood.

And the mark in Ezekiel 9 does not go to the man who has correctly identified the failures of others. It goes to the one who sighs and cries — and, as we have seen, over his own spiritual declension first.

“Our own course of action will determine whether we shall receive the seal of the living God or be cut down by the destroying weapons.”

Ellen G. White · Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, p. 212

Our own course of action. That is where she leaves it, and it is where I have to leave it too.

The Prophet Falls On His Face

“And it came to pass, while they were slaying them, and I was left, that I fell upon my face, and cried, and said, Ah Lord GOD! wilt thou destroy all the residue of Israel in thy pouring out of thy fury upon Jerusalem?”

Ezekiel 9:8

This is the man who has just been given the full tour. He has seen the idol at the gate, the creeping things on the wall, the weeping for Tammuz, the backs turned in the inner court. Nobody in Israel has better grounds to say they had it coming.

And he throws himself on the ground and intercedes.

He does it a second time in chapter eleven, when Pelatiah drops dead as Ezekiel is prophesying: “Ah Lord GOD! wilt thou make a full end of the remnant of Israel?” (11:13). Both times, the prophet who was shown the corruption is the one pleading for the corrupt.

If we are going to take chapters eight through eleven seriously, we have to take that seriously too. The right response to seeing what is wrong in God’s house is the response of the man who was shown it — face down, pleading.

The Glory Leaves By Inches

Now watch the saddest movement in the book, and notice how slowly it happens. The glory of God does not storm out. It withdraws in stages, as though at every step it is waiting to be called back.

• From the cherub to the threshold of the house — “Then the glory of the LORD went up from the cherub, and stood over the threshold of the house” (Ezekiel 10:4).
• From the threshold, back over the cherubim — “Then the glory of the LORD departed from off the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubims” (Ezekiel 10:18).
• To the east gate — “and every one stood at the door of the east gate of the LORD’s house; and the glory of the God of Israel was over them above” (Ezekiel 10:19).
• And out to the mountain — “And the glory of the LORD went up from the midst of the city, and stood upon the mountain which is on the east side of the city” (Ezekiel 11:23).

Four pauses on the way out the door. And here the wheels of chapter one do their second work: the throne that came on wheels leaves on them. Everything the vision established about a God who is not fixed to one location now cuts the other way. He is not obliged to stay.

The mountain on the east side of the city is the Mount of Olives. Jerusalem fell to Nebuchadnezzar four years later, in 586 BC — but the city was empty long before it was destroyed. The walls came down last. What made it the city of God had already gone out the east gate.

A Little Sanctuary, And A New Heart

Here is what almost nobody quotes from these chapters, and it sits just a few verses before the glory departs. God is speaking about the exiles — the ones already carried off to Babylon, the ones the people back in Jerusalem had written off as the losers of history:

“Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Although I have cast them far off among the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come.”

Ezekiel 11:16

A little sanctuary. The great sanctuary in Jerusalem is about to be abandoned and burned. And God says to a camp of prisoners eight hundred miles away, in a country with the wrong gods and no temple at all: I will be a sanctuary to you, there, where you are.

That is exactly what chapter one showed Ezekiel on the day he saw the heavens open over the river Chebar. The throne has wheels. He goes where His people are.

And then, three verses later, the judgment section of Ezekiel ends like this:

“And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh: That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”

Ezekiel 11:19, 20

Read that again with chapter eight still in your mind. The problem in the temple was never the architecture, the ritual, or the location. It was hearts of stone in men who stood between the porch and the altar. And God’s answer to a heart of stone is not a better building. It is a new heart, which He gives — I will take, I will give. The whole of it is His work.

The court convened, the evidence was heard, the sentence fell, the glory left. And the last word before it goes is a promise of a new heart. That is the God who was on the throne in chapter one, with a rainbow around it.

What This Asks Of Us

Three things, I think, and none of them are comfortable.

First, being inside is not the same as being marked. The twenty-five men were in the inner court at the appointed hour. Position, office, and attendance counted for nothing when the man with the inkhorn came through. The seal goes on a condition of heart, and God does the reading.

Second, He sees. The one thing the ancients said in the dark — the LORD seeth us not — is the one thing this whole vision was given to refute. The wheels were full of eyes before they ever reached the city.

And third, the grief that gets marked is a working grief. It reproves, counsels, and entreats. It falls on its face and pleads for the very people it mourns over. If reading these chapters leaves us feeling superior to somebody, we have read them exactly backwards — because the man who saw all of it fell down and begged God not to make a full end.

Next in this series we will take up Ezekiel 28 and the covering cherub — where the book pulls the curtain back on where all of this started.

Another Resource: Pastor Stephen Bohr sets Ezekiel 8–11 alongside Daniel 7 and Revelation 4–5 in his study notes on Studies in Revelation — The Seven Seals. Ellen White’s full treatment of Ezekiel 9 is Testimonies for the Church, volume 5, pages 207–216, and it is worth reading straight through.