Passage Read: Ezekiel 40-43
Meditation Verse: 42:13
Thought
This temple will be built and used to offer grain offerings, got offerings and sin offerings. They means it must be in use during a time when sin is still possible. That could only be at the end of this age and during the thousand year reign of Christ. After that there will be no more sin. So these have to be the instructions for the third temple--before there was even a second temple! They obviously didn't follow these plans when they built the second temple, though Herod's renovations may have come close, but there is more to this temple and vision to come that was not fulfilled with the second temple.
Application
This has to be the temple of Christ's reign, when unredeemed men will dwell alongside the resurrected redeemed. Believers won't sin, but the unbelievers will. They will enjoy such peace and prosperity like they've never seen before, but still they will try to resist Jesus. They will be rebuked and punished and need to come and offer sacrifice for forgiveness. Those are the burnt offerings and sin offerings that the priests will eat in the temple courts. The rest of us will be free to offer fellowship offerings and grain offerings and firstfruits and other gifts.