The Prince, the Passover, and the Perfect Sacrifice Text: Ezekiel 45:21-25
Introduction: Reading the Blueprint Backwards
We live in an age that has forgotten how to read. I do not mean this in the simple sense of decoding letters on a page, though there is a crisis there as well. I mean we have forgotten how to read the Bible. We come to a passage like this one in Ezekiel, and our modern sensibilities are immediately baffled. We see a prince, feasts, and a detailed list of animal sacrifices, and the popular evangelical mind, conditioned by decades of dispensationalist timelines and newspaper eschatology, immediately begins to wonder where in the future this all fits. They see a blueprint for a rebuilt temple in a future millennium, where for some reason we go back to the bloody business of bulls and goats.
But this is a profound misreading. It is like looking at a finished cathedral and trying to make it conform to the architect's initial sketches, forgetting that the sketches were always pointing to the glorious reality of the finished building. The book of Ezekiel, particularly these closing chapters, is not a literal blueprint for a future Jewish temple. It is a glorious, symbolic vision of the new covenant reality. It is the Christian Church, described in the architectural and liturgical language that an Old Testament priest like Ezekiel would understand. As one scholar rightly said, the book of Revelation is simply a Christian rewrite of the book of Ezekiel. The New Testament is the key that unlocks the Old.
So when we see these sacrifices and feasts, we are not looking forward to their reinstitution. God forbid. That would be to say that Christ's sacrifice was insufficient. No, we are looking at a vision given to the exiles in Babylon, a vision designed to show them, in terms they could grasp, the sheer magnitude and glory of the worship that would be established by the Messiah. This is not a step backward into shadows; it is a prophetic gaze into the substance. Ezekiel is describing our worship, our Prince, and our sacrifice, but he is using the vocabulary of the Levitical system to do it. He is describing the finished cathedral using the language of the scaffolding. We must learn to read it backwards, from the reality of Christ to the prophecy that foretold Him.
The Text
"In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, you shall have the Passover, a feast of seven days; unleavened bread shall be eaten. And on that day the prince shall provide for himself and all the people of the land a bull for a sin offering. And during the seven days of the feast he shall provide as a burnt offering to Yahweh seven bulls and seven rams without blemish on every day of the seven days, and a male goat daily for a sin offering. And he shall provide as a grain offering an ephah with a bull, an ephah with a ram, and a hin of oil with an ephah. In the seventh month, on the fifteenth day of the month, at the feast, he shall provide like this, seven days for the sin offering, the burnt offering, the grain offering, and the oil." (Ezekiel 45:21-25 LSB)
Our Passover Has Come (v. 21)
We begin with the central feast of Israel's life.
"In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, you shall have the Passover, a feast of seven days; unleavened bread shall be eaten." (Ezekiel 45:21)
The vision for the restored worship of God's people centers on the Passover. This is entirely appropriate. The Passover was the great memorial of redemption. It commemorated God's deliverance of Israel from bondage in Egypt, where the blood of a lamb on the doorpost caused the angel of death to pass over the house. It was the foundational act of salvation in the Old Covenant.
But we who live on this side of the cross know that the Passover lamb was a type, a shadow, pointing to a far greater reality. The apostle Paul tells us this directly: "For Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed" (1 Cor. 5:7). The entire sacrificial system, and this central feast in particular, was a divinely ordained preview of the cross. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. His blood, applied to the doorposts of our hearts by faith, causes the wrath of God to pass over us.
So when Ezekiel sees the Passover at the heart of this new temple's worship, he is seeing the cross at the heart of the Christian church. He is seeing that our entire life as God's people is structured around the reality of Christ's atoning death. And this Passover is a feast of seven days, where unleavened bread is eaten. The number seven signifies perfection and completeness. Unleavened bread signifies the purity we are to pursue, having been cleansed from the leaven of malice and wickedness. This is not about a literal week in a future Jerusalem; it is a picture of the whole Christian life, a life of complete and perpetual celebration of our redemption, marked by a sincere pursuit of holiness because our Passover has been sacrificed for us.
The Prince and His Offering (v. 22)
Next, we are introduced to a key figure in this vision: the prince.
"And on that day the prince shall provide for himself and all the people of the land a bull for a sin offering." (Ezekiel 45:22 LSB)
Who is this prince? Dispensationalists will tell you this is some future political leader in a restored Israel. But that makes no sense of the text or of the New Testament. This prince is a typological figure. He is a prophetic portrait of the Lord Jesus Christ in His role as our King, our federal head. He is the one who provides the sacrifice. Notice, he does not offer it as a priest, but he provides it. Christ is both the king who provides and the lamb who is provided.
But what are we to make of the fact that he provides a sin offering "for himself"? Does this disqualify him from being a type of the sinless Christ? Not at all. This is where we must understand how types work. A type is an earthly picture that points to a heavenly reality, but the picture is never perfect. The Levitical priests had to offer sacrifices for their own sins before they could offer them for the people (Heb. 7:27). This imperfection in the type served to highlight the perfection of the antitype. The fact that the earthly prince in Ezekiel's vision needs an offering for himself magnifies the glory of our true Prince, Jesus, who had no sin of His own and therefore could be a perfect offering for ours. The shadow has limitations that the substance does not. The neediness of the prince in the vision points to the all-sufficiency of the Prince who has come.
The Abundance of Grace (v. 23-24)
The vision then expands to describe the offerings for the entire seven-day feast.
"And during the seven days of the feast he shall provide as a burnt offering to Yahweh seven bulls and seven rams without blemish on every day of the seven days, and a male goat daily for a sin offering. And he shall provide as a grain offering an ephah with a bull, an ephah with a ram, and a hin of oil with an ephah." (Ezekiel 45:23-24 LSB)
The numbers here are staggering. Seven bulls and seven rams, every day, for seven days. This is a picture of extravagant, super-abundant, perfect provision. The repetition of the number seven underscores the completeness and finality of what is being pictured. This is not a vision of scarcity, but of overwhelming grace. Why so much sacrifice? Because it is a symbolic portrait of the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which is of infinite value.
The old system was a constant reminder of sin, with sacrifices that could never truly take it away (Heb. 10:4). They were a promissory note. But in this vision, the sheer volume of the offerings points to a payment in full. The burnt offering signified total consecration and dedication to God. The sin offering dealt with guilt. This is a picture of the church, washed clean by the blood of Christ (the sin offering) and therefore able to present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God (the burnt offering). This is our reasonable service (Rom. 12:1).
And it is accompanied by grain and oil. These were offerings of fellowship, of communion. They were shared as a meal in God's presence. This shows us that the result of Christ's sacrifice is not just the removal of sin, but the restoration of joyful fellowship with God. We are brought back to His table. This is what we celebrate every Lord's Day when we come to communion. We partake of the grain and the fruit of the vine, symbols of the body and blood of our Prince who has provided the ultimate offering.
The Unending Feast (v. 25)
The final verse extends this provision to another great feast.
"In the seventh month, on the fifteenth day of the month, at the feast, he shall provide like this, seven days for the sin offering, the burnt offering, the grain offering, and the oil." (Ezekiel 45:25 LSB)
This refers to the Feast of Tabernacles, or Booths. This was a feast of joyful celebration, remembering God's provision for Israel in the wilderness and celebrating the harvest He had given them in the land. It was the great feast of ingathering. By applying the same massive provision of the Passover to the Feast of Tabernacles, the vision is tying together redemption and consummation.
The Passover looks back to our deliverance from bondage. The Feast of Tabernacles looks forward to our final rest and the great harvest of the nations. The vision teaches us that the same sacrifice that redeems us is the foundation for the entire mission of the church and the ultimate celebration of the ingathering of the world. The work of Christ is not just for getting us out of Egypt; it is for bringing the whole world into the promised land. His perfect sacrifice is the basis for our past, present, and future. It is the reason for our worship, the fuel for our mission, and the theme of our eternal celebration.
Conclusion: Our Place at the Table
This passage, which seems so distant and strange to our modern ears, is in fact a beautiful portrait of the gospel. It is a vision of the worship of the Christian church, centered on Christ our Passover, led by Christ our Prince, and established on the all-sufficient foundation of His once-for-all sacrifice.
We do not look for a future prince to offer bulls and goats. Our Prince has come, and He offered Himself. We do not look for a future temple made of stone. We are the temple of the living God, and the river of life flows from us to the nations. We do not observe the shadows of the old feasts, because the reality is here in Christ.
Our worship is the fulfillment of this vision. Every Lord's Day, we gather for our Passover feast. We hear the Word of our Prince. And we come to His Table, where He provides for us the grain and the fruit of the vine, the signs of His perfect sin offering, His all-consuming burnt offering, and the joyful fellowship His sacrifice has secured. This is not a memorial for a dead hero. It is a feast with a living King, who has provided everything for us. This is the abundant life of the new covenant, seen from afar by Ezekiel, and enjoyed by us now by faith.