Holy Catering: The Kitchens of the Kingdom Text: Ezekiel 46:19-20
Introduction: God's Architectural Plans
The book of Ezekiel can be a bewildering place for the modern Christian. We begin with psychedelic visions of wheels within wheels and four-faced living creatures, we move through graphic street theater and prophecies of judgment, and we conclude with a meticulous, architectural blueprint for a new temple. This temple, described from chapter 40 onward, has never been built to these exact specifications. It is not Solomon's temple, it is not Zerubbabel's temple, nor is it Herod's. And so, the question presses in on us: what are we to do with these chapters? Are they a failed prophecy? Are they a literal blueprint for some future millennial temple, as some of our dispensationalist brethren would have it?
The key, as with all Old Testament prophecy, is to let the New Testament be our inspired commentary. The New Testament is emphatic that the true and final temple is not made of stones, but of people. The temple is the body of Christ (John 2:21), and by extension, the Church is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16). Ezekiel's vision is a glorious, symbolic representation of the Christian Church in its worship, its order, and its impact on the world. This is the Jerusalem from above, the mother of us all (Gal. 4:26). The water that flows from this temple's threshold and heals the world (Ezekiel 47) is the gospel of Jesus Christ flowing out from the Church to heal the nations.
Therefore, when we come to a peculiar little passage like ours today, describing what are essentially the temple kitchens, we are not to get bogged down in historical curiosities. We are being shown something about the inner workings of the Church. We are being shown how God deals with our sin, how He provides for His servants, and how He carefully manages the boundary between the holy and the common. This is not just about boiling meat and baking bread; it is about the very grammar of our redemption and the logic of our worship.
The Text
Then he brought me through the entrance, which was at the side of the gate, into the holy chambers for the priests, which faced north; and behold, there was a place at the extreme rear toward the west. Then he said to me, “This is the place where the priests shall boil the guilt offering and the sin offering and where they shall bake the grain offering, in order that they may not bring them out into the outer court to transmit holiness to the people.”
(Ezekiel 46:19-20 LSB)
A Place Set Apart (v. 19)
The vision continues as Ezekiel is led by his angelic guide to a specific, designated area within the temple complex.
"Then he brought me through the entrance, which was at the side of the gate, into the holy chambers for the priests, which faced north; and behold, there was a place at the extreme rear toward the west." (Ezekiel 46:19)
Notice the specificity. We are not dealing with vague spiritual impressions. God is a God of order, of architecture, of clear lines and designated spaces. He has a place for everything. Ezekiel is led through an entrance, by a gate, into specific chambers designated for the priests. These are not public spaces. This is the backstage of the sanctuary, the working area for those who minister before the Lord.
The location is significant: "at the extreme rear toward the west." In the symbolic geography of the temple, east is the direction of approach, the entrance. The Holy of Holies, the very throne room of God, was at the westernmost part of the temple. This kitchen area, then, is located deep within the sacred precincts, as far as one can go into the holy zone. This is not an afterthought; it is a crucial facility located at the heart of the ministerial operation. What happens here is central to the life of the temple.
In the New Covenant, this points us to the fact that the work of our High Priest, Jesus Christ, and the work of His people, the royal priesthood, has a divine order to it. Our spiritual service is not a chaotic, sentimental free-for-all. There are things done in the "outer court," in public view, and there are things that belong to the inner life of the Church, the "holy chambers." The health of the Church depends on understanding which is which.
The Holy Kitchen (v. 20a)
The purpose of this secluded place is now explicitly stated.
"Then he said to me, 'This is the place where the priests shall boil the guilt offering and the sin offering and where they shall bake the grain offering...'" (Ezekiel 46:20a)
This is the place where the priests prepare their portion of the sacrifices. Under the Levitical law, certain offerings were not entirely consumed on the altar. Portions were given to the priests as their food, their wages for their service in the tabernacle. The guilt offering, the sin offering, and the grain offering all had provisions for the priests to eat. This was how God provided for His ministers.
But more than that, in eating the sacrifice, the priest was identifying with the sin of the people and participating in the atonement God was providing. It was a holy, solemn meal. Here, the offerings that deal directly with sin are handled. The guilt offering dealt with sins that required restitution, sins against a neighbor. The sin offering dealt with unwitting sins, violations of God's law. The grain offering was an offering of tribute and thanksgiving. All these point to the multifaceted work of Jesus Christ.
Christ is our guilt offering, making full restitution for our trespasses. He is our sin offering, dealing with the deep stain of our rebellion. He is our grain offering, the firstfruits of the new creation, offered up in perfect righteousness to the Father. And the ministers of the New Covenant, all believers as a royal priesthood, are to "feed" on Christ. Our sustenance, our life, our provision comes from His finished work on the cross. We partake of Him by faith, and this is what fuels our service. As Jesus said, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to accomplish His work" (John 4:34).
Containing Contagious Holiness (v. 20b)
Now we come to the theological reason for the location of these kitchens. It is a startling reason, one that turns our modern assumptions on their head.
"...in order that they may not bring them out into the outer court to transmit holiness to the people." (Ezekiel 46:20b)
The concern is not that the common people would defile the holy food. The concern is that the holy food would sanctify the common people by accident. Under the Old Covenant, holiness was understood primarily in terms of separation. It was a powerful, dangerous, contagious force. Think of it like spiritual radiation. If an unauthorized person touched the ark, he died (2 Sam. 6:7). If a common person touched the holy mountain, he died (Ex. 19:12). Holiness had to be contained within carefully prescribed boundaries.
The priests had to eat their portion of these most holy offerings within the sacred precinct. If they were to carry this super-charged holy food out into the public square, anyone who bumped into it would be "made holy," which is to say, they would be consecrated to God, seized by Him, and brought under obligations they were not prepared for. It would be a chaotic and dangerous transmission of sanctity. The boundaries between the holy and the common, which were essential for the order of the Old Covenant world, would be violated.
From Contained to Conquering Holiness
This is where we must see the glorious revolution brought about by Jesus Christ. The entire logic of holiness is transformed in the New Covenant. In the Old Covenant, the unclean made the clean unclean. If a clean person touched a leper, the clean person became unclean. But when Jesus comes, the opposite happens. When Jesus touches a leper, the leper becomes clean (Matt. 8:3). When a woman with a discharge of blood touches the hem of His garment, she is not struck dead for touching the holy; she is healed, and His holiness flows out to conquer her uncleanness (Mark 5:25-34).
Jesus Christ is the temple in person. He is holiness incarnate. And His holiness is not a contained, fragile, separational holiness. It is an aggressive, conquering, transmissible holiness. It is a holiness of hospitality. In the Old Covenant, the priests had to eat in a special room lest they accidentally transmit holiness. In the New Covenant, our High Priest institutes a holy meal, the Lord's Supper, and commands us to "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations" (Matt. 28:19). He tells us to take this holiness and transmit it everywhere.
The gospel is the good news that the holiness of God in Christ is no longer quarantined. It has been let loose in the world. The water is flowing from the temple. Through the preaching of the Word, through baptism, through the Lord's Supper, through the lives of believers filled with the Spirit, the holiness of Christ is invading the common world, not to destroy it, but to redeem it, to cleanse it, and to consecrate it back to God.
The kitchens of Ezekiel's temple were designed to keep holiness in. The Church of Jesus Christ is designed to let holiness out. We are no longer afraid that the world will contaminate the Church. Our task is to be the salt and light that contaminates the world with grace, truth, and the triumphant holiness of our King. We are to be a people so saturated with the presence of Christ that when the world comes into contact with us, it is they who are changed. They are not made holy by accident, but by the intentional, gracious, and powerful design of God.