Source Quotes from Bible Expositors
about the “Golden Gate”
in Jerusalem
(Copyright © 2023 by Daniel B. Sedory)
I already quoted Charles Feinberg, who emphasized that “the gate will be shut” in the future according to the context of Ezekiel 44, and that H.A. Ironside pointed out the gate spoken of in Ezekiel is a temple gate; not a city gate, but failed to add his comment about the "prince" in verse 3:
The prince, who will be in all probability a lineal descendant of David,... enters the court by way of the porch of the gate but not through the gate itself.[1]
Also note that this “prince,” who is often seen as either Jesus while living on earth or the resurrected Lord Jesus in the future (or both) by those who spiritualize these verses, rarely, if ever, discuss the context of chapters 45 and 46 (which “eat bread before the LORD” in 44:3 already hints at): In those chapters, we find this prince providing “for himself” and others a “sin offering” (45:22), so this obviously cannot refer to the sinless Messiah! Charles Dyer simply states (on page 1312): “The fact that the prince is to make a sin offering for himself shows that he is not Christ.”
J. Vernon McGee said the following while going through Ezekiel:
The eastern gate of present-day Jerusalem is shut — it is completely walled up. Some of my premillennial brethren feel that this is a fulfillment of these
verses [44:1-3] in Ezekiel and that the gate will not be opened again until the Messiah comes. I have two objections to this viewpoint. ...
My first point
is that the prince mentioned here who is coming is not the Lord Jesus Christ. Ezekiel tells us that this prince offers a sacrifice and worships God (chaps. 45-46); therefore he
cannot be the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus is God, and He never has and never will offer a[nother] sacrifice [apart from the sacrifice of Himself on the cross; once and for all
time (see Hebrews 10:10-14)]. ... I personally feel that the prince is David. There are many fine men who do not agree that it is David, but they do agree that it is not
the Lord Jesus. Many of them feel that the prince is simply another man in the line of David.
My second objection is that the gate in question is obviously not
the gate of the city — it is the gate of the temple. It is true that the temple is not there yet, and the temple must be built before any of this can take place. The
walled-up gate to the [present] city [of Jerusalem] has nothing to do with it.[2]
John B. Taylor in his commentary of Ezekiel added concerning the verses in chapter 44: “the walled-up Golden Gate... reflects a later tradition and should not be related to this passage.”[3]
In two different commentary sets, Ralph H. Alexander writing about Ezekiel 44; though not specifically mentioning the Golden Gate, points out that the dimensions given for the temple are much different than any in the past, and that the "current “temple area” will not exist in the millennial period."[4]
1[Return to Text] H.A. Ironside, Ezekiel the Prophet (Neptune, New Jersey: Loizeaux Brothers, Inc., 1949), p. 308.
2[Return to Text] J. Vernon McGee, Ezekiel (Thru the Bible Books, 1978; 2nd Printing, 1982), p. 209. This quote can also be found in Thru the Bible with J. Vernon McGee, Vol. 3 (©1982, J. Vernon McGee), p. 521.
3[Return to Text] John B. Taylor, M.A., Ezekiel: An Introduction and Commentary (London: Tyndale Press, 1969; a Tyndale Old Testament Commentary), p. 270.
4[Return to Text] Ralph H. Alexander, Ezekiel in the The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 6, Frank E. Gabelein, General Ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), p. 974. The same viewpoint was also expressed earlier by Alexander in the Everyman’s Bible Commentary (Chicago: Moody Press, 1976), pp. 149-150. Alexander obtained a Th.M and Th.D from Dallas Theological Seminary and was a professor of O.T. Languages and Exegesis at Western Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary; specializing in Hebrew and Archaeology.
First Posted on: 07 OCT 2023 (2023.10.07).
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