Ezekiel 43
 11 And if they are ashamed of all that they have done, make known to them the design of the temple, its arrangement, its exits and its entrances, that is, its whole design; and make known to them as well all its statutes and its whole design and all its laws, and write it down in their sight, so that they may observe all its laws and all its statutes and carry them out. 12 This is the law of the temple: the whole territory on the top of the mountain all around shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the temple.

The temple design was meant to be shared with the people of Ezekiel’s time. If they are repentant they are given a new temple design and temple rules. This was shared but perhaps not fully received. What was built next with Temple 2 did not match this design’s glory.

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Ezekiel 44
9 "Thus says the Lord God: No foreigner, uncircumcised in heart and flesh, of all the foreigners who are among the people of Israel, shall enter my sanctuary.

This is another passage that I think reveals these passages as not meant to point to the millennial times. Applied to a 3rd temple, this means reactivating laws Christ has abolished. This would undo what Christ has done:

Ephesians 2:12-15
Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace,

A '3rd temple' would once again divide a people from Israel. No longer would the blood of Christ unite us but his blood plus a requirement by law, physical circumcision. There would be a first class citizenship and a second class.

The Lord just spoke of his anger towards the uncircumcised being in his temple now those who were safe in Christ would not have the promise of

 Romans 8:1 “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

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Ezekiel 44
15 "But the Levitical priests, the sons of Zadok, who kept the charge of my sanctuary when the people of Israel went astray from me, shall come near to me to minister to me. And they shall stand before me to offer me the fat and the blood, declares the Lord God.

In connection to my Ezekiel 44:9 comment, the Levitical order would also be reinstated in the '3rd temple' (I put these in quotes because the next temple which would be the 3rd temple is not necessarily the temple that this book talks about. That temple's time may fail to meet this temple's design and the writings of the 3rd temple would then have to say the 4th temple).

Again, as in the previous comment, we would be reversing the work of Jesus Christ, essentially rebuilding the wall of hostility mentioned in Ephesians. Here we would be going back to an inferior system of priesthood: from Levitical to Melchizedek back to Levitical.

Hebrews 7:18 even calls the Levitical order as ‘weak and useless.’ Yet God would reinstate something back that is useless?

Hebrews 7:22 This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant.
... Yet by believing in a millennial temple reinstating the temple rules we interject that the lord will undo this better covenant.

Hebrews 7:27-28
Jesus as our high priest has no need to offer sacrifices, since he did it once and for all. He was set in place perfect and forever.

If perfect and forever then how do we have a millennial temple that will deny some being called ‘of Israel’ because they are not physically circumcised, are not fulfilling a law, which the lord has said is inferior and useless; To replace what God has said is Perfect and Forever.

Then the man brought me to the gate facing east, and I saw the glory of the God of Israel coming from the east. His voice was like the roar of rushing waters, and the land was radiant with his glory. The glory of the Lord entered the temple through the gate facing east. Then the Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. (Ezekiel 43:1, 2, 4, 5 NIV)

It was back in chapter 10 that Ezekiel saw the glory of God leaving the Temple toward the East. Now here in chapter 43  Ezekiel sees the glory of God returning to the Temple. But it is a new and different Temple of God. As God left from the East, so He also returns from the East. God left the Temple because of the sins of the people and the desecration of the Temple and the land. God returns after He has purified the people, the land and the Temple through the fires of judgment. Once again the glory of The Lord will fill the temple. 

Friends, much of this prophecy is directed particularly to the Jewish nation and people. It is not all that clear what role we Gentiles will have during this period other than that it is likely we will live alongside believing Jews in the Millennial Kingdom (see http://www.gotquestions.org/millennial-kingdom.html). Nevertheless, what we can learn and appreciate from passages like this is the faithfulness of God. When the exiles in Babylon hear Ezekiel's prophecies, they will not only acknowledge with dread God's judgment for their sins, but they will also find hope in the certainty of His future restoration. Now, there will be two aspects of that restoration. The most immediate aspect would be their restoration to the land through the decree of Cyrus, which the prophet Isaiah predicted. This would occur, by the prophecy of Jeremiah, exactly seventy years from the beginning of their exile. However, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel also speak of a more distant restoration, something "not yet," which is infinitely more glorious and permanent. This is the fruition of the promise of the New Covenant, where the people of God will be freed from the decadence of sin and the ravages of death, and God's glory will be in their midst forever. Now, there will be an interim Millennial Kingdom, lasting a thousand years, that will be a prelude to this new heaven and new earth. It is during this time that I believe Ezekiel's temple will be built and the sacrifices restored, though not for atonement but in memorial of what Christ has done. 

Friends, I hope you are not bored by these readings. It can be boring, but perspective may give you enthusiasm and interest. If you are an Apple affectionado and appreciate the very simple, useful, and cool technology they build, you will find interest even in a typically boring site like iFixit.com, which provides a detailed breakdown of all the technical parts that goes into a device like the new iPhone 5.

Likewise, I am persuaded that as you get a better grasp of the overall context and purpose of these detailed and extended descriptions of the temple, you will discover a new appreciation for these very details. You will want to know everything about them, even down to the cubit by cubit dimensions. If you think it is hip to know everything about the latest and greatest Apple product, know that such knowledge will not even hold a candle up to a knowledge of God's latest and greatest temple. As impressed as I was by the Apple fan(atic)s that stood for days waiting for the new iPhone, and seemed to know everything about it even before they actually got it, I hope that we might all be biblical fanatics, knowing everything about the promises of God, even before all of them actually come to pass. 

Friends, I wonder how many of you are reading Ezekiel 40-48 and are totally confused or are reading it like you read portions of Leviticus, in a daze . What is all this detail about the Temple and the worship in the Temple?

Do you know that the Temple that Ezekiel described in this chapter has never been built? The size of the temple is different. It appears the location will be different. And many of the items that you would expect in the temple is absent (e.g. no wall of partition to exclude Gentiles, no court of women, no laver, no table of shewbreaad, no lampstand or menorah, no golden altar of incense, no veil, no ark of the covenant, and some major changes to the altar). Do you know that no generation of Israel has ever followed the prescriptions for worship as described here? In fact the ancient rabbies wanted to throw out the book because it could not be reconciled with the prescriptions for the Temple and worship as described in the Books of Moses. So, what is Ezekiel talking about here?

There have been two dominant approaches to this section. One is to take it figuratively and say that most of what Ezekiel is describing is symbolic and not literal. The only problem is that there is no good reason to do this and the text seems not to support such an approach. The other is to take it literally and to understand this as something still future. When you study Ezekiel in conjunction with the other major and minor prophets and the Book of Revelation, you will see that this is both a reasonable and consistent approach that fits all that Scripture describes about the Millennial Kingdom (cf. Revelation 20:4-6), which follows the period of the Great Tribulation.

There is a future for Israel that is separate from the Church. Almost every prophet in the OT spoke of it and even the NT looks forward to it (cf. Romans 11:25-26). Every promise of God to His people will be completely fulfilled at this time. The Temple will be rebuilt unlike anything they've known before. And the animal sacrifices will be restored in comemoration of the work of Christ, but instead of looking forward to Christ, it will look backward to Him, much like our present-day Communion looks back to what Christ accomplished for us on the cross. During these thousand years, people will live as long as they did in the days of Methusaleh and will repopulate the earth. After the thousand years, those born during this time will be tested, as Satan is released from bondage to deceive many peoples to go against God (cf. Revelation 20:7-10). After this, there will be a final judgment, where Satan will be thrown into the Lake of Fire, along with anyone whose name is not found in the Book of Life (cf. Revelation 20:11-15).

To read more about these chapters in Ezekiel, I recommend this online article: http://www.middletownbiblechurch.org/proph/templemi.htm.

p.s. If you're like me, you may have wondered, how long is a "reed" (or "rod" in some translations"). Ezekiel 40:5 defines the reed used in the Ezekiel passages. It says that one reed was “six cubits long by the cubit and an hand breadth.” Since a cubit is roughly 18 inches, a cubit and a hand breadth would be around 22 inches. Six of such cubits would make the reed exactly 11 feet long. For a good discussion on the length of a cubit, see here.

Are the promises for the Israelites as a nation or the Jews as a religious group? The people that have blood lineage to the tribes of Israel or the people that practice the Jewish religion?

Yujin responds... The promise is to national Israel, but even within national Israel not all Jews are true Jews. This was Paul's argument in Romans 9, where he writes: "It is not as though God's word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel" (9:6). In Ezekiel, the mention of the priesthood and Levites, if we take these references literally, also argue for a national, "blood-line-based" Israel.