“This is the law of the house on top of the mountain. Its whole limit around it shall be most holy. Behold this is the law of the house.”
Note the vague description, ‘the house on the top of the mountain'. The mountain was described in Ezekiel 40:2 as ‘a very high mountain'. It is a special place whose whereabouts is not revealed. Ezekiel does not want to connect it directly with any specific earthly site. And its law is the awful holiness of it, holy because the Holy One will be there, Whose holiness is revealed by every detail of the house. And its ordinances are holy. They must be scrupulously observed, very important words to exiles in a far country where detail may have tended to become blurred. And its laws are holy. Not one of God's laws revealed in the covenants must be overlooked. They must be obeyed to the glory of God.
Sadly many in Israel took this in the wrong way. They made the laws an end in themselves rather than a means of showing their faith and trust in God. They overlooked the fact that in the end all was intended to bring them to God in love and trust, not to keep them away.
We shall see shortly in Ezekiel 45:1-5 how it was proposed that this heavenly temple would be preserved from ever again being contaminated by man, but first it was necessary that the way still open to God must be revealed. God was in His sanctuary, but how were they to reach Him? The key lies in the sacrificial altar.