CHAPTER 10
 

FAITH STIRRING FEEDINGS IN EZEKIEL

 

Ezekiel is not normally thought of in terms of the evangelical prophet, Isaiah; yet with Zechariah, he has amongst a vast array of factual prophecies, an enormous input in symbolism, not as uniformly self-interpreting as in Zechariah, but not the less intriguing and instructive for that reason. It is at times profitable to be challenged to find out, to discover, to put on the glasses of enquiry and to search things out. Let us then do this in terms of our interest in the Messiah, especially, since He is a criterion of all prophecy (cf. Revelation 19:10 - "the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy").

This will lead us to heaven, from which He came to express His Father perfectly, and to history, where His word established its power in itself, to do what is unthinkable for man. And that ? It is to predict in multitudes of occasion and with factual precision in the high performance field of events, that NON-laboratory scientific field where the power of God
NEVERTHELESS instructs events, so that what He foretells is what occurs.

This is so far past all computers, which can collect information and deal with directed variables aptly, that it is even into the field of human will, whether pathological mentally, or o the other hand, sanctified, whether collective in hysteria or culturally land-locked, enlightened and wistful, poignant or crazed with grief: it presents no barrier to God. It all has outcomes, known to God who - of necessity in terms of the limitless facility of His nature - knows it all ahead, readily able in profound detail and multiplied events over thousands of years to say what He will about what will be in any field or dimension, personal or impersonal, and to do He pleases, thus fulfilling His word in Psalm 115:3:  "But our God is in heaven and does whatever He pleases," and again in 135,

"For I know that the LORD is great,
And our LORD is above all gods.
Whatever the LORD pleases He does,
In heaven and in earth..." (from Psalm 135:5-6).

We shall now plan to look at specialised features in Ezekiel's prophecy, including the following topics:

• Who the Lord is - the Lord is God!
• The Moral Majesty of the Messiah,
• The Loving Deity AS the Messiah, Implacable in Importunity,
• The Metaphorical Meaning of the visionary Temple AND Territories in Ezekiel: not an historical prediction but a metaphorical teaching method in its depiction,
• History as a Blackboard for the Lord.
• The High and the Low: the DUE and the HUMILITY not specious, but spiritual.
• Continually, we come to what history cannot imitate, morality cannot equal, power cannot touch and purity cannot mimic: Jesus Christ, the acme, alpha and omega.

 

1. WHO THE LORD IS - the LORD is GOD!

Ezekiel 1 and 10, and the moving distancing of the Creator from the scene of His human creation, in these chapters, which start in vision and culminate in severance.

First, let us see what is presented in this astounding vision of Ezekiel, and for the initial presentation of this, we shall present an

excerpt

from Biblical Blessings Ch.4:
 
 

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THE FIRST VISION OF EZEKIEL ?

HOW IS IT A MAJOR THRUST TO REPENTANCE, CLEANSING AND CONDUCT CONFORMABLE TO CHRIST ?

THE VISION OF EZEKIEL AND THE VICTORY TO HAND

1. A Preliminary Look at the Vision

Briefly, the vision of Ezekiel 1 is of the sovereign and majestic God, surrounded by the expressions of His creation. We know this because it is stated that "I saw visions of God", and Ezekiel constantly states the precise words which the Lord gives him, and dwells on the strictly inter-personal relationship between himself and God, including exhortation, command and encouragement from Him.

The fire as at Pentecost, and as in Hebrews, the CONSUMING FIRE, the OUTREACHING FIRE, involves the intense purity of God, the ultimate insistence on that purity or nothing, and the vast activity. Above this, we find at the end of the chapter 1, is a crystalline beauty, intense, beautiful, and there in control is one with resemblance to man. With this in turn is the rainbow, expressive by Biblical definition from Noah, of mercy and constancy of control. It is also stated that this is the appearance of the LIKENESS of the glory of the Lord.

It is in short a vision. As to that, it would not be possible for it to be clearer: HE SAW THE APPEARANCE OF THE LIKENESS OF THE GLORY OF THE LORD. The prophet is then addressed verbally in chapter 2.

The wheels express of course, symbolically, activity of a more instrumental kind, material and procedural and processive. They turn and proceed to an end. The 'wheels within wheels' phrase, by now a famous English idiomatic expression, expresses the intense system found in our life structure biologically, so brilliant that we can nowhere near match its creation: stunning! indicates Dr Michael Denton, non-Christian scientist who insists on a plan and action that specifically led to this amazingly ingenious and in his view, perfectly wonderful construction in the cells of life. Right down to the simplest cell, this complex ingenuity appears, he insists.

Complexity within complexity, wonder within wonder, action within action - this is the message. Nor is it limited to our cells, for our very minds which use these things are likewise so astute and acute that psychiatrists all but wither in their endeavours to repair them. Our spirits too have amazing involvements and subtleties, as well as capacities to appreciate and respond to the other wonders the Lord has made. There in itself is a wheel within a wheel: our MINDS a re created, and WITH these we can SEE within some the OTHER creations... while our spirits assess and assay implicit perspectives, and so on. (See SMR pp. 348ff..)

The wheels here however do not turn as they go. Now of course this is the whole point. Normally turning is PRECISELY what you expect of wheels. These do not do it. This obviously then is meant to be an expressive and impactive feature to make us think. Think what however?

In the light of the other extraordinary feature here, that there is the appearance of the glory of the Lord, we conclude that this feature of the wheels is expressive in some way of that glory. Which way? It seems apparent that it would signify that for ALL THEIR ACTIVITY, THERE IS YET A SOVEREIGN HAND WHICH HAS AN ULTIMATE DIRECTION. THIS is the area of our discourse, so THIS would appear the area of the intimation. That also is precisely what other Biblical doctrine states. Thus Ephesians 1:11 tells us that GOD WORKS ALL THINGS AFTER THE COUNSEL OF HIS WILL.

The varied living creatures are symbolically expressive of the BREADTH and variety of the living creation as it serves or impresses man, the ox, the lion, the eagle. Again, these represent features in life, quiet serviceability, strength and fearlessness and soaring coverage and perspective.

Further (1:13), far from being distanced from the Lord, they are full of coals and fire, and lightning dashes out of them, giving a testimony of enclosed dynamic within them, the dynamic of LIFE, from God. Again we find in 1:14 that they "ran and returned", so that this is a picture, a portrayal of ACTION and the dynamic of life, not of departure FROM God on their part.

The RIMS (1:18) express that about which they turn, the indices of action. These are filled with eyes. This would seem to indicate the all-seeing character of the God who fashions history. Events are informed with sensors which are divinely read. It reminds one of battle field techniques in controlling surveillance with sophisticated airborne devices, manned and automatic, recording, reporting.

There is NO sense of leaving the Lord, but of action within His ambit.

What now happens however is both clear and crucial to the development of the point being made.

This GLORY of the Lord now - in the midst of instructions to the prophet to confront his sinning and rebellious nation, which is about to be invaded so that there will be divinely DETERMINED exile - MOVES. The movement is

• Slowly and by degrees (10:4, 11:22-23), as a father might leave a son now confined in prison, till the next visit, the glory moves FROM the glory place in the temple. It moves next to the side of the city. Nor are we left in any doubt as to the meaning of this, for in Chapter 11 the sins which are distancing God from protecting them are made all too clear! In terms of the vision. Some of the coals are taken from the midst of the dynamic and put into the hands of a man who therefore, being an agent of action, seems ready to release them with their scorching onto the city (10:7), and this being in the midst of many divine declaration of judgment upon them, seems interpreted by the context.

 

• Next THE GLORY OF THE LORD (10:4, 11:23) moves to the gates, TOWARDS the plain where the preliminary exiles already are. This of course simply designates in terms of the cloud and fire that accompanied Moses as he led his people out of Egypt, that God is moving away from protecting and blessing in the temple which the people had so misused in such hypocrisy, as the word of God charged them: He is moving to accompany the exiles to their appointed trial in another country. HE is not going to leave THEM, even THOUGH they must leave the temple.

 

• Further, not only to the wheels GO WHERE THE SPIRIT IS TO GO (1:20), SIGNIFYING THAT THIS CREATION IS WHOLLY IN THE HAND OF GOD, these wheels are dependent on Him and His purposes, but more explicit yet is the treatment of this feature. In 10:13, we find a crying "Oh wheel!", signifying a verbal arrangement of impact on the creation from a VOICE with LANGUAGE over all the mechanisms and structures. In 11:4 we find the house filled with the brightness of the Lord's glory so that the supreme commander and centre of lustre is EXPLICITLY SPECIFIED in all this: it is the LORD. It is the LORD'S GLORY which moves, and all moves with it, the SPIRIT which is in the wheels moving them, and the Lord moving where He will, with the whole assemblage following.

 

THAT is the motion aspect, in the clear context of all the VERBALLY EXPLICIT instructions of the Lord to the prophet. He would be, He stated, a little sanctuary to the people, in the exile. Here He is moving to perform that, showing by didactic and instructive vision, just that.

 

2. Some Scriptures for this Exercise:

• Ezekiel 2:12ff. - "the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me a great thunderous voice, "Blessed is the glory of the Lord from His place!"

Then the Spirit lifts him up and takes him away, so that in spirit he visits the exiles to whom the Lord is moving.

Abominations are revealed in the temple, gross caricatures of the things of God, idols and images of human invention: Ezekiel 8. Ezekiel is likewise led in vision to behold these, one of the grounds of the Lord moving FROM the temple, and the Jews going to exile. In the context of the vision, this then relates to the Lord's glory first being shown IN VISION, and then being seen to move away from the land and the temple in particular.

• Ezekiel 10 shows the Lord's glory moving from the Temple precincts. Notice verse 17: "When the cherubim stood still, the wheels stood still, and when one was lifted up, the other lifted itself up, for the spirit of the living creature was in them. Then the glory of the Lord departed from the threshold of the temple... When they went out, the wheels were beside them, and they stood at the door of the east gate of the Lord's house... They each one went straight forward." This should be read with Ezekiel 1:20, where it is expressly STATED that as to the wheels, wherever the spirit wanted to go, the wheels went.

This simply confirms the intimation of the vision already made: that it is a spiritually directed universe with which we have to do, for all its appearance of multitudes of designs and procedures. WHEELS are subject to the Lord. They turn at HIS pleasure. Our own wheels in an automobile, when it is in form, tend to do just the same, for all their mechanical niceties. THIS is their purpose, and as they handled right, this is what they do - go where our spirits direct them. With God , there is no weakness as with us, and the procedure is perfect.

·       Ezekiel 11:16 tells the Jews that even though they would go a long way from their land during the disciplinary period, yet the Lord would be to them as "a little sanctuary". The blessing would not depart because they had to leave their land and their temple. It was all under control.

·       Ezekiel 3:8-9.

·       "Behold I have made your face strong against their faces, and your forehead strong against their foreheads. Like adamant stone, harder than flint, I have made your forehead: do not be afraid of them, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house." Moreover He said to me:" Son of man, receive into your heart all My words that I speak to you, and hear with your ears. And go, get to he captives, to the children of your people and speak to them and tell them, 'Thus says the Lord God,' whether they will hear , or whether they refuse."

Thus we are dealing with a precisely pronounced word from God Almighty, addressed with imagery and vision to a rebellious people in which He indicates His entire control, judicious decisions and coming requirements in the peregrinations of His people, in which however, He will neither leave them nor forsake them. Better to be disciplined by the Lord, than praised by this puny world, which so often has its hand in its pocket, and its philosophies bred with mice.

The lesson: REPENT and BELIEVE in the Lord, and be ESPECIALLY careful not to caricature Him by making Him up according to any philosophy. Find Him where He is, and be thankful, realising this same word tells us this:

• "THIS IS THE STONE WHICH WAS REJECTED BY YOU BUILDERS, WHICH HAS BECOME THE CHIEF CORNERSTONE.
• NOR IS THERE SALVATION IN ANY OTHER, FOR THERE IS NO OTHER NAME UNDER HEAVEN GIVEN AMONG MEN BY WHICH WE MUST BE SAVED."

That name? JESUS CHRIST OF NAZARETH.
 
 

3. More on the Deliverer who Comes in the Glory of the Lord, God with us, for Offer to the Children of Men

Not merely does Ezekiel, in communion with that same One called the LORD in the vision, receive explanation and direction concerning what God is doing, in WORDS, explicit and direly related to the vision, but there is evidence of the ONLY SOURCE OF RELIEF from these fearful judgments spelled out in Chapters 2ff..

• Thus in Chapter 11:14-20, we find that the Jews are to be SCATTERED among the nations, and then some will be brought back, and as to the end result:

 

• "I WILL GIVE THEM ONE HEART, AND I WILL PUT A NEW SPIRIT WITHIN YOU, AND I WILL TAKE THE STONY HEART OUT OF THEIR FLESH, AND WILL GIVE THEM A HEART OF FLESH, THAT THEY MAY WALK IN MY STATUTES, AND KEEP MY ORDINANCES, AND DO THEM; AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE, AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD."

This is later wrought definitively for the final return in Ezekiel 37, where it is to the EVERLASTING COVENANT that they come, and to David their King.

The same thought is expressed by the prophet Jeremiah in 31:31, and he shows this, that it is going to be nothing less than a "NEW COVENANT". (For more on this, see Isaiah 52:!3-53:12; 55; 42, and The Shadow of a Mighty Rock, Vol. 3, Ch.9). This verse needs attention, applicable to those whom He heals in spirit (Isaiah 53:5):

• "But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed."

In Ezekiel 34, God also shows this: He is DISSATISFIED with the recklessly inadequate pastoral care shown by the often quite false pastors, and WILL COME HIMSELF PERSONALLY and do the work of the GOOD SHEPHERD, shaming the false, and doing the necessary spiritual work among the people (34:8-12). THEN the everlasting Kingdom of God is to arrive, so that this is the period of the rule of the Messiah or Christ (Isaiah 2:2-4, 4:6, 7:14, 9:1-7, 11:1-10 with many others). As shown in Isaiah, He is stated to be the son of Jesse - who as father of David indicates that he is the promised King of Kings to follow in the descendants of David. Though human in form and according to promise in the Davidic line, yet He is in the place of God - that is, He is the definitive incarnation of God which He purposed and performed: cf. Isaiah 48:16, Psalm 45, Psalm 110, 2.

• The overall message: REPENT of sin and BELIEVE the consuming purity of the Lord.

In Ezekiel 34, God also shows this: He is DISSATISFIED with the recklessly inadequate pastoral care shown by the often quite false pastors, and WILL COME HIMSELF PERSONALLY and do the work of the GOOD SHEPHERD, shaming the false, and doing the necessary spiritual work among the people (34:8-12).

The overall message: REPENT of sin and BELIEVE the consuming purity of the Lord, and ACCEPT the regeneration of heart necessary to live in His presence, and the PASTORAL PROVISION of the Messiah, the Good Shepherd whose intimate, infinitely precious and utterly necessary provisions are made by His own incarnation as a man, doing personally the work that only He can do.

• "Behold I, even I will both search my sheep,

and seek them out.

As a shepherd seeks out his flock in the day
that he is among his sheep that are scattered,
so will I seek out my sheep...

I will feed my flock and I will cause them to lie down,
says the Lord God."

If you are interested in the vision of Ezekiel, THIS is the teaching in the symbol and in the name of the Lord who is central in the vision, with explicit words and not with possibilities, with challenge and not for mere contemplation: that it is necessary

to REPENT and BELIEVE,

and that shepherd who was to come and came on time (Daniel 9:24-27, see my The Shadow of a Mighty Rock Vol. 3, pp. 886-899), dying around A.D. 30,

is now that ONLY way to the Father,
for whom are the wheels,
beyond which was the hand and the voice and the glory.
HE fulfilled it all, is the Good Shepherd,

is the answer of the prophets predictions in PERSON. To find God, you receive the way provided. (A free Copy of this book is currently available, on receipt of postage.)

 

• "HE WHO HAS THE SON HAS LIFE, AND HE WHO DOES NOT HAVE THE SON OF GOD DOES NOT HAVE LIFE" (I John 5:12).
• NOT having life is often used as a springboard for cursing God, or reviling or despising Him. However it is a decision to avoid the only mode of knowing Him, generous enough when it is a gift, and is so acutely related to the offence which brought about the lostness which is the condition of this present world and most within it.
• HAVING life is a lookout for blessing God, for the gift is of such glory and joy, at once so natural and so necessary, that it is like awakening from a medical operation, yet without pangs. NOT to have the Son is NOT to accept His offer, which is NOT the work of the one who wants Him. If you do not want, so be it; there you are. If you do, so be it: there He is. Take Him!
• We turn now to the next vast vision of Ezekiel which has a message of such simplicity that it belies the confusion of this world.

 

END OF EXCERPT FROM BIBLICAL BLESSINGS

 

From the above, you see the pith of the vision and the relationship it bears to some of the later scenes in Ezekiel, to which this may now serve as an introduction.

That is the excerpt. We however for the moment will survey just a little more what is seen in this early vision of Ezekiel.

Thus, at once in overwhelming impact, there is seen to be ONE GOD, personal, not unknowable but majestic, not in some impersonal position, but garbed in the relationship of the personal, the profound, the intrinsically knowable. He is described, when we come to Ezekiel 10, to be the LORD (10:4, as in 1:1, 1:28), in accord with that often repeated central affirmation of the whole Bible:
THE LORD IS GOD.

It was this that was made so famous in the dénouement between Elijah and the priests of Baal, when the celestial intervention on that occasion took the form of a profusion of fire to burn the sacrifices, just as later it was in the form of a baby to become the Messiah, and later again, in the power of the Lord, the Spirit sent in His name (John 15:26, Luke 24:49) enabling their hearts to perform as He pleased.

In this vision we have seen displayed concerning the Lord: not only His intensity of brilliance (as in I Timothy 6:16), but His all knowing dispositions and inspectable provisions, as now known to be in DNA and in the atomic arrangements, and His penetration with eyes into all aspects of all movements, in the domain of His understanding of all things, the living creation being in thrall to the operations of His power, so that the very ‘wheels’ of created means,  move where the Spirit is to go. Desire, disposition and decision are His; the complexities of creation are great, but their Creator is far greater.

All these things we have seen, with the throne of authority above it, separated by the gulf from creation to Creator, with the shining light of splendour and the personal God above all.  His is diligence, knowledge, majesty and power, and what is on earth, He knows;  and there He intervenes if He will, disposes as He will, even that which is evil being comprehended in the plan of good. This was at its height in the crucifixion of Christ, foretold in detail like a biography in advance of birth, the plan unveiled that He, the Lord Himself in human format would suffer the just for the unjust, to bring us to Himself.

WE may find out the gender of a baby before it is born and marvel: HE disposes the plans of the entire life at His prudence, and while the wicked are as the chaff which the wind blows away (Psalm , yet the Lord KNOWS the righteous (Psalm 1:5-6), and in His plans and programs, without the violence of shanghaied will or mere manipulation, He exhibits in great detail, what is germane to His desire for man, so that he should know it.
 

• He tells whole plans, arrangements in advance,
• in excruciating detail in some cases, in both senses,
• that we may KNOW that HE DOES INDEED KNOW!
• and that we should ponder our paths before our Maker,
• yes, sing at the majesty of the Lord (Isaiah 24:14-16),
• whose grace abounded despite the treacherous dealings (Isaiah 24:16,           (Isaiah  24:16 - see Psalms  41, 109, Zechariah  13:6  - cf. Joyful Jottings 25),
• and the marvellous lovingkindness which He has and the wonder of His preparations
• for His people, even all who receive Him in His integrity and reality, by the way whom He has sent.

The second part of the excerpt above delivers the application of these things also from Ezekiel, and to this we have some later reference; but for the present course, our main concern is with the points 1 and 2 of the excerpt above.
 
 

2. THE MORAL MAJESTY OF THE MESSIAH

 Leaving the Chs.1-8 presentation of Ezekiel for the time, establishing the identity of the Lord and vital expressions of His ways, His majesty and His power, we come to a new dimension: that of MORAL MAJESTY. This Being whose vision is of such splendour has something greater than this, at least if we understand this as a further aspect: His power and glory is seen in His actions and grace. Thus we find that He is intensely concerned NOT to have man dashed by the  TRADITIONS of man, when these contravene justice, injure righteousness or afflict wrongly. In particular, we find in Ezekiel 18 a double message of rectitude. The CHILDREN shall NOT be held responsible for the SINS of their PARENTS. This is made in the form of a proverb, Do not say that the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children' teeth are set on edge (18:1).

"Behold," God says, "all souls are Mine:
The soul of the father
As well as the soul of the son is Mine;
The soul that sins shall die..."

Obvious to us after 2500 years since it was given, no doubt, but that is a long time to think! Yet there is far more to it than just that. Unless the mercy of of intervene (and we have seen the systematic and planned way in which He DID intervene, and the sure way in which this must be received) , EACH soul in whatever culture or situation, is judged for its own works, and for its own SIN. IF IT SINS, death is the due determinant, mortality the proper result. Yet even this is not all. For the souls are HIS, belong to GOD, and what one does with the soul given is ACCOUNTABLE to the father of spirits! If one receives what HE has done, well; and if one will not, this too is accountable (John 3:19, 6:29).

Further yet, one is in MERCY, in all its solemn beauty and concern (not sentiment, which is mere     fluctuation of feeling, but a mercy which knows the cost and pays as required for the object of its lovingkindness - all this is in mercy) given further opportunities. If one TURNS from an evil way TO the righteousness of the Lord, then the past is oblivious in His remitting grace (this is notable, in that it is applicable in the Jewish old covenant situation!). If however anyone turns away from the ways of the Lord, an event open to the unregenerated quite readily, no amount of goodness of past scores at all.

It is an inter-personal relationship, not a machine's performance.

Indeed, as we noted in points 3 ff. above in the excerpt, it is the MESSIAH who being the LORD comes to bring DELIVERANCE to sinners, so that the mercy of God is seen in person, and His provision for His sheep is administered not only in His presence, but by His personal intervention. As seen in Isaiah 52-53, this is vicarious sacrifice of HIMSELF! and we shall see later the astounding symbolism of Ezekiel, still striking after 2000 years since the Messiah actually came!

Not only so, but the Messiah, being God Himself as Ezekiel 34 makes so clear - HE PERSONALLY will come, the prophet intimates, BECAUSE His representatives are so inadequate, He will (like some fathers with disobedient sons), 'do it myself'.

"I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock on the day he is among his scattered sheep, so will I seek out My sheep and deliver them from all the places where they were scattered on a cloudy and dark day" - 34:11-12. This is with moral beauty fulfilled by the Messiah, not at no cost, but in the flesh, surrounded by flesh and its dingy equations and flimsy excuses.

He abominates the selfish, shallow and flippant seeming professionalism of false pastors, saying:

"Is it too little for you to have eaten up the good pasture, that you must tread down with your feet residue of your pasture - and to have drunk of the clear waters, that you must foul the residue with your feet ?" (34:18).

Was it not enough that the many enemies who were given licence to assail a disobedient and misled nation had so often attacked the people; but must it even continue spurred on by the same chronic cause ? The 'residue' of the people would be a sad parody indeed when their sins continued to lead them into the Babylonian captivity, at this time like a vast thunder cloud of massive and fearsome dark ponderousness, looming above.
 
 

o       That would involve a vast loss of wealth, the superb artisanship which Solomon had earlier contrived in their great institutions and temple. Vast quantities of this would go before a glowering enemy, a reduction and impoverishment, and then would come the slaughtering of their young. With all this in view,  must they even NOW continue in their slick, superficial performance of their religious duties, must the priests not have heart! Did they not CARE for the people! Such was the prophetic charge, in essence.

o       If we marvel that they could conceivably have resisted it (let alone with flamboyance and dash), we should consider our own civilisation which certainly leaves nothing behind in paralleling the follies of ancient Israel! But let us look back now to the time of Christ, and see the flowers of evil matured, as He spoke.

You see, then,  these two elements in precise formulation in the New Testament in two verses, one of the seeking for the lost, and one of the damaging delinquency of the religious leader's of the time when the Messiah came to earth, as predicted in Ezekiel 34, when the Lord became man and did it Himself!

Matthew 18:11 has this: "For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost" and Luke 9:56 the following: "For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives but to save them," while 19:10, at the conversion of Zacchaeus, this: "for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that  which was lost."

On the religious leader side of things, the words of Christ in Matthew 23 are amongst the most pungent repudiation of religious error and hypocrisy even heard - and it is hard even to imagine those more scorching, in precise conformity to what the Lord says in Ezekiel 34 as a prelude to announcing the coming incarnation (cf. Psalms 102, 2).

Yet we shall quote this word: "Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered." This also is the incarnate speech of the living God as Christ the Messiah, in parallel to another Old Testament protestation, namely that in Hosea:

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Because you have rejected knowledge,
I also will reject you from being priest for Me."

Thus the SOULS ARE MINE, He says, and HE COMES to SEEK and to SAVE what was lost, in view of the meddlesome failure of the appointees.

Indeed, the subject goes deeper yet, though the matter is so intimately related to our present sub-topic as to form simultaneously, an extension to it.

This is what God projected; this is what was in the written and public, published program, and this is precisely what He did.
 

3. THE LOVING DEITY AS THE MESSIAH,
Implacable in Importunity

The seeking is wonderful, the concern has nobility, the zeal is delightful, but there is with all this, a certain IMPLACABILITY of search, an UNWILLINGNESS that any should perish, a tender concern that borders on the truculent but is better described as INVETERATE and INDEFATIGABLE, tireless and constant, passing by all discouragement. Such is the love of God.

 

"I will raise up for them a garden of renown, and they shall no longer be consumed with hunger in the land, nor bear the shame of the Gentiles anymore. Thus they shall know that I the LORD their God, am with them, and they, the house of Israel, are My people," says the Lord GOD. "You are My flock, the flock of My pasture; you are men, and I am your God," says the Lord God.

 

Concerned likewise at the self-serving gratifications of the under-shepherds, utilising the people as well as neglecting them, He says this (Ezekiel 34:8-10):

 

"As I live," says the Lord GOD, "surely because My flock became a prey and My flock became food for every beast of the field, because there was no shepherd, nor did My shepherds search for My flock, but the shepherds fed themselves and did not feed My flock -
"Therefore , O shepherds, hear the word of  the LORD!
"Thus says the Lord God: 'Behold I am against the shepherds, and I will require My flock at their hand: I will cause them to cease feeding the sheep, and the shepherds shall feed themselves no more: for I will deliver My flock from their mouths, that they may no longer be food for them.' "

How well this is reflected in Christ's words in the New Testament, again:

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation" - Matthew 24:14.

In national terms likewise, the zeal of the Lord will seek for His scattered people, both in the short term and the long term. As to the former, from  Ezekiel 11:16ff., we find:
 

"Although I have scattered them among the countries, yet I shall be a little sanctuary for them in the countries where they have gone...
 

"I will gather you from the peoples, assemble you from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel, and they will go there, and they will take away all its detestable things and all its abominations from there.
 

"Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh,
that they may walk in My statues and keep My judgments and do them: and they shall be My people, and I will be their God."

The zeal of the Lord in mercy is seen in parallel to this in Jeremiah 16:16-17, where we read this:
"Behold, I will send for many fishermen," says the LORD, "and they shall fish them, and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them, from every mountain and every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks." FIRST their punishment, THEN their restoration from the Babylonian captivity.
 

As to the longer term, after the day of the Messiah Himself, whose rejection Isaiah 49:7 and 52-53 so well and precisely attests - not to mention the thundering repudiation of a rebellious people, following this advent, in Isaiah 65:13-15, there is to be a permanent intervention act, and a bringing of the people not only to a new heart for the life in the Lord, but to a new covenant. In this, the Messiah in glory and sovereignty will rule personally, as part of the proceedings. After reading of His personal grace and mercy in this: "I will seek what was lost and bring back what was driven away, bind up the broken and strengthen what was sick: but I will destroy the fat and the strong, and feed them in judgment," when also  He would (as in Matthew 25) judge between "sheep and goats"; we find -"Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them..." (Ezekiel 37:26). Of this Jeremiah speaks in 31:31.

Here is the final fruit on earth of the action of intervention in coming to earth personally, and all the rejections spoken of in the prophets, and as we shall see, somewhat symbolised in Ezekiel later. On this occasion, there is to be NO MORE LOSS, NO MORE IDOLATRY and NO MORE REBELLION (Ezekiel 37:23-24). In fact they are to be ruled over by the Messiah, as almost integral to the return - which, however (Ezekiel 36:24-25) will not be immediate to this royal leader. The Messiah, son of David via Mary, will be King. This is why there is no question of their being excluded or deluded again. The Jews are now back, and the time though very short, and the process, though not yet complete for there are many more yet to come back, will doubtless shortly yield to this everlasting covenant, no more idolatry, blessedness in His presence (as in Zechariah 14:5ff.).

They will come to be washed, indeed sprinkled with clean water (as in Christian Baptism cf. Questions and Answers 11), because as so often presented (cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms 13), they will now be incorporated in that ONE ONLY new covenant giving them a NEW NAME (Isaiah 62:2) and no more will they seem so superior but come to the place prepared also for the Gentiles (Isaiah 65:13-15, 61, 49:6) on even terms (as in Colossians 2, Isaiah 19:24-25).

The LORD will bring them back as in Isaiah 42:18ff., though for the moment they are still "blind" as Isaiah puts it, being followed in this by Paul in Romans 11:25ff., as he proceeds with his saga of coverage of spiritual Jewish history. It is in the LIGHT of the presence of the Messiah, impending or actual, that this occurs (cf. Luke 21:44), Jerusalem now being virtually freed, the categorical signal for His return being near.

Whether therefore in the 70 year exile case, or the 70 sevens case (reviewed in Ch. 5 above), which brings to the restoration to the Messiah and His millenial rule, there is zeal, implacable and remorseless, just as His punishments have been when mercy's bounds were passed and this was the necessary intervening discipline (Jeremiah 17 giving a good case of the elasticity of mercy, while the limits to the heedless abuse of the zestfully unbelieving, are depicted in 18:1-11!)

The ZEAL of the Lord in His love and mercy is thus shown in the earlier restoration from Babylon, the parallel but far greater one notably shown in Ezekiel 36ff. (cf. SMR Appendix A), and the zenith of it appears in Ezekiel 34 where the incarnation is used to express and fulfil it to the uttermost point, being followed in due season, after the dispersion of the Jewish race, by their restoration in 36-37.

But it is LOVING ZEAL: not sentimental inclination. First the punishments for treachery and folly are severe when the time comes that no more can patience wait on folly. Second, the end of it is foreknown and the measures are apportioned with care (Israel was to be 'corrected in measure'), so that the positive mercy appears with its full scope of wisdom. Thirdly, the ATTITUDE behind these actions is that of love not discountenanced, but purposeful and assured; not unrealistic but seeking and testing (cf. Jeremiah 5:1ff.), not heartless but filled with the deepest emotion (cf. Jeremiah 9:1ff., Isaiah 16:9-11 where the source of the pity is Moab). It is NOT MERE emotion however, since the very desolation of Jerusalem which Jeremiah so bewails in his book of Lamentations, is that to be suffered by the Jerusalem, again in Christ's time (Luke 19:42ff.) where the Saviour's DIRECT lament is heard just before His next action.

That ? HIS OWN DESOLATION! "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me!" comes His carefully predicted lament as sin hits Him like a truck smashing into an express train (cf. Isaiah 53:6 where this is exactly the nature of the imagery, burden, load, bearing and being smashed - as in 52:12ff., beyond the form of a man). This is foreseen, sovereignly selected self-desolation in the interests of justice (Romans 3:19ff.), so that Christ could justly justify those who receive this, His ransom payment for sin by means of His own death (cf. Colossians 1:22-23). This shows the DIVINE ZEAL, its practicality, inventiveness, intensity and wonder.
 

It also shows that the standards of purity in heaven, absolutely essential to peace and joy and love and perfection, are so strict that this lovely thing needs keeping by the power of God.
 

• How enter such a place ?
• By grace.

 

• How receive such grace ?
• by transmission.
  
  
• What transmits it ?
• Payment passed on.
  
  
• What pays ?
• The life of Christ in substitutionary atonement.
  
  
• How is it received ?
• By faith.
  
  
• Why faith ?
• Since otherwise ludicrously inadequate and proud works of the flesh, the heart and life of man would be presuming to gain entrance by their sinful self-exaltation (cf. Ephesians 2:1-12). How by faith ?

 

Faith receives by trusting with conviction (Hebrews 11:1) in the objective reality of

• a) God.
• b) His Messiah, God the SENT from God the SENDER, the divine One being a trinity (Isaiah 48:16, Hebrews 1, John 15:26, II Cor. 3:17-18).
• c) His payment.
• d) its adequacy,

since He is perfect in purity and the word of the everlasting God, made flesh, holy, harmless, higher than the heavens (Hebrews 7). Those who come to God must believe that He IS (there) and a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. How can you be diligent ? By repenting without compromise or qualification of your own sin, sinfulness and derelictions of duty and failures in truth, in not knowing God. How can you seek Him ? By putting all the silly little sums of survival and self-glorification or self-gratification or self-fulfilment out of the window and having the door wide open to the divine grace and the Messiah. How would you WANT to do this ? When you are convicted of sin and the Lord opens your eyes. What if He does not ? Then why worry ? Being blind, you do not see, so what is the ground of your concern ? But what if I AM concerned ? Then be glad and come to Him by faith, for then it is HE who has opened your eyes. But what if He does not love me ? HE would have ALL men to repent and come to the knowledge of the truth and says so (I Timothy 2).

But why should God love me ? one asks.

GOD IS LOVE (I John 4:7ff.). It is natural to the supernatural One to love. This is His nature. His love is neither sloppy nor merely self-gratifying, but pure and desirous of delivering those in wickedness from its necessary consequences by acting in terms of His own principles as noted above. He is SO loving that we read in Ezekiel 33:11 these monumental words (and remember that God has made it clear that it is TOO SMALL a thing for Christ to be offered to the Jews, but is for the Gentiles as well - Isaiah 49:6):
Say to them,

• "As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel ?"

John Murray of Westminster as elsewhere noted, referred to something like this: the PROTESTATION  'as I live', the ASSEVERATION, 'I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked,' the AFFIRMATION, 'but that the wicked should turn from his way and live', the EXHORTATION, 'turn, turn from your evil ways!' and the interrogation, 'For why should you die, O house of Israel ?'.

It is a beautiful thing, like a cloud formation, an exquisite waterfall, with more symmetry than an equation, nor desire than a romance, more heart than patriotic death, for the patriot being a sinner, dies for sinners, but God shows His love to us in this, that WHILE we were yet sinners He died for us, and He who died was without sin, harmless, higher than the heavens, God Almighty in the Person of His son.

There, THAT is LOVE: not that we loved God, as I John 4 puts it, but rather this, that "God loved us and sent His Son as a propitiation for our sins."

Before we leave this focus, let us observe one exceedingly important facet. It is this. There is no place other than the Bible where there is this individually distinguishing love, which has also an amplitude which is not mere favouritism based on personal desire for gratification, which, in short is love, from the deity, hence bringing up hope at the outset, and security when it is received on the basis adopted; and where, in addition, the result is a regeneration so that  for man, it is not a function of the noble nature or better heart to receive it, but of the Lord who intervenes, a Lord who knowing all neither revokes the image of God status of the heart, as if to force it, nor allows its pollutions, as with some sick person out of control, to limit His enterprise. (Ezekiel 33:11 is to be taken with I Timothy 2, Matthew 23:37, Titus 2-3, Psalm 1, 73, Luke 19:42ff., John 15:21-23 and SMR Appendix B may be consulted, together with The Kingdom of Heaven Ch. 4.)

It is this which gives human responsibility its meaning and hell its significance, for that matter; for it is not the repository of the merely not good enough (for none is good enough who must accept the cross as payment for his shortcomings, even death as his due judgment), the arbitrarily unselected, the victims of ‘fate’, for there is not fate, except in the appearance which comes to those who, rejecting the Lord are, as His words says (Psalm 1) like the chaff which is blown away.  For them, their real significance being voided by their own arbitary wilfulness, they feature as chaff, denaturised, discarded. Human responsibility is thus enormous; human incapacity is no barrier and divine love is of the most ample, yet neither duped by avarice nor beguiled by self-serving. Heaven is wonderful, human will is not autonomous or sovereign, but human responsibility is entire. Philosophy knows nothing such, because it has no power, and the power, like the salvation is of God.

Ezekiel is very strong is his attribution of human responsibility, not only in the implications of 33:11, but in his watchman chapters, 18 and 33 in general. Here the concept of trusting in one’s own righteousness is made equivalent to gross sin (as in Romans 10), and the intense lovingkindness of God

• which is so willing to dismiss iniquity repented of (as in Micah 7:19ff.), indeed loves to do it,
• finds it a delight,
• but which looks upon hypocritical formalism, religious ceremonialism (cf. Isaiah 1) without favour
• is seen in its thrusting outpourings like a waterfall of masterful exuberance.

There is that clear course and channel, meanwhile, so that children are not accountable for parental sin, and all are accountable in terms not at al fudged or fuzzy. It is because of the cross (in Ezekiel 47 we find it as the altar in the temple symbolism, and the river of life pours out from it) that this can be; it is because of the love that the cross has been, and the cross has an everlasting significance as part of the everlasting gospel (Rev. 14:6). It is to this that we must now give attention.
 
 

4. THE METAPHORICAL MEANING OF
THE VISIONARY TEMPLE AND THE VISIONARY TERRITORIES
 IN EZEKIEL

 

Here we look at another

excerpt

from Biblical Blessings, which presents this for us, enabling us here to gather together in one, the elements we need.
 
 

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF EZEKIEL'S VAST, LAST VISION OF THE TEMPLE, THE STREAM AND THE ALTAR ?

HOW IS IT A PICTURE OF EVANGELISM, RECALCITRANCE, SPIRITUAL POWER, THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST AS THE TRUE KING OF THE JEWS AND HIS COMING POWER ?

Let us be brief, since the purpose is merely to supply the key to this intricate vision. Ezekiel's first vision has already occupied us, with its relation to the gospel, the New Covenant and the Son of David, the Prince to come in power, whose previous sufferings are seen in place.
 
 

THE VISIONARY VISION

In this last vision, from Ezekiel 47 on, with various interludes, there is a picture of the temple which is not intended as physical, in that it is vast, as E.J. Young pointed out, too big for the geographical environment. It is a sort of amplification such as vision CAN given, in order to enlarge the understanding. As to the CITY which is about it, its name, suitably symbolical, though with tremendous impact, is this: THE LORD IS THERE (Ezekiel 48:35). THAT ends the vision! How better to end it!

THE TERMINAL TIME ON THIS EARTH OF THE NEW COVENANT AND THE MESSIAH

We are in the terminal, the ultimate, the New Covenant era traced in Ezekiel in our last Question and Answer (cf. Ezekiel 11:17-21, 16:60, 37:23-26, Isaiah 62:1-2, 65:10-13, Jeremiah 31:31). Thus we find the PRINCE (cf. Ezekiel 17:22-24) who is featured in the most amazing way, to be ALLOWED and indeed AUTHORISED to perform SACRIFICIAL ACTS, whereas it was precisely this folly, albeit only in its infancy in incense offering, that cost Uzziah his health, and made him a leper! (II Chronicles 26:16-20). The divisions and appropriations involved a decisive division of functions (the Gentiles might call it a division of powers), and the symbolism that God gave had meanings not to be subjected to officious tampering or lordly assumptions.

ONLY the Messiah - who would be He whose goings are from everlasting (Micah 5:1-3), and who would be struck with a rod upon the cheek, though HE is the judge of Israel, as indeed of all: ONLY HE could combine both offices. This is just as Zechariah portrayed (Zechariah 6:12-13): for it is HE who shall bear the glory, glory too much for mere man. Similarly Isaiah 22:24 shows HIM with all the paraphernalia of glory hung on Him, so that WITH IT He might be cut off (cf. Daniel 9:26, Isaiah 53:1-6). It is the Lord of Hosts who was explicitly sent after GLORY (Zechariah 2:8), even He whose throne is eternal and sovereign (Psalm 45:1-6, Isaiah 48:16)*1.

Accordingly we find HIM, the PRINCE in Ezekiel 44:1-3, 46:1-28-12, both preparing His sacrifices and deeply and intimately involved in the internal operations of the Temple. This at once lifts us to the New Covenant, of which Jeremiah said much in 31:31ff., but also in 3:16. There he proclaims:

"Then it will come to pass, when you are multiplied and increased in the land in those days," says the Lord, "that they will say no more,
'The ark of the covenant of the Lord.' It shall not come to mind, nor shall they remember it, nor shall they visit it, nor shall it be made any more."

At that time,

"all nations shall be gathered to it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem; they shall walk no more after the stubbornness of their evil heart."

Hence we find this ostensible violation of temple ritual, which is in fact an intended jolt to make the reader aware that this is intended for the time when "THE LORD IS THERE" is the very NATURE and hence NAME of the city! For we who are His are CITIZENS of the Kingdom of HEAVEN (Philippians 3:20). Actually (Jeremiah 3:16), the very sacred ark so precious in the Holy of Holies will not even COME TO MIND at that time, nor be made nor be visited! We are dealing, then, in vision format, or formula, or feature, or perspective or imagery when in fact, the message is MEANING, MEAT and MARVEL. Exactly the same thing applies to the 14^th Chapter of Zechariah, where in the very view of the Messiah and His sufferings (12:10, 13:6), we have references to feast days and the like: these are a bold stroke. They are container units to depict NEW THINGS under the form of old.

A TIME FOR BOLDNESS, A PLACE FOR PRAISE

Indeed, boldness is one of the features of a great teacher, a fearless sally into things to come, to thrust stimulus and understanding into the intelligence, knowing the apt pupil will well be able to follow in terms of principles adequately conveyed elsewhere, or readily to be found. Thus the OLD COVENANT Prince feature is merely a key to the fact that this is a VISION, and for the NEW COVENANT, though in spectacular and detailed fashion formulated in the very forms of the old! Accordingly, the language of a city can well be applied for the MEANING of a Kingdom which has no walls (Isaiah 60:18). Walls? Yes! They are "SALVATION"! and the GATES? "PRAISE"!

Are YOU, if Christian, surrounded by the towering walls of salvation, so clear and visible to your spiritual eye that your soul is enthralled (I John 5:13, Ephesians 6:17) ? Is your everyday entry, coming and going, PRAISE to the Lord who is good, a friend and a Saviour indeed, Lord with relish, and God with strength? Be assured, when as Nehemiah taught, THE JOY OF THE LORD IS YOUR STRENGTH (8:10), then praise of His salvation does indeed surround you like a protection, for it is a bloom of the presence of the Lord, our Rock. The JOY is not the rock; but the presence of the ROCK breeds joy, and the joy is strong, like anti-missile emplacements, ready for any assault.

It is that joy which is so well displayed in Zephaniah 3:17, where the whole air is filled with it, as when Spring perfumes surround you in the season.. THAT is the day when "the Lord has taken away your judgments", when the nations have been gathered (Zephaniah 2:8) and the earth will meet the ardour of the Lord, so that a "meek and humble people" who trust in the name of the Lord will be found, even those who "speak no lies". Then the "remnant of Israel" will "do no unrighteousness". Very definitely we are in the ultimate times of the New Covenant, yes when the Prince who suffered is the Prince who rules (cf. Luke 24:25-26). In a little, we shall see it perfected, when He comes.

 

INTRICACIES AND INTIMACIES

Above, we have already noted the closeness of the Prince to all these developments symbolised in the 'Temple'. The intense stress on detailed architecture seen in these chapters of Ezekiel 40-46, likewise has meaning. Not only does it relate to that intimacy with sacrifice and proceedings which marks the Messiah, who indeed, as Daniel and Zechariah and Isaiah so stressed, is to BE the sacrifice, offering Himself willingly; but it concerns the close focus on the beauty of holiness, pattern, program, plan, team-work IN the beauty of the Lord, who AS OUR TEMPLE, is to be enquired of, sought in counselling, found in peace (cf. Psalm 27:4-5, Hosea 6:1-3). As Hosea has it (NKJV):

"Let us know, let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord. His going forth is established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain, like the latter and former rain to the earth."

Quite as fascinating is the matter of the closed gate (Ezekiel 46:12). AFTER HE GOES OUT THE GATE SHALL BE SHUT! The EAST gate is to be opened for Him, but after He goes out it is shut! That happened. It is even more explicit in Ezekiel 44:2 (as J.H. Hunting pointed out in his The Set Time is Come, p. 6), posing next to the picture of that very gate as shown in his book. There we read of the East Gate of the City: "This gate shall be shut; it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter by it, because the Lord God of Israel has entered by it; therefore it shall be shut. As for the prince, because he is the prince, he may sit in it to eat bread before the Lord." It is then that Ezekiel beholds the glory of the Lord filling the house of the Lord.

As Hunting likewise points out, in "Jerusalem! Jerusalem!", pp.36ff., the Eastern or Golden Gate has a "commanding view of the Mount of Olives", while inside 'it faces the Temple area upon which now stands the Dome of the Rock. It has been sealed up and looks across the Kidron valley to Gethsemane". Almost every word of description of this Gate reads like a rehearsal of the Passion of Christ at Easter in some Church; but it is geographical, solid reminder and in Ezekiel inspired figure to cover the case.

THIS GATE IS SHUT, says Ezekiel 44:2, "because the LORD God of Israel has entered it", a fact well enough dramatised in the Palm Sunday episode of His entry there, when HE was moved to point out, that if such PRAISE as, "BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD" (cf. Psalm 118:19-26)*2, with praise to the Son of David were to stop, the very stones would cry out. It was stopped in Jerusalem in large and official measure... and the STONES did cry out, stone being removed from stone by the Romans, a fate Christ depicted in advance, as did Daniel in terms of the utter devastation to come following the cutting off of the Messiah (Daniel 9:24-27).

Alas, until the stony heart of unbelief which afflicts so many, Jew and Gentile, is changed, and until the time comes when the eyes of much of Israel are to be opened (Romans 11:25ff.), the world must wait for the coming of the Prince in His glory, and the Jews for their ultimate deliverance, which however, will be of a REMNANT, who will be Christian believers (Zephaniah 3:12-19). Let us hear some of this:

"In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem:

Do not fear; Zion, let not your hands be weak.

The LORD your God in your midst,

The Mighty One, will save;

He will rejoice over you with gladness,

He will quiet you in His love,

He will rejoice over you with singing.
 

"I will gather those who sorrow over the appointed assembly.

Who are among you,

To whom its reproach is a burden.
 

"Behold at that time I will deal with all who afflict you.

I shall save the lame,

And gather those who were driven out... At that time, I will bring you back..."
 

THIS is the "meek and humble people,

And they shall trust in the name of the Lord.

The remnant of Israel shall do no unrighteousness...

Nor shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth."
 

The LAND is restored to Israel, in SOME measure, and the CITY is theirs as Christ predicted (Luke 21:44) in full measure, though they are surrounded with dangers and perils and with much trauma they continue, till they return to the Lord whom they pierced, just as so many Gentiles pierce Him in their hearts, facing the obvious and continuing in unbelief.

This then is the meaning of the Temple in the Vision of Ezekiel, and the eternal inheritance to be given to the SONS or CHILDREN who serve is the eternal life given to the children of God who serve, for who that is Christ's does not serve, and who that is Christ's is not intimate with the things of the Lord in the beauty of holiness in His temple, which is built of living stones (I Peter 2), so that His praise should echo throughout! PRIESTS now come even from the Gentiles (Isaiah 66;19-20).

This inheritance is even more arresting: for it is when it is given by the PRINCE to his SONS that it has this NON-CANCELLABLE QUALITY. SERVANTS, they get a gift of inheritance till the Jubilee year, says Ezekiel; but sons? It is THEIR VERY OWN (Ezekiel 46:16-17, Ephesians 1:11). So is the Son of David, the Prince, the King of Glory of Psalm 45, 72, 89, revealed and exposed through this Vision of Ezekiel. But this is not all.
 
 

THE RIVER OF LIFE FROM THE TEMPLE ITSELF

This vision is multi-faceted, noble and intense. It fulfils in future beauty the initial intensity of Chapters 1-10, where judgment was so closely related. Now glory is not only in the holiness of the Lord, but spread abroad, glory for judgment, beauty for ashes (Isaiah 61:1-3).

Now we turn to Ezekiel 47, this topographical, effluvial, this riverside, piscine, this fishing extravaganza, as fluent as a butterfly, as deep as the sea, as down-to-earth as wading, as meaningful as radium, with spiritual energy speeding from its words, as if each particle were radio-active.

The river of water, as Christ so readily applied it, is of course the Spirit (cf. Isaiah 12), which flows FROM the Lord (John 15:26). HE proceeds from the Father and is sent by the SON. Hence it is from the temple of glory that the stream issues (v.1); but alike, it flows from under the right side of the temple, south of the altar, hence encompassing its goings the sacrificial system, the work of the Lord (Isaiah 53, Daniel 9, Zechariah 12-14, Psalm 2,40). Its stream is first found to touch, then to move upon one, then to rise to make significant impact at the legs, the waist, then to require that one move with it. Not lava from a destructive volcanic explosion, does it come, rising and fatally overcoming; but water from the place of holiness and the site of sacrifice, does it speed, in its healing work.

Then this blessed water is found to become an engulfing reality in the power of which one moves, for it is NOT BY MIGHT NOR BY POWER BUT BY MY SPIRIT, says the LORD (Zechariah 4:6), and we are dealing with what in the Temple, is the STONE on which shall be engraved the sins of the penitent, so that the iniquity of the land shall be removed in one day (Zechariah 3:9).

Thus is the river depicted in Ezekiel 47:1-5: it is a river in which "ONE MUST SWIM". Its power and fulness is such that it is not an influence; it becomes one's environment, ennobling, enabling, showing direction and carrying one, for Him from whom it comes.

The PERSONAL EQUATION being settled, that one forsakes all that one has if one is to be a disciple of the Lord (Luke 14:27ff.), then we find the FUNCTIONAL WORK. First the water flows to the sea, moving throughout the territory of the earth on its way. It is not captured, but free; but as it moves freely, so it is the dynamic and wonderful agency which enlightens, enlivens. To revert directly to the figure: there are vitalised beings ("every living thing, that moves, wherever the rivers go, will live" - v.9); but there are obstreperous, soggy and self-occupied marshy places (v.11), where despite the wonders of the waters, life is not found.

Indeed, "its swamps and its marshes will not be healed; they will be given over to salt" (v. 11). Otherwise, its waters bring healing (v.8), even to all peoples who RECEIVE what it brings, straight from the altar, which typifies Jesus Christ and Him crucified, yes, rather risen.

That is the FIRST function, to heal, to bring vitality, life more abundantly. The SECOND function, or work of the river is to be instrumental for the fishermen, from its depths and with its currents bringing up the fish who, being people in reality in this work of healing, are moved by the Spirit, who convicts them (John 16:8-13) of sin, righteousness and judgment. AS TO THE FISH - that is the people, they will be "exceedingly many" (v.10), and of the same kinds as in the Mediterranean, that is, of a cosmopolitan character (Psalm 117:1-2, 72:17, 82:8, 86:9, 2:10-12, Jeremiah 16:19, Isaiah 49:6). There are no limits of nationality or type, provided they come.

The trees that grow on the banks of the river (v.12) are like those of Psalm 1, and resemble the plants of Jeremiah 17:5-8, planted flourishing and exuberant, abundant with life by the sides of the river (Isaiah 61:3). THESE trees of Isaiah, the PLANTING OF THE LORD, or more precisely these plants of Jeremiah: they do NOT CEASE FROM BEARING FRUIT! Abide in Me, said Christ, and I in you, and the same will bear much fruit! (John 15). As in Psalm 1, moreover, the leaves of these trees of Ezekiel 47, they do not wither, just as their fruit does not fail.