HOPE – LIFE GIVEN TO DRY BONES

KEY VERSES: Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept (1 Cor 15:20), The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. (1 Thes 4:16-17), and The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. (Gen 2:7)

  The key verses speak of the Creation and the Re-Creation. The reader must understand; the revival of Israel is NOT about Israel but its people and a place for them!  When the fate of Israel is prophesied, it is not so much about a land made desolate and reviving, but the resurrection of God’s people. Israel’s future parallels the future of us all.
  Obviously, if people are to return to a peaceful habitation, there must be a place of Peace. When Jesus blessed his followers in the beatitudes (states of utmost bliss), he intended to have a place of bliss. There was bliss in Paradise, therefore Jesus was planning a return to Paradise. The land of Israel as the Kingdom of David, is that place of bliss! From before the time that Joshua entered into that land, rather than a place of peace wherein bliss existed, it was a place of blood. In the midst of the Kingdom of David was the city of Jerusalem. The name Jerusalem means “foundation of peace.” At some previous time, that desolated city had been the place of peace. Note that Melchizedek was king of Salem and was also known as “king of peace” (Heb 7:2). Not that Melchizedek was then king of peace, but that was his title as he wandered the wilderness seeking peaceful co-existence with mankind. The name Melchizedek means, “my name is Sedek (Righteousness; Etymology Online). In other words, Melchizedek was a priest like unto whom was Jesus.
  Melchizedek was Jesus watching over his covenanted people! He was Jesus planning on building a City of God at the very location of Paradise on Earth. Salem IS the place of Peace, or God’s residence, in the middle of the Garden of Eden. If Jerusalem was the center of the Garden, then Israel is the Garden itself.
  God is concerned about the fate of Israel because it is where Paradise once was, and where it will be again when Babylon’s “harlot” is cleansed (Rev 17:5). Israel was the “daughter of the harlot Babylon” in that like the mother harlot, so goes the daughter. When the prophets spoke of the desolation and renewal of Israel (Ezek 36), that referred to cleaning up the sinful country to make it a righteous place to live. Theologians often look at the immediate intent of prophecy, but most of it pertains to the Revelation of John. Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and the other prophets were seeing what John saw! They saw the harlot Jerusalem resurrected into the City of God.
  The Lord provided a vision to Ezekiel. Whether it was an actual event or future prophecy is unknown. However, the story of “the dry bones” is a vision of two things: (1) Israel’s restoration and (2) the rapture of Christians. Israel’s fate is just a benchmark on the Way to Heaven. The focus must be, not on Jerusalem, but New Jerusalem, and the City of God – a land once a Garden Paradise grown into a great city of living souls. Now look at what Ezekiel saw:

The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? (Ezek 37:1-3a)

  “The hand of the Lord” is God made manifest. God with us in form is Jesus Christ. Jesus was showing Ezekiel what was to come. The concept of the Holy Trinity is not expressed well by theologians; that God is three persons in one is not accurate. God Is three substances (homeostasis) in one Existence. Jesus is the only person of God and is His Personality. The Father is the Divine Mind or Will and His Holy Spirit is the Power of God manifested to mankind. When you see Jesus, it is God that you see. The physical aspect of God is called Jesus. God’s “hand” identifies Jesus.
  Jesus showed Ezekiel what he would do. The question he asked was, Can dry bones live? Dry bones indicate that the army in the valley were very dead. “Indeed, they were very dry.” Then Ezekiel followed God’s instruction. God told Ezekiel to prophesy for the bones to be under the authority of God. We think of prophecy as foretelling future events. However, prophecy are miracles of God which are wrought. It can either be the meaning of past events, the power of present, or demonstrating by one event what would happen in some future time. Perhaps real dry bones became flesh:

So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them. (Ezek 37:7-8)

  Perhaps, however, Jesus was showing Ezekiel a future event. Read the key verses again: “The dead in Christ shall rise first!”  Jesus was providing Ezekiel with a vision of the rapture. “Rapture” is the snatching-up of Christians - the dead and living into Heaven. When Jesus showed Ezekiel the dead rising from their grave, that provided hope for the living who would follow suit. If the reader does not believe that dry bones became alive, they fail to understand that the resurrection of Christians is dry bones made alive again!
  The resurrection of the dead was not only metaphorical but likely actual: “The sinews and the flesh came upon them.” That was the first process in their resurrection, but it was not yet complete. God did not intend for mankind to merely exist in the flesh, but share His Spirit with Him. At that stage, the dead bones obtained flesh, but they were not living, breathing creatures. The last step in the resurrection process was, “I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army” (Ezek 37:10).
  How did God do that? “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live” (Ezek 37:9b). God breathed life into his restructured creatures. They became totally resurrected when the “dust of the ground” became living souls: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
  The creation was the erection of mankind. Jesus re-erected the dry bones. Their skeletons were erected, the covering added, and then they were made alive. The re-erected dead soldiers were resurrected from the dust. God was to re-erect Israel for a purpose; so that mankind could be resurrected. Israel’s resurrection will be for God to prepare for us a place for eternity after the resurrection of those dead in Christ as well as those remaining who are alive in him.

Therefore, prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; “Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord.” (Ezek 37:12-14)

  Prophecy must be fulfilled. The dead Israelites in Christ were never raised from their graves; they were returned from other lands. Of course, Ezekiel’s vision is prophetic of Israel’s resurrection from foreign soil, but it pertains more to God’s people who God said, “Will cause to come out of your graves.” Lazarus was the first demonstration of that. The story of Lazarus who was already in decay was a miracle to show that Jesus can do what he claimed with Ezekiel that he can do. Jews need a sign (miracle) and Greeks logic (1 Cor 1:22). The demonstration of the dry bones showed doubters that Israel would be resurrected and that they could be as well! Israel, not only represents the chosen Hebrews, but all God’s people – “Behold O my people!” Jesus’s people are the dead Israelites who had faith in the coming Messiah, as well as Christians who have faith in the Messiah who came!
  Jesus raptured (snatched up dry bones) from their resting place. Their souls were elsewhere, in the four winds, it seems. Just as in the beginning, elemental material became alive when God breathed life unto them. He breathed His Spirit and they became living souls. Souls are immortal (Ephes 1:4). They always were and always will be because souls are God’s substance. The human aura is sort of a container with God’s Spirit in it. The soul is without form, without natural substance, is beyond the natural senses, but is real. The human soul is the part of us and God in unison, and how Christians sense God.
  The natural man has an emancipated soul. They relinquished their aura to the Devil to do as he will. Regeneration (born again) is regaining the soul. The old creature whose soul is in the “winds” somewhere, is regained when he or she trusts Jesus for their eternal life.
  It is supposed that the dry bones arose but were mindless. The mind must be with the soul. Of course, with flesh restored, they had brains, but to think rationally, they had to regain their souls. Perhaps, rather than cognition being discreet to the soul, that mind and soul have thought processes, but only the soul has divine wisdom.
  It has been demonstrated that the dead cannot think. Scripture says, “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Rom 12:2). Dead people are called “dead” for a reason; their thought processes cease! Transformation (regeneration or born again) is impossible for the dead. Living beings must revise their thought processes in order to become new creations. What thinking is that? I am not God; you Are, and I trust you for my future! God provides the hope and the future, but living people must accept His authority and Power to do so!
  Agrippa said to Paul, “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian” (Acts 26:28). The Calvinistic heresy that there is random selection by God is totally wrong. Natural men and women must be persuaded to be Christians. Paul used reason and logic. Dead people are neither reasonable nor logical since their brains are dead. Apparently, the dead soldiers surely died for the Name of the Lord to be revived. They surely sacrificed themselves for God’s Name sake, and scripture says that all Christians must do the same (Mat 10:22).
  The Hebrews were made a promise in their Exodus from Egypt from where they came out of sin,  “Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared” (Exod 23:20). Us “peculiar people” (Christians) are given the same promise as God’s chosen people:

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. (John 14:1-3)

  God’s Plan (our hope) is that He truly is preparing a place for our immortal souls and regenerated bodies. The wandering souls of those dead in Christ will rejoin their renewed bodies. God promised to prepare a place for living immortal souls. He did that in the beginning (Gen 1:1-8) and he will do it again (Isa 66:22 and Rev 22:1). Scripture is not only about reviving immortal souls but preparing a place for them! God did that with Paradise in the Garden and will do it again with the same Paradise. We think of “Heaven” as up there somewhere! The Garden of God remains in Israel, and God is still preparing it for OUR place for eternity!
  When Jesus comes at the rapture, it won’t be where our bodies lie. It will be in the midst of the Garden of Jerusalem. Christians’ dry bones everywhere will be raised to be transported to Jerusalem where the trumpet is sounded. Just as the walls of Jericho fell down into the dust with the sound of trumpets, the dead in Christ shall arise from the dust when the trumpet sounds. All the saving events of the Bible happened in the Holy Land. That’s where Christians everywhere shall be saved! That Israel is the Garden Paradise is extremely important for that will be the eternal abode of those dead in Christ of all nations. Of course, no longer a Garden for two, but a great City for those who trust God.

Study the following passages:

And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by. And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited. Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I the Lord build the ruined places, and plant that that was desolate: I the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it. (Ezek 36:34-36)

  Notice that the desolate land of Israel, “is become like the Garden of Eden.” That speaks of a future event. However, it is not literal from the Hebrew; “become like” is not in the original text. That is interpretation by the translators. Literally, it should be written, This land is the Garden of Eden. Since Jerusalem is the “foundation of Peace,” then Israel is “the dust of the Garden of Peace,” and Israel is all the land from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates River. Muhammadans are land squatters in God’s Garden. They shall be evicted when the time comes for the preparation of Paradise restored!
  In a previous commentary, I wrote that Tyre was the location of the cherumbim who guarded entry into the Garden of Eden. Throughout history, that was the purpose of Tyre. It was impenetrable. Tyre was at the edge of the Kingdom of David, and its king, Hiram, was a staunch ally of King David. Likewise, the cherubim guarding the Garden were the “soldiers” who protected the Garden of the Son of David (Jesus).
  Throughout scripture, Israel is the location of what once was the Garden of Eden, and will be Paradise when the heavenly Paradise breaths life back into the old “bones” of Israel!