SEE WITH EYES SHUT

 The Book of Ezdras (Ezra) never made it into the western Bible but it is considered “canon” by most since it was from the double-book of Ezra-Nehemiah. It is God’s Word, although it did not make it for some reason. It is scriptural and prophetic. This passage caught my eye when I was reading it: 

KEY VERSE: Let the blind man have a vision of my glory. (4 Ezdra 2:22) 

  “Glory” is ambiguous. Its full meaning, perhaps, is incomprehensible because God is beyond comprehension. In Hebrew, “glory” is kabowd and means “splendor.” (Strong’s Dict.).  Moses would see “the glory of the Lord” (Exod 16:7) but Moses would not see God’s Face because of its splendor. It was so glorious that if Moses looked directly at the frontal side of Moses, he would die.

  Moses had found grace in God’s sight and was rewarded by seeing God’s Glory: 

¹⁸ And he (Moses) said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory. ¹⁹ And He (God) said, I will make all my Goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the Name of the Lord before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy. ²⁰ And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live. ²¹ And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock: ²² And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by: ²³ And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen. (Exod 33:18:23)

Before we consider those passages, compare it to those from the New Testament: 

²⁶ The mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: ²⁷ To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Col 1:26-27)

  “Glory” in that passage means also “splendor” in the Greek, but it is explained by Strong’s more extensively. “It is the glorious condition of blessedness into which is appointed and promised that true Christians shall enter after their Savior’s return from heaven” (Strong’s DIct.), but it is also “that condition with God the Father in heaven to which Christ was raised after he had achieved His work on earth” (ibid). Thus “glorified” Christians are in the image of Jesus. Where have we heard that before? About Adam in the Garden of Eden. Christians will be innocent and perfect just as Adam was “generated” (Genesis). “Regeneration” is when true Christians return to the perfect image wherein Adam was created. Hence, regeneration is not the condition of those “born again” (John 3:7), but those glorified — that condition that we call “resurrected.”

  Adam was made in the image of Jesus and the promise (Gen 3:15) is that he and all mankind could be remade in the same image — regeneration. Christians on this Earth are in the image of Adam in the world but will not be as the image of created Adam until Jesus returns. The promise made to Adam and Eve pertains to all true Adams since Adam means “man” and Eve the mother of all mankind.

  What mystery was hidden from ages and generations? “The riches of the glory.” That is Christ in Christians. What is hidden beneath our “coats of skin” (Gen 3:21), Jesus is in there keeping righteous men safe. “Safe” until when? When they are glorified with new flesh as Adam’s was before it was despoiled by sin. Christians, when they enter heaven, shall obtain the riches of the glory, and not before. Splendor will be in the souls of Christians! That “splendor” is the glory of God.

  Living is having glory. Adam lost his “glory” when he sinned. The invisible image of God was not in him any longer. Adam became inglorious (disgraced) and remains ungraceful. God saw that Moses had “found grace in his sight” (Exod 33:17). He could see God’s Glory, but he would not have it in him. That is the grace that Christians have in the world. They have God’s grace, but glory remains outside them until regeneration in the end. Not that they do not have the Holy Ghost, but it is with them, part of their person, but not yet glorified.

  Christians have the “hope of glory.” That is a regeneration to the image of Jesus. In Paradise in heaven, Christians will have the splendor of innocent Adam. They will retain their free will, but their will shall be harmonized with God’s Will. There will be no more disobedience because the flesh has been circumcised from the hearts of true Christians. The “flesh” that belongs to Satan will be cut off, and Christians will be sons of God again through adoption after Satan’s DNA is cutoff.

  God showed Moses His Glory. He called it His “Goodness.” That would be His “Splendo.” He added another feature to “glory.” It is “Goodness.” Because only God is Good and Jesus is God, God showed Moses that He IS Jesus. In other words, God manifested Jesus to Moses before Jesus was ever born! Whenever God manifests Himself to mankind, that manifestation is Jesus. He did not show Moses His Face but only His “Glory” of “Goodness.” Jesus certainly was thinking of that when he remarked to a man “’Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?’ And he said unto him, ‘Why callest thou me ‘good?’ there is none Good but one, that is, God’” (Mat 9:1617)

  Jesus was not denying that He IS God but validating to the man that He IS “Good” and that He IS God. When God was showing Moses His Glory, He was showing Moses His Goodness and that He IS Christ. Glory is in the Presence of God just as Adam was in Paradise. Adam was in the Garden Paradise in the Presence of the Word (Jesus), and Adam will return to Paradise lost when he is glorified… or remade anew!

  Spiritually blind people cannot see what Moses saw. God saw that Moses had found grace, surely by a tender and obedient heart, and it was acceptable for Him to see God’s Glory — Jesus. God blinded Moses so that Moses could see Him by covering the eyes of Moses. The interference from the world was filtered out. God would reveal Himself by manifesting His Name. God, the Father, of course, is without name (JHWH) but he is called “Ya saves” — a theonym, meaning “Jesus.” (Ya is short for Yahweh, or the tetragrammaton JHWH). God was revealing Jesus to Moses, and anytime God reveals Himself, that revelation is Jesus. Thus, Jesus is the mystery of which Paul wrote. It was Jesus’s Face all the time that God hid, because the time had not come to reveal the Face of God (i.e, the Face of Jesus).

  Now back to the key verse : “Let the blind man have a vision of my glory.” God made Moses blind so that he could see glorious Jesus. What I mean by that is how Jesus appeared in the Garden. John said that He (Jesus- the Word) was there. Where was He? He was in the midst of the Garden as the Tree of Life. The cherubim guarded the Way to the Tree of Life (Gen 3:24) and Jesus is the Way! Not only that, but the truth and the life. Thus, the Tree of Life was how God manifested His Name, Jesus. Life, truth, and the Way to Paradise is by God’s Name. Hence, the Tree of Life represents God in the Flesh and the philosophy (doctrine) of Jesus. “What is truth?” Pilate asked? That Jesus is God and is the Way to Life.

  For the patriarchs to see Jesus when they looked at God, they had to be blinded with their eyes closed to the world. Once God was in the world, then anyone could see His Face by looking at Jesus, but they could not see God within that Flesh. Ezra spoke of Christians — those blind,or set apart, from the world, but he was surely speaking of one specific Christian when he said, “the blind man.”  To whom did Ezra refer? Perhaps blind Bartimaeus.

  When Jesus came to Jericho, blind Bartimaeus spoke out, “Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me” (Mark 10:47). Like Moses long ago, Bartimaeus had  “found grace” in God’s sight. Like Moses, who God blinded, Bartimaeus who God made blind at birth, found grace. He knew that God was there although he could not see. The world had not blinded Bartimaeus to truth and it had not Moses.

  Although he could not see, Bartimaeus saw God! Not His worldly flesh but God within the Vessel called “Jesus.” In his blindness, he saw the glory of God although to the world Jesus had yet to be glorified (John 7:39).  The glorification of Jesus required that He “give up the ghost” and get new flesh; the former he did on the Cross and the latter, in the tomb. Both Moses and Bartimaeus, in their blindness, saw Glorified Jesus — the resurrected Jesus.

  Jesus faced blind Bartimaeus. God’s hand was over the man’s eyes, so to speak. What did Jesus look like as Bartimaeus gained his true vision (truth)? He “saw men; as trees walking” (Mark 8:24). When Jesus approached him, He, as Moses did long ago, saw the Glory of God, although it was covered to the world by Flesh. He saw Jesus as “a Tree walking.” He saw Jesus as the Tree of Life. Truth and life had been revealed to him in his blindness. He saw that the Way of Jesus was the Way to Life, just as the gate to Paradise was the Way to the Tree of Life. In other words, he saw Jesus in Paradise.

  My premise is that Paradise is not up there, but coexistent with the Kingdom of David, only in another unseen realm. Beneath the throne of God in Paradise is a floor like a “sea of glass” (Rev 4:6). To Moses and Bartimaeus, it was a transparent ceiling. Both could see God’s Glory but not His Face through that ceiling which was opaque to any others.

  Then comes Saul. God blinded him that he could see. He saw Jesus although Jesus was in Paradise. Because God had grace on Saul, he saw Jesus through the sea of glass. Seeing Jesus changes things. Blind Bartimaeus and Saul could finally truly see! Bartimaeus was no longer blind and Saul was no longer Saul. “Questioning” Saul became “humbled” Paul because he could finally see Jesus!

  By studying the Word, a few years back, I too saw through the sea of glass. I took my eyes off the world, or God did it for me, and I could see the Glory of God. I saw Jesus in the Tree of Life in the Garden, and soon after I saw Jesus as the Tree of Life in heaven. Then I saw that the Tree stood where it always has stood, right there on the River of the Garden (the Jordan River) . Now when I see the harlot Jerusalem, I see what she will become — the Bride of Christ with the ceremony joining heaven and earth into one.

(picture credit: YouTube; "A Tree That Actually Walks")