I will not even attempt to identify the creatures that Ezkiel saw but the message was very clear; God expects the righteous to be righteous!
Ezekiel was picked to give the captives
a choice: hope or despair.
Ezekiel, along with the other Israelites,
was held captive in what is now Iraq in the city of Nippur. There was the seat
of the god of the wind, Enlil the ruler of the cosmos. Enlil was a fake God
that they might be tempted to follow, and surely many were.
The living creatures that Ezekiel
saw came to him in this manner; “The heavens were opened, and I saw visions of
God” (Ezek 1:1).
Soon, “The Word of the Lord came expressly
unto Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the
river Chebar; and the hand of the Lord was there upon him” (Ezek 1:3).
Now, let us examine how the Word
came — “expressly.” Literally, the Power of God (El) “fastened” (Jehezekel)
upon Ezekiel the prophet. Ezekiel became Jehezekel in a manner after God paired
with him.
For those who have followed my
serial book, An Awesome Quantum God, let it be known that God quantumly “entangled”
Himself in Power with Ezekiel and he became a new creature with the supernature
of God. He would need to be like God to interact (entangle) with the other
captives who would surely give him a hard time.
The “Word” that came upon Ezekiel
was the “Word” of which the apostle John wrote; Ezekiel saw the preincarnate
Jesus. What would Ezekiel have seen? What Luke saw at the baptism of Jesus: “The
Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon Him, and a Voice came
from heaven, which said, “You are my beloved Son; in you I am well pleased”
(Luke 3:22).
Ezekiel did not see a man but a
phantom Image (Selem) of God.
Remembering that the Power of God
fastened on Ezekiel, what was happening. The Holy Spirit in the shape of the
person, Jesus, engendered Ezekiel; the nature of Ezekiel became like the nature
of God in Power.
The “Godhead” has three
substances: (1) The Power, or Dynamics, of God, (2) the Backside, or Phantom,
of God, and (3) the Obverse, or Body of God.
The Dynamis (The Word) of
the Godhead stopped on Ezekiel and revealed Himself in action: God fastened
Himself on Ezekiel and Ezekiel became like Him but of a different “spin;” God
would remain in Phantom, but His Spirit would be in the form of a man. As such,
Ezekiel was an antitype of Jesus — alike but different in some respect. He was
just a man but with the Power of God. He was what Paul meant when he said, “In
Christ” — the Power of the Word is in them.
God picked Ezekiel exclusively
and so He does each Christian. With Ezekiel, God attached Himself to Ezekiel
and Ezekiel assumed the Power of God; the heavens were opened, and he saw
visions of God. God is Invisible to the naked eye, but He is still as real as
Jesus because Jesus is God. Ezekiel, although Jesus was of a different
substance, He was revealed to Ezekiel.
God can be seen, not only in Body
or Spirit, but by His Actions as well. That is the quantumlike characteristic
of the Godhead; the obverse is Jesus, the reverse Father God, and the motion (Action)
is the Dynamics of the Father and the Son.
Ezekiel had a close encounter
with a Divine kind, and it was not an alien being, but the Supreme Being that
was alien to the Jews. God revealed Himself to Ezekiel. Ezekiel became like
Him, then the Jews would see the Christ in Ezekiel and be persuaded to become
righteous.
As such, Ezekiel became a prophet
— a messenger of God carrying the Word of God to the lost. Prophets are much
like angels within but appear in a natural physical state. Ezekiel was imbued
with the Word of God and his task was to share the Word of God that was in
himself.
He did not become God nor
even the Word, but the Word was in him as surely as it was in Jesus. Ezekiel
was himself in Christ and then he would go to the prisoners to make them
free; as it turned out, not only free from the Babylonians but free to return
to Jerusalem to be with their God rather than with Enlil.
The apostle John was aware of
this action when he wrote, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall
be free indeed” (John 8:36). Ezekiel was made free by the “Son” (The Word) and
before it was all over, he was free of the yoke of the Babylonians. Cyrus the
Great of Persia was the action that God used to make them free!
Note that God did not use a
faithful Jew to restore Judea but used a pagan. Pagans make useful tools to do
the work of God, otherwise like the Maccabees, they would make a name for
themselves.
How did God fasten Himself to
Ezekiel. He provided a scroll with words written on it. He told Ezekiel to eat
of it. In a sense, the Word of God fastened itself to Ezekiel when he ate of
it. Ezekiel would have eaten of the Tree of Life worthily because God fed
it to him. Those “trees” were not necessarily trees but “firm things.”
The firm thing that Ezekiel ate were the Word of God on a scroll. In a sense,
he ate the “Bible,” and the Word was then in himself.
There was great action when the
Lord and His hosts left Ezekiel; “So the Spirit lifted me up, and took me away,
and I went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit; but the Hand of the Lord
was strong upon me” (Ezek 3:14). Ezekiel was lifted by the Spirit of God which
he then recognized was the “Hand of the Lord.” Ezekiel saw that the Dynamics of
God when stopped was the ame strong hand of the invisible God that kept him. He
understood that the invisible Presence of God was as real as His physical
Presence, and so it was.
At the river Chebar, “there (he)
astonished among them seven days” (Ezek 3:15). He fed them the Word of God from
within himself. In a sense, He was as Christ.
Just as God had put His Spirit in
Adam in the beginning and then Adam put the Spirit of God in the woman, so it
was with Ezekiel.
Next, it is written, “Son of man,
I have made you a watchman unto the house of Israel” (Ezek 3:17). As a “watchman”
(sapa), Ezekiel’s role was to peer into the future and that he did. He
ate the Word and kept it within himself. He understood the future Dynamic of
God to protect the Israelites.
Herein is the message that God gave Ezekiel. It concerned the future when the Word came in the flesh rather than in the Spirit:
When I say unto the wicked, ‘You shall surely die;” and you give him not warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.
Yet if you warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.
Again, when a righteous man does turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumbling-block before him, he shall die: because you have not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at thine hand.
Nevertheless, if you warn the righteous man, that the righteous sin not, and he does not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned; also you have delivered your soul. (Ezek 3:18:21)
That was the message that Ezekiel was given by the Word to take to the captives in Iraq, but he was also to take into the future. They are conditions for safety and freedom.
For now, focus on just one
condition: “When a righteous man does turn from his righteousness, and commit
iniquity, and I lay a stumbling-block before him, he shall die: because you
have not given him warning, he shall die in his sin,
and his righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered.”
That is our warning from the
past. All the while Christians think they are free and safe; they may not be.
A righteous man or woman are
those who trust the Word, Jesus, for salvation. They are those in Christ,
having been “born again” in the same manner as Ezekiel. As such, they have “eaten”
the Word of God and the Word is in them.
Ezekiel kept the Word but even he
was in jeopardy: His duty was to spread the Word to the others. His dynamic was
to be the Dynamic of Jesus. If he failed to direct the Word to whosoever, then
he would be held accountable; he could have died if the action of Christ had
not been in himself. His soul would be delivered, or saved, after he
accomplished what he was rewarded with — the Spirit of God. He would be
required to take the activity of God and make it active to the world; to both
the unrighteous and the righteous.
Even those, who like Ezekiel, who
had consumed the Word, if they failed to share it, then they too were in
jeopardy; “he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he has done
shall not be remembered.”
The Word in even Christians
cannot remain dormant. If the Word is in us Christians, then it must get out to
multiply the Spirit of God.
Just like quantum mechanics, the
Word of God must spread to each of us “trees,” as we are compared to in both scripture
and quantum theory.
How does God entangle us “trees”?
He directs the Word as us, then we spread the Word in a dynamic wave. That was
what God meant when he told Adam to “multiply.” He was to produce more living
souls, and as Adam’s kind that is our role as well.
If the Word stops at us, unless
it moves on, God stops it for good in us with death. If the Dynamic of God that
is in us is not kept dynamic, then we worship the Name in vain.
God does not give up on us for we
are sealed in the same manner as Ezekiel; we are fastened to the Word,
Jesus. If we fail to have the Virtue (Dynamis) of Jesus, then us “pebbles” from
the “Stone” go by the wayside just like the seeds in the parable.
The Word of the Lord sometime later came unto Ezekiel who said these words:
Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put My spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep My judgments, and do them. (Ezek 36:25-27)
Baptism and rebirth are separate
events; first the flesh is cleansed of its filth, then comes the heart which is
circumcised of its nature. Water does the outward work and then “I will give you,”
God said, “an heart of flesh…I will put My spirit within you.”
That passage distinguishes
between baptism with water and baptism of the Spirit of God — the Holy Ghost
that God put into Ezekiel.
Then God adds your responsibility;
“You shall keep My judgments and do them.” Again, just as with
Ezekiel, the righteous must be active to keep themselves secure from
death. How to judge whether you are active or not? By the works that you do; not
that it is the work you do, but your willingness to spread the Good News that
Ezekiel spread.
If we are to be like Jesus, we
are to spread the Good News that Jesus spread.
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