When I completed a study of Ezekiel, I began writing about an aspect of that is unique: the way that God chooses human beings to function beyond their own ontologies– that is, as symbols. I'll post this study with updates for your perusal and would love to hear your reactions to it.
Ezekiel: The Creation of A Symbol
Introduction
This study is intended to be read not as a polished document, but as notes for a study of the man who, more than any other save Jesus, was intended to be seen as a symbol by those who heard him. Such an understanding would not take away from his literality as an historic figure nor to diminish his own personal suffering through the process. On the other hand, it shows that when God marks a human being to be a symbol, He will do with him or her as He wishes to accomplish His ends and to convey His messages.
It should be noted that such a person probably will not be marked by ease or pleasantness of life in general; but that one way we can identify such a one as having been marked by God would be his or her ultimate acceptance of being touched by God in such a manner. Though prophets and symbols are human beings and can cry out against the pain they suffer, their lives viewed as wholes would show that they feel honored by being used by God in such an overt way.
Background on the book of Ezekiel and his life
His period of prophecy as recorded in the book lasted 22 years, figured by calculating the dates given in the book.
He was orderly about the arrangement of his materials (unlike the book of Jeremiah) and meticulous about dating his visions. He saw the date of the captivity of Jehoachin king of Judah as being pivotal since he tied all the events and visions to that point in history. Perhaps as much as any prophet (and much like Luke in the New Testament) he desired that God be viewed as active in human history.
His message was, in the main, rejected; and God prepared him for that fact. His effectiveness was in his obedience in portraying symbolically the realities God entrusted to him. As a preacher, we have no evidence that his teachings were particularly convicting or measurably effective on his listeners when they first heard them.
However, we do know that they eventually understood: over and over God repeated, “then they will know that I am God.” Another thing they would, by implication, know would be the authority of Ezekiel to say what he said. After all, the people were in captivity because they had believed and acted on the assurances by false prophets that they would not be taken away and that Jerusalem would not fall.
One theme of the book of Ezekiel is the convergence of the invisible and the visible. Just as the wheels of the heavenly carriage in chapter one rest on the earth while conveying heavenly beings, the prophecies and symbols Ezekiel is to portray show that God's sovereign invisible will shall surely be played out in historical circumstances. (Hence, perhaps, the emphasis on dating the visions.) There will be only one purpose for them–to show the glory of God so that people will know His power and identity. The salvation of individuals, even the redemption of the nation as a whole, are secondary to the primary purpose of establishing His power and identity.
One illustration of this is that, though he teaches individual responsibility for sin (chapter 18), and though the corporate sin of the nation of Israel had led to the Shekinah glory of God leaving the temple, it apparently was not their repentance or change that led to His return of glory to the temple. Again, overarching and global and pantemporal purposes are being played out, all with the goal of showing unmistakably His power and causing people to “know” that He is God.
This implacability of God, seen in this book by messages of doom that will not be assuaged, shows God's justice toward sin. It emphasizes that all events on earth, everything from those meteorological to the socio-political realities of an exile, are foreknown by God and under His control. The symbols are sealed-up, bound-to-happen representations of inexorable future events. Apparently unlike the conditional prophecies of Jeremiah which could be averted by repentance, the prophecies of Ezekiel are marked by a sense of inevitability of national destruction, with the hope held out of individual change linked securely to the sense of responsibility for warning one another (chapter 3).
It is notable that the messages of doom continue until the fall of Jerusalem. At that point, Ezekiel's messages are those of hope. This is reminiscent of King David who mourned and fasted until Bathsheba's son died; and at that point, he arose and washed himself and went to the temple to worship. He, like Ezekiel, knew a freedom that is born out of human helplessness, for it is at this point that God can act unmistakably and powerfully without our interference.
There is no happenstance and no caprice in the mind of God. He shows justice in exiling the people, He shows mercy in bringing them back.
God's desire that people know Him shows up in two ways in this book. They will know, as He repeats over 90 times in the book, that He is God because of His announced purposes and fulfillment of symbols in the real world. Further, as He later reveals, He wants people to know Him personally, through other means that the new covenant will bring about.
This book ties the idea of glory to the temple. When God leaves it, the glory leaves it. I want to explore what the establishment of a new temple could mean in terms of power and glory.
