Ezekiel 1
04-22-26 God as the Raging Fire
God’s Portrait of Himself
One great feature of the cell phone is the capacity to take selfies. Since you can snap a picture of yourself anytime, you have a better shot at catching yourself at your best. You are having a good hair day, and you are wearing your favorite outfit. As you glance at the mirror you think, “Hey, I am looking pretty good today,” and so you snap a selfie to immortalize the scene.
But what if instead you wanted the most honest portrayal of yourself. Maybe you linked up with an old classmate online and you wanted to send them a picture of who you really are. You conclude that you can’t do that with just one picture. Sure, you can send the one that portrays you at your best, but you are an animal groomer, and you want your old classmate to see what you look like after you finish trying to groom a rowdy husky. So, you snap another selfie. Then you take another one after you work out. By sending a collage of selfies, you give your old classmate an accurate representation of who you are now.
We find the Lord doing the same thing. He provides us with pictures of who He is. The first such picture that comes to mind might be of the Lord as the good Shepherd, pursuing the wayward sheep and restoring him to the flock. That is the portrait Psalm 23 suggests. However, if we need multiple pictures to fully represent who we are, how much more would the same be true of the God of the universe. How else might He portray Himself?
In Ezekiel 1, God provides us with a picture of God differing substantially from the comforting Shepherd portrayal. In Ezekiel 1:4, He depicts himself like this:
.Then I looked, and behold, a whirlwind was coming out of the north, a great cloud with raging fire engulfing itself; and brightness was all around it and radiating out of its midst like the color of amber, out of the midst of the fire.
We might wonder why God portrays himself to Ezekiel as a raging fire instead of a loving Shepherd. The answer seems to reside in the attitude and behaviors of His audience. God warns Ezekiel about their mindset when he commissions him to prophesy to them in Ezekiel 2:3: “And He said to me: ‘Son of man, I am sending you to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against Me; they and their fathers have transgressed against Me to this very day.’”
The Trinity in Ezekiel 1
In addition to describing Himself as a raging fire, in this self-portrait God also includes details that portray the three Persons of the Trinity.
In Ezekiel 1:5-6, He represents God the Son as four cherubim. “Also from within it came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance: they had the likeness of a man. Each one had four faces, and each one had four wings.” God goes on to tell us the nature of these four faces: “As for the likeness of their faces, each had a human face. The four had the face of a lion on the right side, the four had the face of an ox on the left side, and the four had the face of an eagle.” (Ezekiel 1:10)
Why do we believe the cherubim with these four faces represent Jesus Christ. Many expositors see these faces as reflecting the description of Jesus in the four Gospels. Though we cannot include a detailed account of these similarities here, we can see the reflection of these four faces by just considering the genealogies included in the four Gospels.
The gospel of Matthew begins with: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” (Matthew 1:1) Here we find Matthew describing Jesus as a descendent of King David and therefore a rightful heir to his throne. Therefore, we might see Him as depicted in Revelation 5:5 as “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David.”
The genealogy of Jesus in Mark reflects the face of an ox. The ox suggests the role of a servant. The ox pulls the plow and does the work. We have no interest in the genealogy of the servant but only care that they can do the work. A plumber comes to your house to fix your stopped-up drain. You have no interest in whether his great-grandfather came over on the Mayflower. You only care about whether he can resolve your plumbing problem. For this reason, of the four gospels, only Mark lacks a genealogy for Jesus. Rather, a major term used in Mark is the word “immediately,” conveying that Jesus was an efficient servant caring for the tasks at hand promptly.
Luke traces the genealogy of Jesus all the way back to Adam, accentuating His humanness, and therefore reflecting the face of a man. We also find Luke recounting some of the more human aspects of the life of Christ such as His dedication as a child and His presence in the temple at age 12.
John skips the human genealogy of Christ, focusing instead on His deity by taking us back to eternity past with the declaration, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John also calls our attention to the deity of Jesus by describing Him as the creator with the assertion, “All things were made by Him,” This focus on the deity of Jesus reflects the face of the eagle, the creature that flies above all the circumstances of life.
Commentators of Scripture often struggle over the description of these faces in Ezekiel 10, which exchange the face of the ox with that of a cherubim. The reason for this might be found in the connection of Jesus as an ox with His setting aside His glory when He came to earth. In Philippians 2:7 the apostle Paul records that “He made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant.” In other words, He assumed the role of an ox. However, before His return to heaven, we find Jesus praying, “And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” (John 17:5 ESV) The face of the cherub would more appropriately portray this restoration of His glory than the face of the ox.
Ezekiel describes the Holy Spirit in the image of four wheels. In Ezekiel 1:15 he records, “Now as I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the earth beside the living creatures, one for each of the four of them.” Ezekiel provides us with added information about these wheels in Ezekiel 1:19-20:
And when the living creatures went, the wheels went beside them; and when the living creatures rose from the earth, the wheels rose. Wherever the spirit wanted to go, they went, and the wheels rose along with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.
Consequently, Ezekiel is describing the spirit in the wheels having a symbiotic relationship with the cherubim, which portray Jesus.
The New Testament depicts this close relationship between Christ during His ministry on earth and the Holy Spirit. For example, Luke 3:22 tells us that at His baptism “the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove….” Shortly after His baptism, Luke again records the Holy Spirit leading Jesus into the wilderness to be tested by Satan: “And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness” (Luke 4:1 ESV) After this period of testing, we find the Holy Spirit accompanying Jesus to His ministry in Galilee. “And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee….” (Luke 4:14 ESV) The book of Hebrews notes about the Holy Spirit even participated in the sacrifice by Christ of Himself on the cross in telling us that “…He through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God” (Hebrews 9:14) Consequently, it is safe to conclude that these wheels, which Ezekiel records as embodying the spirit of the cherubim, and accompany the cherubim in all their activities, represent the Holy Spirit.
Ezekiel introduces the portrayal of God the Father in this vision in Ezekiel 1:22: “Over the heads of the living creatures there was the likeness of an expanse, shining like awe-inspiring crystal, spread out above their heads.” The term “expanse” in this verse is the same Hebrew word used for “firmament” in Genesis 1. This is apparently referring to something akin to the sky on a very bright and clear day. Ezekiel goes on to record what he saw in that sky:
And above the expanse over their heads there was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like sapphire; and seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness with a human appearance. And upward from what had the appearance of his waist I saw as it were gleaming metal, like the appearance of fire enclosed all around. And downward from what had the appearance of his waist I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness around him.” (Ezekiel 1:26-27 ESV)
We might expect that the vision would depict God the Father as above the other persons in the Trinity since Scripture portrays Him as possessing ultimate authority. For example, John 4:14 states: “And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.” Here we find the Father commissioning the Son, which represents the Father in an authoritative role. This authority also reveals itself in the prayer of Christ to His father in the garden of Gethsemane: “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” (Luke 22:42 ESV) We finally see the ultimate authority of God the Father in 1 Corinthians 15:24, which records Jesus, after having defeated all God’s enemies, delivers authority to His Father: “Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.” (Luke 22:42 ESV) These passages reveal why in the vision of Ezekiel God the Father is portrayed as above all else.
Ezekiel further describes this depiction of God the Father in Ezekiel 1:28 as follows: “Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness all around. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD….” We find a parallel account of God the Father in Revelation 4:2-3: “At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne.…and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald.” This account in Revelation further supports the conclusion that this last figure in Ezekiel is portraying God the Father.
What might we learn from Ezekiel’s vision? First, it conveys to us that the Persons of the Trinity play distinctive roles in God’s program. Though each comprises an embodiment of God, this vision alerts us to their distinctiveness. The vision also reminds us that Christ in His earthly ministry was fulfilling four distinct roles and conveys the nature of those roles. Perhaps the greatest take away from this vision resides in the distinction in God’s response toward Israel when living in rebellion as opposed to us as we struggle with our human frailties. We find Peter in his weakness denying Christ and Christ restoring him. God knows that we are weak and meets us in our failures. However, Ezekiel’s depiction warns us that rebellion against God comprises a different attitude eliciting a response from God as a raging fire. We want to be comforted by God’s restoration when we are weak, but we want to avoid His response to rebellion.