The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 1 — Section 25

Ver. 5.-" The likeness of a man." There is very much in the visions of Ezekiel that strikes us as strange, and even monstrous. With the sweep of his mighty eal(le-wing he soars far above commonplace experience to awful regions of unearthly sublimity. But ever and anon in his highest flights he seems to find relief by laying hold of some trait of human nature. The Son of man appears repeatedly in Ezekiel's celestial panorama. The prophet seems to delight in hearing the still, sad music of humanity amcng the dread sounds of the larger universe. '!'hose living creatures which may have been suggested to his eye of prophetic imagination by the cherubs at the Jerusalem temple, or by the winged bulls on Assyrian monuments which we now see on the great tablets in the British Museum, those prototypes of the" living creatures" of St, John's grander "revelations," were not simply viewed in their strangeness and greatness, '!'hey were linked to human experience by a common likeness. Whether we take them as symbolical of Divine attributes, or as descriptive of heavenly beings, the human features are equally significant. L THERE ARE HUMAN FEATURES IN HEAVEN. We think of heaven by its contrast with earth. But it also has points of resemblance. All will not be strange there. The same God who made earth, made heaven; and he who rules the one sphere also reigns in the other. In passing from earth to heaven we do but cross from one district to another district in the same Divine dominion. 1. There is a resemblance between spirits in heavenly regions and men. Angels may be without physical bodies, sinless, and gifted perhaps with higher faculties than any possessed by a Pia.to or a Milton on earth. Yet they are spirits, and we are spirits. There is a natural kinship in all spiritual life. 2. There is a human likeness in God. Man was made in the image of God. Then, conversely, we may say that in some degree God is like man. The child may give us some idea of the parent. The positive side of anthropomorphism is reasonable and en. 1. 1-28.] THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL. 9 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ---- --·- helpful to our understanding. We cannot limit God to the human. But we may recognize human characteristics as part of the infinite nature of God, Christ is the manifestation of these characteristics. 3. The human Christ is in heaven. Christ ascended to heaven in his human nature, and he is there now as a brother man. Therefore it is more fully true in Christian days than before the incarnation of our Lord, that there are human elements in heaven. 4, There are men in heaven. Many have gone there before our time, and have founded a human colony in the celestial sphere. May not the spirits of the blessed dead have some influence on the very atmosphere of heaven, spreading through it a certain human tone? II. THERE ARE HUMAN FEATURES IN REVELATION. Ezekiel's vision was a revelation to him. In this revelation he saw traits of humanity. 1. Revelation comes to us through human channels. God speaks to us through prophets, and teaches ns by meaus of the lives of his saints. This is not merely a limitation. It helps us the better to understand Divine truth. It is a translation of the thought of heaven into the language of earth. Only let us beware of the literalism which forgets that any such translation has taken place. 2. Revelation makes known to us the true glory of humanity. We do not know what man may become till we see the Divine idea of man in the heavenly revelation. Ezekiel's vision of the human in heaven, like Plato's doctrine of the Divine ideas, suggests to us that there is something far above normal humanity for man to aim at. The earthly man is far below the heavenly. Let him strive after that lofty ideal. Especially is this possible now that the heavenly man has descended to earth in the Person of Christ. To follow Christ is to copy the celestial type of humanity. 3. In all religion it is important not to lose sight of human nature. The prophet in his vision of God is careful to obaerve anything that links the Divine to the human, the heavenly to the earthly; a purely celestial religion could have little influence on poor, toiling, struggling man. We have to see (1) God's sympathy with man; (2) man's living, earthly experience of God; (3) man's duty to his fellow-men. Ver. 12.-Straighiforwardness. Ezekiel seems to have been particularly struck with the direct movement of the four living creatures which he beheld in his vision, for he refers to this several times. "Their feet were straight" (ver. 7). Twice the prophet tells us that "they went every one straight forward" (vers. 9, 12), and on the second occasion he emphasizes his assertion by adding that "they turned not when they went "-a remark which he subsequently repeated in describing the motion of the wheels (ver. 17). I. HEAVENLY CONDUCT IS STRAIGHTFORWARD. Here is the contrast between the heavenly, the ideal, the perfect, and the too-common course of human conduct on earth. The lanes and alleys of earth are crooked; the golden streets of the new Jerusalem are all straight. Our conduct is commonly marked by uncertainty, indecision, and variability, e.nd sometimes by duplicity and shameful inconsistency. We walk with halting go.it. We put our hand to the plough, and then look back. Like Christian on the !3-ill Difficulty, we tum aside from the steep path of duty to some bower of ease; or, hke the same pilgrim in later life, we forsake the narrow way for Bye-path Meadow -the road to Giant Despair's castle. In order to realize the ideal of heavenly conduct certain characteristics must be formed. 1. Truth. We must really go the way we profess to be in. If we walk only to be seen of men, we shall take different paths according as their eyes are upon us, or as we are left to ourselves. Eye-service is always variable service. The path of the hypocrite is crooked. 2. Singleness of aim. M~ny men turn first to the right and then to the left, while they are drawn hither and thither by counter-attractions. Their thoughts are like the compasses of ships that are sailing between magnetic rocks. Let them beware of the danger of makin~ ship- wreck. "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." The divided lil'e is a broken life. 'fhe single eye is the only safe vision. 3. Perseverance. It is easier to start straight than to keep straight. Yet it is vain to begin well aud tum aside later to paths of error. Bad men sometimes do good deeds. It is the good man who lives a good life throughout, or at least in the main . •II. STI\AIGHTFORWARD CONDUCT DEPENDS ON IIEAVENLY CHARACTERISTICS. It is never easily attained, aud it is quite unattainable without the conditions ou which it. depends, These must be considered. 1. ..i right aim. Each of the living creatures ii 10 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL. [ea. I.1-28.