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Scripture Reading: Ezek. 1:1-3; Num. 4:2-3; 1 Chron. 23:3a; Luke 3:23a; Ezek. 40:17; 41:6; 46:22; Num. 8:24; Gen. 11:6, 31
Our intention in these messages is to see the visions in the book of Ezekiel. Our goal is not to research this book or to expound it but to see the visions of God’s glorious life contained in it. Therefore, instead of considering Ezekiel verse by verse or even chapter by chapter, we will endeavor to release the crucial points concerning life in this book.
The Bible reveals that a mysterious story is unfolding in the universe — a story involving God and man. In this story God enters into man to be man’s life, causing man to have His nature and His glorious image. Ultimately, in the divine nature God and man will be built together to be the place of God’s rest. As a result of this building, God and man will have a complete union. This is the mysterious life story between God and man.
Although the entire Bible tells this mysterious story of God and man, two books are concerned with this story in a particular way. These books are Ezekiel and Revelation. Both books speak of God being life to man, of the Spirit of life, of the flow of the water of life, and of God’s people, who have His glorious likeness, becoming His dwelling place. Both books end with a vision of Jerusalem, and both books show us that God’s people are built together to become not only God’s dwelling place for His rest but also His corporate counterpart for His satisfaction.
The books of Ezekiel and Revelation go together in parallel. If we would understand Ezekiel, we need Revelation, and if we would see something in the book of Revelation, we need to understand the things revealed in Ezekiel. Thus, it is helpful to take these books together. If we read Ezekiel and Revelation together, we will see that in many respects they are quite similar. The main points in these two books are nearly the same.
The first similarity is that both books start with visions. Both Ezekiel and John saw visions, and the visions seen by them are mainly related to life. The Bible speaks to us about life. In the books of Ezekiel and Revelation, we have not only the term life but also visions portraying what life is and how life works within us and among us. In both books we have not just a description of life but also visions showing us the matter of life.
In the entire Bible the books that speak most clearly concerning God flowing out as life are Ezekiel and Revelation. Ezekiel and Revelation both show us the flow of the living water. Ezekiel 47:1 speaks of the river that flows out of the habitation of God. Verse 9 says, “Every thing shall live whither the river cometh,” and verse 12 says, “By the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed: it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months, because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary: and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine.” In Revelation 22:1 and 2 we see the river of water of life proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. “He showed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb in the middle of its street. And on this side and on that side of the river was the tree of life, producing twelve fruits, yielding its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” In both Ezekiel and Revelation, therefore, we have a river flowing out of God with the life supply.
The main thing that Ezekiel and Revelation have in common is that both books give us a vision of Jerusalem. Ezekiel ends with the vision of Jerusalem, and so does Revelation. These two books, which end with a vision of Jerusalem, tell us that God’s intention is to come into us as life that we may have His nature and image so that, in His nature with His image, we who have Him as our life may be built up together as the holy city to be God’s dwelling place for eternity. This is the central message of both Ezekiel and Revelation. Therefore, the message of the book of Ezekiel is the same as that of the book of Revelation.
Not only are the books of Ezekiel and Revelation similar in content, but the authors of these books are similar in certain respects. The most important similarity is that the prophet Ezekiel and the apostle John were both priests before God. Although Ezekiel was a prophet, when he saw the visions recorded in his book, he stood in the position of a priest, having the status of a priest (Ezek. 1:3) and also the life of a priest. As he was by the river Chebar, he surely was carrying out his priesthood in the spirit, serving God and fellowshipping with God, so that the heavens were opened and he saw the glorious vision of God being life to man so that He and man could be built together. In Revelation 5:10 the apostle John speaks of God’s redeemed people being priests to God. This indicates that John himself must have been serving as a priest. When John wrote the book of Revelation, his heart, standing, condition, and situation were that of a priest.
The book of Ezekiel occupies a very important position among the books of the Bible. If we know what the Bible reveals, we can see that Ezekiel is a miniature of the entire Bible. What is revealed in Ezekiel is a condensed form of the whole revelation in the Bible. In this sense Ezekiel is a miniature of the Scriptures as a whole.
The Bible shows us clearly that God’s eternal purpose is to dispense Himself into a group of human beings. His intention is to dispense Himself into us that we may have Him as our life, that we may have His nature, and that we may bear His glorious image. This means that God’s purpose, His intention, is that we and He would have the same life, nature, and image and that eventually, we and He, He and we, would be mingled together as one entity with two natures, the divine nature and the human nature, in order to be built together as God’s eternal dwelling place. This is God’s eternal purpose, which is clearly revealed in the Scriptures. The book of Ezekiel shows us the same picture in a condensed way, revealing that God’s intention is to work Himself into us as our life and to mingle Himself with us that we might be built together in Him as life to be His eternal habitation. This is what the Bible reveals, and this is what, in miniature, Ezekiel also reveals.
In the first three chapters of Genesis, we see that God created man and placed him before the tree of life. The tree of life signifies God Himself as life to us in the form of food. Due to the fall of man, the tree of life was encompassed and concealed by cherubim, and “a flaming sword which turned every way” kept “the way of the tree of life” (Gen. 3:24). From Genesis 3 onward we see both God’s judgment and God’s care, mercy, and salvation. On the one hand, God’s flaming sword executes His judgment, burning away whatever is contrary to Himself. On the other hand, through His grace God has redeemed a people for Himself. Through the redemption of Christ the way to the tree of life has been opened again to man. Now man, under and through Christ’s redemption, has free access to the tree of life and may take the tree of life as his food. This is why in John 6 the Lord Jesus told us that He came as the bread of life and that we should take Him as our food. He said, “He who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me” (v. 57b). If we take Him as our food, we will have His life and nature, and eventually, we will bear His image. By having His life, nature, and image we will be built up together. He prayed for this building in John 17:21 when He prayed, “That they all may be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us.” To be one in such a way means that we need to be built up together. If we go from John’s Gospel to John’s Revelation, we can see that in Revelation 21 and 22 all the redeemed ones have been built together into one city. In this city we are all one, not just one in doctrine nor even just one in vision but one in building. From this we see that we need to be built up one with another in life. Then God will have a city, the New Jerusalem. This is the picture portrayed in the Scriptures.
When we come to the book of Ezekiel, we see the same picture. In the first chapter are the cherubim of flaming fire with God in their midst. Other chapters show us how God comes to be our life (chs. 11, 33, 34, 36, 37, 47). Eventually, chapter forty-eight reveals that we who have God’s life will be built up together into the holy city, Jerusalem. Once again we see that the book of Ezekiel is a miniature of the Bible.
We need to be deeply impressed with the fact that the Bible as a whole and the book of Ezekiel as a miniature of the Bible reveal that God’s intention is to dispense Himself into us as our life that we may have His divine nature and bear His glorious image. Then by the divine nature with the divine image we will be built together as one eternal dwelling place — the New Jerusalem. This is the central point of the revelation of the Bible and also of the book of Ezekiel.
Ezekiel is a book of visions. The first section of this book (ch. 1) presents a vision of the appearance of the glory of the Lord, revealing how God is manifested, how God moves, and how God administrates His government through the four living creatures. Through the coordination of the living creatures, God is able to move and administrate. In the second section (chs. 2—32) God comes as the consuming fire to judge His people and the heathen nations. After the judgment God comes in to recover His people by life. The third section (chs. 33—39) is the section of recovery. The fourth section (chs. 40—48), which concerns the holy building of God, comes out of the recovery by life and consummates the book. Thus, Ezekiel begins with the appearance of the glory of the Lord and ends with the holy building of God. This indicates that God’s goal is the building.
Every book of the Bible begins in a unique way. For instance, Genesis begins in this way: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Matthew and John begin in a very different way. Matthew 1:1 says, “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The book of Ezekiel also begins in a very peculiar way. The first three verses of Ezekiel are a special, specific, extraordinary introduction to the book.
Ezekiel 1:1-3 says, “Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. In the fifth day of the month, which was the fifth year of king Jehoiachin’s captivity, 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.” In this introduction four main things are covered. First, this is a book of vision, and these introductory verses show us the year, the month, and the day that Ezekiel began to see the visions. Second, these verses show us the place where he saw the visions. Third, here we have a word concerning the man, the person, who saw the visions. Fourth, in this introduction we see the conditions for seeing the visions.
Regarding the introduction to Ezekiel, the first thing we need to consider is the date, with the year, the month, and the day.
The year was the thirtieth year. This refers to Ezekiel’s age. At that time Ezekiel was thirty years of age. According to Numbers 4:2-3 and 1 Chronicles 23:3 a priest, a Levite, started to serve the Lord at the age of thirty. The Lord Jesus also began to serve God in His ministry at the divinely legal age of thirty (Luke 3:23). As a priest who had reached the age of thirty, Ezekiel was qualified to start his priestly ministry.
Here we have the principle that to realize spiritual things and to see heavenly visions, we need the maturity in life. The age of thirty signifies maturity. By the time the priests reached the age of thirty, they were regarded as mature. Therefore, the phrase in the thirtieth year indicates that Ezekiel, being thirty years of age, was mature. This indicates that if we would see the visions in the book of Ezekiel, we must have the maturity in life. Christians today have difficulty understanding this book because most of them lack the maturity in the divine life. Spiritually speaking, not many Christians have reached the age of thirty, and thus it is hard for them to understand the visions in this book.
In Ezekiel 40 through 48, the portion of this book that is devoted to God’s building, the number thirty is used for three kinds of things. The outer court of God’s temple in 46:22 has four corner courts, each of which has a breadth of thirty cubits. These four corner courts are the places for the priests to prepare the offerings for the people to eat and enjoy. According to 40:17 the outer court of the temple has thirty chambers. When the people come together to worship God, they may enjoy the rich offerings in these thirty chambers. Ezekiel 41:6 mentions another thirty side chambers. These are around the temple on three sides, in each of the three stories. In every story there are thirty side chambers. All these side chambers indicate the fullness of the temple. When we put these verses together, we can see that thirty is a number related to preparing Christ, ministering Christ to others, enjoying the riches of Christ, and expressing the fullness of Christ. Hence, in the Bible the number thirty signifies the maturity in life to prepare Christ for others, to enjoy Christ ourselves, and to express Christ in all His fullness. When Ezekiel saw the visions recorded in this book, he was thirty years of age. He was a mature person, able to prepare Christ and to minister Christ for others’ enjoyment and able also to enjoy the riches of Christ himself and to express Christ in all His fullness.
The number thirty was not only significant for Ezekiel but is also significant for us as believers in Christ today. Just as Ezekiel had to be mature in order to serve as a priest, to see the visions, to prepare Christ as the offerings for others’ enjoyment, to enjoy the riches of Christ, and to express the fullness of Christ, so we also need to be matured in our spiritual life so that we can see the visions concerning Christ and His Body, prepare Christ for others’ enjoyment, and enjoy all the riches of Christ to become the fullness of Christ as His expression.
In the book of Ezekiel the number thirty is formed in two ways: five multiplied by six and three multiplied by ten. Mainly it is constituted of three times ten. In the Bible the number ten, which is the complete number of a man, is composed of two fives, of five times two. Consider, for example, the ten virgins in Matthew 25. Five virgins were wise and five were foolish. Here we see that the ten virgins were divided into two groups of five. With the Ten Commandments, there were five commandments on one tablet and another five commandments on a second tablet. The Ten Commandments, therefore, were also divided into two groups of five. The number five signifies the responsibility we can bear by having God added to us. Four is the number of the creature, and one is the number of the Creator. When the Creator is added to the creature, the creature is able to bear responsibility. The number two is the number of testimony, union, and balance. When the Lord Jesus sent out the disciples, He sent them two by two. The number ten, composed of two fives, signifies that as creatures we have God added to us so that we may be able to bear responsibility. It indicates that we are graced to bear responsibility before God in the way of testimony, union, and balance.
As shown in the following chapters, this responsibility is in three layers, or stories, signifying the three persons of the Godhead — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Three is the number of the Triune God, and thirty signifies God’s threefold nature being in man. Thirty is therefore an important number signifying man with the Triune God in him bearing responsibility in a complete way. From all this we can see that in Ezekiel the number thirty indicates that the creatures have the Triune God added to them so that they can bear the responsibility in the Triune God. This is the maturity in life that we need to prepare Christ for others’ enjoyment, to enjoy Christ in a full way ourselves, and to express Christ as His fullness. Only by having this kind of maturity will we be able to see the visions of the book of Ezekiel.
Ezekiel goes on to speak of the fifth year. Whereas the thirtieth year was counted from the year of his birth, the fifth year was counted from the year of captivity. Why did the visions come in the fifth year of captivity and not in an earlier year? The visions did not come earlier because the people were not ready and Ezekiel himself, being under the age of thirty, also was not ready. This indicates that seeing the visions recorded in Ezekiel requires that we make ourselves ready.
Since Ezekiel was thirty when he saw the visions, in the year of captivity he was only twenty-five. Numbers 4:2-3 tells us that the priests began their ministry at the age of thirty, but Numbers 8:24 says that the Levites began to serve at the age of twenty-five. The reason for the difference here is that the priests needed five years of apprenticeship. They could not come into the priestly service immediately. Rather, they needed to be trained and disciplined for five years. At the beginning of the captivity, Ezekiel was an apprentice priest, a learner. He did not yet have the maturity required for seeing the visions. This indicates that in spiritual things there is the need of maturity. Due to the lack of maturity, some among us cannot see the visions which the Lord intends to show us from this book. We cannot see certain spiritual matters when we are young. Thus, we need to look to the Lord that He would grant us the maturity in life that we may see, accept, receive, and take in all the spiritual things.
The fact that the visions came in the fifth year indicates that not only Ezekiel but also the people had been made ready. The number five signifies that man is graced by God to bear responsibility toward God. Even though God’s people were in captivity, they still had some grace from God, so when the time came, they could bear responsibility before God. The “fifth year of king Jehoiachin’s captivity” indicates that the time had come for the people of Israel to bear responsibility toward God. When this captivity began, Ezekiel began learning to be a priest. Even in captivity God gave him grace that he might learn to be a priest. At the time of the fifth year, both Ezekiel and the people were ready. On the one hand, Ezekiel, having reached the age of thirty, could officially minister as a priest before God. On the other hand, the people could now bear their responsibility, and God came in to speak to them concerning it.
Before a child’s parents can speak to him about a particular responsibility, the child must be the proper age to receive such a speaking. A child must reach a certain age before his parents can ask him to bear a certain responsibility. The situation is similar with God’s speaking in the book of Ezekiel. God did not speak until the fifth year of their captivity. Before Ezekiel reached the age of thirty, God did not give him the responsibility of speaking for Him. Likewise, before the fifth year of the captivity, the people had not received the sufficient grace to bear the responsibility of what God would speak to them. But by the time of the fifth year, the people had sufficient grace, and Ezekiel had enough learning and could now bear the responsibility of speaking for God. Thus, in the fifth year God wanted Ezekiel to bear the responsibility to speak to the people of Israel and He wanted Israel to bear the responsibility of listening to His words.
We cannot speak concerning the things in the book of Ezekiel to those who have just been saved, for they cannot understand them. However, when someone reaches “the fifth year” of his salvation, God may want to speak to that one in a particular way. Likewise, as one who speaks for God, I could not speak of these things until I had reached “the thirtieth year.” Now that I have come to my “thirtieth year” and others have come to their “fifth year,” I am able to speak to them regarding the visions in Ezekiel, and they are able to receive this speaking. Both the one speaking and the ones listening must bear their responsibility toward God.
