Ezekiel 1:28

So, Ezekiel chapter one would have to be the most weird opening to a book anywhere in the world. Ezekiel briefly introduces himself as a priest who is 30 years old, and then suddenly says that God appears to him while he is by the river Chebar (which is in Babylon’s territory). The resulting description of what he sees is amazingly strange.

There are four living creatures (I take this to mean that the creatures are real, ie. Angels), who each have four wings, two stretched upwards, and two covering their bodies. Their colour is like burnished bronze, they have four faces each, one like a man, one like an ox, one like an eagle, and one like a lion. There was lightning shooting between them all, their legs were straight (ie. They had no knees), and they didn’t turn, but just flew ‘straight ahead’ to get wherever they wanted (they have faces on all four sides so they can go whichever way!). Furthermore, wherever they went, massive wheels followed them around. Ezekiel says the wheels are big enough to be called ‘awesome’. The working of the wheels is like wheels within wheels, and if you can imagine it, the wheels never turn on the ground, but just roll whichever way they angels are going. Like spheres. What’s more, the rims of the massive wheels (of which there are four – one for each living creature) have eyes all over them.

What an awesome picture! I don’t think Lewis Carroll could have imagined a more strange and awesome scene, and yet here we are, a true statement from the Book of Books. Although the meaning of the passage is difficult to grasp in its entirety (probably impossible), we should look at it slightly closer because, being the first chapter of the book of Ezekiel, it is bound to be the key to unlocking the rest of the book, or at least the lens through which we read the rest of the book.

In my opinion, the view he has of the LORD’s glory in this chapter is to do with the judgment of the LORD. The angels are symbols of his busyness in judgment...they go wherever He wants them to (v. 12), they fly swiftly with their wings, covering the four corners of the earth, turning the wheels of judgment which are full of eyes, watching the actions of men. It shows God’s might, His omniscience, His omnipresence, His meticulous detail in judgment (wheels within wheels!) and His holiness (all that lightning and fire!).

‘Like the appearance of a rainbow in a cloud on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the brightness all around it. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD.’ (Ezekiel 1:28)

This is the last verse in the chapter. While the first parts of the chapter describe the perfection of the LORD in judgment, the last verse speaks of the reaction of Ezekiel to the glory he sees. What he feels is that what he sees is brightness and glory and goodness. The verse brings to me images of Moses, begging God to show him the hindparts of the aftershadow of His glory. All this awesome scene portrays is the likeness of the glory of the LORD. And it was like the rainbow coming out on a rainy day for Ezekiel. What a testimony!

Imagine having seen the likeness of the glory of God! What would it compel us to do? Well, I have news for you: we have a greater example of the glory of God than Ezekiel ever saw or experienced, for we know Jesus Christ, the epitome of the fullness of the glory of God. What has it compelled you to do?