True & Beautiful Things About the Bible--Old Testamentಮಾದರಿ

Ezekiel: A Picture Comes to Life

Yes, it’s true: A picture is worth a thousand words. Pictures communicate way better than just words.

God’s Word communicates His message with both words and pictures.He prompts the young prophet Ezekiel to tell his story exclusively with pictures—really crazy pictures and then to act out his warnings like a street artist. A living parable.

Ezekiel and Daniel lived around the same time and they were both taken as prisoners of war to Babylon. Daniel went eight years before Ezekiel and spent his life in the king’s court. Ezekiel served in the refugee camps.

Ezekiel, just 30 years old, was God’s voice to those who had just experienced the worst catastrophe in Israel’s history. He pleaded with them to turn to God before they could ever return to Jerusalem. They longed to go back, just as Ezekiel longed to be a priest in Jerusalem’s magnificent temple. But neither would happen.

Instead of being a priest, Ezekiel was given the ministry of weird visions. “I saw visions of God,” he said—the greatest visions ever given to a prophet about the person of God.When nobody listened to him, he got creative with his communication. Instead of speaking in parables, he acted them out (Ezekiel 24:24).

Picture this young prophet standing in a whirlwind, shouting about the judgement coming from God’s throne. Imagine a light flashing brighter than the sun, like lightning, guarding God’s presence. From out of that light came the likeness of a creature that was like four faces. These faces reveal the person of Jesus in the four Gospels:

·A lion’s face pictures Jesus as king (Matthew)

·An ox’s face pictures Jesus as a servant (Mark)

·A man’s face pictures Jesus as the perfect man (Luke)

·A flying eagle pictures Jesus as God (John)

Ezekiel was probably seeing cherubim, the angels whose job was to guard the way to the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden. Many have thought these creatures were keeping us from God, when in reality, they were keeping the way open to God.

Ezekiel’s pictures and living parables are mysteries to us, but they hint at something true and beautiful about God’s glory that we can’t yet imagine.

God is alive, God is at work, His glory is here, hidden in the pictures. We’ll see it for ourselves someday.

Next: Lions, liars, and dares.