Sermon Tone Analysis

Summary

Ezekiel 8 and 9 falls in the section of Ezekiel that concerns two themes: the punishment of Jerusalem and the departure of the glory of God.

In Chapter 8 we’re introduced to some specific points of Israelite idolatry – worship of Asherah and worshipping the creator as though he were part of creation.

Ezekiel 9 hearkens back to our earlier episode about God keeping a record of the faithful.

The judgment vision also takes us back to similar events like the death angel at Passover.

Introduction to 8 & 9

let’s jump in here to Ezekiel 8. Again, just to sort of get a little bit of context for this: We’re doing 8 and 9 today, and these chapters fall into a pretty significant section of the book.

Chapters 8 through 11 really concern two themes, and that is, these are visions of punishment for the people of Jerusalem, but the section also deals with the circumstances that lead to the departure from the temple of the glory of God.

That’s a big thing in Ezekiel: the loss of the glory, which of course would naturally coincide with the destruction of the temple.

But the second one people have sort of heard about, it’s kind of famous: the Ichabod passage—the glory has departed.

We’re not there yet, but this is the section in which that’s going to happen, chapters 8 through 11.

Now, you will recall that Ezekiel 4 and 5 had been sign acts, you know, Ezekiel doing—for lack of a better term—dramatizations, visualizations of this impending punishment of Judah and the city of Jerusalem, and of course, the temple.

So now we’re getting into, not sign acts describing this, but visions that Ezekiel has.

So the object, the target, the theme is the same, but this is kind of a different experience for Ezekiel and a different delivery of the same kind of message.

Now in chapter 8 we’re going to be getting into some of the specifics about the idolatries that are being punished, so particularly it’s going to add details to what we’ve covered in Ezekiel 6. Remember the big theme in Ezekiel 6 is “why is God doing all this stuff to us?” and the answer is “because you’re idolaters.”

Specifically, what was in the cross hairs there was state-sponsored idolatry in chapter 6.

So now we’re going to get some more specifics about what all that concerned and then in chapter 9 we’re going to get this vision of divine executioners sent by God.

It’s sort of a vision/allegory of what is going to happen at the hand of Nebuchadnezzar in this impending invasion and destruction of Jerusalem and the temple.

So let’s just begin.

We’ll read in Ezekiel 8. We’ll just start there.

I don’t know that we’ll read every verse of both passages, but we’ll read a lot of them, so let’s just go to Ezekiel 8:1.

It says:

In the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month…

We’ll just pause there.

That would be—if you’re keeping track of the chronology and the dates—that would be roughly 14 months after the initial vision of chapter 1. So…

In the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month… the hand of the Lord GOD fell upon me there.

As I sat, you know, in my house, the hand of the Lord fell upon me there.

He’s with, in verse 1, the elders of Judah.

This is going to be a different group than the elders that I’ll mention later, but back to the text here.

2 Then I looked, and behold, a form that had the appearance of a man.

Below what appeared to be his waist was fire, and above his waist was something like the appearance of brightness, like gleaming metal.

Now that should sound familiar.

Let’s just pause there.

That’s language drawn from Ezekiel chapter 1, except in this case we’re not going to get the wheels and the throne, and the fire—the fiery throne—all that stuff.

We get:

…a form that had the appearance of a man.

Below what appeared to be his waist was fire, and above his waist was something like the appearance of brightness, like gleaming metal.

Again, this very radiant thing.

Verse 3:

3 He put out the form of a hand and took me by a lock of my head, and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the gateway of the inner court that faces north, where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy.

4 And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, like the vision that I saw in the valley.

Now let’s just stop there.

If you’ve heard a lecture of mine on the Two Powers in Heaven, this is a passage that I will often reference in regard to how “two powers language” is used in a passage where the Spirit becomes one of the figures in that passage.

So the Spirit gets drawn into, or described through the use of “two powers language.”

And you say, “I’m not following.”

Well, here’s what I mean.

Look at the terminology.

Verse 2:

Okay, so Ezekiel’s sitting there.

He’s in his hut, his house, with these elders and he sees the appearance of a man, and that below the waist was like fire and above the waist was something like the appearance of brightness—language drawn from Ezekiel 1.

So he’s seeing the figure he saw in Ezekiel 1, which we know from Ezekiel 1 was referred to as both “the glory of God” and in chapter 10 (which we haven’t gotten there yet, but we’ve already mentioned in it conjunction with chapter 1), that figure was also called “the God of Israel.”

So, as we talked in chapter 1, we have this anthropomorphized language about the God of Israel.

Okay, fine, we’ve been there before, we’ve seen that.

But then in verse 3, “he,” apparently this man, the form of a man—the anthropomorphized God of Israel— put out the form of a hand and took me by a lock of my head.

More anthropomorphic language.

But then it says this:

Now here’s where we get the ruach entering into this.

So the question is: well, who lifted him up?

Was it the anthropomorphized man or was it the Spirit?

And the waters get muddied even more because he’s taken to a place and he says, “the glory of the God of Israel was there,” in the place that he was taken

to.

You say, “Wait a minute… I thought you were already looking at it.

I

thought this anthropomorphized man who was called ‘the Glory’ in chapter 1 is the one picking you up! How can the one picking you up be the one you see in the place where you’re transported?”

So the language here is not only two figures, apparently, but since we have the ruach, the Spirit, mentioned, this becomes Old Testament fodder for a three-person Godhead.

Now ruach, of course, can mean “wind,” so you could say, “the wind lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me in visions of God to Israel.”

But since this isn’t a literal journey—this is a visionary experience—and because of some of the other things that are said about the Spirit in the book of Ezekiel, most scholars very readily recognize that this is the Divine Spirit—either a divine spirit or the Divine Spirit (the Spirit of God, whatever)—and not just wind.

So you’ve got what looks like two figures, but the two are sort of confused as one, and then you have this introduction of a third.

So who’s lifting him up?

How can he see the God Israel in the place to which he’s taken when the description used of the God of Israel for the one picking him up matches chapter 1? Who’s the God of Israel in the picture?

Is it the one picking up or the one he sees when he gets there?

We grant that this is a vision, and visions aren’t supposed to be precise… they’re not supposed to observe the laws of physics and all this stuff.

They’re like dreams or whatever.

But the issue is the language of the text.

It’s not that we can’t sort of map this out in real space-time kind of thing.

That isn’t our problem… it isn’t really the issue.

The issue the way this language is used of two or three beings—and not only used, but they’re blurred.

The distinctions between them get blurred in places in this passage and in other passages, too.

So I just want to alert people to the fact that here’s a passage that becomes fodder for, not only the Two

Powers in Heaven discussion that occurred in the Jewish context (in ancient Judaism—at least prior to the second century A.D.), but it also becomes fodder for perhaps the Spirit of God is a member, is like, these other two, is to be identified with these other two.

Again, this is just a glimpse of Old Testament stuff from which the doctrine of a Trinity will develop.

Now, for those of you who remember an earlier study, you know there’s a lot more to this.

The human Yahweh—the Yahweh as a man in the Old Testament—becomes the focal point because of the incarnation of Jesus and what New Testament writers say about Jesus.

I made the comment before that just as Jesus is but isn’t God, the Spirit is but isn’t Jesus to the New Testament writers.

I deal a lot with that in Unseen Realm.

There are several places where the Spirit of the Lord is swapped out for the Spirit of Jesus—two places where Paul says the Lord Jesus is the Spirit, you know that kind of thing.

What the New Testament writers are doing is kind of like what happens here in Ezekiel 8—they’re using terminology that you could easily associate with two separate beings—one or the other—and then injecting the Spirit into the conversation.

In effect, this is where your Trinitarian thinking comes from.

It’s not an invention, it’s a repurposing and a reuse of Old Testament language.

Now you have Jesus in the conversation for the New Testament writer.

Again, the Trinity is not a new, innovative contrivance—it’s a repurposing of stuff in the Old Testament.

Let’s just move beyond that because that’s pretty well-worn territory for at least the Naked Bible Podcast crowd.

We see mentioned here in verse 3 the “image of jealousy.”

It’s also going to be mentioned in verse 5.

So I read through verse 4, which said:

That’s verses 5 and 6.

Now let’s talk about the image of jealousy a little bit.

It’s kind of a natural point of curiosity.

What is this thing?

I think there’s a clue in verse 3.