Two Powers in Heaven

Ezekiel 10-11 are the concluding chapters to a prophetic vision that began in chapter 8. In this episode we discover how these chapters provide more Godhead talk from the Old Testament and the departure of the glory of God from the temple. This is important material for evangelism and apologetics. Once Holy Blood, Holy Grail came out in the early 1980’s and Dan Brown’s work showed up, and with the influence of Islamic online witnessing — many people think that the trinity is a late post-scripture invention .. it is a late word but the word is only a descriptor.

Introduction

All right, so today we're doing Ezekiel 10 and 11–two chapters again. Some listeners will probably already know that Ezekiel 10 is, in many respects, repetitious with chapter 1. When we went through chapter 1, I mentioned that we brought some content from chapter 10 into the episode on Ezekiel 1. but having said that, there are some things we need to look at here. We're not going to repeat the stuff from chapter 1, but there's enough in here that we do need to mention because it will be important before we go on into chapter 11.

So with regard to chapter 10, the first question that would sort of be asked is, "Well, why does it repeat so much? Why do we get another description of the cherubim and the wheels and all this kind of stuff–moving here and there? Why do we get that when we had it in chapter 1?" Well, some of that is going to help set up certain parts, certain things said in chapter 11 and also be relevant with some things we've talked about up to this point. So we don't want to skip it entirely. It does have a purpose. We're not going to rabbit-trail into the scholarly, literary purposes for it and all that. If you want to know that, just get a good commentary on Ezekiel and read that. We're not doing literary analysis here. As is our custom, we're looking into the text to see, "Hey, what's interesting here?"

With respect to chapter 10, the first thing we need to take note of is that it divides into two parts pretty conveniently. We have verses 1-8, verses 9-17, and they both begin with the same statement so they're pretty neatly divided. It says, "I looked, and behold..." So it's very easy to divide the two. The second part is the one that's really repetitious with Ezekiel chapter 1. So verse 9-17, again, is largely the same as chapter 1.

Ezekiel 10:1–8 ESV

Then I looked, and behold, on the expanse that was over the heads of the cherubim there appeared above them something like a sapphire, in appearance like a throne. And he said to the man clothed in linen, “Go in among the whirling wheels underneath the cherubim. Fill your hands with burning coals from between the cherubim, and scatter them over the city.” And he went in before my eyes. Now the cherubim were standing on the south side of the house, when the man went in, and a cloud filled the inner court. And the glory of the Lord went up from the cherub to the threshold of the house, and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was filled with the brightness of the glory of the Lord. And the sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard as far as the outer court, like the voice of God Almighty when he speaks. And when he commanded the man clothed in linen, “Take fire from between the whirling wheels, from between the cherubim,” he went in and stood beside a wheel. And a cherub stretched out his hand from between the cherubim to the fire that was between the cherubim, and took some of it and put it into the hands of the man clothed in linen, who took it and went out. The cherubim appeared to have the form of a human hand under their wings.

But the first 8 verses, therefore, are not. Verses 1 to 8 deal with Jerusalem's destruction. Now we've had this as a theme for the last few chapters, really beginning with chapter 4. Jerusalem is about to bite the dust. Ezekiel has told us why. He's done a bunch of sign acts. He's had visions and what-not about the destruction of Jerusalem, so this one here in chapter 10 is actually a continuation. It's still part of a vision that he had that began in chapter 8. That was sort of chapter 8 through 11. So these next two chapters are still– we're still sort of in the same vision sequence, and it's really still about the same thing: Jerusalem's impending destruction. Now in those 8 verses, the impending destruction really sort of has two facets to it. One is, you're going to have the first few verses talk about the earthly judgment of the city. It's going to be symbolized by the activities, not of Ezekiel this time, but of the man dressed in linen, this divine figure that we saw in our last episode. He's still in the picture and he's going to be doing something here that symbolizes the destruction of Jerusalem. Secondly, we're also going to get sort of a heavenly judgment theme. So in verses 1-8 we've got earthly judgment of the city symbolized by what the man dressed in linen is going to do, and that's familiar territory. But we're also going to

get this idea of heavenly or theological or divine judgment. And that has to do with the departure of the glory. And this is one of those things in the book of Ezekiel that people sort of know about because if preachers ever venture into Ezekiel they usually pick up on this passage–this theme about the glory departing from Jerusalem, because you can make good sermons out of that... the glory departing from the people of God and what-not.

So chapter 10 is where we're going to see that, but the departure of the glory is really only going to be finalized when we get into chapter 11, so both of the chapters are important. So let's jump in here with chapter 10, and we'll just start in verse 1. We read:

Ezekiel 10:1 ESV

Then I looked, and behold, on the expanse that was over the heads of the cherubim there appeared above them something like a sapphire, in appearance like a throne.

Again, that's very similar to language from Ezekiel chapter 1. So right away, the reader is signaled to the fact that, "Oh–here in this vision of Ezekiel, he's also seeing that thing that he saw back in chapter 1." So in verse 1, Ezekiel sees this expanse over the heads of the cherubim and there’s a throne, and then verse 2 says:

Ezekiel 10:2 ESV

And he said to the man clothed in linen, “Go in among the whirling wheels underneath the cherubim. Fill your hands with burning coals from between the cherubim, and scatter them over the city.” And he went in before my eyes.

Again, Ezekiel finishes his narration that way–what he sees. Now, an obvious question right up front: Who is speaking to the man clothed in linen? You'd have to say "God," and really the antecedent of that, with God being the speaker, goes back to chapter 8, verse 1, where Ezekiel said, "The hand of the Lord God was upon me." And then in verse 2, he unravels that by saying:

Ezekiel 8:1–2 ESV

In the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house, with the elders of Judah sitting before me, the hand of the Lord God fell upon me there. 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.

In other words, in chapter 8, Ezekiel says, "the hand of the Lord God was upon me," and he sees this anthropomorphized God–God as man–and it gets described in the same way that we saw in chapter 1 for the being on the throne above the expanse. So God is the speaker here, and that divine man–that God-as-man character in chapter 8–was the one that, if you recall, put out the form of a hand. It says in chapter 8, verse 3, that he picks Ezekiel up by the lock of his head, and then the text said the Spirit "lifted me up between heaven and earth." And we talk about, well, who's lifting Ezekiel? Is it God as a man? Is it the Spirit? Should we even care about a distinction, because the writer doesn't really make it clear?And then Ezekiel is taken, if you recall, to Jerusalem... he's transported to Jerusalem, either in his head or as some sort of travel/voyage, whether it's literal or spiritual–again, we talked about that when we were in chapter 8. But when they get to Jerusalem, then they see the glory of the God of Israel there. How can God be, like, with Ezekiel as a man picking him up by the lock of the hair, but yet he's there in Jerusalem? And both figures are associated with the glory of God in chapter 8 and in chapter 1. So we talked about (if you recall in chapter 8) this language that's used to sort of blur the distinctions between these Yahweh characters, and we talked about the Two Powers issue and where we get this sense of a godhead from the Old Testament. We're going to have this same discussion here in chapter 10 because this guy is back and he's talking to Ezekiel. In chapter 2 he's talking to the man clothed in linen and Ezekiel's listening. We're looking at the same guy again, but in this case it's going to be in conjunction with–catch this–comments about the glory that are over the cherubim and then the departure of the glory. So right away that raises the question, "If that's the glory of God over there and I'm looking here and listening and seeing this divine man speaking to the man clothed in linen, how can God be in two places at once? Is it the same but yet different, or what's going on there?" And again, the answer is: Yeah! Or who cares? There's no effort to parse the characters here in Ezekiel. You're going to get another look here at this divine plurality thing that you see in the Old Testament, where God can be more than one person in more than one place, but yet be the same, like we had elsewhere in Ezekiel. So we're going to get into, again, Two Powers fodder here.

So let's just pick up the scene here. Ezekiel looks. He's looking at the expanse of the heavens over the cherubim. There was a throne there (verse 1, chapter 10). In verse 2, "he said to the man clothed in linen." So there's somebody sitting on the throne, again, we know who that is because we know chapter 1.

Ezekiel 10:2 ESV

Okay, that's the scene. "He went in before my eyes." Ezekiel saw him (this man clothed in linen) go in and take the burning coals. We're not told…did he scatter them over the city or not? So unlike earlier instances of the vision where you have the executioners and the man clothed in linen doing things or being commanded to do things, and then the text said they went and did them… Or they reported back and said, "Yeah, we did that." We don't have that here. I think we can safely assume that he's going to obey God because he did before, but again we're confronted with, well, who's who in the scene? So we have the anthropomorphized deity taking Ezekiel to Jerusalem. They see the glory of God in Jerusalem back in chapter 8, probably atop the cherubim because in this chapter that's where the glory is going to be, and then it's going to leave. So we have, again, this Two Powers feeling already. So let's pick up with verse 3:

Ezekiel 10:3 ESV

Now the cherubim were standing on the south side of the house, when the man went in, and a cloud filled the inner court.

[ remember the man in linen is told to go underneath the cherubim and get some coals out, so Ezekiel tells us the cherubim were standing on the south side of the house—or the temple; that could be translated, as well] when the man went in, and a cloud filled the inner court [ again, this is temple terminology here].

Ezekiel 10:4–8 ESV

And the glory of the Lord went up from the cherub to the threshold of the house, and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was filled with the brightness of the glory of the Lord. And the sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard as far as the outer court, like the voice of God Almighty when he speaks. And when he commanded the man clothed in linen, “Take fire from between the whirling wheels, from between the cherubim,” he went in and stood beside a wheel. And a cherub stretched out his hand from between the cherubim to the fire that was between the cherubim, and took some of it and put it into the hands of the man clothed in linen, who took it and went out. The cherubim appeared to have the form of a human hand under their wings.

So the man goes in, he's commanded by God (the God in human form guy that's in the vision) to go over underneath the cherubim, scoop out some of these things, and of course, when he gets there the cherub helps him grab some and gives them to him. And so the man clothed in linen–another supernatural figure– does what he's told. But look how it's referred to…the glory of the Lord is with the cherubim there. How can the glory of the Lord be with the cherubim when– shouldn't the glory of the Lord be with this guy who is Yahweh in human form?

Because it's his glory! How does that work? It's never explained how that works. They're the same but yet they're different.

A couple of observations here beyond that. The chariot parks, as it were, on the right (or south) side of the temple, opposite the image of jealousy at the North Gate. Remember in chapter 8 the image of jealousy was at the northern gate. So the cherubim chariot, the merkabah–this thing upon which is the throne of God– that goes to the south side, so it moves opposite of the image of jealousy–it moves away from it. Then we have the cloud fill the inner court. This shouldn't be confused with the storm cloud of chapter 1. This is pretty clearly a reference to the cloud that's associated with the veiling of the presence of God, the so-called shekinah. In fact, in the Hebrew text the definite article is put on the word "cloud" here, so it's he anan, the cloud–the really important one here. Because that's where the presence of God is. But again you're forced to ask the question, "Well, if the presence of God is on top of the cherubim there, on top of the throne, well then who's this guy talking to the man clothed in linen. Because he is also associated with the same throne we saw back in chapters 8 and 1! Do we have two, or what's going on here? Again, this is Two Powers fodder. People would read this text and then ask these kinds of questions and say, "Well, it looks pretty clearly like there's two, but they're both associated with the throne and the glory, but yet they're distinguished here. One is associated with the glory and the other is not, at least in this narrative. So are they the same or are they different? Can that be both?" And the answer is: Yeah, we've seen that kind of thing before–"is but isn't" terminology about God in more than one personage, more than one figure.

Another observation: When you look at all this, the glory is clearly called "the glory of the God of Israel" a few verses later (10:19). So, again, we must associate the glory with Yahweh of Israel, but that means in some way we have to distinguish that Yahweh from the Yahweh who's appearing as a man–God as man in the Old Testament. That “same as, but yet different from” the invisible Yahweh or the Yahweh that's in the cloud, the Yahweh that isn't seen–he's veiled, he's obscured. Again, this is familiar to the Old Testament, and if listened to some of my Two Powers lectures, this kind of talk is not new to you. You've seen it before because we've talked about it before.

Lastly, just from these few verses, another observation: the man who's clothed in linen is instructed to scatter the coals over the city. Again, we're not told specifically that he does what he's told (unlike earlier in chapter 9 where he reports back and says, "Yeah, I did that"), but there's no reason to think that he doesn't, especially given the context. Why do I say that? Well, the scattering of the coals over the city–this is not for purification. Remember there are some passages in the Old Testament that talk about being refined by a fire and purified. The prophets, "I'm a man of unclean lips," and in Isaiah 6, for instance, one of the seraphim takes a coal and touches it to the prophet's mouth and he's purified. That's not what's going on here. This is not purification. How do I say that? Well, because then the killing of the ungodly back in chapter 9 (remember it was the man clothed in linen that had a record of who had approved of the apostasy and who didn't?)... then all of that in chapter 9 would have been pointless. So this is not about purification here. God isn't interested in purifying these people. They're going to be judged. The burning coals and the departure of the glory in this chapter and the next are really going to symbolize Yahweh's abandonment of Jerusalem, and frankly, the burning of the city. That's why we get the coals scattered over the city. The city's going to be in flames. As we keep reading in Ezekiel, we know that that happens, so there's no reason to think that the man clothed in linen didn't do what he was told.

So that's what we get in the first 8 verses. We get this scene where we're "confused" by how many Yahweh figures/presences are in the scene. The biblical writers don't care about explaining that. They don't care about parsing it. They don't care that the question arises in our heads (the heads of the readers).

Because to them, they're all Yahweh! There's no problem here. We don't have different deities, we have the same one. They don't care about that. It's not offensive to their theology. In fact, it's part of their theology: God as man, as distinct from his non-human form in the same scene. Big deal! No problem. Been there, done that, back in the Torah. If this is unfamiliar to you as a listener, I recommend reading The Unseen Realm (off the top of my head But there's a lot of information about that, or you could go to twopowersinheaven.com and watch my video about the two powers–something like that. You can get up to speed. We're not going to do it here. But it's really an important piece of Old Testament theology because it's the backdrop to a Godhead in the New Testament–with Jesus–because this stuff gets applied to Jesus.

So we see more of this... the man clothed in linen gets the coals and the city is doomed. That's basically the message of the first 8 verses. Verses 9 through 17, then, just goes into a repetitious description of what the cherubim look like, what the wheels look like, so on and so forth. Verses 20 and 21 of chapter 10 make the connection to chapter 1 very explicit. So we don't need to go back through all of that, but I do want to make it known on two verses here–verses 18 and 19 say this:

Ezekiel 10:18–19 ESV

Then the glory of the Lord went out from the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubim. And the cherubim lifted up their wings and mounted up from the earth before my eyes as they went out, with the wheels beside them. And they stood at the entrance of the east gate of the house of the Lord, and the glory of the God of Israel was over them.

So the glory moves a little bit more, a little bit further from where it had been in these two verses. I want to quote a little excerpt from Block here. I think it's worth pointing out. He says:

The primary narrative resumes here with the announcement of the second phase of Yahweh's staged departure from the temple. The prophet watches as the kavod (the glory) rises from the threshold, moves to the spot where the thronechariot is parked, and comes to rest above the cherubim. With their divine cargo in place, the cherubim lift off and taxi to the East Gate of the temple–presumably the gate of the outer court. All the while, the prophet is able to observe the glory of the God of Israel hovering over the cherubim, waiting for its final ride.

Now here's the question: Did the divine man lose his ride now? Or did the glory and the divine man both sit atop the merkabah throne, and they both leave? Again, if you're trying to parse that there are two figures here, you have to ask yourself this question because Ezekiel and the man pulling him up by the hair and all that stuff–this is how they get to this location. Because back in chapter 8 and chapter 1, it was the divine man–God as a man–on the throne that is resting atop the cherubim. And so they get there and then they start talking and they refer in the third person to the glory over there above the cherubim in the temple, and so you've got Yahweh in both locations. And then the glory of Yahweh starts to move out of the temple, out of the Holy of Holies, away from the cherubim that were in the temple, and it's gradually migrating to the cherubim on the portable throne merkabah(throne chariot). So did God, like, become reunited? Did the glory and the divine man both hitch a ride? Are they sitting side-by-side? Is the throne a two-seater, or what? Again, on some level these are kind of pointless questions, but you see if you're trying to track with the characters this is the kind of thing that pops into the discussion. You have the glory of the God of Israel join the glory of the God of Israel in the form of this divine man. You've got two characters that are different and yet the same. This is just how the narrative reads. Again, this is Two Powers in Heaven material, fodder. If you're an

Israelite, you're reading your Hebrew Bible closely and you've got two figures that are both described the same way. They're in different locations and here they sort of wind up in the same location. This is the kind of thing, again, that Jews in antiquity (up until the 2nd century A.D.)–they were fine with talking about two Yahweh figures, two good powers in heaven. They were fine with having a Godhead–God in two persons, the same but yet different. They were fine with that being part of their theology until the 2nd century because they knew their text. They could go back and read Ezekiel and see this. Of course, if we went all the way back to chapter 8, we would have the Spirit that picked up Ezekiel by the hair and propelled him, and all this kind of stuff. We have the Spirit as part of this discussion. The Spirit doesn't play as much of a role later here in chapter 10 and 11, but the Spirit (ruach) is there.

I'm belaboring this to make the point that if you have Jewish friends that are stumbling over concepts like a Trinity or a Godhead, these are the kinds of passages you take them to and just ask them to explain it. And give them good interpretive questions so that they can at least... Your goal would be to leave a conversation like that with the exact same response I've related before on podcast episodes and in lectures: A Jewish lady came up to me after one such lecture when I was in graduate school and said, "You know, I understand now how Christians can believe this about Jesus and accept the God of Israel and still believe that they're not violating monotheism–they're not violating the uniqueness of Yahweh, because they're both Yahweh!" The light goes off in the head. Yes! That's why they could do that. That's why they, as Jews, could embrace Jesus as God (as the Christians were saying) and not feel that they had violated the shema. Because they had already experienced and understood this "two-ness" back in the Old Testament.

So there we go. I think these chapters, 8 through 11…if you read them through you're going to get this sort of theology come to the surface.

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