(3) EZEKIEL 5: 1 - 4; EZEKIEL 6: 8 - 10; EZEKIEL 9: 1 - 7
(3) EZEKIEL 5: 1 - 4; EZEKIEL 6: 8 - 10; EZEKIEL 9: 1 - 7
The epistle of James reminds us of the patience of the prophets, and in addition to what has come before us in the earlier chapters of Ezekiel there is this thought of patience or endurance, which in a supreme degree enters into successful service at the present time. What we closed with yesterday was the thought of the sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus Christ, the prophet being obliged, by the command of the Lord, to lie on his side for three hundred and ninety days to bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. He would be reminded every day of the sin of the nation. What he endured in his posture and what he ate would suggest the Lord, of whom it is said, “Him ... he has made sin for us”, 2 Corinthians 5: 21. It is a remarkable expression, and the eating in Ezekiel 4 would remind us of that, and that the Lord took the whole thing upon Him as dying vicariously. The incident suggests also the importance of taking things to ourselves as being in the sphere of the responsible body. The next chapter reminds us, in the shaving of the head and the beard, that all that may ornament us has to go. It would recall to the prophet what Israel was; she was an ornament. Ezekiel speaks at least twice in this book of Jerusalem as an ornament, it is what she was as set up by God in the midst of the nations. Jehovah would take account of Israel in that way, but all that has to go; its pristine beauty is abandoned [p. 384] in the scattering. It is judgment, but judgment with a view to purification. All that which we would regard as ornamentation naturally and legitimately (for Israel, Jerusalem had that place) has to be abandoned. We cannot, for instance, in our day assume to take on the pristine beauty of the assembly. The next chapter brings out the remnant, and we have to accept that, it is just a question of a remnant.
Patience would be the crowning work in a servant of the Lord; “The signs indeed of the apostle were wrought among you in all endurance”, 2 Corinthians 12: 12. Patience is to have her perfect work with us. In all these experiences of Ezekiel how much there was to irritate the flesh, in his having to lie on one side for three hundred and ninety days, and to give up all that ornamented one. That comes home very close to us. The Corinthians were not equal to it; they were maintaining what attached to them naturally, social coteries; rich and poor were distinguished; and they were reigning as kings. All these things lead to idolatry, to linking on with the world. I have no doubt that “when the days of the siege are fulfilled” (Ezekiel 5: 2), reminds us of the death of Christ, which rightly apprehended, means the end of all that distinguishes ourselves. One has to take one’s place with the people and to see that what attaches to us even legitimately has to be relinquished and a new beginning has to be made.
With regard to the remnant, you are confronted with this, it is not the whole as at the beginning; it may be, in the character of it, but not as regards its official position. Hence you do not use official terms such as “the assembly”, “the elders”, “the evangelists”, and “the teachers”; you hesitate to employ terms that apply to the assembly as at the beginning, involving ornamentation; the gifts were ornaments. You have in fact taken a razor; the hair [p. 385] and the beard are shaved off, and you have lost your identity. You have lost what beautified you, and have to begin all over again. The assembly today has not the ornaments and dignity of the original. It may be characterised essentially as the same, but is not the original. The original was an ornament, as it says of Jerusalem in this book more than once; but in this chapter instead of being an ornament the hair is cut off, and divided into three parts. Go and look for those hairs. What can you find? There is something to be found, but it requires care and intelligence to discover it. We read in verse 3, “Thou shalt take thereof a few in number, and bind them in thy skirts”. To find those hairs requires great diligence, but the process of securing them has not been in vain, and it lays the basis for the remnant being definitely spoken of in the next chapter.
In the history of the assembly the judicial dealings of God began from the departure, from the time of Ephesus, and continued so that now it might be difficult to find one of the hairs as corresponding with the original beauty. Nevertheless the binding in the garments indicates great care used for preservation, and just as chapter 6 shows that there is a remnant, so in our own times the remnant has come into evidence. The truth regarding the original however, would govern the position now, and you treasure that. So the heavenly city bears the marks of the pentecostal assembly; it is all intact from the divine side. Nevertheless it is a remnant. After the address to Ephesus in Revelation 2 the “lamp” or candlestick is never once mentioned; it represents what was public and ornamental. The light, the candle, is here, but we do not assume to have the candlestick. Everything vital is preserved and is seen in the heavenly city. Paul mentions “Jerusalem above”, but the thing itself was not brought out in a corporate way until the Revelation. It reflects backwards,
[p. 386] and in seeing it the believer understands that nothing is lost. The twelve tribes are represented there; the twelve apostles are there; nothing is lost. The apostles were faithful, they like Jonathan of old ‘wrought with God’, but there is no indication of faithfulness afterwards, so in coming down from God out of heaven it is a question of the faithfulness of God. It is from Him, and it has an immense bearing on us because we see the victory is sure, and we are content to move on now in the recognition of the principle of a remnant. That is what Ezekiel would enforce, so that the prophet acts accordingly. The hairs are divided up and committed to the fire and smiting and scattering. How can you find them now? It seems paradoxical, but they are found, and in the next chapter a remnant comes to light. One has to give up all that one would look upon as ornamentation, as a cleric would regard the church, clothing himself with all its antiquity, its apostolic succession, and so on. There were the days of the apostles, and the assembly was a wonderful ornament in the world, but who inherited that? It has to be given up, we cannot claim it now. We look forward to the heavenly city, but that is not yet; it is in prospect. We should never lose sight of the original, but we have to accept that we cannot claim anything of it.
The hair is divided up into three parts, but there is then a few hairs bound in the skirts. That points to the divine care; all that is of God is cared for and is seen in chapter 6: 8, 9. Throughout the dispensation God had His eye on those preserved in the skirts, but the time came when they were definitely regarded as a remnant. They came to the point of self-judgment in regard of the guilt of the whole assembly. That is where 2 Timothy comes in. The Lord, when He speaks to Philadelphia, refers to all saints. Nevertheless to come into the position [p. 387] in which God recognises us as a remnant, there must be self-judgment, not only as regards what I have done but relative to the whole position. There is such a thing as divine recognition. The division of the hairs would show that those who were scattered were recognised and taken account of. Where there is the definite acknowledgement of the breakdown of the public body, then I think God owns a remnant, but it could never be more than a remnant. What it may be spiritually is another thing.
God owns the remnant in the way of giving it light. You cannot deny there is light, and there is formation. There is that in this world today that men cannot get over. God takes account of those who judge themselves. He honours them, and knows how to do it in consistency with Himself. So the Lord says, “I make them of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews, and are not ... I will cause that they shall come and shall do homage before thy feet”, Revelation 3: 9. Could you have anything more precious than that? In this character we read, “They shall know that I am Jehovah”, (chapter 6: 10).
In chapter 8, the prophet is in his house: “As I sat in my house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, the hand of the Lord Jehovah fell there upon me ... and he ... took me by a lock of my head”. He was in the energy of life in his body, his hair had begun to grow. It was the same in Samson’s case, and then it was the signal of the overthrow of the Philistines. We have here the testimony of the power of a risen Christ. There has been a testimony to Christ lifted up, and lifted up in a way that symbolises there is living power in Him, thus has God rendered, in faithfulness, a wonderful testimony to the public body. Christ has been carried up to heaven; the testimony is above men; it is not now on the level of men. The power lies in the testimony of a risen Christ, lifted up above heaven and earth.
Ezekiel is lifted “up between the earth and the heavens”; he comes in from above, not from the level of the city.
The remnant is alluded to in the sixth chapter, and then we see how those who belong to it are taken account of in connection with this ministry of a risen Christ, for after the resurrection is brought in you have the idea of a man clothed in linen (chapter 9: 2), and he sets “a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that are done”.
The appearance in verse 2 is in the reverse order to chapter 1: 27, because it is not now a question of emphasising his relations with God, but his compassion towards men (”the appearance of his loins and downward”). The testimony of late years has been a wonderful witness to the compassions of God. The fact that it is the appearance of fire does not affect what we are saying. It is a holy testimony; the fire is for purification.