THE PATTERN

D.A.Burr

Ezekiel 40: 1-3; 43: 10-12; 2 Peter 1: 16-1 to "made surer"

These two servants had a vision: I might have read of others who also had visions, such as Moses, David, Isaiah, Paul and James, and John of course. My impression is that the substance of the visions of Ezekiel and Peter was the same, and that we may – should – have some sight of it too.

Ezekiel says his vision was on a very high mountain. Peter, agreeing with Ezekiel, speaks of a holy mountain; it was on a mountain apart. God would elevate our minds from the course of things down here – not just from what is going on to destruction, but from circumstances. God would give us something above all that. "Seek the things which are above where the Christ is... have your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth", Col 3: 1,2. Of course there are things on the earth that we have to be occupied with – our way is on the earth; but we are to have our minds on things above, where the Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Our calling is on high in Christ Jesus (see Phil 3: 14). We are not to be earthbound, or bound by circumstances. We are to seek God's grace and the Spirit's power, to visit this very high mountain apart. It says that "the hand of Jehovah was upon me, and he brought me thither". We may count on God, if we are available, to bring us to this.

Then, what we will see is the pattern. The pattern has been shown in different forms, it has various representations. There is the tabernacle in the wilderness; there is Solomon's temple; there is Ezekiel's house and his city, but they all have something very important in common; what speaks of Christ at the centre. He is the centre of everything for God. We will never understand the pattern if we do not see Him as its centre. God would have us to understand it. Unless we do, we will be deficient in spiritual things, and in the testimony as well. It is so easy to let other things dominate our hearts, so that Christ, the centre of God's thoughts, loses His place. God's desire is that we should have such a sight of Him in His place that it will change our lives. Paul says "we all, looking on the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face, are transformed", 2 Cor 3: 18. It has often been remarked that we never change back. We know that from experience. We can look back on impressions of the glory of Christ and say that they have changed us. I believe that the change will be as profound as the impression we have.

The circumstances in this scripture in Ezekiel, chapter 40, are impressive. It is a time like our own, in which things have broken up publicly. The people of God were in captivity and the city had been taken; not the city on the mountain, of course, but Jerusalem had been taken fourteen years before. Most of us can look back like Ezekiel here over twenty-five years. How much sorrow has marked them. Look back over the last fourteen years, when there was division among us and things were reduced to the present proportions. What a sorrowful time that was! That is the kind of day in which Ezekiel had this vision, when he saw something from this mountain to which the ruin of the public profession, with which he was identified, had had nothing to say. It subsisted in its beauty and its integrity before God. There was a man at the centre of it. It does not say the man was Jesus but my impression is that it speaks of Him. I say that because he had this measuring reed with which to measure the city. The city is not measured by any human standard of measurement. The standard of measurement that is used to measure the city must be the divine standard, and the divine standard is Christ. It could be no-one else. Therefore, I believe that the man that Ezekiel meets in the city, standing in the gate, represents Christ. Perhaps there might also be some suggestion that what God is looking for in relation to His things is what is patterned after Christ, which is to be seen in every one of us. Nothing else will do, but if Jesus is the centre of His pattern, then He wants others who are like Him. The way we will become like Him, beloved, is to see Him. It says, of the coming day, "we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is", 1 John 3: 2. Once "he was manifested in another form", Mark 16: 12; but we shall see Him as He is, and we shall be like Him. Beloved, I believe that is a principle: the more our eye is fixed on that blessed Man the more there will be that is like Him, that is according to the pattern.

How much detail is given in these chapters of this wonderful city that Ezekiel saw. But let us understand what is at the centre. He said "he... set me upon a very high mountain; and upon it was as the building of a city, on the south. And he brought me thither, and behold, there was a man" – there was a man. What a thing to find a Man at the centre of everything for God. That Man must be Christ, and He would have our eyes upon Him; He would have us take up these other things, the gate and so on, and what they all speak of, with Him, so that we are governed by the pattern. In chapter 43 we have the same thought. There has been failure, not only in the profession, but we ourselves have failed sorrowfully. God says to Ezekiel, Do they feel these things? Surely we do. We should feel them more perhaps. If we had a greater sense of what the pattern was I believe we would all feel the decline from it. God says "if they be confounded", but He does not say, occupy them with the discrepancy. He says, show them the pattern! Bring them back to My level of things, bring them back to the law of the house. The mountain and all that is around it is holy, there is a sanctified and elevated place in which the fulness of God's un-trammelled thoughts may be enjoyed.

I read the scripture in Peter because it is a New Testament scripture which seems to give us the same thought. What is so striking here is not a geometrical pattern as in Ezekiel but we have Christ in display; and we have the Father's voice. I believe that these are things we need. We do well to see the pattern, but I believe we also do well to hear the Father's voice. The Father's voice is drawing attention to Jesus. "This" He says "is my beloved Son". We have here a Man in glory; not the sorrow and poverty into which He came, but His majesty. Although His kingdom was not publicly displayed, Peter says they were "eyewitnesses of his majesty". The glory was not only official; it was personal and moral. They were in the presence of the glorified Man. If we dwell so much upon His manhood, let us never forget who He is. If we bring Him down to our level of things, we lose the pattern. It is on the mountain, and we must be exalted in the thoughts we have about Jesus if we are to understand the pattern. He would not be the centre of all God's thoughts if He was not who He is, which must regulate our thoughts about Him as He was. I think that was the purpose of this vision. These three were with Him in His tribulation; in rejection and weakness. They were approaching times of acute testing and difficulty; and they needed this secret in their hearts. It was not to be shared by those who were not eye-witnesses; it was for eye-witnesses only: the Man whose company they kept was glorious. And they had been told who the Person was whom they had seen. I do not think anybody else could have been the Man He was. Only the Son of God could be the Man of sorrows: Paul says, "for your sakes he, being rich, became poor", 2 Cor 8: 9. The very becoming poor showed the riches He had. Those are the riches which we may see. We will see His majesty, and we will see honour and glory.

If you want to have a look at the pattern, you must go up the mountain. It is a holy mountain, and it is a very high mountain, a mountain apart. God didn't bring the pattern down and spread it out in the wilderness, and let people come and look at it. It was shown to Moses on the mountain even if the construction was down here. But Jesus came down the mountain, and need rolls in like the next tide. As soon as they come down the mountain there are cases to be met, but those three would see Him taking up those cases in a new light. They would see His sorrow over the man and his boy, affected by the devil himself, and the feeling way in which He helped them. They would not see the glory but they would know it was there. They had seen His countenance. They could not look Him in the face again without remembering the glory. We need a secret like that if we are to bear what lies before us.

Finally, it says, "we have the prophetic word made surer". The prophetic word is the present mind of God. It is about the future, but in the first instance it is about the present. It is His present mind. What fills the present mind of God? I believe that what fills His mind is the pattern. That ought to come out in the prophetic word. If the prophetic word does not engage us with the pattern, and the Man who is the centre of it, I wonder if it fully reaches what God has in His mind.

These things are very testing, beloved. So much of our need is practical. So much exhortation is needed by believers about their walk, but let it be by those who see and can show others this wonderful pattern on the mountain. The ruin outside has not changed it. The pressure and difficulty of the way does not debar us from it. It was seen in these two scriptures in just such circumstances, and I believe we may see it now. I wish I could describe it, but we know where it is.

LONDON

21 October 1986