LIFE-STUDY OF EZEKIEL
Read and pray: “Thus says the Lord God: On the day when I chose Israel, lifting up My hand, I swore to the descendants of the house of Jacob and made Myself known to them in the land of Egypt; I lifted up My hand to them and swore: I am the Lord, your God. On that day, I lifted up My hand to them and swore to bring them out of the land of Egypt into a land which I had searched out for them, a land flowing with milk and honey, the glory of all the lands.” (Ezek. 20:5,6)
THE DEGRADATION OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD
As we have shown in the first message, the book of Ezekiel has four sections. The first section, consisting of chapter one, presents a vision of the appearance of the glory of the Lord. This chapter reveals how God manifests Himself, how God moves, and how God administers His government through the coordination of the four living creatures.
The second section includes the next thirty-one chapters and covers God’s judgment by fire. In this section, we see that God judges His people and the Gentile nations by Himself as a consuming fire.
The third section (chs. 33─39) concerns the restoration of His people by the life of God. After carrying out His judgment, God comes to restore. Considering that God’s judgment is by fire, His restoration is by life.
The last section (chs. 40─48) covers the holy building of God. The outcome, the result, of God’s restoration by life is a holy building, which is the consummation of the entire book of Ezekiel. Thus, the four sections of Ezekiel cover four main matters: the vision of the appearance of the glory of the Lord, the judgment by fire, the restoration by life, and the holy building of God.
This is an outline of the book of Ezekiel, a book that begins with a glorious vision and ends with a holy building. This indicates that God’s goal is the building.
We have also seen that the book of Ezekiel and the book of Revelation are similar. Like Ezekiel, Revelation covers the four matters of vision, judgment, restoration, and building, and covers them in the same sequence that we find in Ezekiel.
The vision of the Lord in Revelation 1 is followed by God’s judgment, God’s restoration, and God’s building. In the end, the book of Revelation, like the book of Ezekiel, consummates with God’s building with its twelve gates.
From this we see that the books of Ezekiel and Revelation are not only similar, but are also parallel to one another. The first is about the history of the people of God in the Old Testament; the latter is a revelation of the church in the New Testament.
The people of God in the Old Testament were a shadow, a prefiguration, a type, of the church in the New Testament. If we read Ezekiel carefully, we will realize that it portrays a picture of the church. In a certain way, the picture in the Old Testament is clearer and more complete than the revelation in the New Testament.
Therefore, in reading Ezekiel, we should not only be concerned with the history of Israel or with prophecies concerning Israel, but we should consider the clear picture of the church, in particular, the picture revealed here of the degraded situation of the church. Because the degradation of Israel is a portrait of the degradation of Christianity, what we see in this picture is applicable to the situation today.
In this message we will begin to consider the second section of Ezekiel — God’s judgment by fire. In chapters two through twenty-four, we see God’s judgment upon Israel, His chosen people, and in chapters twenty-five through thirty-two, His judgment upon the Gentiles, the nations.
God’s judgment is first upon His people, the children of Israel, and then His judgment comes upon the Gentiles. This is consistent with the principle in the New Testament, seen both in the book of Revelation and in 1 Peter, that God first judges His house (1 Pet. 4:17) and then judges the unbelievers.
THREE STAGES OF THE ENJOYMENT OF CHRIST
In the Old Testament, Israel was the chosen and elected people of God. God delivered the people of Israel from Egypt and brought them into the good land. The fact that God placed the people of Israel in the good land typifies God placing us in Christ, who is our good land today.
Ezekiel 20:6 says that the good land is the glory of all the lands. Christ is the glory on the earth, and God has placed us in the glorious Christ, who, in His unsearchable riches, is a land flowing with milk and honey. The people of Israel experienced three stages of the enjoyment of Christ.
In the first stage, they enjoyed Christ in Egypt, as the Passover with the unleavened bread and the bitter herbs. In the second stage, they enjoyed Christ, while they were wandering in the wilderness, as the heavenly manna and the living water. In the third stage, they enjoyed Christ as the land, full of rich produce.
These three stages can be compared to our experience today as believers in Christ. When we were saved, we enjoyed Christ as the Passover Lamb. After that, we began to enjoy Christ as our daily portion, our daily manna.
However, this is not the final enjoyment of Christ. The final enjoyment of Christ is to enjoy Him in the church as the good land, with all His unsearchable riches.
With regard to Christ as the good land, Ezekiel 20:6 says: “On that day, I lifted up My hand to them and swore to bring them out of the land of Egypt into a land which I had searched out for them, a land flowing with milk and honey, the glory of all the lands.”
Milk and honey, both being products of the mingling of the plant life with the animal life, represent the riches of the good land of Canaan. In Christ there is both spiritual food (honey) and spiritual drink (milk). Both milk and honey are the result of Christ having two kinds of life: the redeeming life, typified by the animal life, which has blood, and the generating, multiplying life, typified by the plant, or vegetable life.
On the one hand, the life of the Lord Jesus is a redeeming life — a life that has the blood that was shed for our redemption. On the other hand, the life of the Lord Jesus is a producing and generating life — a life that was released through His death on the cross for His multiplication and increase.
These two aspects of His life were mingled to produce milk as our spiritual drink and honey as our spiritual food. Christ is now our milk and honey, and as such, He is our supply and enjoyment. If we remain in Him as our good land, we enjoy the riches of His supply.
Finally, Israel, the chosen people of God, were living in the good land with a temple and a city. The temple typifies the house of God, and the city typifies the kingdom of God. The presence of God is in His house, and the authority of God is in His kingdom.
In the church life today, we can enjoy Christ as our good land, and therefore we have the presence of God and His authority. Because we are the chosen ones of the living God in Christ and enjoy all that He is, in the proper and normal church life, we have the temple of God with His presence and His kingdom with His authority.
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Hymn: Experience of Christ - "As the Good Land"
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