LIFE-STUDY OF EZEKIEL
Message 27
THE HOLY LAND AND THE HOLY CITY
WEEK 13 - FRIDAY
Scripture Reading: Gen. 1:9; 7:19; 11:1-9; 12:1-8; Exo. 12—14; 2 Chr. 5:14; Ezek. 34:14
Read and pray: “And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear. And it was so.” (Gen. 1:9)
In this message, we come to the end of Ezekiel, and we will consider two matters: the holy land and the holy city.
THE HOLY LAND
The Temple Is the Issue of the Land
We need to see something further concerning the holy land. Apart from the land, there can be no temple. We may appreciate the temple very much, but we must realize that the temple is on the land and that without the land there can be no temple. The temple, which typifies the church, is the issue of the land, which typifies Christ.
Thus, the temple depends on the land. If we do not have the experience of Christ, it is impossible to have the church. The church is the issue of the enjoyment of the riches of Christ.
The History of the Land
The land is first mentioned in Genesis 1:9. On the third day of the Lord’s restoration of His creation, the land was restored, because on that day the land emerged from the waters of death. Before that time, the land was under the waters of death. But on the third day, the Lord caused the land to come out of the waters of death.
The land here in Genesis 1 typifies Christ, who was resurrected from the dead on the third day as the all-inclusive land. Every kind of life—the plant life, the animal life, and the human life—came out of this land. All kinds of living things resulted from the land.
Since the land typifies Christ, this means that all these living things resulted from Christ. Christ is the good land that God prepared for man. However, man fell and became degraded, and this caused God to judge the land again.
During Noah’s time, the land was flooded and again was covered by the waters of death (7:19). As a result, the human race lost the land. But the Lord brought the land again out of the waters of death, and the right to enjoy the land was given to Noah’s family.
Human history is a record of man’s fall. In the course of this history, Noah’s descendants fell and eventually gathered at Babel to build a tower of rebellion against God (11:1-9). Then “the Lord scattered them from there over the face of all the earth” (v. 8a).
Later, God called Abraham out of the land of Babel and brought him into Canaan, the good land (12:1-8). Eventually, however, Abraham’s descendants went down from the good land to Egypt. The whole house of Israel went down to Egypt, and thus they lost the good land.
Four hundred years later, through God’s deliverance, the people of Israel experienced the Passover, left Egypt, and passed through the Red Sea (Exo. 12—14). After forty years of wandering in the wilderness, they crossed the Jordan into the good land. Fighting against the inhabitants of the land, they recovered the lost land.
On the recovered land they built the temple, and the glory of God filled it (2 Chr. 5:14). Later, because of their turning away from the Lord and their degradation, they were taken out of the land and lost it once more.
In the midst of the captivity, Ezekiel was brought back to the land by the Spirit and saw the land. In our reading of Ezekiel, we need to pay attention to the fact that many times the Lord promised to bring His people back to the land (chs. 11, 33, 34, 36, 37).
He even promised to bring them back to the top of the high mountains of Israel (34:14). This indicates a restoration of the land. It is crucial for us to realize that before we can have the restoration of the building, we need to have the restoration of the land.
The restoration of the land means the restoration of the enjoyment of Christ. Christ Himself cannot be lost, but in our experience, Christ can be lost. When we were saved, we received Christ. However, not long afterward we fell and lost Christ in our experience.
The restoration of the land is the restoration of the experiences of the riches of Christ. Once the land had been recovered, the house could be built upon the land.
🌿Enjoy more:
Hymn: Experience of God - “As Life”
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