Reading: Ezekiel 37
“What is your
spiritual epistemology?” is just another way of asking,
“How did you come to know the Lord?” Ezekiel speaks
a lot about knowing the Lord. This book reveals two ways to know Him.
Ezekiel 37 points us to the second way we can know the Lord.
Making Dead Bones Live
Ezekiel is brought by
the Spirit to the middle of a valley full of bones—dead,
sun-bleached, dry bones. They covered the surface of the valley. He
is asked a question by the Spirit. “Can these bones live?”
One
might quickly answer with an obvious, “No.” However, Ezekiel has
already been brought by the Spirit of the Lord
into a valley, and given his history with the Lord,
He wisely answer, “Lord God,
only You know.” This
is followed first by a description of what the Lord is going to do in
making them alive.
The
Lord
makes them alive in two phases. Ezekiel
speaks to the bones,
prophesying that they will be made alive. As He does, the bones come
together, tendons and flesh grown on them, and skin covers them. Now
Ezekiel stands before a valley of very nice looking dead people. They
no longer look like the dead dry bones they were, but they are every
bit as dead as before.
Then
Ezekiel is told to speak to the wind, or breath.
The Hebrew word for wind, breath, and spirit are all the same. Here,
an allusion to all three is evident. Breath comes from the four
winds, that wind is clearly the breath of life (as Adam received in
the garden), and that wind is a work of the Spirit of God bringing
new life, new birth, as He blows on these “corpses”. The
once dead dry bones covering a valley floor is now a vast army
standing on its feet.
Resurrecting the People of God
I've
described the scene, but what does all this mean? We are told.
11Then
he said to me, "Son of man, these
bones are the whole house of Israel.
Behold, they say, 'Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we
are indeed cut off.' 12Therefore
prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God:
Behold,
I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people.
And I will bring you into the land of Israel. 13And
you shall know that I am the Lord,
when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people.
14And
I
will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live,
and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am
the Lord;
I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord."
(Ezekiel
37:11-14)
At
the time of Ezekiel's experience in this valley of dry bones, Israel
was scattered to the ends of the earth. Note the expression in 37:11,
“the whole
house of Israel”. This is not merely a reference to the southern
kingdom of Judah which was in captivity in Babylon, but also to the
northern kingdom which had long before gone into captivity into
Assyria, and never returned when Assyria fell. This
is a promise to bring back to life what is obviously very dead. God
is going to resurrect a people for Himself, gathering them from the
four winds of the earth.
I
cannot help but think this is the background to Jesus' conversation
with Nicodemus in John 3:7-10.
There Jesus speaks of being born again (coming to life again), and
how it will happen as the wind (spirit, breath) blows where it
wishes. Sounds like the wind of Ezekiel 37. If this is so, it may
also explain why Jesus expresses that as a teacher of Israel,
Nicodemus should understand these things. Nicodemus
should have known Ezekiel 37 and the new birth it pictures.
Two Ways to Know the Lord
There
is something else that stood out to me as I read through this
chapter. To this point in Ezekiel, we have been told more than 40
times that people will know the Lord
as a
result of His wrath (expressed in one form or another) because they
had forsaken Him. Here however, we are introduced to another
way that one might know the Lord:
The
Lord will make dead people alive and they shall therefore live and
know the Lord!
5Thus
says the Lord GOD to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to
enter you, and you shall live. 6And
I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you,
and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live,
and you shall know that I am the
Lord.
(Ezekiel 37:5-6)
12Therefore
prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will
open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I
will bring you into the land of Israel. 13And
you shall know that I am the
Lord,
when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people.
14And
I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place
you in your own land. Then you
shall know that I am the Lord;
I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord.
(Ezekiel 37:12-14)
Note
the order:
God makes them alive, putting breath in formerly dead people. Then
they know that He is who He declares Himself to be—the Lord.
It isn't that they finally figure out who God is and submit to Him
and they are made alive. Rather,
in their dead state (think
dry bones scattered across a valley) God
has someone speak to them (speak
to the bones) and
pray for them (speak
to the Spirit/wind), and
the Spirit blows where He wills and gives them life and then they
know Him.
This
reminds me of something else Jesus said in John 3.
Jesus
answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born
again he cannot see the kingdom of God."
(John 3:3)
Again,
note the order. It
does not say,
“Unless one sees the kingdom he cannot be born again.” Rather,
“Unless
one is born again (made alive by the Spirit of God) he cannot see the
kingdom.” Dead people don't see.
There
are then, two ways to know the Lord. Left
to ourselves, we will know Him when He gives us what our deeds
deserve—judgment. This
is not the way I want to know Him.
Rather
as believers, we rejoice that He gave us life even
while we
were dead in our trespasses and sins (Ephesians
2:1-6). Because
of that, we now know Him. Oh the riches of the grace of God.
Like
Ezekiel, we are called to speak to dead bones, and pray and ask the
Spirit to blow life into people. God resurrects the dead before our
eyes and they know Him. This
is our confidence in evangelism: God desires to make Himself known.
Love the Gospel, Live
the Gospel, Advance the Gospel,
Jerry
