Exekiel's Visions of God

Yvonne and I spent last week at the Regent College Pastors' Conference, featuring Dr. Maxine Hancock, Dr. Rod Wilson and Dr. Larry Crabb. It was wonderful refreshing and rejuvenating time.

In one session, Larry Crabb spoke on the three passages where Exekiel had what he called "Visions of God". In the first vision, Exekiel sees the Glory of God, which overwhelms him more than had the pains of the people we was exiled with. In the second vision, Exekiel is shown the depths of human corruption, extending even into the temple, indeed into the very inner heart of the temple. The corruption is incompatible with God's glory, and Exekiel sees the Glory of God depart by stages from the temple, until finally the Glory departs completely, an extremely painful experience to observe.

But Ichabod is not the last word. Near the end of the book, Exekiel has the third "visions of God", in which he sees the Glory of God return to the temple, into the very place of human corruption — because God is not willing to give up His people. God's Glory invading the site of human corruption is even more overwhelming that the previous two visions. The book ends with the words "The LORD is there."

As I was walking the next morning, it struck me that these visions provided a new lens through which to see some of the experiences of my life. The second vision, the vision of human corruption in the very heart of temple, was a true and sobering vision. It just wasn't the last word. So too, my profound disquiet at several things I found at the heart of the church was a true and sobering reality — it just wasn't the last word.

As I thought about it more, it occurred to me that as much as it may be necessary to speak prophetically against the evils of human corruption when God shows them to us, it is always a mistake to settle down and live there as if the judgement of damnation were God's last word on such evil. It isn't. God does not abandon his creation to destruction, but rather He returns to the very heart of the messiness of life, to be present there with His people, and to transform them at the root of their resistance, their evil.

The last word is never Ichabod, it is always Immanuel.

And the Glory of God is never so vastly overwhelming as when it invades the heart of our sin and evil to bring us into the Glory of God.