CHAPTER XX
A Cosmic Artist--Ezekiel
Agnes M. Lawson
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The Colorado College of Divine
Science
Denver, 1920.
Although
neither mentions the other, Ezekiel and
Jeremiah were contemporaries, the former
much the younger of the two. Ezekiel is
the “Watchman” of the
captivity. His “call” came to
him five years after his deportation to
Babylon in 597 B.C. He was the son of a
priest, was married and lived in his own
house among a colony of his fellow exiles
in a place called Telabib. The exiles had
the freedom of the city, many held
influential positions; they were an
organized community with
“elders” at their head. At
first Ezekiel was not popular with his
people for he would not prophesy a speedy
return as the “false
prophets” did. He had, however, a
small following which met at his home,
and the deepest interest of those exiles
was the welfare of Jerusalem. After its
fall, the attitude of the exiles became
more favorable to the prophet, for he had
long predicted that event.
Ezekiel was
the first Hebrew prophet to write a
consecutive book. The books of preceding
prophets were fragments of oral
discourses, gathered together but not
always in sequential order. Ezekiel
wrought out a book which is a unified
whole, it is divided into three great
divisions. His imagination is powerful,
akin to that of Dante. Three forms of
prophecy are characteristic of him:
“We have symbolic actions,
in which truths to be taught are
practically illustrated;
allegories, which present the
subject in hand under elaborate figures;
and visions, in which material
emblems stand out spontaneously before
the prophet’s
mind.”--(Dummelow’s
Commentary.)
Isaiah and
Jeremiah had calls, luminous while upon
them, preparatory to their life work; but
that of Ezekiel seems to have stayed with
him throughout his ministry; he repeats
it in substance three times--graphic,
spiritual pictures form themselves before
his vision, and he is commanded to open
his mouth and tell them, and without the
vision and the command, he will not
speak. His Cosmic Visions can only be
given to those who understand the deeper
truths; simpler prophets must therefore
go out to the others.
By the River
Chebar, in Babylon, the Vision opens,
which has been so well told, the
Occidental world by Milton in
“Paradise Lost,” Book VI.
Amid all the elaborate pictures, Ezekiel
is careful to make us understand, that it
is not a concrete picture of one thing,
but a universal picture of God and Man.
He is careful not to identify the
spiritual with the material, which is
always the result of Cosmic Vision. The
spiritual and the material never touch
each other. What can that mean when the
spiritual fills everything? What is the
material? The material is nothing but
thought pictures in the human mind; human
mind’s concept of the Eternal Real.
It is nowhere existent but in human
thought; therefore it is counterfeit; and
as the Real appears the unreal
disappears. “Material” body
and the world are our first translations
of life; Cosmic Vision enables us to see
the Real and thereby correct our material
concepts by spiritual reality.
We may liken
the material world to the picture writing
of children and primitive races; and the
spiritual world to the great classics and
works of art. No race could arrive at
reality did it not commence to translate
life to itself, in that first crude way.
The concept of a material body disappears
as we accept the ideal of a spiritual
body that is eternal. Ezekiel is
therefore careful to say, “the
likeness of a throne,” “the
likeness of the appearance of man,”
“the appearance of the likeness of
the glory of Jehovah,” for he who
can look through the appearance
can never after confound it with
reality.
The most
elaborate vision of any of the prophets
is Ezekiel’s, the vision of the
wheels within the wheel, of man in God;
the little world in the big world, the
microcosm in the macrocosm. Ezekiel is
charged with the message to man
universal, in the amber colored
atmosphere of the Infinite Glory. Out of
the “North” the highest point
it comes; “a fire infolding
itself” and from it; “the
likeness of four living creatures.”
“They had the likeness of a man.
And every one had four faces,” the
central face man, reason; on the right
side the lion, strength; on the left
side, the ox, sacrifice; and the
innermost the eagle, the seer, symbolic
of divine sonship. Individuality is here,
their faces and wings are separate above;
co-operation is seen of man with man, in
the joining of the wings; transmutation
of the body, in the covering of the body
with the wings.
And, Oh, the
encouragement of it; “they
every one went straight forward; whither
the spirit was to go, they went; they
turned not when they went.” Is it
just our blindness that does not
see this? Was the penitent thief going
straight to Paradise all of the time, as
was the Master? Was the other, the
blasphemer, going straight forward also,
and did he only have to reach the
other side of the crucifixion to
recognize the Saviour? We condemn the
sinner, thinking that he is going in
another direction than ourselves, but if
we stood on the Mount, perhaps we too
could see. “The voyage of the best
ship is a zigzag course of a hundred
tacks,” and from this eminence of
Cosmic Vision all would be seen
“going straightforward.” The
eleventh hour labourer received the same
as those who served all the day, because
there is only one reward, The
Vision.
“As
for the likeness of the living creatures,
their appearance was like burning coals
of fire, like the appearance of torches,
it went up and down among the living
creatures; and the fire was bright and
out of the fire came forth
lightning.” Can this be aught else
save the real of man, playing and leaping
through our consciousness; breaking
through the material barrier, which we
ourselves have erected? Flashes like
“lightning” illumine
us--intelligence that we know to be
higher than that which we know as
man’s.
“Now
as I beheld the living creatures, behold
one wheel upon the earth beside the
living creatures, for each of the four
faces thereof. The appearance of the
wheels and their work was as it were a
wheel within a wheel. As for their rings,
they were high and dreadful, and they
four had their rings full of eyes round
about. And when the living creatures
went, the wheels went beside them; and
when the living creatures were lifted up
from the earth, the wheels were lifted up
beside them; for the spirit of the living
creatures was in the wheels. When those
went, these went; and when those stood,
these stood; and when those were lifted
up from the earth, the wheels were lifted
up beside them: for the spirit of the
living creatures was in the
wheels.”
The trinity
is God, Man and Work. The omnipresence of
God pervades the universe and carries all
forward. When it stands all stands still.
We should not have music without the
rest; incessant motion or sound
would not be rhythmic, and every thing in
life is undulatory and rhythmic.
Man’s work is in his
“ring,” it is lifted up as he
is lifted up, and intelligence is in work
done under spiritual illumination, it is
“full of eyes.”
“And
he said unto me, Son of Man, stand upon
thy feet and I will speak to thee.”
God had been waiting since “the
beginning” for this supreme moment.
He can only speak to man who has found
himself; i.e., who is standing upon his
feet at attention. The term “son of
man” is original with Ezekiel; who
uses it over a hundred times--a term
loved by the Great Teacher--who used it
in the sense of composite man, the heir
of all the ages.
Word comes
to Ezekiel, “Go shut thine self in
thine house,” and from here he
gives a series of illustrated lectures;
he precedes his prophecies with acted out
emblems; which gives the keynote of his
talks. Thus he acts out the whole siege
of Jerusalem. His “call” came
in the fifth year of his captivity,
therefore it was seven years before the
fall of Jerusalem in 585 B.C. Daily his
little circle came, and as the spirit
entered into him he spoke. Impressive is
Ezekiel’s method of illustrating
his discourses; he “eats bread of
trembling” to show the panic in the
besieged city; he brings out household
goods, suggestive of flight. Then again
he would appear walking with face
covered, a flight by night.
Ezekiel has
“punch” to his teachings;
like preceding prophets, he did all in
his power to awaken the consciousness of
Jerusalem; the people must see sin, not
through a refined glamour, but in its own
hideousness. Such is the Parable of the
Foundling, in the sixteenth chapter:
“Son of man, cause Jerusalem to
know her abominations, and say, Thus said
the Lord God unto Jerusalem: Thy birth
and thy nativity is in the land of the
Canaanite; the Amorite was thy father,
and thy mother was an Hittite. And as for
thy nativity, in the day thou wast born
thou wast not washed in water to cleanse
thee; thou wast not salted at all, nor
swaddled at all. None eye pitied thee, to
do any of these things unto thee, to have
compassion on thee; but thou wast cast in
the open field, for that thy person was
abhorred in the day thou wast born. And
when I passed by thee, and saw thee
weltering in thy blood, I said unto thee,
In thy blood, live; yea, I said unto
thee, In thy blood, live. I cause thee to
multiply as the bud of the field, and
thou didst increase and wax great, and
thou attained to excellent ornament; thy
breasts were fashioned, and thy hair was
grown; yet thou was naked and bare. Now
when I passed by thee and looked upon
thee, behold, thy time was the time of
love; and I spread my skirt over thee,
and covered thy nakedness: yea, I swear
unto thee, and entered into a covenant
with thee, said the Lord God, and thou
becamest mine. Then washed I thee with
water; yea, I thoroughly washed away thy
blood from thee, and I anointed thee with
oil. I clothed thee also with broidered
work, and shod thee with sealskin, and I
girded thee about with fine linen, and
covered thee with silk. I decked thee
also with ornaments, and I put bracelets
upon thine hands, and a chain about thy
neck. Thou didst eat fine flour and honey
and oil, and thou wast exceeding
beautiful, and thou didst prosper unto
royal estate. And thy renown went forth
among the nations for thy beauty; for it
was perfect, through my majesty which I
put upon thee, said the Lord.”
All that
Jehovah had done for the city, but the
more that we have it seems the less we
really desire to be. “Thou didst
trust in the beauty,” ungrateful
foundling that she was; destroyed she
must be before she could see that beauty
and power belong to only the One.
None other thing can the great Jehovah
do; he must destroy her, that losing her
life she may find it in him.
To the
little home in Babylon the grim reaper
comes; but Ezekiel in his sorrow does not
bow under it; he shows others how to
nobly meet him. Ezekiel’s wife
dies, but sorrow is coming to the whole
of his circle; all who gather around him
have relatives in Jerusalem, and death
will come to many of them. Ezekiel will
not give way to personal woe when others
need comfort and work is to be done for
them. Surely this is what the Nazarene
meant when he told the man, “Let
the dead bury their dead: but go thou and
preach the kingdom of God.” To sit
and nurse our private woes is
selfishness; to rise and do the work that
confronts us is character; and
character is the supreme end to which we
all work. “The race is not to the
swift, nor the battle to the
strong,” but to the one who never
gives up and goes “straight
forward.”
“Also
the word of the Lord came unto me,
saying, Son of man, behold, I take away
from thee the desire of thine eyes with a
stroke; yet neither shalt thou mourn nor
weep, neither shall thy tears run down.
Sigh, but not aloud; make no mourning for
the dead, bind thy head-tire upon thee,
and put thy shoes upon thy feet, and
cover not thy lips, and eat not the bread
of men. So I spake unto the people in the
morning; and at even my wife died; and I
did in the morning as I was
commanded.
“And
the people said unto me, Wilt thou not
tell us what these things are to us, that
thou doest so? Then said I unto them, the
word of the Lord came unto me saying,
Speak to the house of Israel, Thus saith
the Lord: Behold I will profane my
sanctuary, the pride of your power, the
desire of your eyes, and that which your
soul pitieth; and your sons and your
daughters whom ye left behind shall fall
by the sword. And ye shall do as I have
done: ye shall not cover your heads: ye
shall not mourn nor weep. Thus shall
Ezekiel be unto you a sign: and according
to all he hath done shall ye
do.”
We can never
teach beyond what we ourselves live up
to; the teaching not backed up by the
demonstration is without power; it is
empty. His people were prepared when the
shock came! “And it came to pass in
the twelfth year of our captivity, in the
tenth month, in the fifth day of the
month, that one that had escaped out of
Jerusalem came unto me, saying: The
city is smitten. Now the hand of the
Lord had been upon me in the evening,
afore he that was escaped came to me in
the morning; and my mouth was opened, and
I was no more dumb.” His silence
which had begun with his wife’s
death and the siege of Jerusalem was thus
ended.
Individuality is a strong point in
Ezekiel’s teachings; he shows the
foolishness of believing in outside
saviours; each man must be his own
saviour: “Son of man, when a land
sinneth against me by committing a
trespass, and I stretch out my hand upon
it, and break the staff of the bread
thereof, and send famine upon it, and cut
it off from man and beast, though these
three men, Noah, Daniel and Job were in
it, they should deliver but their own
souls by their righteousness saith the
Lord.”
But the
“righteousness” of each saves
himself, it matters not what external
condition he is in. No man is under the
curse of heredity; each is unhampered and
free to work out his own salvation:
“The word of the Lord came unto me
again saying, What mean ye that ye use
this proverb concerning the land of
Israel, saying,
The father’s have eaten sour
grapes,
And the children’s teeth are set
on edge?
As I live,
saith the Lord God, ye shall not have
occasion any more to use this proverb in
Israel. Behold, all souls are mine; as
the soul of the father, so also the soul
of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth
it shall die.” Only for our own
individual actions are we responsible,
for this we pay the penalty of death.
When we cease to sin, we cease to die;
for we have broken through the belief in
materiality.
Ezekiel also
teaches our responsibility to others:
“So thou, son of man, I have set
thee a watchman unto the house of Israel;
therefore hear the word at my mouth, and
give them warning from me; When I say
unto the wicked, O wicked man thou shalt
surely die, and thou dost not speak to
warn the wicked from his way; that wicked
man shall die in his iniquity, but his
blood will I require from thine hand.
Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of
his way, and he turn not from his way,
that wicked man shall die in his
iniquity, but thou has delivered thy
soul.”
There can be
no desolation or unfruitful condition to
the seer. Chapter 37,--The Valley of Dry
Bones, is but the son of man’s
opportunity to prophesy. Under the
prophetic word, he can see the bone come
to bone, the sinew laid upon them, and
the flesh creep up over them; then, joy
of joys, the breath of life come into
them. So lies unseen the limitless
possibilities of man, waiting the word of
prophecy that shall make them live in our
consciousness.
Ezekiel
exercised a great influence over the
writers of the New Testament. His
allegory of the Good Shepherd,
undoubtedly suggested that illustration
to Jesus. In Revelations, his influence
is especially evident; the eating of the
roll; the invasion of Gog and Magog; the
measuring of the Temple; the life-giving
river and the four-square city with its
twelve gates.
He believed
in the Messianic Kingdom. His prophecies
were partially fulfilled in the
rebuilding of Jerusalem and the Temple;
but not yet has the full vision of any
prophet been fulfilled, nor will it be
until, “No man shall say, knowest
thou God, for all shall know him from the
least to the greatest.” His Vision
is for all time for those who having
eyes, see. The all-Presence with its
luminous amber atmosphere surrounds us at
all times. “The light shineth in
the darkness,” we have only to turn
to it believingly to have it break
through our night of sense.
* * * * *
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