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Does God Exist? - Part 2

Abstract

In the New Testament, the highly schooled members of the Council could not hide their surprise at the level of intelligence and depth of knowledge possessed by the apostles just because they had spent some time with Jesus. After all, these were mere artisans at best. This is the kind of wisdom to be gained from taking time to study a man like Prophet Ezekiel. He reveals that God is a covenant keeping God. He is the Almighty God, and nothing is impossible for Him. Ezekiel is the only person other than Jesus Christ that God addresses as “Son of man”. In the 21st Century, we still have physically existing evidence of the manifestation of his prophecies. Ezekiel exposes us to the workings of the Holy Ghost and especially, the prophetic ministry.

The Call of Ezekiel

Five years into captivity in exile, Ezekiel was by a canal in Tel Aviv, Babylon probably meditating on whether he will ever be able to minister in God’s Temple, or ever enter the Holy of Holies on behalf of his nation when God’s majesty appears to him.

Significantly, he saw this vision of the Ark of God leave the Temple and come to him in Babylon about the time he would have been officially ordained a priest. Nothing can be more shocking. We saw God reveal Himself in this way to Moses, and to Isaiah, also saw to Apostle Paul and documented by almost all the prophets. A rare glimpse of the glory of God. It is an undeniable encounter containing identifiable elements that gets one’s attention through an overwhelming spiritual presence. Ezekiel saw a shocking revelation of God.

Ezekiel gets a picture whose distracting magnificence undeniably confirms God’s glorious presence. Then, he gets his marching instructions, the call. The priest now transforms into a prophet. Just like with all other prophets, God’s triple play comes into Ezekiel’s life. God puts His hand on Ezekiel, speaks to him and instructs him to meditate on every word he hears carefully for understanding before transmitting it to the people.

His mandate was to become ‘the watchman’ as he was fed a scroll by God. Therefore, Ezekiel who until this time only knew what scriptures to recite when making sacrifices on the altar or how to clean out the sanctuary began to hear God’s instructions and learned to chat with God – the privileged status of Adam, Noah and Abraham.

The Scheme of Ezekiel’s Ministry

The scheme basically runs the same way as other prophets warned. There is the Almighty God, the Creator of man who jealously loves His creatures. There is man who is constantly lured away from the tenets of God into sin by the luxuries and conveniences of his world, and his manipulative creativity.

There is a watchman God uses to appeal to His people encouraging them to repent and be restored to the bridal seat. Man ignores the watchman, he is ultimately destroyed because life appears easier, and sweeter than trusting and yielding to a potentially boring lifestyle promised by the invitation of sadistic prophets. Eventually, man is wiped out. Yet, there is always a remnant of His people. Somehow, a remnant is always left, from Noah to the Exodus to Judah, and even, to Jerusalem. There are those who are repentant despite difficult social climates, remaining focused on God for salvation.

It was during one of those depressing times that God called Ezekiel to minister repentance to Judah, the remaining tribes of Israel. The northern ten tribes had disappeared into Assyria and beyond. Up until this time, Ezekiel was not a prophet. He only ministered as a priest to the Jews in captivity on the streets of Babylon. God’s appearance translated Ezekiel into prophetic ministry in addition to his priestly role. Ezekiel relearns God’s model for humanity, and preparation for the restoration of His glory in Jerusalem, even as He vacates Holy of Holies.

Ezekiel was a contemporary of King Josiah, the youngest and one the brightest kings to rule in Israel. It was Josiah who found the law books of Moses. The people had become complacent enough to abandon the scriptures in a cabinet. The alarming revelations of the content caused Josiah to restore godly worship in the Temple. Hence, the eight-year-old King Josiah began a clean out of idolatry from the Temple. He met with instant gratification from God. However, he did not complete the elimination of idolatry from Judah due to sentiments, saving some other idols within the land. Josiah did not last long and died at the warfront at the age of thirty-nine (2 Kings 22). Nevertheless, we get a glimpse of how easily Israel had slipped away from God’s laws, institutionalizing idolatry over centuries, enough for idolatry to become cultural. It must require extreme radicalism to recognize a need to move against such culture. This was the environment in which Ezekiel grew up as he apprenticed for his priestly office.

Not surprisingly, replacement kings for Josiah had their own preoccupations which did not include extermination of idolatry. They continued to defy the warnings of Prophet Jeremiah, Daniel, and Habakkuk. It was in this milieu that Nebuchadnezzar came with his first wave of conquests that carried away the cream of the society to exile when Ezekiel was seventeen years old. Those exiles included Prince Daniel. Ezekiel continued his apprenticeship as priest, a devout Levi in the line of Zadok. The second sweep of Nebuchadnezzar’s invasion carried the maturing Ezekiel to Babylon when he was twenty-five years old. Without a Temple, his future became doomed. With no more altars to sacrifice upon, ordination became unthinkable. Yet, Ezekiel never gave up on God, he continued his ministry on the streets of Babylon.