We were thinking, maybe, three Spiritual Anatomy pieces and here we are on number five out of six. As we walk this anatomy path together, we seem to find one more door to open before wrapping up. Last week, we considered the blending of our human contribution into God’s continuing grace within us. We looked at how we use our mind and heart to build our structure so that God can do His organic work within our soul, bringing us to a complete salvation. The power bringing us into salvation is the same mighty power effecting our salvation as we attain an imperishable inheritance through the living and abiding word of God, 1Peter 1:23.
The term salvation is used in scripture within the context of saving our own soul more often than the more familiar usage referring to our reconciliation, regeneration or new birth. Part of this salvation process is self-judgment so that we are able to build a better structure (our soul & body) in which God is dwelling. God is certainly the project manager expressing His wisdom through our sanctified construction.
God desires we share His holiness, 1Thess. 3:13, Heb. 4:10b. This is a must in our building structure because it is on God’s priority list for the temple in which He dwells. So, we must judge ourselves by our spirit/Spirit in order to be pure even as He is pure, 1John 3:3. If we do not judge ourselves then God will bring judgment to us, because He requires us to be holy and will bring it to completion.
“As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘Your shall be holy, for I am holy,’ And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without spot.”
The believer who is in Christ needs to understand the nature and gravity of God’s grace being provided in order to become like Jesus Christ. God has not only provided us with spiritual eyes to see and spiritual ears to hear but compensates us according to our stewardship of His grace. The Old Testament stories instruct our understanding about our spiritual relationship through Jesus, who is not only the Son of God, but also the Son of Man.
Israel is pictured for us in the Old Testament as God’s chosen people. They are a history flannel-graph story picturing our relationship with God through Christ. We are chosen and elect just as were the Israelites. God dwelled in His Jerusalem Temple and we have become His temple and dwelling place.
The severity of these Old Testament lessons are depicted for us in God’s judgment of Israel, portrayed in God’s flannel-graph of Ezekiel. Babylon came into Israel and captured Jerusalem, God’s judgment! Daniel was taken captive in the first visit and taken to Babylon. Babylon returned to get a labor force out of Jerusalem to use as slave labor in the canals south of Babylon. Ezekiel was taken in this second visit and became a prophet to this captive group at the royal canal on the river Chebar. Both Daniel and Ezekiel were priests whom God used as prophets. A remaining remnant of Israelites later went to Egypt after Jerusalem was destroyed. Jeremiah was in this group and became God’s prophet to the remnant in Egypt. Jeremiah was an older priest whom both Daniel and Ezekiel may have sat under in Jerusalem.
Jerusalem was still standing when the Israelis were taken to the Babylonian royal canal. There were false teachers there among the Jews telling the people God would deliver them so they could soon return to Jerusalem.
Ezekiel, on the other hand, was giving them very graphic visions about judgment and the destruction of Jerusalem. Ezekiel was ridiculed by the people especially when he would go to extremes to get their attention. The people preferred to believe a good outcome through their false teachers rather than acknowledging their sin through Ezekiel.
The word of God to Ezekiel proved true. Jerusalem was destroyed and the people were in captivity for 70 years as was prophesied by Jeremiah, Jeremiah 29:10. God’s judgment was severe and righteous. God is loving but also holy, requiring His people to be righteous as is He. We are righteous in Christ but we must bring our soul and body under God’s righteous holiness.
God sees deeply into man’s soul and judges the intent of his heart, Jeremiah 17:10. God gave Ezekiel a vision depicting man’s heart during this captivity period in Israel. Ezekiel is taken up by his hair and lifted to the inner court of the temple and is shown a graven image of worship within the temple which is an “abomination” to the Lord. Then he is taken to a hole in the inner court wall and instructed to go into the hole and dig. Ezekiel crawls into the hole and digs ‘til he comes to an entrance. The voice of God tells him to go in and he observes images of Israel’s idols carved on the walls and 70 men of the elders having censers in their hands creating a cloud of incense going up. “Then he said to me, ‘Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in his room of pictures? For they say ‘the Lord does not see us, the Lord has forsaken the Land.’” – Ezekiel 8:12.
After this view of the elders, Ezekiel is taken to the women who are worshiping the seasons and the things that grow. Again he is taken to where the people are worshipping the sun rising from the east. All this is in the inner court of God’s temple. Then God continues to Ezekiel,
“Have you seen this, O son of man? Is it too light a thing for the house of Judah to commit the abominations that they commit here, that they should fill the land with violence and provoke me still further to anger? … Therefore I will act in wrath. My eye will not spare, nor will I have pity. And though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them.”
Under the New Testament Covenant God’s judgment for sin is covered by the death of Jesus. The effects of death by sin is defeated by Christ’s resurrection over death and His exaltation to glory as the Son of Man. The terms of our relationship have changed under the New Covenant, but God has not changed and His desire for us is to seek Him with our whole heart, Deut. 6:4-9, Luke 10:27-28. God has provisioned us to do this very thing through Jesus the Son of God and the Son of man. Israel was to do it under the law by faith and we are to do it under grace by faith.
This unbelievable act of mercy from God provides grace to deal with sin in our body through His resurrection power. To appreciate the quantum scope of this is to understand the nature of our own sinfulness. We have no conception of the “might of His power.” We are spiritual babes without knowledge totally dependent upon God’s grace for our faith.
Our idea of God’s power might be measured by our observation of the universe and life as we walk among trees, water, plants and animals. But these incredible creations are described as the mere working of His fingers, Ps 8:3. God’s power is described using a double adjective to help us grasp the scope of His power, which is beyond our imagination. John uses Isaiah (Isa 53:1) to described salvation as the “arm of the Lord” as compared to God’s fingers for the creation of our worlds, John 12:38. Might this describe the level of magnitude between the creation of the universe and the creation of our life in Christ?
When we are born again a spiritual creation is completed. It is power at another level. It is the “exceeding greatness of His power toward us” in Ephesians 1:19. But it is even more than just a spiritual creation. It also releases humanity from the powers that are holding it in its natural form. It is impossible for man to have a faith to believe unless they become equipped with God’s power to see their own need and make a choice. After a person is born again, it takes this same dunamis (δυναμιs –dynamite) power of God to sustain the level of power required to live life in Christ. Faith is not a human quality to be mustered up within us.
A measurement of this kind of power was given to the Israelites in the form of the law showing their inability to be righteous at God’s level without His participation. Next week, we look at another form of His power displayed to Ezekiel - a vision in the form of His glory as a wheel in a wheel sitting on the mercy seat in the holy of holies.
But now, under the New Covenant, we are literally given God’s own resurrection power by faith and grace. This is part of our “talent” given under grace for us to use in Christ so that we can become complete in Him, Col. 2:10, being “rooted” and “built up”, verses 6 & 7. We are stewards of His grace given to us in Christ Jesus. This brings us back to the question of judgment in our lives as believers.
The seriousness of this in God’s eyes is measured by the severe judgment Israel received, and is still receiving, because of their disobedience to God who was ever ready to protect and heal them if they would be true to Him.
Listen to the words of Ezekiel to the Israelites before the destruction of Jerusalem.
“The word of the Lord came to me: “And you, O son of man, thus says the Lord God to the land of Israel: An end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land. Now the end is upon you; I will judge you according to your ways, and I will punish you for all your abominations. And my eye will not spare you, nor will I have pity, but I will punish you for your ways, while your abominations are in your midst. Then you will know that I am the Lord.””
God is the same yesterday, today and forever, Hebrews 13:8. While we are not in the same circumstances as were the Jews during the time of Ezekiel, Daniel and Jeremiah, the heart of God is still the same. God’s people in the Old Testament were called to obey the law, and the glory of God was physically visible in the Holy of Holies between the two cherubims on top of the ark, which was God’s throne. But that glory departed, as we will see because of their “abomination”.
The word of God is now written on our hearts rather than contained on two tablets in the ark. The glory of the Lord now is within us as the risen Christ has taken residence within us so we become His house. His spirit is now joined with our spirit so that we are partakers of His divine nature. His Holy Spirit makes His word alive within us so that we become vessels to be seen and read by others, 2Corinthians 3:3.
We do not have a free pass because we are under grace. We are still being held accountable for His “talents” given to us, His servants, since God has qualified us to be minsters of His gospel. Matthew 25:14-30ff, 2Cor. 5:19.
We, just like the Israelites of old, are called to obey. But under grace we are more fully equipped to glorify God because we have been given the capacity to receive, discern and administrate grace directly from God Himself through Jesus. It was the law that became our schoolmaster leading us to righteousness through faith, Galatians 3:24. Our standard is much higher, so should be our resolve and purpose.
What God has started within us He will complete, Phil. 1:6. How it is completed is in part up to us. We can discover the working of His mighty power within us through our participation in His grace. Or, we can depend upon God to work through our circumstances and get our spiritual attention. We can even do our own thing and sin a sin unto physical death, 1John 5:16. We will be judged! No, God took care of our eternal death. That is finished! But we can judge ourselves and allow God’s grace to grow our faith, or we can wait for that day when we see Him face to face. We shall be like Him then! 1John 3:2-3.
What do you want to take with you to your eternity?