INFINITY AND ETERNITY—God everywhere, and here, God forever, and now — point to the allness of God, and to man and the universe as His reflection, everywhere and forever, here and now. The Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament include the records of men and women captured by the immediacy of God.

The book of the prophet Ezekiel is an extended record of the visions and convictions of one of the preeminent Hebrew spokesmen for God. Ezekiel's words redeem the past and re-vision the future as he abides in the living presence of God.

Ezekiel is one of the three "major prophets" of the Old Testament, along with Isaiah and Jeremiah. He may have been a younger contemporary of Jeremiah's. He writes from the perspective of exile in Babylonia.

In the early sixth century BC, conquest and a series of forced removals had brought many Judeans to Babylon. Others had fled to Egypt. We know very little of Ezekiel's biography. He is a priest living among exiles in a settlement called Tel-abib, beside the Kebar River. He probably dates his writings throughout the text from the first removal of the Jews to Babylon in 597 BC, His book is a diary of visions extending over 22 years.

The writing is dense and, at times, difficult and obscure; but it also bursts with fantastic imagery and deep thoughtfulness. The two decades covered by the text also imply a rich development in the prophet's concept of himself, the people he serves, and the God they share. Anyone who has been forced to step outside their comfort zone, grapple with past mistakes while making a new life, and has glimpsed a redeemed future, can learn something from Ezekiel about living under the reign of God, the deific Mind.

One way to look at the book is to divide it into three sections of unequal length. Part One, chapters 1-24, offers a graphic diagnosis of the collapse of Israel. Part Two, chapters 25-32, is a less reflective indictment of the surrounding societies that have played a role in Israel's demise. And Part Three, chapters 33-48, offers a detailed vision of restoration and renewal.

With this basic framework in mind, reading the book selectively for meaning becomes easier. Interrogating the text with key questions helps unlock its inspired meaning. For example, one might ask, How does Ezekiel think about the past of his people? What has brought them to exile and ruin? When he seems nearly overwhelmed by his ruminations, what spiritual ideas come to his rescue? When does he seem freest of a painful past, and living in the presence of God?

Answers to these questions—and many more questions and answers—emerge as one reads Ezekiel, in which several passages communicate a timeless yielding up to God of past regret and of fears of the future. It's worth noting that Ezekiel's theology is clearer when understood in the light of Mary Baker Eddy's statement:" The manifestations of evil, which counterfeit divine justice, are called in the Scriptures, 'The anger of the Lord.' In reality, they show the self-destruction of error or matter and point to matter's opposite, the strength and permanency of Spirit. Christian Science brings to light Truth and its supremacy, universal harmony, the entireness of God, good, and the nothingness of evil" (Science and Health, p. 293).

One of the best-known images from Ezekiel is of the four living creatures moving in concert with four all-seeing wheels, almost indescribable in the vocabulary of space and time (see Ezek. 1:15; 10:8). The movements of the wheels, or "whirling things," synchronously, suggest the harmonious, eternal action of divine intelligence. A famous old spiritual explains:

The turning of these wheels "as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel" (Ezek. 1:16), evokes God's presence, power, and omniscience, perceptible from the Tel-abib colony, as well as from distant Jerusalem. Grace and faith, here and now! This is particularly important to Ezekiel. It counters that alienation from God which begins with a doubt-filled thought "in the dark. ... in the chambers of [a man's] imagery. . . . The Lord seeth us not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth" (8:12).

Ezekiel pushes back against this assertion of divine absence; to him, God is everywhere. This impacts both time and space. God says, "I will speak, and the word that I shall speak shall come to pass; it shall be no more prolonged" (12:25). This concept is detailed in verses 21 to 28 of chapter 12. The drag of delay is correlated with the tyranny of time. In the New Testament, the book of Revelation, which borrows from Ezekiel, includes the divine voice declaring, "There should be time no longer" (10:6). The New Revised Standard Version offers this translation: "There will be no delay." The divine presence abrogates time.

This annulment brings unexpected freedoms. Ezekiel excoriates the traditional saying, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge" (18:2). He pictures God as staking His own nature on His repudiation: "As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel" (Verse 3).

What follows is a moving exposition of individual freedom and responsibility that comprises all chapter 18. Mary Baker Eddy quotes from this chapter on page 211 of Science and Health, and three times in "Questions and Answers" (pp. 31-94) in Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896, as well as in two of her shorter works.

This ability of human beings to choose the right, unfettered and unpenalized by parents or the past, points to Ezekiel's faith in what Henry Wadsworth Longfellow calls "the living Present":

Ezekiel's unconventional convictions evidently challenged his first hearers: "Then I said, 'O Sovereign Lord, they are saying of me, "He only talks in riddles!" ' " (20:49, New Living Translation). He persisted, however, standing "in the gap" (22:30) and speaking for God.

His allegories may have been an inspiration for some of Christ Jesus' parables. Ezekiel represents God as saying, "As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep" (Ezek. 34:12). This pastoral passage contrasts with the fantastical imagery of earlier chapters, but it includes the assurance that Ezekiel has shared throughout his book: God is a present help, now and forever. The people's repatriation to their homeland is only possible through God's leading. His critique of their fallible human shepherds is specific: "The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken" (34:4). This neglect is the result of a self-absorption that Ezekiel sees as second only to the idolatry that he blames for Israel's breakdown.

The final chapters of the book again tie it to Revelation: the measuring of the city (chap. 40) and the life-giver (chap. 47) are both echoed in that text, as is the lesser-known account of the invasion by "Gog, [of] and land of Magog" (38:2) of the restored Israel.

Among the Old Testament prophets, only Ezekiel includes an account of significant challenge to God's people in the distant time to come, after they are restored to their homeland. Rather than using this prediction to create fear of the future, Ezekiel explains that this attack will be countered by divine power and used for a universal purpose. "I will turn thee back," God says to the armies of Magog (38:4). The enemy's very predisposing thoughts are known: "At the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought: and thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely" (38:10, 11).

As it turns out, Magog is the victim of its own "evil thought"; God will defend the land, and Magog's failure will be known. The future is not to be feared, but God glorified. Every imaginable encroachment by adversaries is doomed; God has reconstituted his people, putting them back together like "dry bones" given new life (chap. 37). What a promise to them — and to us! |css