1. Ezekiel holds a very important place in the religious development of the Jews. In fact he has been aptly compared with such masterful personalities as Gregory vii. and Calvin, as one who by sheer energy of character and force of thought impressed an ineffaceable stamp on the religion of his age. As we have seen, the great and complicated system of sacrifices belonging to the second Temple owed its inception very largely to him. He may therefore be regarded as the connecting link between the Prophets and the Law, and as the father of Judaism with its legalism, dogmatism, and ceremonialism. We should not, however, make the very serious mistake of judging that movement by what it seems to have become-a mere lifeless routine of very exact, but to many probably quite unmeaning, ceremonies. The Book of Ezekiel and the Code of Holiness teach us a different lesson. We see that the movement was, at least in its inception, intensely spiritual.
2. The importance of Ezekiel arises mainly out of two facts. First, he lived through the great crisis of the fall of Jerusalem and the beginning of the Exile, and lived long enough to look back upon it. His own faith survived that crisis, and through him others were enabled to persist. Thus it was largely due to Ezekiel that revealed religion was not involved in the fall of the Jewish kingdom, but entered on a new stage of development, over which the prophet exercised great influence. Secondly, the priest and the prophet were so nicely balanced in his character and work that he was enabled to mediate between the sacerdotal and the prophetic tendencies in the religion of Israel. Ezekiel represents a transition and a compromise: the transition from the ancient Israel of the Monarchy to Judaism; and the compromise between the ethical teaching of the prophets and the popular need for ritual.
3. Besides his high moral and spiritual teaching, it was Ezekiel's mission to keep alive among the Jews a sense of their religious unity and political existence. Judaism was never intended to be a cosmopolitan religion; and when the exiles contrasted the colossal splendour of Babylon with their own poor Jerusalem, they needed the message “Fear not, thou worm Jacob,” and the reminder that they were not to sink into Babylonians, since they had higher hopes and nobler promises. Their tears were to be but as the softening showers which should prepare the soil for a purer seed. It was therefore essential that they should not relapse into the idolatry of their conquerors; and since they had no longer a Temple or sacrifices, it was necessary to insist with the utmost stringency on their ancient and peculiar institution of the Sabbath. Ezekiel has been severely judged because, amid the lofty teachings of his eighteenth chapter, he dwells so strongly on one or two negative and positive rules. The criticism is unjust, because those rules are not meant to include all morality, but are aimed at the dangers which most immediately menaced the national existence-idolatry, impurity, greed, and unkindness. How little the teaching of Ezekiel was akin to Pharisaism may be seen in his insistence on the fact that a new heart and a new spirit are not the reward of merit, but the gift of God's free love. By this mixture of doctrine and morality, by his thorough examination of the problems of sin and punishment, and of repentance and free grace, and by his reference of all questions to the will and glory of God, Ezekiel has earned the title of “the Paul of the Old Testament.” Further than this, by his chosen title “Son of man” and its accordance with his deepest thoughts, he becomes a type of Christ.
4. Ezekiel, it must be remembered, was not only a prophet proclaiming the principles on which the future of his nation was to be based, but also a preacher of repentance and a shepherd of souls, in whom he sought to create a true religious hopefulness in the mercy of God, and a true religious humility as to the merits of man. The 33rd chapter, in which the duties of a prophet, “set as a watchman unto the house of Israel,” are finely described, and the personal responsibility of each individual man and the necessity of his repentance in the sight of a holy God are emphasized, is one of the loftiest expressions of ethical teaching we find in the Old Testament. It is all this that gives Ezekiel a permanent value. But it certainly is curious that he is only once directly quoted in the New Testament, and even that doubtfully (2Co_6:16; Eze_37:27). His symbolism, however, especially that of the cherubim (the four living creatures of Rev_4:6, etc.) and the river proceeding from the sanctuary, is largely incorporated in the Apocalypse. Christians have been pleased to see a fulfilment of the latter vision in the healing and fructifying power which comes from their great High Priest, just as they see in Ezekiel's Temple a prefigurement of the Church on earth. It is significant that in this matter the Apocalypse does not take over the imagery of Ezekiel, but points to an even higher ideal, one to be realized, it may be, only in eternity, when the presence of God is so completely known and fully appreciated that there is no need of an earthly temple.
The new Jerusalem of the Apocalypse is an ideal city on an ideal earth. In the historical city the function of the temple had been to symbolize the presence of God in a society which was not wholly and inwardly one with Him. As a local symbol it had at least the appearance of localizing His presence. But in a perfected and redeemed society no such symbol and apparent limitation is required. There is no temple, because the city is all temple. God is no longer anywhere, because He is felt to be everywhere. “The old Jerusalem was all temple. The mediæval church was all temple. But the ideal of the new Jerusalem was-no temple, but a God-inhabited society.”1 [Note: C. Anderson Scott, Revelation, 294.]
In the desert by the bush,
Moses to his heart said Hush.
David on his bed did pray;
God all night went not away.
From his heap of ashes foul
Job to God did lift his soul,
God came down to see him there,
And to answer all his prayer.
On a dark hill, in the wind,
Jesus did His Father find,
But while He on earth did fare,
Every spot was place of prayer;
And where man is any day,
God can not be far away.
But the place He loveth best,
Place where He Himself can rest,
Where alone He prayer doth seek,
Is the spirit of the meek.
To the humble God doth come;
In his heart He makes His home.1 [Note: George MacDonald, Poetical Works, i. 347.]
