Ezekiel 10–11

I LOOKED, AND I SAW the likeness of a throne of sapphire above the expanse that was over the heads of the cherubim. 2The LORD said to the man clothed in linen, “Go in among the wheels beneath the cherubim. Fill your hands with burning coals from among the cherubim and scatter them over the city.” And as I watched, he went in.

3Now the cherubim were standing on the south side of the temple when the man went in, and a cloud filled the inner court. 4Then the glory of the LORD rose from above the cherubim and moved to the threshold of the temple. The cloud filled the temple, and the court was full of the radiance of the glory of the LORD. 5The sound of the wings of the cherubim could be heard as far away as the outer court, like the voice of God Almighty when he speaks.

6When the LORD commanded the man in linen, “Take fire from among the wheels, from among the cherubim,” the man went in and stood beside a wheel. 7Then one of the cherubim reached out his hand to the fire that was among them. He took up some of it and put it into the hands of the man in linen, who took it and went out. 8(Under the wings of the cherubim could be seen what looked like the hands of a man.)

9I looked, and I saw beside the cherubim four wheels, one beside each of the cherubim; the wheels sparkled like chrysolite. 10As for their appearance, the four of them looked alike; each was like a wheel intersecting a wheel. 11As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the cherubim faced; the wheels did not turn about as the cherubim went. The cherubim went in whatever direction the head faced, without turning as they went. 12Their entire bodies, including their backs, their hands and their wings, were completely full of eyes, as were their four wheels. 13I heard the wheels being called “the whirling wheels.” 14Each of the cherubim had four faces: One face was that of a cherub, the second the face of a man, the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle.

15Then the cherubim rose upward. These were the living creatures I had seen by the Kebar River. 16When the cherubim moved, the wheels beside them moved; and when the cherubim spread their wings to rise from the ground, the wheels did not leave their side. 17When the cherubim stood still, they also stood still; and when the cherubim rose, they rose with them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in them.

18Then the glory of the LORD departed from over the threshold of the temple and stopped above the cherubim. 19While I watched, the cherubim spread their wings and rose from the ground, and as they went, the wheels went with them. They stopped at the entrance to the east gate of the LORD’s house, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them.

20These were the living creatures I had seen beneath the God of Israel by the Kebar River, and I realized that they were cherubim. 21Each had four faces and four wings, and under their wings was what looked like the hands of a man. 22Their faces had the same appearance as those I had seen by the Kebar River. Each one went straight ahead.

11:1Then the Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the gate of the house of the LORD that faces east. There at the entrance to the gate were twenty-five men, and I saw among them Jaazaniah son of Azzur and Pelatiah son of Benaiah, leaders of the people. 2The LORD said to me, “Son of man, these are the men who are plotting evil and giving wicked advice in this city. 3They say, ‘Will it not soon be time to build houses? This city is a cooking pot, and we are the meat.’ 4Therefore prophesy against them; prophesy, son of man.”

5Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon me, and he told me to say: “This is what the LORD says: That is what you are saying, O house of Israel, but I know what is going through your mind. 6You have killed many people in this city and filled its streets with the dead.

7“Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: The bodies you have thrown there are the meat and this city is the pot, but I will drive you out of it. 8You fear the sword, and the sword is what I will bring against you, declares the Sovereign LORD. 9I will drive you out of the city and hand you over to foreigners and inflict punishment on you. 10You will fall by the sword, and I will execute judgment on you at the borders of Israel. Then you will know that I am the LORD. 11This city will not be a pot for you, nor will you be the meat in it; I will execute judgment on you at the borders of Israel. 12And you will know that I am the LORD, for you have not followed my decrees or kept my laws but have conformed to the standards of the nations around you.”

13Now as I was prophesying, Pelatiah son of Benaiah died. Then I fell facedown and cried out in a loud voice, “Ah, Sovereign LORD! Will you completely destroy the remnant of Israel?”

14The word of the LORD came to me: 15“Son of man, your brothers—your brothers who are your blood relatives and the whole house of Israel—are those of whom the people of Jerusalem have said, ‘They are far away from the LORD; this land was given to us as our possession.’

16“Therefore say: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Although I sent them far away among the nations and scattered them among the countries, yet for a little while I have been a sanctuary for them in the countries where they have gone.’

17“Therefore say: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will gather you from the nations and bring you back from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you back the land of Israel again.’

18“They will return to it and remove all its vile images and detestable idols. 19I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. 20Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God. 21But as for those whose hearts are devoted to their vile images and detestable idols, I will bring down on their own heads what they have done, declares the Sovereign LORD.”

22Then the cherubim, with the wheels beside them, spread their wings, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them.23The glory of the LORD went up from within the city and stopped above the mountain east of it. 24The Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the exiles in Babylonia in the vision given by the Spirit of God.

Then the vision I had seen went up from me, 25and I told the exiles everything the LORD had shown me.

Original Meaning

WHILE FOR THE purposes of simplicity we have treated Ezekiel 8–9 separately from Ezekiel 10–11, it must not be forgotten that they belong together as a single vision. In fact, there is a structure underlying the whole sequence of these four chapters, which may be analyzed as follows:

A: Introduction to the vision, including reference to divine glory (8:1–4)

B: Four visions of cultic abominations, along with accusations of social wrongdoing, centering on the elders (8:5–18)

C: A vision of divine judgment on account of cultic abominations and social wrongdoing, beginning with the elders (9:1–10:7)

D: The prophet intercedes with God to preserve a remnant (9:8)

E: The departure of the divine glory from the temple and city (10:8–22)

B′: Accusation of social wrongdoing, centering on the leaders of the people (11:1–6)

C′: A message of divine judgment on the leaders, followed by a vision of divine judgment on Pelatiah, one of the “leaders of the people” (śārê hāʿām; 11:7–13)

D′: The prophet intercedes with God to preserve a remnant (11:13)

E′: The promise of the divine presence with the exiles as a temporary “sanctuary” and the eventual return of the exiles (11:14–21)

A′: Conclusion of the vision, including reference to the divine glory (11:22–25)

The structure of the vision makes its fundamental message clear: It is about the location of the presence of God. If God were still present in his temple in Jerusalem, then the confidence of those who remain in the land would perhaps be justified. But what this temple vision shows conclusively is that because of the sins of the inhabitants of Judah, both in terms of their responsibilities toward God and of their responsibilities toward their fellow human beings, the glory has departed from Judah and gone to dwell with those living in exile. The first have become the last and the last have become first.

Chapter 10 opens with a continuation of the judgment scene of Ezekiel 9. There we saw the city being overrun by divinely appointed executioners, scattering dead bodies in their wake as if starring in a cosmic Rambo movie. Now, on top of that destruction of life, follows the destruction of property. The seventh angel returns to the fray. This is a priestly figure, who in Ezekiel 9 is the sole mediator of life in the midst of the cataclysm, marking out for salvation those who sigh and mourn over the abominations of the city. This time, however, his action is not intended for salvation but for destruction. At the Lord’s command, he takes burning coals from beneath the heavenly throne in order to burn the city to the ground (10:2). Like the city of Sodom, who Ezekiel calls Jerusalem’s “sister” in 16:46, Jerusalem will be burned up by fire from on high.

Ezekiel is here simply giving us a glimpse behind the scenes at the cosmic realities that underlie history. When the physical Jerusalem fell to Nebuchadnezzar and was razed to the ground in 586 B.C., the Babylonians were nothing more than the human instruments in the hands of an angry God. In the ancient Near East, it was a commonplace that a city could not be captured unless its gods were either defeated or had abandoned it to its fate.1 Thus the Cyrus Cylinder, which records the victory of the Persians over Babylon in 539 B.C., tells how Marduk was angry at the cultic and social sins of the Babylonian king and therefore departed from the city, leading to its destruction and the annihilation of its population.2 Similarly here, the Lord’s wrath at the sins of the people leads to his departure from his chosen city and its consequent destruction.

After the priestly figure departs to carry out the Lord’s bidding, there follows a renewed description of the divine chariot with its supernatural attendants. The lengths to which the prophet goes to describe the vision of the divine glory may seem redundant to us, but they serve to underline its status as the central feature of the whole temple vision. What Ezekiel sees is exactly the same vision as he saw in chapter 1 (in Babylonia!), but here in the temple context, certain features snap into sharper focus. In the building filled with representations of cherubim, it becomes clear to the prophet that the “living creatures” he saw in chapter 1 are themselves cherubim.3

On top of the cherubim, the prophet sees a throne, at first empty (Ezek. 10:1). The divine chariot is drawn up on the south side of the temple (10:3), as far away as possible from the abominations on the northern side of the city. Then Ezekiel sees a cloud filling the inner court and the glory of God on the move once more, just as it had been in the days of the desert wanderings (cf. Ex. 40:34–37). It departs slowly, haltingly, as if reluctant to leave.4 First it passes from the earthly cherubim in the Most Holy Place to the threshold of the temple (Ezek. 10:4), then from the threshold of the temple to the divine chariot over the (real) cherubim (10:18). From there the glory moves to the east gate of the temple courtyard (10:19), where there is a pause during which the prophet receives a further oracle and vision. Finally the glory moves on to the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, outside the city limits. The city itself is now effectively doomed, cut off from divine aid from its true protector, waiting for the ax to fall. The Lord has abandoned the city to the empty hope offered by the idols for which the people abandoned him.

Not everyone within the city of Jerusalem has the same perspective, however. At the entrance to the east gate, Ezekiel sees a group of men whose number (twenty-five, Ezek. 11:1) and whose function (giving advice, v. 2) suggest them to be elders.5 Included in their number are two “leaders of the people” (śārê hāʿām), who are named as Jaazaniah ben Azzur (not the same as Jaazaniah ben Shaphan in 8:11) and Pelatiah. The “leaders” (śārîm) were a small council of high officials of the king, who wielded considerable power in Judah.6 During the reign of Zedekiah, they apparently extended their powers in the face of his weakness and were even able to act independently of the king to some degree (see Jer. 38:25).7

In the vision, Ezekiel is told that these leaders have been “plotting evil and giving wicked advice in this city” (Ezek. 11:2). In opposition to the prophetic word of forthcoming judgment on Jerusalem, they have apparently been arrogantly asserting the security of their position. The exact meaning of the terse expression in 11:3a (lit., “not near building houses”) has been much debated. The NIV, along with most translations and commentators, takes the “near” in a temporal sense, construing the phrase as a question: “Will it not soon be time to build houses?”8 However, a better sense is obtained if “near” is taken in a spatial sense, so that the inhabitants of Judah are referring to themselves as those who are “near,” in contrast to the exiles as those who are “far away” (cf. 11:15).9 The phrase then becomes, “It is not for the one who is near to build houses,” with an obvious reference to the letter that Jeremiah sent the exiles urging them to “build houses” (Jer. 29:5). As Fairbairn paraphrases it: “Those who are far off in the land of exile may, if they please, take the prophet’s advice and set about building houses for themselves; that does not concern us.”10

This understanding seems to fit better with the second half of their statement: “This city is a cooking pot, and we are the meat” (Ezek. 11:3b). This may be interpreted as a statement of the relative value of those who remain in Jerusalem and the exiles (the best part, the “meat,” is put in the cooking pot while the undesired portion, the offal, is thrown into the fire).11 Alternatively, it may speak of the relative safety of the Jerusalemites (the cooking pot, while not a safe place to be, is at least better than being in the fire—as is implied in our proverb “Out of the frying pan, into the fire),12 or it may imply both.13 In either case, a contrast is implied between those who remain in Jerusalem and the exiles, a contrast that favors the inhabitants of the city.

To pick up the further quotation of their thoughts in 11:15, on the Jerusalemites’ view, “They [the exiles] are14 far away from the LORD; this land was given to us as our possession.” On the grounds that “possession is nine-tenths of the law,” they regard the de facto situation as an expression of God’s favor on them and displeasure with those in exile. They think of themselves as the true remnant while those in exile are under God’s judgment.

In the oracle that follows, the Lord rejects their claim. Because of the violent crimes committed by these leaders, by which they have filled the city with corpses, the city will provide no protection for them (11:7). The sword that they fear will come on them and they will fall by it (11:8, 10). The land will not be their possession; rather, the Lord will bring them out of the city to judge them at the very edge of the land, at the “borders of Israel” (11:10–11).

In this prophecy there is not simply reference to the actual events of history, whereby many of the leading citizens were put to death by Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah (2 Kings 25:21), but more fundamentally there is a challenge to the Jerusalemites’ claim to possess the land. The language is carefully chosen to depict their fate as a kind of anti-exodus. The Lord will “drive them out of the city,” just as he earlier brought Israel out of the land of Egypt (Ezek. 11:9; cf. Ex. 6:6). Whereas once he promised to deliver Israel from the hand of the Egyptians (Ex. 3:8), now he threatens to give them into the hand of foreigners (Ezek. 11:9). The judgments that once fell on Egypt (Ex. 6:6; 12:12) now fall on the inhabitants of Jerusalem (Ezek. 11:10). In this context, the phrase “the borders of Israel” evokes the division of the land under Joshua, where the borders of all of the tribes were established (Josh. 15–19; cf. Ezek. 48!). Far from the land of Canaan being their “possession” (Ezek. 11:15; cf. Ex. 6:8), which they may divide among themselves without regard to the exiles, the inhabitants of Jerusalem will die outside the land because of their failure to keep the Lord’s decrees and laws.15 It will be shown that they are not a privileged “remnant” after all.

Ezekiel then once more sees enacted in visionary form God’s judgment. As in Ezekiel 9, where he saw the idolatrous elders cut down as the firstfruits of God’s judgment (9:6), so also here he sees one of the “leaders of the people,” Pelatiah, die while Ezekiel is carrying out the Lord’s command to prophesy against him (11:4). In both instances, Ezekiel’s response to this demonstration of the reality of God’s judgment is to fall on his face and cry out the question: “Sovereign LORD! Will you completely destroy the remnant of Israel?” (11:13; cf. 9:8). Up to a point, Ezekiel shares the presuppositions of the Jerusalemites. God’s land and God’s people are an indivisible unity. Those already in exile are therefore, by definition, “far from God.” If then, in addition to the previous catastrophe, comprehensive judgment falls on those who remain in the land, who will be left? Surely the whole house of Israel will then be destroyed. The end of the tunnel will have been reached, with no way out.

The answer to Ezekiel’s first cry in 9:8 had been brief and ambiguous: The Lord responded with words of judgment without compassion—yet the reappearance of the priestly figure with his writing kit left room for hope that some righteous remnant might have been found to survive the holocaust (9:9–11). But the response to Ezekiel’s second cry (11:13) is a glorious declaration that the future of Israel lies among the exiles: It is Ezekiel and his brothers and “blood relatives”16—his fellow exiles—who constitute “the whole house of Israel” (11:15). Yes, they have been sent far away from the land of Israel, but even there they have not been cast out of the Lord’s presence because “for a little while I have been a sanctuary for them in the countries where they have gone” (11:16). By this we see that the Lord’s movement is not simply a departure from Jerusalem, on account of the idolatries that have profaned the sanctuary there (8:6), but also a departure to Babylon, to be a sanctuary for his true people there.

But the Lord’s exile, like that of his true people, is only a temporary state of affairs.17 The counterpart of the anti-exodus of the Lord’s nonpeople from Judah will be a new exodus of the Lord’s true people from all the nations to which they have been scattered. They will be brought back once more (11:17; cf. Ex. 6:6); the land that Ezekiel cannot redeem for his redemption relatives (Ezek. 11:15) will be redeemed for them by the Lord (cf. Ex. 6:6).18 The detestable idols and vile images with which the former inhabitants filled the land (Ezek. 7:20; 8:3–17) will be removed by the new inhabitants (11:18).

The reason for this change in behavior is, quite literally, a change of heart. The Lord will create in his new people “an undivided heart,” not so much in the sense of mutual agreement among the people, but rather in the sense of undivided loyalty to the Lord, a single-minded commitment to him (cf. Jer. 32:39). In place of the old spirit, whose mindset resulted in death (Ezek. 11:5–6),19 God’s new people will be given “a new spirit.” They will receive “a heart of flesh” that will respond to the Lord in place of their old stony heart (cf. 3:7). In contrast to the present occupants of the land, who neither follow the Lord’s decrees nor keep his laws (11:12), his new people will observe both decrees and laws (11:20). The result of such renewal will be nothing less than the fulfillment of the goal of the first exodus: “They will be my people, and I will be their God” (11:20; cf. Ex. 6:7). This is the first substantive indication in Ezekiel of a solid hope for the future for God’s people in exile.

There is, however, no such promising hope for those who remain in the land: They remain committed to idolatry and abominations, for which the judgment they receive will be fully deserved (Ezek. 11:21). Thus ends Ezekiel’s temple vision: The glory departs from the temple and moves off onto the Mount of Olives, across from Jerusalem, as if waiting to see the judgment on the rebellious city completed, while the prophet is returned to his own people in exile.

Bridging Contexts

DIVINE ABANDONMENT and identification. The temptation to believe that God is statically tied to one location is not one that immediately occurs to us. Yet that difference of perspective is not simply a matter of “evolutionary progress” in our thought, as if modern people like us have advanced beyond such “primitive” ideas. Solomon himself recognized the incongruity of supposing that the One who created the universe would dwell in a house made with human hands (1 Kings 8:27). Yet he also recognized that the Lord had chosen to link himself and his honor in a unique way with the temple in Jerusalem. It was the place he had chosen to set his Name (1 Kings 8:29; cf. Deut. 12:11), the sole place where sacrifices were to be offered to the Lord.

It was therefore no light thing when Solomon’s successors repeatedly failed to honor the temple as such, allowing or even encouraging idolatry and syncretistic worship at the high places throughout the land. If God really were the true God and not simply an ineffectual idol, such a history of unfaithfulness and abominations, which culminated in Ezekiel’s vision of chapter 8, could only lead to disaster. So it did in 586 B.C. The One who had sovereignly set his Name on Jerusalem could, and finally did, remove his favor and protection.

It is hard for us, as modern people, to relate to the scale of such a catastrophe in the minds of God’s people. Yet Ezekiel’s message was not simply one of divine abandonment. It was also one of divine identification. God was leaving Jerusalem to its fate but he was not leaving himself without a remnant. The answer to Ezekiel’s twice-posed question: “Are you going to destroy the entire remnant of Israel?” was “Yes and No.” Yes, the remnant who remained in Judah were slated for further catastrophic judgment, from which the survival of any was an entirely moot prospect.20 But no, that did not mean the end for God’s people. A remnant already existed in exile, who would experience God’s presence with them in exile for a little while, after which there would be a new exodus and a return to the Promised Land.

God’s true presence among the human race. But even the experience of exile and return did not bring about the full blessings of the covenant. True, there was a kind of “second exodus” during the time of Cyrus, with the return of many Jews to their homeland (Ezra 1).21 With the encouragement of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, the second temple was built. Yet there is a pervasive feeling of incompleteness in the postexilic writings—a sense that there is something more to come.22 There was no physical manifestation of the Lord’s presence in the second temple to match that at the dedication of the first temple (1 Kings 8:11) or that expected by Ezekiel (Ezek. 43:1–5).

That fulfillment awaited the New Testament era. With the coming of Jesus, the presence of God is no longer located in the physical, man-made temple, but the presence once again “made [a] dwelling” (lit., “tabernacled”) among his people (John 1:14), just as it had during the desert period and, according to Ezekiel 11:16, during the Exile. In the person of Jesus, God’s presence is once more mobile, no longer tied to a mountain, whether Mount Gerazim or Mount Zion; the time has now come when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth (John 4:23). In Jesus is also the coming of the glory that Ezekiel looked for. Thus John comments: “We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). In other words, with the coming of Jesus there is a fundamental redemptive-historical change in the manifestation of God’s glory and presence.

If, however, Jesus is the personal manifestation of the divine glory in the New Testament, then this passage in Ezekiel 10–11 casts a fascinating light on Matthew 23:37–24:3. There Jesus laments Jerusalem’s history of hard-heartedness towards the prophets and her refusal to come to him (23:37). As a result, her house will be left desolate (23:38), and Jerusalem will not see Jesus again until they are willing to welcome his coming (23:39). He then prophesies the forthcoming destruction of the temple (24:1) and removes himself to the Mount of Olives. Once more, the glory has departed from Jerusalem to the Mount of Olives, leaving behind a magnificent but doomed structure.

Names. From our modern perspective, we may also easily miss the appropriateness that marks the personal names of those singled out for judgment. Old Testament narratives often have names that fit and prefigure the action to unfold. Thus when an Old Testament audience read that Esau was given his name because it apparently means “hairy” and Jacob was so-named because it was understood to mean “he grasps the heel” (or “deceives,” Gen. 25:25–26), that information would have been immediately recognized as significant for the story that follows, in which Jacob cheats Esau out of his inheritance by pretending to be the hairy brother (27:23). Similarly, the identification “Saul” (meaning “asked for/dedicated to”) is on one level deeply appropriate for the king that Israel asked God to provide for them (1 Sam. 8:5), yet raises the question of Saul’s dedication to God. At the same time, however, the alert Hebrew reader remembers that 1 Samuel 1:27–28 has already identified Samuel as the one “asked for” from God and “dedicated to” (šāʾûl) him, whereby God is suggesting that Samuel may be a better “Saul” than Saul himself.

In the light of this, we should probably not regard the personal names in Ezekiel 8–11 as mere social identifiers. Though the persons involved were presumably real historical figures (like Saul and Jacob), their names underline the message. For if Jaazaniah ben Azzur means “the LORD hears, son of [divine name] helps,” it is hardly coincidental that the Lord has indeed heard. He has heard not just what Jaazaniah and the other elders have been saying but even the thoughts of their hearts. The absence of a specific divine name element in his patronym (Azzur) may not immediately appear significant,23 but is perfectly fitting in this context where the question of which deity these people have been seeking their help from is left open. Moreover, Pelatiah ben Benaiah means “the LORD delivers [causes to escape], son of the LORD builds up,” yet he is the one who derides the Lord’s command to build and does not escape. In every respect, the judgment of God exactly fits those on whom it falls.24

Contemporary Significance

THE VEIL PULLED BACK. In the Wizard of Oz Dorothy and her three friends, the tin man, the scarecrow, and the cowardly lion, journey along the yellow brick road until they arrive at the famed city of Oz, where they hope that the powerful wizard will grant them their heart’s desire. When they arrive, the enigmatic wizard appears to them in a variety of fearsome and beautiful forms and sends them off on a quest to prove themselves by disposing of the wicked witch of the west; if they succeed, he promises to grant them their wish. However, when they finally return after having successfully completed their mission and enter the great and mighty wizard’s throne room, Dorothy’s dog Toto pulls back a curtain in the corner. In that way, the foursome learns that the “great and mighty wizard” is in fact a failed fairground conjurer, who does everything by illusion. With the screen taken away, they discover that the world of Oz is not at all what they thought it was.

In Ezekiel 8–11, the screen is taken away from the course of Judah’s history, and it is revealed to the prophet that things are not at all what they had appeared to be. The fundamental reality that Judah had always relied upon, the presence of God in their midst in the temple on Mount Zion, is revealed to be now nothing more than a hollow shell. The glory of God has departed from their midst, leaving the city ripe for destruction. What that means is that those who seem to themselves to be in the better situation—in the frying pan rather than in the fire, those confidently depending on God’s commitment to Zion—are actually next on the menu. God has abandoned them to their doom. To continue the culinary metaphor, their goose is cooked.

By contrast, the ones who seem like the offscouring and leftovers—those who seem to be abandoned by God and sent off into exile—are actually the ones with whom the future of God’s people rests. For God has not simply departed from Jerusalem, he has departed to the exiles, to be their sanctuary. Because God is with them, they have a future, a future that will bring them back to the land of promise and to receive the goal of the promise: God’s dwelling in the midst of his people. The rejected ones are those invited to the banquet, while those who felt secure will be rejected (Luke 14:16–24).

Most of us see life with the screen up. We assume that things are as they appear and that we can easily identify those on whom God’s favor rests. We may put our confidence in the traditions of the past, for example, and assume that forms hallowed by repeated usage must be pleasing to God in the present. How far in the past we look may vary from person to person: We may insist on forms that stretch all the way back to the early church, the Reformation, or the Puritans, or simply the forms to which we have been accustomed as individuals. Alternatively, we may place our trust in numbers: If many people attend a particular church or type of church, then surely God’s blessing rests on it and we should model our church after that style.

God’s presence is not so easily discerned. He does not always continue to bless forms and institutions that he has blessed in the past, nor is he always found in the large and apparently successful churches. In the Bible, he is most often found with the poor and the weak, the despised and rejected, those whom the world regards as castoffs. So when Jesus comes, he visits the temple, but his primary teaching and ministry takes place in the open air. He will eat with the scribes and the Pharisees when they invite him, but he is known rather as the friend of tax collectors and sinners (Matt. 11:19). When he seeks twelve disciples, he goes not to the religious training schools but to the work places of ordinary men and women. The essence of his training program is not a rigorous course of book study, but three years of being in his presence.

The temple in the New Testament era. The reason for this is that in the New Testament the temple has taken human form in the body of Jesus (John 2:19). In him, God’s glory lives among us (1:14). Herod’s temple, for all its outward glory, is an empty shell, abandoned by God and now simply awaiting its destruction by human hands (Matt. 24:1–2). Ironically, it still stood while Christ experienced the heartrending abandonment on the cross, where his Father forsook him on account of the sins of his people. Its stones remained intact while his physical body was torn down. But that divine abandonment of Christ was only the necessary precursor to its refilling with even greater glory and resurrection as a spiritual body.

As a result of that death and resurrection, the future lies not with the Jerusalem temple but with the body of Christ, the church. In their assembly, they have the presence of God with them in the person of Jesus. This is the significance of Jesus’ statement that “where two are three come together in my name, there am I with them” (Matt. 18:20). Paul describes the church in this way: “We are the temple of the living God. As God has said: ‘I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people’ ” (2 Cor. 6:16). Wherever the true church assembles, there God is present in their midst. Or, to put it the other way around, it is the presence of Christ that constitutes the church.

The prerequisite, then, for worship to be possible in the New Testament context is not a building chosen by God and accepted by him, but a people chosen by God and accepted by him. God dwells in the hearts of his people, not in a building made with hands. This surely has implications for how we assess different churches. All too often we make our judgment based on whether the programs a church offers seem to meet our needs or on its denominational label, rather than attempting the harder task of discerning the reality of Christ’s presence.

But how do you discern the reality of Christ’s presence in a church? The Reformers argued that the marks of the true church were the pure preaching of the Word of God, the sacraments rightly administered, and church discipline properly applied.25 These are not three entirely separate things, since pure preaching ought to result in reformation of sacramental practice, and laxness over church discipline will necessarily affect the administration of the sacraments. However, these marks provide us with a good place to start in assessing the health or otherwise of a church. The ministry of the Word and the sacraments are the two means of grace by which the Lord feeds his people, so that where the Lord is present, we should expect to find both sound preaching and a proper administration of the Lord’s Supper and of baptism.

Moreover, Ezekiel’s message should underline for us the essential importance of personal and corporate holiness, which is addressed by (among other things) proper church discipline. God’s presence in the midst of his people is not to be taken lightly or presumed upon. Those at Pergamum who were treating idolatry and immorality within the church carelessly are warned in Revelation 2:16 to repent, lest Jesus should come and fight against them with the sword of his mouth. God’s presence can be removed from a church, just as it abandoned the temple, leading to that church becoming nothing more than a hollow shell. Outwardly, everything may still seem to be in place, but without the internal reality of God’s presence it is merely a matter of time before the whole edifice collapses.

Hope for believers. Yet while there is no room for complacency, there is solid hope for the believer in the most trying of times. For even while God may abandon parts of his professing church, he never abandons his covenant commitment to save for himself a people. If the religious leaders of the day and the major denominations turn their backs on him, he will leave them to their fate—but only in order to do a new work through the small and despised, those neglected and considered insignificant. God will choose the weak in order to shame the strong (1 Cor. 1:27). If the Jews will not receive their Messiah, then the gospel will go to the Gentiles. If the West turns its back on Christianity, then God will open up new doors in the other two-thirds of the world. In every generation, God’s work of giving to men and women a new spirit and a new heart continues until the full harvest of his people is brought into his kingdom.

The exact formulation of that renewing work in Ezekiel 11:19 is striking. Literally, it reads “I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and I will give to them a heart of flesh.” The stony heart, a heart that is unresponsive to God, is not in the deepest sense something natural to us. Rather a heart that responds joyfully and obediently to God’s commands is “flesh of our flesh”—what we were created to be. Yet since the time of Adam’s fall into sin our humanity has been so perverted that we have become “by nature objects of [God’s] wrath” (Eph. 2:3). Unless God performs divine heart surgery on us, we cannot obey him or please him. What we need is not simply to keep a series of New Year’s resolutions or to turn over some new leaves. We need radical surgery, nothing less than a new birth from above (John 3:3). Thanks be to God, therefore, for the gift of Jesus Christ, in whom we are a new creation, reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:17). As Calvin expressed it, in the form of a prayer:

Almighty God, as we have completely perished in our father Adam, and no part of us remains uncorrupted so long as we bear in both body and soul grounds for wrath, condemnation, and death, grant that, reborn in your Spirit, we may increasingly set aside our own will and spirit, and so submit ourselves to you that your Spirit may truly reign within us. And then grant, we pray, that we not be ungrateful to you, but, appreciating how invaluable is this blessing, may dedicate and direct our entire life to glorifying to your name in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.26