"They knew not... the voices of the
prophets which are read every sabbath" (Acts 13:27).
If the prophecies of
Ezekiel were read in the Synagogues, as no doubt they
were, the hearers would hear a phrase three times
repeated - "I have set thee for a sign";
"Say ye, I am your sign"; "Thou
shalt be a sign unto them" (Ezekiel
12:6,11; 24:27). This designation as applied to the
Prophet embodies and signifies the greatest of all of
God's methods with man. It is therefore something of
which to be taken very careful and serious notice by all
who are called to represent God in this world; and what
Christian is not so called? Indeed, that is the
vocation of the Christian and of the Church! This supreme
method of God is that He incarnates the truth in His
messengers: that means that He does not just give a
message in words, but He makes the messenger the message.
It is not just that something has been said, but that
there has been a person in the place. It means
that the spiritual history of the representative is the
ground of the message. That is why the factor and element
of life is so very prominent in Ezekiel's prophecies. God
is not working mechanically - machine-wise, but by
"Living creatures". It is the life which is the
essence of the testimony.
How strongly this law
is applied to Ezekiel! This Prophet is not saying: 'I
have an address, a teaching, a discourse, to pass on to
you.' He is saying: 'I AM your sign.'
So the Lord makes him
painfully set forth the message in his own body, and
causes things to happen in his life, even his domestic
life - the death of his wife - to make very personal and
ocular God's message. This is very challenging and
searching; but it is also very enlightening as to why God
deals with His servants as He does. We can see the close
identity of the persons and ministry of Paul, Peter, John
and others. They had to go through the ministry
before it could go through them. We could enlarge upon
this at many points, but it would involve us in such an
extensive necessity. We must keep close to the law of
God's ways. It will now be seen how and why our basic
Scripture - Acts 13:27 - is related to Christ by Paul.
The argument of the Apostles was always that there had
been a Man amongst men, and that that Man was Himself
God's message, not only His messenger. Jesus enunciated
this law and Divine method every time He said: "I am!"
He was God's representation! To see Him, He
said, was to see God. Not so to see Him was the very
nature and judgment of spiritual blindness. Read John's
Gospel again in this light. So 'the voice of the prophet'
has become a living person.
When it came to the
incarnation of the Son of God, that incarnation came to
be shown as something vastly more than God taking flesh
and blood. When John wrote: "The Word was God... and
the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us"
(John 1:1,14), that was just the introduction or preface
to his Gospel. He then went on to elaborate and extend
that, and to show what the incarnation meant. This - in
his Gospel and the fight given him from heaven - resolved
itself into two contrasted things. On the one line John
brings out into clear definition that everything relating
to God had, by the Jews, been resolved into a
crystallized system; a fixed tradition, as such; an
institution, a creed; a ritual; a form; a binding
legality; and, although they might not use the word, an
organization.
Along the other line,
John shows throughout that Jesus was persistently,
unbendingly, and with a constantly reiterated ''Verily,
verily" - "Most truly, most truly" -
bringing everything to the Person, making it all
personal. He was the Law. He was the Temple. He was the
Lamb. He was the High Priest. He was the inclusive
Shepherd and the Vine, both of which were Old Testament
symbols of Israel as the Lord's flock and the Lord's
planting respectively. Jesus would not allow the people
of His time to get away from Himself. Everything in the
incarnation had become a Person, and that Person was -
when the Holy Spirit came - to be not only the personal
Christ (that would remain) but corporately manifested.
All those things
mentioned above, which Judaism had become, had been
displaced by the Person. This was the Sign. This is what
the inspired Simeon meant when, taking the infant Jesus
in his arms, he said: "This child is set for the
rise and fall of many in Israel, and a sign that is
spoken against" (Luke 2:34). This is the significance
of Christ.
True Christianity is
therefore not an organization, an institution, a
tradition, a form, a creed, a ritual, etc.; it is the
presence and expression of a Person, the Living Son of
God! The living Son of God and an organization are
complete antitheses. Organization is mechanism,
committee, congress, directorates, arrangements, schemes,
and so forth without end. It is man's hand of control,
and man's mind of ideas as to the work of God. Christ
repudiated all this, and the Spirit of Christ just
brushed it all aside and took independent control, and
the comparison is obvious. Have we travelled a long way
from Ezekiel? Not in spiritual truth or principle!
Because the Jews failed
through their fixed position, prejudice, pride, and
bondage to the system, to hear this voice of the
Prophet, they missed the significance of the Sign
as tragically as they did in Ezekiel's time, with such
baneful consequences. The Sign is a test, a
stumblingblock for the rise and fall of many. This will
be the effect of every ministry which is a personal
embodiment of the truth, as differing from a secondhand
retailing of studied material.
May it be ours to be so
concerned for reality as to hear the 'voice' as more than
words, and, above all, may we be the embodiment and not
the imitation of the truth and testimony!