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Context No. 3992 of 4322 · Ezekiel

Context · Reflection

Ezekiel 10:15-22: in context

15The cherubim mounted up. This is the living creature that I saw by the river Chebar. 16When the cherubim went, the wheels went beside them; and when the cherubim lifted up their wings to mount up from the earth, the wheels also didn’t turn from beside them. 17When they stood, these stood. When they mounted up, these mounted up with them; for the spirit of the living creature was in them. 18The LORD’s glory went out from over the threshold of the house and stood over the cherubim. 19The cherubim lifted up their wings and mounted up from the earth in my sight when they went out, with the wheels beside them. Then they stood at the door of the east gate of the LORD’s house; and the glory of the God of Israel was over them above. 20This is the living creature that I saw under the God of Israel by the river Chebar; and I knew that they were cherubim. 21Every one had four faces, and every one four wings. The likeness of the hands of a man was under their wings. 22As for the likeness of their faces, they were the faces which I saw by the river Chebar, their appearances and themselves. They each went straight forward.

Ezekiel watches something heartbreaking in his vision: the glory of the LORD, the visible presence of God that had filled the temple, rises up from the threshold and moves toward the door, departing from the house that his sin-hardened people had defiled. Step by step, the presence of God withdraws from the temple that was meant to be his dwelling.

There is a profound sorrow in this scene, the departure of God's glory. The temple was nothing without God's presence in it; a magnificent building emptied of the glory it was built to house. And that glory was leaving because the people had persistently defiled the place with their idolatry, driving away by their sin the very presence that was their life and treasure. There is a sobering warning here. The presence of God is the great gift, and it can be driven away. Persistent, unrepented sin does not merely break rules; it grieves and drives off the presence of God, leaving us with the empty shell of religion without its living heart. There is no loss so serious as the departure of God's presence.

Am I guarding against the persistent sin that grieves and drives away God's presence, treasuring his nearness as my true life, since the departure of his presence is a loss beyond any other?

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