XIII. God's Agencies

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jan 31, 1911

XIII. God's Agencies

WE would ask the student to read with Revelation 4 the marvelous visions of Isaiah in chapter 6 and of Ezekiel in chapters 1 and 10. God would not have presented these wonderful and, to mere human vision, grotesque symbols, if they did not have for His people profound meaning. Each of these visions was given in a time, looking at it from the mortal view-point, of great discouragement, when it would seem that God's cause in the earth was to be utterly swept away before the mighty onrushing hosts of wickedness.

Isaiah had been called to the prophetic office in the closing days of Uzziah, a king whose reign generally had been great and good, but who finished his days as a leper on account of his presumptuous sin. The prophet knew that God's judgments would follow transgression; and he also knew that Assyria, cruel as mighty, was dominating or swallowing up all the kingdoms not under the special protection of God. To the human view of the prophet, Judah would follow the ten-tribe kingdom, and all would be lost. God gave the devoted prophet the vision of the seraphim and the throne to assure him that the Most High ruled.

Ezekiel's lot fell in times darker, in surroundings more discouraging, in dangers more appalling. The Chaldeans had unloosed the dogs of war. Tribe and kingdom and nation had been overthrown, and their rulers had become Babylonian vassals or had perished before the victorious king from the North. Ezekiel had already been carried from Jerusalem, and was among the captives by the river Chebar in the land of the Chaldeans. Jerusalem was waiting destruction; and saddest of all, the prophet's own people were deceived by false prophets, disobedient, idolatrous, rebellious.

To encourage the heart of the prophet the vision of chapter 1 was given, in which by marvelous and complicated symbol—of living creatures, lion and ox and eagle and man, and whirling wheels—God's care for His people, His overruling power among the nations, is set forth. The next year the prophet was carried in visions of God to Jerusalem, and the wonderful symbols were again revealed to the prophet.

Later on, in the beginning of the centuries of the Christian era, God calls another man to the prophetic office. The purity and devotion of the early church were waning; she had lost her first love. Upon the throne of the mistress of the world, was a cruel tyrant. Our Lord's own prophecy of continued war and rumors of war, Daniel's prophecies of great antagonistic powers to the Gospel of Christ and the consequent persecutions of God's children, and his own vision of the seven churches, must have weighed heavily upon the mind of the exile on lonely Patmos. To encourage his heart and the hearts of the faithful in all subsequent centuries, the apocalyptic vision from the throne of God, with the four living creatures, was given him to show that the Most High ruled over the kingdoms of men, and overruled all the wrath of man to His praise.

A Brief Comparison

A few observations regarding the living creatures of the various visions may help us before we come directly to the lesson study:

1. The living creatures which Ezekiel saw are called "cherubim." Eze. 10:1; compare with 1:22, 26. The forms which Isaiah saw are called "seraphim," perhaps from their burning brightness. What John saw are called "beasts," an utterly erroneous translation of zoa, literally "living ones."

2. That they were not living, individual beings is evident from changes which had occurred as indicated by the different descriptions. The cherubim over the mercy-seat had each two wings; the cherubim of Ezekiel had each four wings: the seraphim of Isaiah had each six wings, and the living creatures of the Apocalypse had each six wings. The seraphim of Isaiah had each one face, so also the living creatures of the Apocalypse and the cherubim of the ark; but the living creatures of Ezekiel had each four faces. Then, too, the eyes in Ezekiel's vision are represented as being in the wheels, beside the living creatures, while in John's vision the living creatures were full of eyes. The seraphim of Isaiah and the living creatures of John both cry, "Holy, holy, holy" in their majestic hymn of praise to Him who sits upon the throne.

3. The living creatures of Ezekiel were upon the earth, tho at times lifted up from its surface. Eze. 1:19, 21. Above them was the mighty expanse of the firmament, and above the firmament was the throne of God. Yet were these cherubim guided by His Spirit, and in all that they did was the divine hand of power underneath their wings. There is no reason to suppose that those which John saw, tho vitally connected with the throne of God, were not also upon the earth, mighty agencies of God for the carrying forward of His purpose.

These differences and similarities, and other features which we have not space to consider, lead us to the conclusion that these symbols were not so many individual creatures, but great companies of God's angels arranged in various forms, moving and acting as one individual. We have listened to a chorus of a thousand voices singing as one person, the words clear, distinct, as one great voice. Horses with riders are trained to perform various and intricate evolutions. In the superior realm of God, with His sinless, perfect, heavenly intelligences, how much more should we look for such arrangements of His mighty agencies!

We do not know what form the cherubim (plural, two or more bodies of angels) assumed who guarded the Eden of God. Gen. 3:24. We may learn somewhat of one form of organized body for special service by the cherubim over the ark. Ex. 25:18-22. In Ezekiel's day we find them in the form suggested in chapters 1 and 10; in John's day, in Revelation 4. Elijah was carried to heaven by a body of angels in the form of a chariot and horses. 2 Kings 2:11, 12. And it is embodied in divine song: "The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of

angels." Ps. 68:17. God's mighty armies, His effective agencies, have different forms, even as His Spirit has different manifestations. 1 Cor. 12:4-7. These symbolisms exist in perverted forms in the colossal figures in Babylonia and Assyria of the man-headed lion, the eagle-headed ox, etc. We will note other particulars in our note and comment.

The Answer of the Text

[The answers to the questions are from the American Revised Version. Omitting questions, and disregarding sometimes the capital at the beginning and the period at the close of an answer, the text may be read continuously. In notes and comments both versions are used without designation.]

1. What did John further see round about the throne?

And in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, four living creatures full of eyes before and behind. And the first creature was like a lion, and the second creature like a calf, and the third creature had a face as of a man, and the fourth creature was like a flying eagle.

2. What song do they sing?

And the four living creatures, having each one of them six wings, are full of eyes round about and within; and they have no rest day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God, the Almighty, Who was and who is and who is to come.

3. Who join them in praising God?

And when the living creatures shall give glory and honor and thanks to Him that sitteth on the throne, to Him that liveth forever and ever, the four and twenty elders shall fall down before Him that sitteth on the throne, and shall worship Him that liveth forever and ever, and shall cast their crowns before the throne.

4. In their worship what do they say?

Worthy art Thou, our Lord and our God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power: For Thou didst create all things, And because of Thy will they were, and were created.

Note and Comment

1. In the midst of the throne and round about.—"In the midst" is within the boundaries of God's covenant bow, the circle of which surrounds the throne; and their "round about" extends thence into all the plans and work of God. Four living creatures.—Four, the world number, God's living agencies in the four quarters of the earth, bending, molding, shaping all things to His glory and the good of His children. "Living creatures," or "living ones," is much more literal than "beasts," a most unfortunate rendering.

2. Full of eyes.—Denoting clearest intelligence. God's purposes are not blind. Before a vast audience of people the one thing which ever attracts is the intelligent eye, the vast number of eyes. So with God's angels thus arranged. In Ezekiel the eyes were in the rims or fellowes of the wheels, God's angels in a different form, symbolical of the way God's work moves forward with intelligent power, confused to the prophet, but perfect order and system with God.

3. Lion . . . calf . . . man . . . flying eagle.—Symbolical of power and majesty; of strength, patience, sacrifice; of wisdom and intelligence; of swiftness and glory. The king of wild beasts; the strongest and most serviceable of domestic animals, the calf, or ox (Eze. 1:10); the king of birds in power and swiftness; and the noblest of God's earth creatures, the man. They illustrate God's attributes in His irresistible working among the children of men. His heavenly intelligences in these forms symbolize one great feature of God's work among men, the molding of all things earthly to His will. He desired that His people should fall under the same great system; consequently the twelve tribes, pitched under the four great symbols of Ezekiel's and Daniel's visions. The tribes were ranged under four divisions, three tribes in each division,—the world number four, and the sacred number three, multiplied,—under the standards of Judah—the lion; Ephraim—the ox; Dan—the eagle; Reuben—the man. In the center were God's sanctuary and the abiding Presence in the pillar of cloud and fire.

4. Wings.—Symbolizing the outstretching divisions of God's forces as the wings of an army. Full of eyes round about and within.—They see on all sides. In Ezekiel's vision they faced in every direction. The intelligence of each unit in each cherub is the intelligence of all. In no blind way do they obey God. They are in intelligent and blessed submission to all His counsels. No rest day nor night.—There is no idleness in God's normal kingdom. There is ceaseless working, and ceaseless joy in the work. As God's plans develop under the work of these intelligent agencies, as good is brought out of evil, as the wrath of man is turned to God's glory, ceaseless praise arises from these living ones to the one only God. In Ezekiel it is said: "And the sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard even to the outer court, as the voice of God Almighty when He speaketh." They are indeed God's voice in operation. Even so was John the Baptist in a more limited sphere. John 1:23. Blessed is he in these days of trial, change, revolution, and overturning of thrones and empires, who can stand in the outer court even and hear the voice of God in operation. Aye, it is the privilege of all; for He is no respecter of persons.

5. The four and twenty elders.—A grand pean of praise in which are joined God's heavenly agencies symbolized by the living creatures, and the redeemed of earth represented in the four and twenty elders.

6. Thou didst create.—The great mighty truth runs through all the Word from Genesis to the Revelation. The almighty ever-existing God is our Creator. He is Jehovah, the covenant-keeping God of His people. He can create and re-create. In this rests the hope of the poor sinner, in this the hope of the world. The long travail of ages shall issue by the creative power of God in a re-created, renewed earth, inhabited by a redeemed, a re-created race, knowing no sin nor sorrow nor death. And the surety of the promise is God's creative power and His omnipotent will. Blessed are those hearts in harmony with Him whose "glory goodness is."