Glimpsing Holiness

Where does one go in Scripture after the realization that you are experiencing a season of dryness of soul? Well, to the book of  dry bones, of course...Ezekiel! After all, the Spirit of God breathed life into the field of dry bones and they came alive once again, so maybe He will do the same in me through the prophet of Ezekiel. So, it was off to Ezekiel, my dry soul went! 

What proceeded was a very disturbing two week journey through the 48 very confusing chapters of Ezekiel. I would leave my time in God's Word deeply troubled, sobered, shaken. I realized that I was being given a glimpse of the holiness of God in these words. I have to admit that the holiness of God has shaken me. Page after page, verse after verse, in graphic and fierce language we are shown how God sees sin. How he hates idolatry. Page after page, verse after verse, we see a glimpse, just a glimpse, mind you...I'm fairly certain seeing this in full would leave us dead...but we are given a glimpse into His righteous anger at sin. Judgment, death, destruction fill the pages of Ezekiel. Over and over He calls out His people's whoring after other lovers, and I felt my heart quake at the realization of how that same idolatry that I know full well still lingers in my heart, looks and feels to God. It's impossible to walk away from reading this book untroubled.

And then I remembered a prayer that I have often cried out to God..."God I want to know you for who You are...I don't want to create a god in my own image...I want the true God...as You are even if what I discover causes me to struggle. Even if what I discover I don't necessarily like, at first." This trip into Ezekiel was God answering that prayer! 

While I have not a clue how to decipher the interpretations of Ezekiel's visions...I have no idea if these visions have been fulfilled already or have yet to be fulfilled... one thing I do know is this: the God of the Bible is a holy God. He abhors sin. And His righteous wrath has been and will again be poured out against sinful people. And in doing so, He is not evil or vindictive but just and right and good.

And so, as I read these Words of God given through the prophet Ezekiel, a desperation bubbled up in me like I'd never experienced before. A desperation for some hope, for some relief from this anger, for some good news...I began to desperately look for some sign of a Redeemer...some sign of the coming Messiah. Show me Jesus...please!

And a dawning began to arise within me. Without glimpsing the holiness of God, we do not begin to get desperate for Jesus! Without being disturbed and troubled by God's wrath, God's love displayed in Jesus Christ as the recipient of that wrath, is somewhat passé. After looking at the holiness of God, suddenly this verse from 1 John 4 became electric to me: "In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

I needed to see that. I needed to see my sin in the pages of Ezekiel. I needed to see the horror that is idolatry...I needed to see God's wrathful response to that idolatry because without seeing it, I realize that I have not really seen God's love either. 

So many people do not like the Old Testament because of these glimpses into the holy wrath of God. We don't like to see that, because we want a god who is nice and warm and fuzzy. This kind of god allows us to live how we want and allows us to enter his presence on our own merit. But that's not the God of the Bible. And I'm so glad. Because while the God that is in the Bible is terrifying, He is at the very same time love...and this love is displayed in the person of Jesus and in His work on the cross. 

At the end of Ezekiel we are told of a river that flows from the Temple...the Temple where sacrifices for sin are offered, where people go to receive forgiveness and find grace and mercy.  This river has water that is fresh and gives life and healing wherever it goes. The same river is described in the book of Revelation with one change...the temple is no longer a building but the Lord Himself...because no longer do we need sacrifices for our sins, because Jesus Himself became the sacrifice. Jesus Himself was the One who took on all that wrath that filled the pages of Ezekiel. It was Jesus, who Himself never once was an idolater, stepped in and received the full wrath of God on behalf of idolaters...like me. This river of life flows from the One who is life and we have been invited to drink from that river. At the beginning of my journey through Ezekiel, I was a dry soul. But drinking from the river of God...looking at His holiness...becoming desperate for Jesus...and being awakened anew to the electrifying love of God has been refreshing to my soul! The Spirit of God really does awaken the dry bones of our souls and breathes new life into us!

I want to encourage you to not shy away from glimpsing the holiness of God. While looking at it is not easy by any stretch of the imagination, in the end it produces an incredible harvest of  life and joy as the realization of what it means when we say God is love begins to sink deep into your heart.