F4F | How to Work Your Way Through Difficult Bible Passages

Fighting for the Faith

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Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Roseborough. I am your servant in Jesus Christ, and this is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the

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Word of God. All right. So today's episode of Fighting for the Faith, straight up teaching, not making any apologies for it.

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I'm going to help you out a little bit here. And the reason being is, is that y 'all, including me,

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I needed this as much as you need this. We need a way to help us find a process to work through difficult biblical texts so we understand what they mean so that we're not snookered and bamboozled and hoodwinked by people who are twisting up the scriptures and making things, putting things into the scriptures that don't belong there.

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And we don't know how to untwist it. So the best thing that you can do in that case is to study the original and learn how to properly understand the biblical texts, especially the hard ones.

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And that's what we're going to do today. We're going to focus on one of the hardest texts in all the Bible. And that is

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Ezekiel chapter one, Ezekiel chapter one. If you haven't read it, I assure you that before we get too far into today's episode, you're going to be scratching your head wondering what on earth does this even mean?

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And by the end of it, you're going to have at least a way of approaching it so that you can better understand difficult to understand texts.

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Ezekiel one is an apocalyptic text. It is a vision of heaven. And oftentimes visions of heaven have symbols and layers of meaning to them that are difficult.

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But the one thing it doesn't mean is what you see on like History Channel 2, when History Channel 2 says, yeah, man,

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Ezekiel chapter one is all about an alien encounter, man. And it was like a

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UFO and stuff and no, that's not what this text is about. So, grab a pencil, grab a

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Bible, something to write with, and I'll walk you through how to work these things out, because the better you are able to properly understand the scriptures, the better able you are to protect yourself from false teachers and the latest wind of false doctrine blowing through the church.

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And that's also going to require you to learn a little bit of church history, but alas, I get ahead of myself. Let's whirl up the desktop.

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And there we go. Yeah, that's a recent photo. I recently went with a family to Disneyland and that's a black and white photo

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I took at the Galaxy's Edge and the Millennium Falcon, quite an impressive replica of the

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Millennium Falcon if you're into those kinds of things. It was actually amazing to see, kind of breathtaking, and I haven't been to Disneyland in more than a decade and that was kind of fun.

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By the way, if you would like to see my photography, I recommend that you subscribe, join or follow me, however they call it on Instagram, follow me on Instagram.

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My account there is at piratechristian, piratechristian. That's my Instagram account.

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And my Instagram is dedicated only to my photography. I don't do heresy hunting or anything like that there.

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And so, if you want to see the latest compositions that I'm working on or that I've posted, instagram .com

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forward slash piratechristian. Enough of that. Okay, let's take a look at something here.

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And that is just that Christians today in America, and I would say like evangelicalism as a whole have zero understanding of church history, like none.

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And this is not a good thing. This is a terrible attitude and one that cuts you off from important resources that can help you understand biblical texts.

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So, to make the point, let's take a look at Sally. I think Sally is the name of Charlie Brown's sister.

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She's writing a church history term paper. And note the cursive. Do kids even learn how to do cursive nowadays?

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One has to wonder. Anyway, so here's her church history report. She's got to think this out. Well, when writing about church history, we have to go back to the very beginning.

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Our pastor was born in 1930. Yeah, do you see the problem here?

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Christ said that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church and that he's with us to the very end of the age.

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That being the case, then it's probably a good idea to be at least in some conversation with some of the ancient church fathers and how they understood biblical texts.

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It'll help you. I promise. You'll see as we kind of work this out that that has to come into your evaluation.

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But all that being said, let's take a look at Ezekiel chapter one. Let's just read it out.

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Cold reading, if you would, and see if we can sort out what this thing's about. Because I assure you, after this cold reading without any explanation, you're going to be scratching your head going, what on earth is going on here?

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Don't worry. I'll walk you through a process to kind of sort this out. So in the 30th year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month,

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I was among the exiles in the Chabar Canal. And the heavens were open and I saw visions of God.

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And on the fifth day of the month, it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin. And the words of Yahweh came to Ezekiel, the priest, the son of Buzi in the land of the

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Chaldeans by the Chabar Canal. And the hand of Yahweh was upon him there. As I looked, behold, a stormy wind came out of the north and a great cloud with brightness around it and fire flashing forth continually in the midst of the fire as it were gleaming metal and the form.

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And then from the midst of it came the likeness of four living creatures. And as this, and this was their appearance, they had a human likeness, but each had four faces and each of them had four wings and their legs were straight and the soles of their feet were like the sole of a calf's foot.

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And they sparkled like burnished bronze under their wings on their four sides. They had human hands and the four had their faces and their wings, thus their wings touched one another.

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Each one of them went straight forward without turning as they went. As for the likeness of their faces, each had a human face.

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The four had the face of a lion on the right side. The four had the face of an ox on the left side and the four had the face of an eagle.

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Such were their faces and their wings were spread out above. Each creature had two wings, each of which touched the wing of another while two covered their bodies and each went straight forward wherever the spirit would go.

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They went without turning as they went. As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, like the appearance of torches moving to and fro among the living creatures.

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And the fire was bright and out of the fire went forth lightning and the living creatures darted to and fro like the appearance of a flash of lightning.

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And now as I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the earth beside the living creatures, one for each of the four of them.

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And as for the appearance of the wheels and their construction, their appearance was like gleaming, the gleaming of barrel and the four had the same likeness, their appearance in construction being as it were a wheel within a wheel.

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And when they went, they went in any of the four directions without turning as they went and their rims were tall and awesome and the rims of all four were full of eyes all around.

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And when the living creatures went, the wheels went beside them. And when the living creatures rose from the earth, the wheels rose wherever the spirit wanted to go.

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They went and the wheels rose along with them for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels. And when those went, these went and when those stood, these stood.

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And when those rose from the earth, the wheels rose along with them for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels over the heads of the living creatures.

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There was the likeness of an expanse, a rakia in Hebrew, shining like awe -inspiring crystals spread out above their heads.

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And under the expanse, their wings were stretched out straight one toward another. And each creature had two wings covering its body.

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And when they and when they went, I heard the sound of their wings, like the sound of many waters, like the sound of the almighty, a sound of tumult, like the sound of an army.

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And when they stood still, they let down their wings and there came a voice from above the expanse over their heads.

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When they stood still, they let down their wings and above the expanse over their heads.

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There was the likeness of a throne in appearance like sapphire and seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness with a human appearance and upward from what had the appearance of his waist,

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I saw as it were gleaming metal, like the appearance of fire enclosed all around and downward from what had the appearance of his waist,

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I saw as it were the appearance of fire. And there was brightness around him like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain.

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So was the appearance of the brightness all around. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of Yahweh.

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When I saw it, I fell on my face and I heard the voice of one speaking. There it is,

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Ezekiel chapter one, clear as mud, right? That is a hard text.

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What are we supposed to do with that? And that's kind of the thing. You'll note that God has put texts like this in that are going to require you to rub a few brain cells together in order to sort out what it means.

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Because there is some meaning here that is not that easy to get at, but it's still get edible.

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Is that a word? It's get edible. It is absolutely get edible. So let's kind of figure a few things out here.

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Now I'm going to start here. I'm going to start with, let's see here.

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I'm going to give you a resource. I've given this before and I'll continue to give it absolutely for free.

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You can visit kretzmannproject .org, K -R -E -T -Z -M -A -N -N -P -R -O -J -E -C -T .org,

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kretzmannproject .org. What is it? Kretzmannproject .org is a biblical commentary.

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It's in the public domain. That's why it's on this website. And the people who are maintaining it are doing a yeoman's work.

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But what we can see here is first and foremost, a way of getting at what this means by reading a commentary that's written on a lay level.

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Now it's keyed to the King James. So all you King James only folks out there will love it, right?

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But the point is, is that this is a great free commentary. And when

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I do not have an understanding of what I just read, oftentimes I'm digging.

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I'm looking for ways to figure this out. Now, next thing that you can do, and this is part of the process, is see if you can remember any cross references to what it is that you're reading.

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Okay? So here, I happen to remember that in the book of Revelation, there is a similar appearance of something.

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And so in Revelation chapter four, you'll note the chapter heading, The Throne in Heaven. Ah, we might be dealing with the same thing.

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Let's see if we are. After this, I looked and behold, a door standing open in heaven. This is John. And the first voice, which

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I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, come up here and I will show you what must take place after this. At once,

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I was in the spirit of behold, a throne stood in heaven with one seated on the throne. And he who sat there had the appearance of Jasper and Carnelian around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald.

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I seem to recall Ezekiel mentioning something about a bow around the throne.

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Okay? I think we're dealing with the same thing. Okay? Around the throne were 24 thrones and seated on the thrones were 24 elders clothed in white garments with golden crowns on their heads.

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From the throne came flashes of lightning and rumblings and peals of thunder. And before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God.

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And before the throne, there was, as it were, a sea of glass, like crystal. And around the throne on each side of the throne are the four living creatures full of eyes in front and behind the first living creature, like a lion, the second living creature, like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man and the fourth living creature, like an eagle in flight.

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Huh. We're seeing the same thing. Okay? Now, since Revelation clearly tells us what we're dealing with, we're dealing with the throne of Christ in Ezekiel chapter one, we can then apply this to the

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Ezekiel chapter one revelation. And that is, is that while Ezekiel, a priest, that's right, he's a

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Levite, was at the Heber Canal in Babylon. He's in exile. He went with the first wave of the exiles into captivity in Babylon.

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There he is at the Heber Canal. And what we know we're dealing with here is an appearance of Christ's throne and Christ in the book of Ezekiel.

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We're not dealing with aliens. Although technically, I guess Jesus could be considered extraterrestrial, but not in the way that E .T.

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phone home we're talking about, you know, but you get the idea. We're not dealing with aliens. We're dealing with something else. So, the cross -reference helps us.

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The cross -reference helps us to recognize that what we're dealing with then here is an appearance of Christ and his throne and Ezekiel is describing his encounter with it.

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So, then what are we supposed to do with these four living creatures, right? These, these appearance, you know, you got the one like a man, one like a lion, one like an ox, one like a, an eagle.

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What are we supposed to do with that? Well, I would note that here's another cross -reference that's going to help us.

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In the book of Jeremiah, you get a primer on this in Jeremiah, as well as in the book of Daniel, by the way, if you take a look at like Daniel 7 and then the later chapters where Daniel's given a vision and then given the interpretation of what the things that he saw in the vision mean.

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You'll note that this goes, this is time honored stuff. Go all the way back to like a Pharaoh and his dreams, okay?

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He had the dreams of, dream of like the, the seven fat cows and the seven skinny cows, the seven fat plump corn stalks and the, and the seven withered by the wind corn stalks, right?

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They all symbolized something. Same thing when we're dealing with visions of heaven, the things that are depicted symbolize something.

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And let me explain. So Jeremiah, after Jeremiah is commissioned by God in Jeremiah chapter one, it says, the word of Yahweh came to me saying,

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Jeremiah, what do you see? I said, I see an almond branch. Okay. By the way, if I saw an almond branch today,

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I would need somebody to explain to me. I was seeing an almond branch, but you know what an almond branch look like?

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And so then Yahweh said to me, you have seen well for I am watching over my word to perform it.

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What? Okay. So almond branch equals God is watching over his word to perform it.

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The almond branch isn't the point. The point is what the almond branch represents.

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Okay. Another example here, the word of Yahweh came to me a second time saying, well, what do you see?

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I said, I see a boiling pot facing away from the north. And then Yahweh said to me out of the north, disaster shall be let loose upon all the inhabitants of the land.

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For behold, I am calling all the tribes of the kingdoms of the north declares Yahweh, and they shall come and everyone shall set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem against all its walls and all around and against all the cities of Judah.

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Okay. So a boiling pot out of the north, facing the north, boiling pot facing the north.

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The point isn't the boiling pot. The point is what it represents.

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And that's the thing. Visions of heaven, and you look at the book of Revelation is a keen example of this.

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When you get visions of heaven like this, everything is shrouded in symbols and you have to unpack the symbols, right?

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So here you've got in the book of Revelation chapter four, the appearance of Christ's throne and the four living creatures.

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Here in Ezekiel chapter one, you have the appearance of Christ's throne. That's what we're looking at.

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And there are four living creatures. What are we to make of that?

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And here's where taking a look at church history and how the churches understood these biblical texts is going to be helpful.

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What's not going to be helpful is like listening to somebody like Stephen Furtick, who will teach you to read yourself into the biblical texts.

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Oh, I'm as strong as an ox. I smell like a lion. You know, just weird stuff like this. It isn't about you.

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Okay. The biblical texts are about Jesus. They're not about you. So here's where I think this is going to be kind of fun.

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Let's take a look at how the churches historically understood this. So we've already read that.

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So here we go. From one of my favorite commentary series, the Ancient Christian Commentary Series by InterVarsity Press.

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I've had this for a long time. I love reading it. I'm in this commentary series constantly making sure that how

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I'm understanding biblical texts before I preach them, that I'm not being creative and innovative, that it's consistent with how the churches understood these things.

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It's not a bad idea, because if I disagree with some of the ancient church fathers, I better have good exegetical grounds to do so.

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So what do we make of these four living creatures? So watch what Irenaeus writes. Now, Irenaeus, just by way of a little bit of a primer here.

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Irenaeus is a fellow who has a great pedigree as a

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Christian. Irenaeus was taught the Christian faith by a man by the name of Polycarp.

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Polycarp was martyred for his Christian faith in the city of Smyrna, I think, as an octogenarian.

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He's in his 80s. And Polycarp was baptized and discipled in the

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Christian faith by the Apostle John. So that's a pretty good pedigree.

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It's a really good pedigree. Now, that doesn't make him infallible, but what it does do is it gives him some credibility as we look at how he understood this biblical text, because this, how he understood it is also how the ancient church understood it.

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So here's what Irenaeus writes, and watch this. Irenaeus, the cherubim have four faces.

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Their faces are images of the activity of the Son of God. For the first living creature, it says, was like a lion signifying his active and princely and royal character.

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He's reading it Christologically, which isn't out of bounds because we know from Revelation 4, this is

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Christ's throne that Ezekiel is seeing. Okay? Since he's seeing

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Christ's throne, you'll note that kings, when they put up their thrones, they have things on their throne that are symbolic of their character, of their empire, and things like this.

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Jesus is the same. So these four living creatures reflect something about Jesus.

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And we'll talk about why there's four of them here in a minute too. For the first living creature, it says, was like a lion signifying his,

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Jesus's active and princely and royal character. The second was like an ox showing Christ's sacrificial and priestly order.

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The third had the face of a man indicating very clearly his coming in human guise.

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And the fourth was like a flying eagle making plain the giving of the Spirit who broods over the church.

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Now the gospels in which Christ is enthroned are like these. John expounds his princely and mighty and glorious birth from the

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Father saying, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. All things were made by him and without him was not, was nothing made.

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Therefore, this gospel is deserving of all confidence for such indeed is his person that according to Luke has a priestly character.

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And it began with the priest Zechariah offering incense to God for the fatted calf was already being prepared that was to be sacrificed for the finding of the younger son.

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Matthew proclaims his human birth saying, the book of the generations of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, the birth of Jesus Christ was in this manner.

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This gospel is manlike and so through the whole gospel, Christ appears as a man of humble mind and gentle.

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But Mark takes his beginning from the prophetic Spirit who comes on people on high saying the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in Isaiah, the prophet showing a winged image of the gospel.

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Therefore, he made his message concise and immediate for such is the prophetic character.

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So, you'll note that Irenaeus who has a great pedigree as a Christian, all right, that goes really quickly back to the apostle

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John. He sees this as Christ's throne, which it is. We know from the cross reference that it is.

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But the four living creatures exemplify different aspects of Jesus. They are representative of his strengths.

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And then the reason why there's four of them is that Christ is enthroned on the four gospels.

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And then those four gospels, each of them is assigned a different one of those beasts, if you would, for the purpose of kind of letting it be the mascot for that particular gospel.

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That's not a bad reading. Now, just so you know, that's actually quite consistent. Jerome, you know, the translator of the

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Latin Vulgate says, the four -faced creature that we met in the apocalypse of John in the beginning of Ezekiel's prophecy that had the face of a man, the face of a calf, the face of a lion, the face of an eagle has also special significance for the text we are considering.

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And Matthew, this human being has the face of a man and Luke and Ox and John and Eagle and Mark the lion crying in the desert.

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Okay. So, you'll note that there then becomes a very consistent theme throughout the writings of the church fathers because the book of Revelation makes it so clear what we're seeing is

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Christ's throne. They can't help but somehow then attach a different mascot to each of the different gospel writers.

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Christ is enthroned on four animals, the four gospels. And then if you know your book of Kells, if you ever heard of the book of Kells, it's an illuminated manuscript that's in Ireland.

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In the book of Kells, this was the medieval depiction of these four creatures and then they get, they then get representing, they then represent the four different gospels.

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Matthew, the man, Mark, the lion, Luke, the ox, and then the eagle is the gospel of John.

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And so, the book of Kells even works this all out. Great, great mascots, if you would, for each of the four gospels gleaned from the fact that when you do the cross -reference work, you can't help but say, oh, wait a second,

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Ezekiel is seeing what? The throne of Jesus. And so, the idea then here is that this isn't really a long episode of fighting for the faith, but it's designed to get you to slow down and to think about what it is that you're reading and find a way to kind of sort out the meaning of these difficult texts, but include in your search the writings of the church fathers and how they understood them because they're going to assist you in a good

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Christocentric exegesis that will unpack the symbols in a way that will make them accessible to you and then an understanding in how the church has historically understood these biblical texts.

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So, you don't have to get caught up in the fancy conspiracy theories and the wacker doodle interpretations that have no basis at all in the principles of sound exegesis and how the church has historically understood it.

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So, that's our primer on the book of Ezekiel chapter one. And by the way,

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I'm teaching through the book of Ezekiel in my adult Sunday school class at Kungsvinger Lutheran Church in Oslo, Minnesota, don't you know?

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And so, if you were to go to kungsvingerchurch .org, kungsvingerchurch .org, and click on the, you know, we have a teaching tab and go to my

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Sunday school section. Recently started a teaching on the book of Ezekiel and did a version of this lesson there as well.

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But if you wanted to, like, get an in -depth study of, like, the book of Ezekiel, you can do that. And then other books that we've taken a look at in depth include

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Daniel and Jeremiah, worked our way through large portions of the Old Testament already, and other, another text, book of Revelation, those, all of those resources are available for free, free at kungsvingerchurch .org.

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Yes, you kind of have to say it that way, because the Norwegian thing, so you get the idea. So, hopefully you found this helpful.

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This is just scratching the surface that helped you unpack the meaning of these different things.

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And in my Bible studies, I go into much, much deeper meaning, but hopefully you found this helpful. If so, all the information on how you can share the video is down below in the description.

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And a quick shout out to every one of you that supports us financially and has joined our crew. We could not be doing what we are doing without your help.

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And I want to personally thank you, each and every one of our crew members, for supporting us so that we can continue to bring

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Fighting for the Faith to you and to the world. If you would like to join our crew and support us, all the information on how you can join our crew is down below in the description.

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And again, thank you. We can't do what we're doing without your help. In the meantime, may

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God richly bless you and keep you in the one true faith unto life everlasting. And always remember that the scriptures are about Jesus.

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They're not about you. If you're reading yourself into these texts, yeah, you're missing the whole point.

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So until next time, may God bless you and keep you in the one true faith unto life everlasting and give you the confidence of the forgiveness of your sins in Jesus Christ our

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Lord, one for you on the cross and all given and the salvation given as a gift because he's bled and died for your sins, risen from the grave and ascended.