Reasoning Through the Bible
Taking a cue from Paul, Reasoning Through the Bible is an expository style walk through the Scriptures that tells you what the Bible says. Reviewing both Old and New Testament books, as well as topical subjects, we methodically teach verse by verse, even phrase by phrase.
We have completed many books of the Bible and offer free lesson plans for teachers. If you want to browse our entire library by book or topic, see our website www.ReasoningThroughTheBible.com.
We primarily do expository teaching but also include a good bit of theology and apologetics. Just like Paul on Mars Hill, Christianity must address both the ancient truths and the questions of the people today. Join Glenn and Steve every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as they reason with you through the Bible.
Reasoning Through the Bible
S2 || Beyond Words: Encountering God's Overwhelming Glory || Ezekiel 1:4-28 || Session 2
Have you ever wondered what God's arrival somewhere actually looks like? Ezekiel chapter 1 gives us perhaps the most vivid glimpse found anywhere in Scripture—and it's absolutely mind-bending.
Glenn and Steve dive deep into the prophet's extraordinary vision, exploring the whirlwind of fire, the four-faced living creatures, the mysterious wheels within wheels covered with eyes, and the overwhelming splendor that caused Ezekiel to fall flat on his face in reverent awe. But rather than getting lost in symbolic interpretations, they focus on experiencing the emotional impact and theological significance of this cosmic encounter.
The conversation reveals how modern believers have often domesticated our concept of God into something comfortable and manageable. Biblical encounters with the divine were never casual—they were overwhelming, sometimes leaving prophets physically ill for days afterward. This should make us skeptical of contemporary claims about casual heavenly visits where people claim to high-five Jesus or treat Him like an ordinary friend.
What emerges from this exploration is a portrait of God whose omniscience is depicted through beings with faces looking in every direction and wheels covered with watchful eyes. His omnipresence and responsiveness are illustrated through supernatural mobility in any direction without turning. His transformative glory causes everything in His presence to shine with reflected light.
Most profoundly, the hosts reflect on the theological depth of this vision: "Would we really want a God we could fully understand and explain? That's not really a God—it's a pet or a machine." True divinity transcends our comprehension while inviting our worship.
Whether you're a longtime Bible student or just curious about Scripture's more mysterious passages, this episode offers fresh insights into the awesome nature of God and reminds us that approaching Him requires both reverence and wonder. Take a journey with us beyond the veil and discover a God who's bigger, more glorious, and more present than you might have imagined.
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May God Bless you!! - Glenn and Steve
Hello and welcome to Reasoning Through the Bible. My name's Glenn. I'm here with Steve. We are in the book of Ezekiel, chapter 1. If you have your copy of the Word of God, turn there. Today we are going to be reading the great vision that opens up the book of Ezekiel. We're going to be in the lofty heights of heaven because we're going to see a glimpse here of God's throne room and it's going to be quite amazing. This is a quite fantastic vision, Steve. I think this is really, if I think about it, there's probably more detail here in this first chapter of Ezekiel that talks about the beings around God and his throne. We just see more detail here than most any other place in Scripture, do we not?
Speaker 2:Yes, and the detail is a little bit curious probably is a good way to put it as far as what Ezekiel has seen so much curious because we don't see it in other parts of Scripture that there's a lot of speculation that I think has been taken during the years to try and completely understand it. I'm not so sure that we need to completely understand it, because it is such a dynamic expression of God and the creatures that surround God that we're just not familiar with.
Speaker 1:What we have here is this description of what Ezekiel sees when God arrives. If I were to give a description of this chapter one, I would say it's God arriving and Ezekiel just describing what he sees when God's chariot arrives on the scene. And there's been many very well-meaning Bible teachers, very intelligent Bible teachers over the centuries try to go through and give interpretations to all of the images that he sees. We'll see flying beings with four faces and we're going to see wheels within wheels. There's people that try to explain what those are and what the symbolic meaning is behind these. My position is that that really just doesn't seem to be a wise path to take, simply because, when the text doesn't give us clues as to the meaning of them Also, I just don't think there's any symbolic meaning behind it. I think it really is just God arriving and God is so amazing that Ezekiel is describing this amazing sight that he's seeing. Now we can learn some things about God from things that we're about to see, but I really don't think like, for example, go through and well, the four faces on the beings, what do each of the faces mean and what do the wheels mean? That just seems to be an unwise path to take. Not only because there's no textual clues that really tell us what that means, but this is really lofty literature. It's really the heavenly heights of Scripture. We really should just experience this and meditate on what it tells us about God, and not try to unpack it in some mathematical way. It just seems to be a crime against nature, or at least a crime against the Scriptures, to try to go through some sort of detailed interpretation. We'll learn some things about God as we look through this, but these images in chapter 1 don't seem to have any kind of hidden meaning. If they do, it's a fool's errand to try to interpret them. Rather, ezekiel, chapter 1, should be explained without any symbolic meaning. There's no way to explain any hidden meaning behind these images. Instead, we should read Ezekiel 1 and merely experience the emotion of what is described around the throne of God. We should merely hear these descriptions and sit in awe of how amazing God is.
Speaker 1:I think of passages that talk about how amazing God's love is. Christ's love surpasses all understanding. It says in Ephesians 3.16, and it says in Romans neither height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord, romans 8.39. With these lofty ideas, we should just enjoy them and experience them, and enjoy God's awe and God's amazingness, and not try to come up with some sort of a detailed mathematical explanation. The first few verses in Ezekiel told us about his captivity, and then he quickly goes into what he calls a vision. I really don't think it's a vision in the sense of like an animated movie that God would show him. I think these are actually real things that he is seeing. God has to open his spiritual eyes to be able to see these things because they are heavenly things, but it's not like an animated movie of something that God has created. Am I right, steve? He's looking at something quite real is he not?
Speaker 2:Oh, I absolutely believe that he's looking at something real. Just because we've never seen them doesn't mean that they're not real. Just because they're odd looking and it's a little bit difficult to understand exactly how they look doesn't mean that they're real. But no, I don't think Ezekiel is having some sort of a drug-induced vision or something. I think that he is actually seeing some of the creatures that surround God in the heavenly dimensions, in the heavenly realm that we have not seen now. Ezekiel has, but we will see him someday whenever we get there.
Speaker 1:Let's go ahead and read this and, as we go through, just listen and experience this amazing sight that Ezekiel's seeing. What we're going to see here is unity of purpose, and we're going to see God as being orderly and not chaotic. We're going to see the strength of God and the power of God and the majesty of God, and that God can go anywhere without turning. We're going to learn that there's all kinds of things going on with God. There's more to the spiritual world than what we realize. Steve, can you go ahead and start at Ezekiel, chapter 1, verse 4, and read this entire vision?
Speaker 2:As I looked, behold, a storm wind was coming from the north, a great cloud with fire flashing forth continually and a bright light around it, and in its midst, something like glowing metal in the midst of fire. Within it, there were figures resembling four living beings, and this was their appearance. They had human form. Each of them had four faces and four wings. Their legs were straight and their feet were like calves' hooves, and they gleamed like burnished bronze. Under their wings, on their four sides, were human hands. As for the faces and wings of the four of them, their wings touched one another. Their faces did not turn when they moved. Each went straight forward. As for the form of their faces, each had the face of a man, all four had the face of a lion on the right and the face of a bull on the left, and all four had the face of a lion on the right and the face of a bull on the left, and all four had the face of an eagle. Such were their faces. Their wings were spread out above. Each had two touching another being and two covering their bodies, and each went straight forward Wherever the spirit was about to go. They would go without turning, as they went In the midst of the living beings, there was something that looked like burning coals of fire, like torches, darting back and forth among the living beings. The fire was bright and lightning was flashing from the fire, and the living beings ran to and fro like bolts of lightning. Now, as I looked at the living beings, behold, there was one wheel on the earth beside the living beings. For each of the four of them, the appearance of the wheels and their workmanship was like sparkling barrel, and all four of them had the same form, their appearance and workmanship being as if one wheel were within another. Whenever they moved, they moved in any of their four directions without turning as they moved. As for their rims, they were lofty and awesome, and the rims of all four of them were full of eyes round about. Whenever the living beings moved, the wheels moved with them, and whenever the living beings rose from the earth, the wheels rose. Also, whenever the spirit was about to go, they would go in that direction and the wheels rose close beside them, for the spirit of the living being was in the wheels. Whenever those went, these went, and whenever those stood still, these stood still. And whenever those rose from the earth, the wheels rose close beside them, for the spirit of the living beings was in the wheels.
Speaker 2:Now, over the heads of the living beings, there was something like an expanse, like the awesome gleam of crystal spread out over their heads. Under the expanse, their wings were stretched out straight one toward the other. Each one also had two wings covering its body, on the one side and on the other. I also heard the sound of their wings like the sound of abundant waters as they went, like the voice of the Almighty, a sound of tumult, like the sound of an army camp. Whenever they stood still, they dropped their wings and there came a voice from above the expanse that was over their heads.
Speaker 2:Whenever they stood still, they dropped their wings. Now, above the expanse that was over their heads, there was something resembling a throne, like lapis lazuli in appearance, and on that, which resembled a throne, high up was a figure with the appearance of a man. Then I noticed, from the appearance of his loins and upward, something like glowing metal that looked like fire all around within it. And from the appearance of his loins and downward, I saw something like fire and there was a radiance around him as the appearance of the rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the surrounding radiance. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord, and when I saw it, I fell on my face and heard a voice speaking.
Speaker 1:There's a passage in the book of Revelation where it talks about 30 minutes of silence. That happened in heaven. Well, I feel now like we should have 30 minutes of silence just to enjoy what we just heard, but we're not going to do that here right now. Anyways, we can talk about it for a minute, but boy, I don't think we'll ever really plumb the depths of all of that. You can see how some Bible teachers would go through and try to explain each of the images and again, we just feel like it's really the best thing to do is just view this for what it presents in the text, which is this is God arriving? God is so amazing and he's describing all of the things around God and we can learn some things. But boy, it's just so beautiful.
Speaker 2:Glenn, the last portion.
Speaker 2:There Ezekiel says, when he arrived, that he was overtaken so much that he bowed down and that he laid down in front of God showing up as you've described it.
Speaker 2:You know that's an indicator, I think, of these people that claim that they have gone to heaven and that they have seen Jesus, and that they throw their arm around Jesus and he's a friend of theirs, and stuff like that. Every time in scripture that we see prophets or people encountering God, or even encountering angels who they think are God, they're awestruck and they fall to the ground in a form of worship. So beware of these modern day people that treat heaven and Jesus as if they're just buddies that they can throw their arm around. No, it's God, and the throne room of God is overwhelming and heaven is overwhelming. So the proper response if anybody that is actually seeing a vision is one, I think, of Ezekiel here they're awestruck at the vision and they're overpowered by what they're seeing, so much that they just want to bow down and worship. And I think that's exactly how we're going to be whenever we experience heaven and we get there. We're going to be so overwhelmed with the presence of God that we just want to worship him.
Speaker 1:I remember in Daniel, in one of his visions, after he saw some of these heavenly images, he says he was sick for days. That's what we do see when we see these people in the Scriptures that see an angel or experience an appearance of God is they're so overwhelmed that they fall to the ground. If I was asking the next question, as we read that amazing description, what's the impression that it leaves? And the impression that I get is that God is amazing and it's almost at a loss for words. It's so fantastic and there's so much more there.
Speaker 1:I think we have a too small view of God. Again, this was just God arriving all of this amazing thing with the wheels within wheels, that he arrives in a whirlwind or a tornado and there's fire and there's lightning and there's all this movement, but stability. He can move any direction without turning and all these amazing things that are. We get a loss for words and we just sit at his feet in awe and worship the Lord. That's my impression, steve, when you first read that. Can you put any words to it? What your impression?
Speaker 2:would be. One of the impressions I get is what you've described, but I also see God. When they came out of the Exodus, he led them by a pillar of cloud during the day, which gave them shadow, and then also a pillar of fire at night. Whenever they would camp after they had built the tabernacle, he was dwelling there and the people could see that pillar of fire in the evening time that would help to light up the area, and then also during the day they would. Also, whenever Moses would go into the tent of meeting, they'd all stand up to watch Moses go in and meet with God.
Speaker 2:Glenn, what it impresses me is that I think you and I and us of this era of the Christian age, I don't think we have a full appreciation of how awesome God is, because we see these descriptions here from the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament, of God and his power. I mean, I know I just said this a while ago, but that's the impression that it leaves on me. We just don't have an understanding of who God is. We think that we're worshiping him whenever we go to our churches and we sing, and then whenever we hear the pastors preach his word, but because we haven't experienced God in the way that these people experienced him in the Old Testament. I just think that we really don't truly have an appreciation for how he is.
Speaker 2:One of the things here it says that is when the voice that came out was like lightning. Remember again, when Moses was on Mount Sinai, it was thunder. While he was up there voicing commandments to Moses and talking to him, there was lightning that was going on. There was a sound of thunder that was going on. God is just something that is overwhelming and it's overwhelming to the senses. We just don't have an appreciation for it. But I can tell you what I'm looking forward to being able to experience it someday myself.
Speaker 1:We can learn some things about God from this vision. So let's go through. I think we can pick up some high points here. At the very beginning of this depiction that he gives, verse 4, god arrives in a whirlwind a tornado if you will. This is not the only time in the Bible that it connects God with a whirlwind. God speaks to Job out of a whirlwind in Job 40, verse 6. Elijah is taken up to heaven in a whirlwind, 2 Kings 2.1. Isaiah 66.15 says the Lord will come with fire and a whirlwind. Three times in Isaiah God's wrath goes out from him like a whirlwind and the Lord has his way in the whirlwind. It says in Nahum 1.3.
Speaker 1:So oftentimes in the Bible a tornado or a whirlwind is associated with God. If we've ever seen images of a tornado or a big storm, it blows down things, blows apart houses. The image here is that there's all kinds of energy and power. That's what it speaks to. A fiery whirlwind described here shows God's great power and energy. The original word for wind also means spirit and we're going to see that as we go through here. So the same original language word in Hebrew for wind also means spirit.
Speaker 1:Therefore, god shows up the very beginning of this vision, god shows up in a very powerful, fiery spirit. Think of this as a tornado of the Holy Spirit. God is the source of all power and energy. He is a driving force. He is not static, he has all power. He is the source of power. Then, as the description goes on, there's these four beings with wings and faces, and they're holding up a platform an expanse is what it says with a throne on top, and it talks about the beings. The beings have faces that point in all four directions, so they can see in all four directions. It also talks about the wheels having eyes all around them. So if the beings can see in all four directions and the wheels within wheels all have eyes around them, what can we conclude, steve, from these faces and what they see Whenever we see something? What does that tell us about God?
Speaker 2:I think that's a depiction of his omniscience and his omnipresence, his all-knowing of everything and his presence everywhere. And that's what we're seeing in this depiction of the eyes on the wheels and the faces pointing all four directions God sees everything.
Speaker 1:There's nothing hidden from God's eyes. It does speak to his omniscience. He knows all because he sees all. Even his attendants see all. They see every direction. Can we therefore then go hide something from God, that thing that I thought was only in secret, that I'm the only one that knows it happened? Does God still see?
Speaker 2:even that. Yeah, there was a psalm that David wrote of the various places. I could go to the mountaintop, and God you'd be there. I could go to the deepest valley, and God you'd be there. I could go even to the depths of Sheol, and God you'd be there. The purpose of that psalm that David gave was that there is no place where God can't be or doesn't know about or can't see what's going on. So, no, there's no place that we could go, hide and run away from God without him knowing where we are, what we're doing, what we're thinking and what our relationship is with him.
Speaker 1:Cain killed Abel and thought nobody saw. But God saw it. God knew. I remember when Joshua had taken Jericho, when he was conquering the land. He conquers Jericho and then he goes to the little town of Ai. There was a man who had took some loot from Jericho and hid it under his tent. God even saw that too. God sees the things that we do in secret. When we think and I think I got away with it, then God really knows why. Because he sees. He sees all and he knows all. Look at verse 12. What does it tell us? When these beings in the chariot could move in every direction without turning? They're always ready to move and they moved quickly, like lightning. What does that tell us about the character and nature of God?
Speaker 2:That he can go anywhere, that there's not any place that's out of bounds for him and he can go in a quick way, quick fashion and in a way that we're not familiar with necessarily. You know, glenn, it's like another dimension. God is showing himself in this other dimension or coming into our dimension. There is a very often used way to describe this, as if you have a person that lives in only a two-dimensional world, where, in other words, they can only see straight in front of them in a direction, but they don't have a third dimension. They can't see up and out or down, they can only see the things that are straight out, flat to them.
Speaker 2:But if we from a third dimension come in and put our finger into that two-dimension world, that person would see something just as a circle that would come in, or a line. Actually, as we continue with our finger and our finger gets fatter, then the line would just expand. That's a very crude way to put it that there's another dimension out there and we're told over and over again in Scripture the visions of seeing these other beings from the other dimension that will appear and become visible to different people. I think this is describing that God is coming from his dimension into our dimension and, when it happens, it's just something that Ezekiel is just trying to explain on our terms, to make us understand what he's seeing based upon the things that we know. It's just an exercise of trying to explain something that's never been seen before, our particular way of creatures and beings that we can relate to.
Speaker 1:He's trying to explain the unsplainable and unscrew, the inscrutable. Look at verse 12 again. You're talking about these beings. Each went straight forward. Wherever the Spirit was about to go, they would go without turning. As they went. They followed the Spirit, they followed God's Spirit, just like we should follow God's Spirit.
Speaker 1:But it tells us that God can move. He's not stable, he's not asleep, he's not slow about doing things. He can move in any direction without turning. God never turns, he never changes in the sense he is stable in the sense that he never changes, but he's not stable in the sense that he just sits in one spot and never looks at our needs. If we have a need, then God knows about it, he sees it and he's quick to know about it and to do something about it. We don't have to sit and yell and get his attention because he might be looking away from us. If we're thinking God is moving away, or he's paying attention to something else, or he's not looking in my direction and I have to yell real loud, wave my hands to try to get his attention. No, no, he sees and he is quick about things. He is not slow like men are slow.
Speaker 1:God is always aware of everything he always sees. He has the power and wisdom and might to solve our problems. That's the thing we can learn here from Ezekiel, chapter 1. It also says in verse 11, these beings each had two wings that covered themselves, and in verse 7 and verse 13, they sparkled and shined like fire and lightning. Why did they shine? They shined because they were near God. God's overwhelming glory was so powerful that even the beings around him was glowing. Steve, remember Moses' face whenever he would go into the temple. What happened to Moses' face when he would go in and be near God?
Speaker 2:It would shine Whenever he came out and came down from the mountain, he had to put a veil over his face because it was a reflection of the glory of God, and the rabbis through the years came up with a description of it that's not really depicted in the text itself of the Hebrew scriptures, but they came and coined it as the Shekinah glory of God. It's God's presence, but to answer your question of Moses, his face glowed so much that he had to put a veil over it because it was a reflection of the glory of God whenever he would come face to face and talk with him.
Speaker 1:A similar thing with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, when he unveiled his flesh and let the glory shine through. It was bright as the noonday sun overwhelmingly bright. God is so powerful and so full of glory that the normal man can't look upon it. Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration shone like the sun here. Even these beings that are around the throne are shining simply because of God's power and his energy and his glory.
Speaker 1:Revelation 6, verse 15, says this Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains and they said to the mountains and to the rocks fall on us and hide us from the presence of him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come. And who is able to stand Unquote? So the Bible presents God as overwhelming and powerful, and those that love him can just sit at the feet of the throne and be overwhelmed by the glory and end up shining like Moses' face. But those that are not his children want to hide from the glory. They want to go hide in the caves and let the mountains fall on them because his power is so overwhelming. You know these people today that don't believe in Christ, that don't believe in God. They're real good at sitting here and criticizing until God actually shows up, until God arrives and he's so overwhelmingly powerful that they fall and try to hide themselves. The creatures around God's throne shine because they're in the presence of God.
Speaker 1:The question for us is do we shine when we're in the presence of God? We should have an air of the Holy Spirit around us. People should see wow, there's something different about that man or that woman. They have some glow about them that is different. That's what I just think is important. Verse 20,. Wherever the Spirit wanted to go, they went. So the question for us is where do we go? Do we go where God leads us? Are we sensitive to the Holy Spirit? We should go through the scriptures, such as here in Ezekiel.
Speaker 2:I think, glenn, it's just like what you started off with. They feel intimidated because they feel that they have to explain these faces and what they mean and all that. But no, just take in the appreciation of what's being described and the awesomeness of God and the glory of God. That's enough. Because they feel, I think, intimidated. People don't hear it, people don't understand and read these texts about God. If we would read more often of how God is described in these Old Testament texts, I just think that we would have a better appreciation of who he is and would want to follow him and want to be wherever he is and to do whatever it is that he wants us to do, because one way or another we're going to be in that position to do that.
Speaker 1:Then, at the end of verse 16 and 17 and 18, it talks about the wheels within a wheel and it says their appearance in workmanship being as if one wheel were within another. Wherever they moved, they moved at any of their four directions without turning as they moved. Their rims were lofty and awesome. Steve, can you explain to me how that works?
Speaker 2:No, I can't and I don't think that we need to. No, I can't explain that.
Speaker 1:I think that's really sort of the point here is that there's more to God than we can explain. I can't explain how a wheel's within a wheel and how they can go in every direction without moving. I know that it happens and I know that's what Ezekiel saw and I know that it's reasonable, but it tells me that there's things about God that I can't figure out. I can't sit here and explain how the three persons of the Trinity really interact with each other, can't explain that. I can say that it's true and I can't explain how God can really be omnipresent or how God can really be all-powerful. But I know that it's true and I know that it's reasonable.
Speaker 1:I think this leaves us with would we really want a God that we could understand and explain? Well, that's not really a God. It's a pet or it's a machine. That's not really a god it's a pet or it's a machine. We have a god that is so overwhelmingly good and overwhelmingly simple but at the same time so overwhelmingly profound, that we can enjoy him forever and we can plumb his depths and sit at the feet of his throne and be amazed and never get tired of viewing his awesomeness and will never really understand him fully. To me, that's really the amazing lesson to walk away with from this vision, glenn this is just chapter one.
Speaker 2:We're just now starting to get into Ezekiel and we have this wonderful vision of God. I think it's a good way to start out Ezekiel, because now we're going to go into the different areas of God and giving instructions to Ezekiel to act out as an object lesson to the people. But we have a better appreciation of why Ezekiel is going to be able to do it and why he's going to want to do it from this vision that he has given us the description in chapter one. So again.
Speaker 1:This image that he saw is real. It's not like an animated movie, but it's so awesome. It communicates God's majesty and his overwhelming awesomeness. We lose track of words here, but all of this that we just went through is really just God arriving. God arrives with his chariot in chapter 1, and in chapter 2, we see the message that he gives. So I think oftentimes, steve, we've gotten so accustomed to hearing God's words that we lose the fact that the words of God are equally as profound as the being of God, and we're going to see that as we get to the rest of the book. Chapter 1 is God arriving. Chapter 2 we'll get to next time, where we see God's message to Ezekiel, and God will give a great and glorious message to Ezekiel to give to the people of Israel.
Speaker 2:So be sure to join us as we continue, through the book of Ezekiel, to give to the people of Israel. So be sure to join us as we continue through the book of Ezekiel and go to our website for these resources that we have for you, that we went through in session one and that we'll also have as we go through. That. It's on our resource page. Join us again next time as we continue to reason through not only the Bible but the book of Ezekiel. Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.
