God is raging right now. He is all fire and flame and pouring wrath out to Ezekial…telling him to pass the word(s) on to Israel and Judah (as well as some neighbouring nogoodniks the Ammorites). God is angry. God is wrathful. God is going to judge and bring the sword. There’s no good way around these verses and they hit us like cold water on a hot day.

 

When I approach the Bible I do so with certain foundational perspectives:

 

1. I read it as a believer indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God and somehow this makes a difference. Sorry to my non-belieiving friends because this will make no sense to you and may seem patronizing. It may seem quaint in a pre-modern kind of way. I understand.

 

2. I read it affirming the great cry of the Old Testament – "Here oh Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one" and by extention then I never entertain the idea that somehow the God of the Old Testament is different from the God of the New Testament…they are one in the same God. God is Christ, God is Holy Spirit, God is Father, God is all these and God is one.

 

3. I read the entirety of scripture Christologically…that is – every word is inspired of God to reveal Christ.

 

4. I read the Bible with the certain knowledge that every word meant something signifgicant to the original audience. That every word contains a truth that God wanted the original audience to understand within their context and I strive to bring that truth to today and to my context. Conversly I NEVER succumb to the temptation to believe that there is anything in scripture that was meant for a future audience first and foremost; to do so is the height of egotism.

 

5. I read the Bible always keeping before me that God is many things but first and before all other descriptors God is love. When I encounter actions of God that seem unloving I return to this foundation and must believe that however they seem to me in my limited finite perspective – every action of God is an expression of His love and I must content myself with not knowing much of why God does what God does.

 

6. With respect to #5 I never assume that because God does something in scripture I can too. War, death, judgement, wrath and vengeance – these I leave to Him.

 

So as I read Ezekial I do so with these principles in play. What I read in Ezekial 21 makes me want to skip to chapter 22. If I am to be completely honest I would have to say that I do not like these acts of God. I do not like what happens when He pours out His wrath. I do not like His judgement and I do not like His anger. In these moments somewhere deep inside I hear subtle tempting thoughts that say "if I were God things would be different" and then I am immediately thankful that I am not God (and you should be thankful for this too). This is the original temptation – to be like God. To be God. It is primal and works itself out in us in far more ways then I think we realize.

 

The other temptation I encounter when I read Ezekial 21 and the like is to gloss over God’s wrath and it’s consequences in people’s lives. I sterilize it and distance myself from it. The great war historian and analyst John Keegan writes in his book A History of Warfare of a similar attitude amogst ethnographers and anthropologists. Keegan says that many anthropologists go happily about their field work collecting, cataloguing and ultimately displaying the instruments of ancient warfare with so much as a basic understanding of what those instruments were meant for and how they impacted real people. There was a long-standing myth that the ancient and noble peoples were not as warlike as these instruments suggested.

 

It was not until certain anthropologists went to war and then went back into the field did a new, more realistic perspective arise – that the stone flint arrow head of an ancient human was designed to pierce flesh, rip through organs and bring maximum pain and death.

 

When we read Ezekial we must read it with this sense of realism…that God’s wrath is going to mean serious damage to Israel. Real people. Husbands, wives, children, brothers, sisters, moms and dads etc. They all die. They are hacked and beaten and torn asunder by the swords of enemies used by God as instruments of His wrath. As unpleasant as that seems it should be a part of our reading and then it is our task to reconcile these actions with the reality that God is love.

 

When we cannot reconcile it we must then resist the temptation to say "a loving God would not __________" (fill in the blank) because it is folly for limited, finite human beings to begin to try and define an unlimited, infinite God. In these moments we must live in the mystery and "be still and know that (He is) God".

 

Anyhow – I do not like Ezekial 21 but – I love the God who revealed it. Yes even the God who was the wrathful one in this chapter…the very same God.