Saturday morning, we took a general view of this house, which was shown to Ezekiel and told him about it. This morning, we shall begin to consider it more in detail.
We are going to return to Ezekiel 40, beginning at verse 3.
And He brought me thither; and, behold, there was a man, whose appearance was like the appearance of brass, with a line of flax in his hand, and a measuring reed; and He stood in the gate.
And the man said unto me, Son of man, behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears, and set thine heart upon all that I shall show thee; for, to the intent that I may show them unto thee, art thou brought hither: declare all that thou seest to the house of Israel.
So we take another look at this man of brass. You will remember that we noticed that the feet of the cherubim were of brass. Well, the feet of the Lord Jesus, in Revelation 1, were of brass.
We said that brass in the Bible is a symbol of righteous judgment. This man of brass stands at the gate, and that means that there is no way in for the unrighteous man. No, no, no. The man of the flesh cannot enter this gate. There is no place for the flesh in this house. It is only the righteous man who may come in here.
Everything is going to be measured by the righteous Man.
We take a look at these two instruments of measurement. There are two instruments: first, the line of flax. No measurement is given for it. We are not told how long that line was, but we do know that it was used for the greater measurements.
When we come later to the river in Ezekiel 47, it is not the rod but the line that is the instrument of measurement. We find that the river becomes deeper and deeper.
I think this clearly corresponds to Paul’s words in the letter to the Ephesians. There he speaks of the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. We are here in the presence of something that is far greater than human measurement.
If this man represents the Holy Spirit, as we have said, then this tells us that there is no measuring the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is without measure.
But within that greatness, there is the rod of measurement. There is that which brings the great fullness down to particular matters.
So we have this measuring reed. These are two ways of measuring. One is what we may call the measureless measure—the measure that has no limit. That is the great fullness of the Spirit.
The other is that which is brought down to things in everyday life. This rod was used on all the details of the house. We only note that there are two means of measuring.
One is the great fullness of Christ. The other is that that fullness is brought down to the details of the house of God.
I would just leave that with you, because there is a lot in it. We must remember this: when we think of the fullness of the Spirit, or the fullness of Christ, we must not forget that it is going to be brought down to the details of our life.
That is made perfectly clear in the letter to the Ephesians. The first three chapters relate to the great fullness of Christ—that unmeasured fullness. Then Paul begins in this way:
I beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called.
Then all the details are mentioned: husbands and wives, wives and husbands, masters and servants, servants and masters, children and parents, parents and children. You see, the measuring rod has come down to everyday life.
We must not think in great terms without realizing that the Lord is going to apply His measure to every detail. It is so easy to have these great ideas about the fullness of Christ and yet neglect the details.
Every little thing must be measured by the same Spirit that measures the fullness of Christ. I hope you see that.
Where is this man? We say that he represents the Holy Spirit, do we not? For the Holy Spirit is speaking about the vast fullness of Christ and the vast fullness of the life which flows out. But that same Holy Spirit comes to these very small details.
It is the same Spirit. While He speaks of the greatness, He also points to the details.
I do not think there will be any value in looking at the measurements of the rod, so we will pass on to the instructions that were given to the prophet. Notice in Ezekiel 40:4:
The man said unto me, Son of man, behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears, and set thine heart upon all that I shall show thee; for, to the intent that I may show them unto thee, art thou brought hither.
Notice these words: “Set thine heart.” Then, if you go over to Ezekiel 43:10, you have another part of the instructions:
Thou, son of man, show the house to the house of Israel.
Before we can present anything to other people, we ourselves must possess what we are going to present. The instructions for the prophet were very particular: “Behold with thine eyes, hear with thine ears,” and so on. Take very careful attention to this whole matter.
You must have a very clear and definite apprehension of what you are going to show to the people. You yourself must see this object.
What is that object? What is the answer to this whole vision? In the first place, undoubtedly, the answer is found in the incarnation.
The incarnation is the key to everything here. First of all, in the incarnation, we have the righteous Man according to God. He never really sinned, and He is the standard and the measure of everything.
He is made unto us righteousness from God. You will remember that this was said at a time when things were out of order in the church. Things were not according to the Lord’s mind. So the apostle says about Jesus, “He is made unto us righteousness.”
Everything in the church has got to be measured according to Christ. That is according to God’s mind as presented in His Son.
He is the righteous One. God has appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He hath appointed. Jesus said that the Father had given Him authority to execute judgment because He was the Son of Man.
Here is the man of brass: the Son of Man who is the righteous One. He is God’s standard of measurement. God measures everything by Him. We shall have to come back to that again later on.
But we just note the meaning of the man of brass and his measuring reed.
You remember that the natural man had intruded into the church at Corinth. The apostle had to speak to the Corinthians much about the natural man and the carnal man. He pointed out that this natural man, the carnal man, has no place in the realm of the things of the Spirit.
Now the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged.
That is what this man of brass is doing. He is saying that only the man according to Christ can behold, and see, and hear. Only the spiritual man can come into this realm of the things of the Spirit.
I said that the natural and carnal man had intruded into the church at Corinth. You see the method by which the apostle sought to put that right. He said:
I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
He brought in the righteous Man to correct the things that were unrighteous. By bringing in the righteous Man, he put out the unrighteous man. By bringing in the Man of the Spirit, he put out the man of the flesh.
That is exactly the meaning of this man of brass with his measuring rod. So that, first of all, the object in view is Christ. He is governing everything.
Then, of course, going with that is the church which is His body. The church is called the one new man. “Ye have put on the new man.” So the church is measured according to Christ.
Christ is the measure of everything in the church. Indeed, that is the only church that is known in heaven. The only church that heaven recognizes is that church which is the body of Christ—the church which is measured according to Christ.
Everything in that church has to do with one thing only: it is the measure of Christ.
That is, of course, what we have in Colossians and Ephesians, and, we may say, in Philippians also. But Colossians and Ephesians are particularly the letters concerning the church.
In those letters, measurement is mentioned:
The measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.
The breadth and length and height and depth.
You see, measurement is very much there. But this is in the church, and everything with the Spirit is just a matter of how much Christ there is.
Let us try to get free of our technical ideas of the church. We know that the church is not a thing. It is not an institution. It is not here or there as to geography.
The church is just where there is the measure of Christ. If there is more of Christ in one place than another, then there is more of the church there. It is just the measure of Christ that determines how much the church is there.
Remember that: it is spiritual measure, which is the measure of Christ, that defines the church. If you ask the question, “What is the church, and where is the church?” the answer is: where Christ is. And where Christ is most fully, there is the church more fully.
We must recognize that the church is entirely measured according to this Man.
But that church can only be seen by revelation of the Holy Spirit. If we have not received the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, then we may talk about the church, but we shall just see the church in ways that are not the Spirit’s way of seeing the church.
It requires the Holy Spirit to enable us really to see the church. And when the Holy Spirit shows us the church, what shall we see?
Shall we see something that is called the church? Shall we see a lot of people who hold a certain doctrine about the church? Shall we see something in which a certain interpretation of Bible teaching about the church is held?
Can we see a congregation of people who call themselves the church? Can we see any of that? No. When the Holy Spirit opens our eyes, we shall not see that. We shall see Christ.
To see Christ is to see the church, and to have seen the church means that you have seen Christ. You see, Christ is a great spiritual order as well as a great spiritual Person.
There is a great heavenly system, and Christ is the embodiment of that heavenly and spiritual system. It is all a matter of what Christ is.
It is a matter of the mind of Christ—that is, what Christ thinks and how He views things. It is exactly how Christ does things. The church is an expression of a very comprehensive Person.
That is how we should consider the life of Christ: as here to reveal these great spiritual truths of heaven. It is a vast heavenly system brought to us in the Person of God’s Son.
It was when Paul saw Christ that he began to see the church. Those two things went together, and the more he saw of Christ, the more he understood the church.
That resulted in Paul giving us this unique presentation of the church. It is only Paul who calls the church the body of Christ.
I have often said that if we understood the whole of the human body—and after many centuries of studying it, there is no one in the world who knows and understands it altogether today—then we should understand Christ more fully.
This human body is still capable of developing things that the wisest physician does not understand. With all their knowledge and all their wisdom, they are still trying to understand the human body.
The church is the body of Christ. I am saying that this can only be seen from a heavenly standpoint, by revelation of the Holy Spirit.
So we come to these instructions:
Son of man, behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears, and set thine heart upon all that I shall show thee.
What does that mean in New Testament terms? Well, in the letter to the Ephesians, the apostle prays that the church may come to the full knowledge of Him. There it is, as you know, in the original: the full knowledge of Him.
The Ephesian believers had a knowledge of the Lord. I think they had a very large knowledge of the Lord. Paul had been with them for two years, and he said that he had not shunned to declare unto them the whole counsel of God. They had received very much teaching from Paul.
And yet, in the end, he is praying for them that they might be brought to the full knowledge of Christ. He explained that in his own prayer:
That ye may know what is the hope of His calling,
and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
and what the exceeding greatness of His power.
That ye may know. “Son of man, behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears, and set thine heart upon all that I will show thee.”
So Paul says, “That I may know Him.” Right at the end of his life, he is still saying, “That I may know Him.” Son of man, behold, and hear, and set thine heart.
You cannot, as ministers of Christ, show anything to others until you yourself have seen. Afterwards, the man said to Ezekiel, “Show the house to the house of Israel.”
So this new ministry to which he was called was a presenting, or revealing, of Christ. We can put it in this way: in the first vision, Ezekiel had seen the Man on the throne. He had seen the Man in heaven. And now his last great vision was the Man in the church.
His ministry, at the end, related to that: “The church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.”
At the end of that prayer, Paul says:
Unto Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations for ever and ever. Amen.
This is the test as to whether we have seen. We can talk about the church as we have it in the New Testament.
There was a time when I was doing Bible teaching, and in those days I could give a very good analysis and outline of the letter to the Ephesians. I could present what was written in the New Testament about the church in that form on the blackboard.
But in those days I was in a denominational church. I was wearing the clothes of a denominational minister. I was talking about the church, but I knew nothing about it. I had really not seen the church.
All my knowledge of what the Bible taught made no difference to me. What was the result of that? There was very little spiritual value in ministry. All that ministry certainly did not create a revolution.
Now notice what it says in Ezekiel 43:10:
Thou, son of man, show the house to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities; and let them measure the pattern.
What is the effect of the ministry? If it is to have effect like that, we must have seen it in the Spirit. It will not have that effect if we have only seen it in the letter.
The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.
The effect of a ministry of revelation is quite positive. It has an effect upon people.
Now, I had hoped that this morning I would get a little further than that. But if I start at this point, I should want to go right on for an hour.
I wanted to come to that little picture, but we seem never to get there. I will not start and spoil it by having to stop too soon. It is not that it would take so long, but it is a very important matter.
So I think we will just stop there for this morning. No doubt you will be glad of a little extra time to be quiet.