Alive and United

Based on what we know of Ezekiel’s obedience up to this point, what do you think he is going to do? You guessed it. In verses 7 and 10 we find that Ezekiel prophesied both times as he was commanded. Because he trusted and obeyed, Ezekiel saw God do some amazing things (vv. 7-8). What about us? What are we seeing God do because we believe Him and obey Him? What are we missing out on because we do not?

Bringing the dry bones in the valley back to life will be a two-part process involving both God’s word and His Spirit. Why is the word necessary? Not only because it is alive (Heb 4:12) but also because it brings life (1 Pet 1:23). Two of the greatest steps we can take to be used mightily in evangelism are praying and memorizing God’s Word. If we hide the Word in our hearts, then the Spirit can bring its gospel message to our lips and use it to bring others to life. Paul says, “So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ” (Rom 10:17). The church at Ephesus was informed, “When you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed in Him, you were also sealed with the promised Holy Spirit” (Eph 1:13). Without the word and someone faithful like Ezekiel to proclaim it, dry bones will never live.

The second part of the resuscitation in the valley is the work of Spirit. We are born because God forms us, but we are reborn because God fills us. Ezekiel is told, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man. Say to it: This is what the Lord God says: Breath, come from the four winds and breathe into these slain so that they may live” (v. 9). Just like Adam in Genesis 2, they may look alive when they are formed, but they are made alive when His Spirit fills them. Ezekiel says, “The breath entered them, and they came to life and stood on their feet, a vast army” (v. 10). Ezekiel knew exactly what the Spirit’s empowering felt like (2:2).

Ezekiel could preach with confidence because God promised to act as Ezekiel prophesied. God would cause breath to enter the bones and make them live (37:5). God would put tendons on the bones, make flesh grow, and cover them with skin (v. 6). Ezekiel’s role was to prophesy, and God’s role was to produce the results. It’s the same for us. Our responsibility is proclamation, and God’s work is regeneration. We may not see physically what Ezekiel was shown, but God is still bringing life from death through the preaching of His Word.

So, what was the purpose of the vision and the field trip to valley of death? Ezekiel is told, “These bones are the whole house of Israel. Look how they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope has perished; we are cut off” (v. 11). The bones, which seem to have zero possibility of ever knowing life again, reveal how Israel feels about their discipline and exile. They believe God is finished with them. They have received the curses of the covenant and have been cut off. If God were to ask Israel instead of Ezekiel whether the bones in the vision could live again, they would answer with a resounding no! All hope was gone.

God, however, had a plan to give His people life and land. He told Ezekiel,

Say to them: This is what the Lord God says: I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them, My people, and lead you into the land of Israel. You will know that I am Yahweh, My people, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put My Spirit in you, and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I am Yahweh. I have spoken, and I will do it. (37:12-14)

Let all despair flee. God had determined to deliver His people, and nothing would stand in His way.

Even though the house of Israel felt forsaken, they were not. They were still His people, and this speaks to His faithfulness more than theirs. Despite all they had done to rebel against Him, God would still deliver His people from the nations in which they were exiled and lead them back to their land. He is not acting because they were good but because He is, which should give all of us hope.

Without Christ we are as bad and as dead as Israel ever was. Paul reminds the Colossians, “Once you were alienated and hostile in your minds because of your evil actions” (Col 1:21). To the church at Ephesus, he painted an even bleaker picture. He says,

You were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler who exercises authority over the lower heavens, the spirit now working in the disobedient. We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also. (Eph 2:1-3)

We were no beauty queens ourselves, but like Israel God gives us life through Christ (Eph 2:4). God can bring us through the valley of death because He first brought Christ through it (1 Cor 15:20-23).

Just as the bones were resuscitated with a purpose of being an army, so we’ve been filled with the Spirit for a reason. We have work to do. “For we are His creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them” (Eph 2:10). We are regenerated for the reason of making disciples for His renown.

United: God Delivers His People from Division

Ezekiel 37:15-28

As further evidence that God does not want things to be as they were before the exile, He will not only bring His people from the nations but He will also bring them together. He will save them not only from death but also from division. God’s people will be both alive and united. In order to convey this message, Ezekiel is given one more sign act to perform.

The prophet is told to take a single stick and write on it: belonging to Judah and the Israelites associated with him (v. 16). He is then told to take another stick and write on it: Belonging to Joseph—the stick of Ephraim—and all the house of Israel associated with him (v. 16). He is then told to join the sticks together so they become one stick in his hand (v. 17). Why is God asking Ezekiel to do this? Because He will have “one nation obedient to one king and worshipping one God” (Wiersbe, Be Reverent, 198). They will be united, cleansed, and walking together in God’s ways and in submission to God’s shepherd (vv. 20-24).

Not only will they be healed from their disobedience and their division, but also they will dwell with the Lord forever (vv. 25-28). Yahweh will make a covenant of peace with His people, and it will be an everlasting covenant (v. 26). He will never break His word. He will never forsake them. He will establish and multiply His people and will set His sanctuary among them forever (v. 26). When He dwells with His people, the aim of all the discipline will be achieved. Both Israel and the nations will know He is Yahweh who sanctifies His people (v. 28). God will do all that is necessary for His people to dwell securely in His presence forever.

Though this prophecy awaits its ultimate fulfillment (Rev 20–21), God is uniting and dwelling with His people now (1 Cor 6:19). Paul tells us:

But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of the Messiah. For He is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility. In His flesh, He made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations, so that He might create in Himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace. He did this so that He might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross and put the hostility to death by it. When the Messiah came, He proclaimed the good news of peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone. The whole building, being put together by Him, grows into a holy sanctuary in the Lord. You also are being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit. (Eph 2:13-22)

Through the cross of Christ, we are reconciled both to God and to fellow believers. He is working to unite His people from every nation, tribe, people, and language (Rev 7:9). Who else but God can bring together people from such diversity and see them flourish in unity as they serve one King? All of this reveals His wisdom (Eph 3:10). Piper notes,

The point is that God aims to create one new people in Christ who are reconciled to each other across racial lines. Not strangers. Not aliens. No enmity. Not far off. Fellow citizens of one Christian “city of God.” One temple for a habitation of God. And he did this at the cost of his Son’s life. We love to dwell on our reconciliation with God through the death of his Son. And well we should. It is precious beyond measure—to have peace with God (Romans 5:9-10).

But let us also dwell on this: that God ordained the death of his Son to reconcile alien people groups to each other in one body in Christ. This too was the design of the death of Christ. Think on this: Christ died to take enmity and anger and disgust and jealousy and self-pity and fear and envy and hatred and malice and indifference away from your heart toward all other persons who are in Christ by faith—whatever the race. (Piper, “Race and Cross”)

I am so thankful all of our disagreements as a faith family are only temporary. One day God will move in our lives in such a powerful way that not only will we no longer sin against one another but we will also never sin against Him. The only way for God to set His sanctuary with His people is to sanctify His people, and this is exactly what He said He would do (37:28). While we wait for the full measure of God’s deliverance from death and division let us be “diligently keeping the unity of the Spirit with the peace that binds us” (Eph 4:3).

Reflect and Discuss