Ezekiel 37:13-14 “Then
you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your
graves, O My people, and brought you up from your graves. I will put
My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land.
Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and
performed it,” says the Lord. ”
In looking at the old
familiar story of the valley of dry bones, I read this study on Ezekiel
37:13-14 (above). From the opening chapters of Genesis, a close connection is
made between life and dwelling before God in the land of His blessed presence.
Adam and Eve enjoyed intimacy with the Lord and life before Him while they
lived in Eden. But when they broke the covenant, they were cast out of God’s
presence and subjected to death. Israel’s punishment for breaking the covenant
was exile — being kicked out of the Promised Land where the Lord granted life
to His people and sent among the Gentiles to experience slavery, suffering, and
death. In Ephesians 2:12, the Apostle Paul spoke of life outside of the “covenants of promise” as life “having no hope and without God in the world”.
The
lesson makes the observation that, consequently, the ancient Jews who lived in
Babylon understood themselves to be essentially dead. The 1828 Webster’s
dictionary defines the word “death” as: In theology, perpetual separation from
God, and eternal torments; called the second death. Separation or alienation of
the soul from God; a being under the dominion of sin, and destitute of grace or
divine life; called spiritual death. This
notion of death in exile forms the backdrop against which we can better
understand Ezekiel 37:13-14. God takes Ezekiel out to a valley and shows the prophet
a mass of exposed dry bones. Ancient Near Eastern peoples viewed unburied human
bodies with particular horror, so the sense conveyed by the image is the old
covenant people of God as “dead and unclean in their sin”. Moreover, the fact
that Ezekiel sees only bones conveys the fact that the nation is really and
truly dead. It is not going to be able to bring itself back to life. These are
not bodies that have only been lying there a few minutes, and so it is possible
that they might not really be dead. No, these bodies have been there a long
time and have fully decomposed. Only God can help them.
The
Lord promises that He will bring these bodies (the nation of Israel) back to
life by His sovereign act. Moreover, He says the proclamation of His Word will accomplish
their resurrection. God has Ezekiel prophesy over the bones, and at that point
they are restored to life and given the Holy Spirit. The Lord is saying that He
will restore His people through the foolishness of preaching. As part of this
restoration, Israel and Judah will be reunited as one nation in God’s hand
under David, namely, the Messiah.
1 Corinthians 1:21 “For
since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it
pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who
believe.”
Christ
Jesus fulfills the teaching of Ezekiel
37:13-14.
Resurrection was central to His ministry and God’s Plan of Salvation. He began
His work in Galilee, the former northern kingdom of Israel, gathering in the
descendants of that kingdom along with the descendants of Judah in Judea.
Finally, He decrees that the proclamation of the Apostolic gospel is the means
of bringing dead sinners back to life. Under the fuller revelation of the new
covenant, we see that the resurrection of Israel finds its fullest realization
in the resurrection of the saints (those who have been sanctified) in the new heaven
and the new earth. As Christians, we are the Israel of God, the one community
of believers united by faith in Jesus Christ that is made up of believing Jew
and believing Gentile alike. Our resurrection and inheritance of the restored
creation, through the resurrection of Christ, fulfills Ezekiel. Resurrected and Reunified
Blessings
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