Monday
Monday
The Call of Ezekiel
You must speak my words to them, whether they listen or fail to listen, for they are rebellious.
Ezekiel 2:7
As we have seen, it is instructive to compare the calls of Isaiah and Jeremiah (click here). We can now add the call of Ezekiel. Isaiah heard God’s question: “Whom shall I send?” (Isa. 6:8). Jeremiah was told, “You must go to everyone I send you to” (Jer. 1:87), and Ezekiel was told, “I am sending you to the Israelites” (Ezek. 2:3). Each thus received the commission to be a prophet and to speak God’s word in God’s name.
Each call, therefore, included a reference to the prophet’s mouth or lips. Isaiah’s unclean lips needed to be cleansed. Yahweh touched Jeremiah’s mouth and said, “I have put my words in your mouth” (Jer. 1:9). And Ezekiel was to speak Yahweh’s very words to Israel (Ezek. 3:4).
Beyond these similarities, however, each prophetic call was distinctive. In Ezekiel’s case it was Yahweh’s dramatization in offering him a scroll to eat and in telling him to fill his stomach with it. He ate it and found it to taste like honey (vv. 1–3). What did this signify? Surely that he must assimilate Yahweh’s Word himself before he could proclaim it to others. Also that he must obey God’s Word and “not rebel like that rebellious house [Israel]” (2:8), for God’s Word is sweet to the taste.
We have already had occasion to observe that there are no prophets today, no organs of direct revelation like Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Ezekiel. Instead, there are stewards of the revelation God has given us in Christ and in Scripture.
Those of us who have been called to the privileged task of Christian stewardship must above all be faithful, first digesting God’s Word ourselves, and then obeying it, before we are in any position to make it known to others. As Donald Coggan, former Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote, “The Christian preacher is not at liberty to invent … his message; it has been committed to him, and it is for him to declare, expound and commend it to his hearers.”
For further reading: Ezekiel 2:1–3:3