Ezekiel 1:4-28 Ezekiel’s inaugural vision

Exegesis:

·       Then, 1:4-28 introduces us to one of the major themes of the book, God’s glory[1] and sovereignty, as we see a dazzling imagery[2] of Yahweh in the midst of a motion filled “windstorm” in the land of the exiles. God is sovereign, not restricted to the temple, but is living, active and on the move.[3]

·       The windstorm itself is in motion, while the living creatures it contains not only have legs but wings as well. Torches are moving back and forth between the creatures (1:13). Alongside the creatures are various wheels, with each “wheel intersecting a wheel” (1:16). Everywhere the prophet looks, there is bustling activity.

·       The wheels are said to be full of “eyes,” Hebrew ‘ayin. However, the Hebrew word can also be used for ‘sparkle gleam.” The traditional view is that the ‘ayin symbolises the all-seeing and all-knowing character of God. However, others believe that Ezekiel’s use of ‘ayin reflects Babylonian influence, denoting an “eye-shaped pebble (of precious stone).[4]

·       The vision has traditional ANE element: The Lord rising on the storm, surrounded by fire and lightening, was a common way of describing the coming of the divine warrior (Ps 18:9-14).

·       The Lord’s throne-chariot is supported by living creatures, which are instantly recognisable as cherubim from their role as throne-bearers (Ps 18:10). They have four faces each a man, a lion (the highest wild animal), an ox (the highest domestic animal) and an eagle (the highest bird):[5] they embody within themselves all the highest attributes of living creation.

·       The cherubim are the guardians of God’s holiness, God’s heavenly bodyguard, and enforcers of divine judgment (Gen 3:24).

·       While the emphasis of Ezekiel 1 is almost exclusively on the gathering clouds that threaten rain, yet the mention of the rainbow (1:28) allows the possibility of a ray of hope even in the midst of gloom.[6]

·       This glory made Ezekiel fell on his face (1:28).

Theological implications:

·       The vision proclaims the transcendent glory of God.[7]

·       The vision proclaims the transcendent holiness of Yahweh: the absolute distinction between Yahweh and all of creation is clearly recognised. Unlike the pagan gods, who mix freely with lesser beings and are often indistinguishable form them, Yahweh sits alone on his throne, separated from all inferior creatures.

·       The vision proclaims the sovereignty of Yahweh. All his attendants are noble creatures, but he is enthroned, the King over all!

·       The vision proclaims Yahweh’s interest in his people: Whereas Gen 1:26-27 describes humankind as being created as the “image” and “likeness” of God, here God appears in the likeness of humankind.[8]

·       The vision proclaims the presence of Yahweh among the exiles. God is with his people. God’s people are in Babylon. More particularly, God is with Ezekiel.

·       The vision hints the impending judgment of Yahweh.[9]

·       This vision serves notice that whoever would enter into divine service must have a clear vision of the one into whose service he or she is called.[10]

Bridging:

·       God is not tied to the old ways of doing things. Just as Ezekiel’s contemporaries put their trust in the temple rather than in the God of the temple, in our days there are many who place their faith in the gifts of God rather than in the giver.

·       The true and living God is not a tame God. He cannot be comfortably manipulated into a box and made to do our bidding.

·       A lady reputedly asked Abraham Lincoln during the dark days of the Civil war if he was confident that God was on their side. “Madam,” he was said to have replied, “I am less concerned whether God is on our side than whether we are on his side.”

·       No matter what our past history, we cannot assume God is on our side unless we are constantly and faithfully on his side.

·       To those tempted to place their hope in fallible earthly institutions, a warning note of judgment needs to be sounded.[11] God is not merely a distant observer of our struggle. Nothing escapes his observation, and now he is ready to act.

Modern day:

·       The message of judgment is never popular to proclaim. Some contemporary churches have completely removed any mention of sin and its consequences from their messages.[12]

·       This does not mean that all bad things happen because of our individual sins. eg. John 9:3 the man born blind did not sin, nor did his parents, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” Modern day example of someone born disabled to brought glory to God: Nick Vujicic.

·       God’s character has not changed. God continues to act in judgment on sin as well as to bring justice to the oppressed.

·       God continues to reveal himself to his people in the exile that they merited for themselves.

·       The challenge to the church: The cities of Europe are filled with many great cathedrals and churches which are empty. The church is Ephesus was warned that it had lost its first love.[13] We should therefore pray continually for the Spirit’s life-giving power to be at work within our churches.

·       There is no magic formula for measuring and maintaining the life of a church.

·       God is not tied to the past. God is living and active and constantly doing new things. Should the existing structures of the church grow moribund and useless, he can and does rise up for himself new organisations and denominations to achieve his purposes.

·       Likewise, not everything that is new is of God. Christians need to adopt a balance between progressivism and traditionalism. Christians need to be discerning in their evaluation of movements and trends, measuring all things against the yardstick of the Scriptures.[14] Like Abraham Lincoln, we need to be constantly asking ourselves, “Am I on the Lord’s side?”[15]

Recently there had been an election in Taiwan. Some people nearly had a heart attack while others are overjoyed. This election not only included the mayoral and councillor seats, it also included referendum votes for same sex marriage etc. From this election, we see a strong swing towards the “Blues”/ the Republican party which got exiled from China onto Taiwan in WWII, whose goal is to "unify the whole China." We also see that the Taiwanese population supports a “one man, one woman” marriage. However, these outcomes only reflect a glimpse of the current transient phase of the people’s thinking. If these values and opinions are not backed up by firm foundations, they will continue to fluctuate. For instance, if people cannot witness the value of a family formed by “one man one woman” in their everyday lives, then people’s views on this value can swing towards the opposite spectrum very easily in a few years’ time. That’s why in times of instability, we see more frequent swings in leadership. Sometimes people take Romans 8:31 out of context when the political party/ issue they support gains favour and claim that, “this party/ issue has won favourable status because God is on our side.” This is extremely arrogant and takes things out of order. In actual fact, if we are not aligning ourselves with God spiritually on a regular basis, we cannot even claim to be on God’s side.

There are some events which appear like “victories” on the surface, but eventually turn out to be failures. For instance, Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire, which seemed like a great victory. Then, the crusaders killed off many middle-eastern people and believe they were glorifying God in the process. Several hundreds of years later we see that this event left a gigantic open space for the enemy to attack, with disastrous consequences on the middle eastern region which continues until today. The schism brought about by the Roman Catholic church also continues until today.

Today, churches in Taiwan consists mostly of the middle and upper class people. Most of these people remain in their comfort zones and do not reach out to the working class people. Most of these people are already relatively successful in their lives. If they keep claiming that it is God who made them “successful” in everything they do, made them earn lots of money, and made them “victorious” in everything they do, it is highly likely that they will spread the message of a “deformed gospel” (another words, the message is no longer the gospel, ie. the prosperity "gospel"). I do not see this as a “victory.”

Revival does not refer to large crowds of people rushing into the church. Instead, it refers to a large amount of Christians stepping out of the church to build up relationships with people in local community and supporting community organisations which are helping the weak and vulnerable.

https://youtu.be/vfsZLK39oYE

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[1] Brad E. Kelle, Ezekiel: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 2013), 56. The “glory/presence of Yahweh” plays a key role throughout Ezekiel, appearing nearly 20 times in the book.

[2] Block, The Book of Ezekiel Chapters 1-24, 106.

[3] Joyce, Ezekiel: A Commentary, 58.

[4] Block, The Book of Ezekiel Chapters 1-24, 100-101.

[5] Duguid, Ezekiel, 58.

[6] Duguid, Ezekiel, 59.

[7] Block, The Book of Ezekiel Chapters 1-24, 106.

[8] Block, The Book of Ezekiel Chapters 1-24, 107.

[9] Block, The Book of Ezekiel Chapters 1-24, 108.

[10] Block, The Book of Ezekiel Chapters 1-24, 109.

[11] Duguid, Ezekiel, 61.

[12] Duguid, Ezekiel, 62.

[13] Duguid, Ezekiel, 63.

[14] Duguid, Ezekiel, 64.

[15] Duguid, Ezekiel, 65.

Inspirational people: William Wilberforce and Abraham Lincoln in the Abolition of Slavery

Virtually the whole of Europe was involved in the slave trade in the 1700s.  British involvement expanded rapidly in response to the demand for labour to cultivate sugar in Barbados and other British West Indian islands. In the 1660s, the number of slaves taken from Africa in British ships averaged 6,700 per year. By the 1760s, Britain was the foremost European country engaged in the Slave Trade. Between 1793 and 1815, cotton exports from the U.S. grew from 500,000 tons to more than 80 million tons. Cotton from the U.S. was the fuel for the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the development of capitalism - and slavery was the key to producing cotton. As Karl Marx wrote from his vantage point in Britain, "Without slavery, there would be no cotton, without cotton, there would be no modern industry."

Some of the first public support for the abolition of slavery came from American Quakers, but it was in Britain that the decisive developments, which would ultimately lead to abolition throughout the Atlantic, took place. William Wilberforce, a well-connected young politician, became the spokesman and leader of the abolitionists in the British Parliament in 1787, taking advantage of his friendship with the Prime Minister, William Pitt, to promote their cause. He headed the parliamentary campaign against the British slave trade for twenty-six years until the passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807. http://abolition.e2bn.org/people.html

 http://youtu.be/Q6Cv5P9H9qU

Wilberforce’s conversion and how he became involved in the abolition of slavery:

In October 1784, Wilberforce embarked upon a tour of Europe which would ultimately change his life and determine his future career. Wilberforce's spiritual journey is thought to have begun at this time. He started to rise early to read the Bible and pray and kept a private journal. Wilberforce underwent an evangelical conversion, regretting his past life and resolving to commit his future life and work to the service of God. Wilberforce's conversion led him to question whether he should remain in public life. Wilberforce sought guidance from John Newton (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Newton), a leading Evangelical Anglican clergyman of the day and Rector of St Mary Woolnoth in the City of London, who used to captain a slave ship but had a dramatic conversion during a storm on the ship. Both Newton and Pitt counselled Wilberforce to remain in politics, and he resolved to do so "with increased diligence and conscientiousness". Thereafter, his political views were informed by his faith and by his desire to promote Christianity and Christian ethics in private and public life. In 1783, Wilberforce, while dining with his old Cambridge friend Gerard Edwards, met Rev. James Ramsay, a ship's surgeon who had become a clergyman on the island of St Christopher (later St Kitts) in the Leeward Islands, and a medical supervisor of the plantations there. What Ramsay had witnessed of the conditions endured by the slaves, both at sea and on the plantations, horrified him. Wilberforce apparently did not follow up on his meeting with Ramsay. However, three years later, and inspired by his new faith, Wilberforce was growing interested in humanitarian reform. In early 1787, Thomas Clarkson, a fellow graduate of St John's, Cambridge, who had become convinced of the need to end the slave trade after writing a prize-winning essay on the subject while at Cambridge, called upon Wilberforce at Old Palace Yard with a published copy of the work. This was the first time the two men had met; their collaboration would last nearly fifty years.

There was strong opposition from those profiting from the trade, who used political pressure and delaying tactics to maintain the status quo.

The two sides of the argument:

For slavery	Against slavery
The trade was necessary to the success and wealth of Britain. The merchants and planters warned that abolition would mean ruin for Britain, as the whole economy would collapse.	There were alternatives to the trade. Clarkson’s Box: Much of the evidence that Thomas Clarkson collected during his travels to many ports and trading vessels illustrated the potential for practical alternatives. One of the first African trading ships Clarkson visited was called the ‘Lively'. The ship was full of beautiful and exotic goods: carved ivory and woven cloth, along with produce such as beeswax, palm oil and peppers. Clarkson could see the craftsmanship and skill that would have been required to produce many of the items. The idea that their creators could be enslaved was horrifying. He used the contents to demonstrate the skill of Africans and the possibilities that existed for an alternative humane trading system.
If Britain did not engage in the trade then others would. If Britain ceased to trade in slaves with Africa, their commercial rivals, the French and the Dutch, would soon fill the gap and the Africans would be in a much worse situation. This was an argument used in a speech to parliament in 1777.	If something is wrong, it is wrong whether others do it or not. The anti-slavery supporters argued that just because other countries engaged in the trade this did not provide a valid reason for Britain to also participate, even if it was profitable.
Africa was already involved in slavery. They stated that Africans enslaved each other. Indeed, Britain was engaged in a moral trade because they were helping people, captured in African wars, who may otherwise be executed.	The slavery that existed in Africa was very different from the Transatlantic Slave Trade.  Those enslaved in Africa were usually prisoners of war or victims of political or judicial punishment. The enslaved people could keep their name and identity and slavery did not extend to future generations.
Taking Africans from their homeland actually benefited them.  They argued that African societies and cultures were unskilled, uneducated and savage.	The African people were in no way inferior and should be treated as equals. The Quaker teacher, Anthony Benezet, was always horrified at the suggestion that the Africans were in anyway inferior. His claimed his experiences, gained during 20 years teaching black pupils, proved this was not the case. However, it was the books and speeches of African writers of the time, such as Olaudah Equiano, that had the greatest impact in dispelling such misconceptions. Even some of those involved in the slave trade were willing to admit that raciest views were wrong, as illustrated by the writings of Captain Thomas Philips
The enslaved people were unfit for other work. Many people were very prejudiced in their beliefs. Many ordinary people in Britain were uneducated and travelled little further than their own village, making it easier for those involved in the trade to influence public opinion.	The trade was damaging to Africa. William Wilberforce summed this up in his speech of 1789: "...Does anyone suppose a slave trade would help their civilization? Is it not plain, that she must suffer from it?  ....Does not everyone see that a slave trade, carried on around her coasts, must carry violence and desolation to her very centre?
The enslaved people were not ill-treated unless rebellious. Conditions on the slave ships were acceptable.  Several of those involved in the trade, merchants, ships captains and plantation owners, provided evidence to parliament regarding this.	The Africans suffered greatly from being removed from their homeland.  They collected evidence to show that many resisted or preferred death to transportation. Many more died on the voyage to the Caribbean. Conditions on the ships were terrible, as illustrated and the speech made by William Wilberforce to parliament in 1789 and by testimony from people like ship's doctor James Ramsay.
Slavery was accepted in the bible. The pro-slavery supporters used the bible to suggest that the Slave Trade was tolerated and approved of by God in the days of Abraham.	It was morally wrong and, as a Christian country, Britain should not be involved. The anti-slavery society also used the bible to back up their arguments. They pointed to biblical text like Luke 16:13: "No man can serve two masters". In answer to the claims of the pro-slavery lobby, Granville Sharp, for example, wrote in his pamphlet 'The just limitation of slavery in the Laws of God': "... If we carefully examine the scriptures we shall find that slavery and oppression were ever abominable in the sight of God..."

However, the enthusiasm and organisational skills of the abolitionists saw the first ever campaign, in which people became angry about the treatment and rights of people they did not know and were prepared to support them in their struggle for freedom. To successfully end slavery, the abolitionists needed to do two things: make people aware of what was going on and put pressure on those with the power to change the law. They did this by introducing many of the ways of campaigning that we take for granted today. http://abolition.e2bn.org/campaign.html

The campaign to abolish slavery

·         Organising action groups: By the late 1700's, a number of people had stated their opposition to slavery. The Quakers had put the first petition to Parliament in 1783. The Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was formed on 22 May, 1787, to be the driving force behind the movement in Britain. It consisted of 12 men, nine of them Quakers. However Quakers were religious dissenters (disagreed with the doctrines of the Church of England) and banned from public life. To ensure a wider appeal and greater political influence, three Anglicans, Granville Sharp, Thomas Clarkson and Philip Sansom, were chosen to represent the committee. William Wilberforce was later recruited by Thomas Clarkson to be the voice of the movement in Parliament.

·         Obtaining support from influential people: For example, the Clapham sect is "a network of friends and families in England, with William Wilberforce as its centre of gravity, who were powerfully bound together by their shared moral and spiritual values, by their religious mission and social activism, by their love for each other, and by marriage".

·         Investigation and research: For example, Clarkson’s Box. The abolitionists also published eye witness accounts of the cruelty inflicted upon the slaves. Moving accounts by former slaves, such as Phyllis Wheatley and Olaudah Equiano. These personal testimonies were very powerful, as the people reading them saw the events through the eyes of a person they could relate to.

·         Giving the Campaign an identity: The approved design was the image of an African man, kneeling and in chains with the motto (or slogan) 'Am I not a Man and a Brother?'

·         Using a variety of media (the written word, the spoken word and images)

·         Petitioning and lobbying Parliament: William Wilberforce’s 1789 Abolition Speech to the House of Commons, in which he reasoned that the trade was morally reprehensible and an issue of natural justice. Drawing on Thomas Clarkson's mass of evidence, he described in detail the appalling conditions in which slaves travelled from Africa in the middle passage, and argued that abolishing the trade would also bring an improvement to the conditions of existing slaves in the West Indies. He putting forward twelve propositions for abolishing the trade, but made no reference to the abolition of slavery itself. However, supporters of the Slave Trade used delaying tactics. The first time a bill was introduced in 1791, Wilberforce lost the debate by 163 votes to 88. After the bill was rejected, the abolitionists flooded Parliament with petitions. A bill to cease the Slave Trade was passed in the House of Commons in 1792 - but with the amendment that the ban should be 'gradual', which effectively meant 'never'. A change in political tactics led to the first breakthrough in 1806, when James Stephens advised Wilberforce to propose a ban on British subjects participating in the Slave Trade with France and its allies. Britain was at war with France and this made it difficult to oppose the proposal, without seeming unpatriotic. The bill was passed, limiting the Slave Trade by about a third and paving the way for the Abolition Act, which was finally passed on 25th March 1807, abolishing the Slave Trade in the British colonies.

·         Consumer Action (boycotts of sugar and rum): An anti-sugar pamphlet by William Fox was published in 1791. Spurred on by pamphlets and posters, by 1792, about 400,000 people in Britain were boycotting slave-grown sugar. Some people managed without, others used sugar from the East Indies, where it was produced by free labour.

·         Election Campaigning and Supporting Parliamentary Reform: The abolitionists campaigned to get those who supported abolition, elected. The December elections of 1832 swept more than half of those who had supported slavery out of Parliament, paving the way for the 1833 act.

The 1807 Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was a major achievement for the anti-slavery movement but the law did not go far enough:

• It did not outlaw slavery completely. Enslaved Africans on British owned plantations would not be set free. Only the trade had been abolished.

• The slave trade continued. Some traders risked being captured because profits were so high. Slave ships that were in danger of being captured threw slaves overboard before reaching British controlled waters.

• Other countries such as France, Portugal and Spain still traded in slaves.

The end of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, however, did not see the end of slavery and abolitionists continued to lobby Parliament for a total ban, which was not achieved until 1833. In July 1833, a Bill to abolish slavery throughout the British Empire passed in the House of Commons, followed by the House of Lords on 1st August. Factors that contributed to the final success of the bill:

·         A change in economic interests.  After 1776, when America became independent, Britain's sugar colonies, such as Jamaica and Barbados, declined as America could trade directly with the French and Dutch in the West Indies. Furthermore, as the industrial revolution took hold in the 18th century, Britain no longer needed slave-based goods. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, the West Indies were becoming less important to Britain, which could get cheaper sugar from Cuba and Brazil. Also, Britain was becoming less dependent on the sugar trade for profits, as other important industries, such as iron, cotton and coal, had grown. Cotton, rather than sugar, became the main produce of the British economy and English towns, such as Manchester and Salford, became industrial centres of world importance.

·         Resistance by enslaved people. Enslaved people had resisted the trade since it began. However, the French Revolution brought ideas of liberty and equality, which inspired those seeking an end to slavery. Major slave revolts followed: they gave a strong indication that, regardless of political opinion, the enslaved people were not going to tolerate enslavement. The revolts shocked the British government and made them see that the costs and dangers of keeping slavery in the West Indies were too high. In places like Jamaica, many terrified plantation owners were finally ready to accept abolition rather than risk a widespread war.

·         Parliamentary reform. When parliament was finally reformed in 1832, more than half of those who supported slavery were swept from power. The once powerful West India Lobby had lost its political strength.

·         Abolition campaigns and religious groups. The demand for freedom for enslaved people had become almost universal. It was now driven forward, not only by the formal abolition campaign but by a coalition of non-conformist churches as well as Evangelicals in the Church of England.

·         The act, however, did not free enslaved people immediately; they were to become "apprentices" for 6 years. Compensation of 20 million was to be paid to the planters. Protests finally forced the government to abolish the apprenticeship system on 1st August, 1838.

·         Economists, such as Adam Smith, argued that slavery was less profitable than paying workers. He argued that slaves who were forced to work for no money would not work anywhere near as hard as those people who were paid to work. Smith also argued that slaves who were paid would buy goods from Britain and this would create more jobs in the country. Smith’s ideas had a big impact on how politicians thought about trade. Some plantation owners even began to believe that it was cheaper to employ ex-slaves as paid labourers than to house and feed enslaved Africans.

·         Some historians argue that abolishing slavery also gave Britain ‘an excuse’ to interfere with the trading of their two big rivals, France and America. For example, the British Royal Navy could stop French and American ships, claim that they were looking for slaves to trade.

The American Anti-Slavery Society was founded in 1833, where William Lloyed Garrison was the most prominent activist. At first antislavery sentiments were equally strong in both the North and South. Then the abolitionist movement gained strength in the North, where slavery was of less economic importance. In the South, the economic and social system was based on slave labor and took the opposite tack. Soon, many in the South were preaching that slavery was an institution sanctioned by God, and that conversion, not emancipation, is what the slaves need. By 1843, over a thousand Methodist ministers and preachers owned slaves. Other denominations were equally ambivalent.

The Lincoln–Douglas Debates of 1858 (also known as The Great Debates of 1858) were a series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate for the Senate in Illinois, and Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate. The main issue discussed in all seven debates was slavery. After losing the election for Senator in Illinois, Lincoln edited the texts of all the debates and had them published in a book. The widespread coverage of the original debates and the subsequent popularity of the book led eventually to Lincoln's nomination for President of the United States by the 1860. Lincoln said that the American Declaration of Independence apply to blacks as well as whites. With very little support in the slave states, Lincoln swept the North and was elected president in 1860. No compromise or reconciliation was found regarding slavery. The slave states declared their secession and formed the Confederate States of America, thus the American Civil War commenced. Lincoln’s primary goal was to reunite the nation.

The Emancipation Proclamation: Abraham Lincoln signed this on January 1, 1863. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." However, it applied only to states that had seceded from the Union, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. The proclamation used the Army to protect escaped slaves, encouraged the border states to outlaw slavery, and helped push through Congress the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which permanently outlawed slavery.  (Because prior to the Thirteenth Amendment, the United States Constitution (adopted in 1789) did not expressly use the words slave or slavery but included several provisions about unfree persons.)

His Gettysburg Address of November 1863 became an iconic statement of America's dedication to the principles of nationalism, republicanism, equal rights, liberty, and democracy. In just over two minutes, Lincoln reiterated the principles of human equality espoused by the Declaration of Independence and proclaimed the Civil War as a struggle for the preservation of the Union sundered by the secession crisis, with "a new birth of freedom", that would bring true equality to all of its citizens. Lincoln also redefined the Civil War as a struggle not just for the Union, but also for the principle of human equality.

References:

http://abolition.e2bn.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wilberforce

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln

Clarke, Duncan. History of American Slavery, JG Press, 1998.