Throughout the whole Bible we see that God’s heart’s desire and His intention in His plan, His economy, is related to man. In Genesis 1:26 we see that, according to the council held in the Triune God, man was created according to God’s image and His likeness – and man was intended to have dominion over everything that God created (including Satan).
God created man in His image (inwardly) and according to His likeness (outwardly) to fully express Him and rule the earth/universe for Him & with Him.
I was reminded of this especially recently as I was enjoying Ezek. 1:4-5, where we have
- a strong wind from the north – God as the Spirit coming into our situation to “blow” upon us, to stir us up our content situation, and even to help us feel dissatisfied with our present condition…
- a great cloud – God covering us, overshadowing and brooding over us, to supply us with life and help life grow in us…
- a fire flashing incessantly – as He supplies us, everything that is not according to His holy nature is being exposed, burned, purged out of our being; we are being purified by His holy fire, and we are enlightened;
- from the midst of it – something like the sight of electrum – an alloy of gold and silver, the redeeming God, the One who redeemed us and who is everything to us. As we pass through the wind, the cloud, and the fire, there’s a constitution of the Redeeming God as something precious and shining in us, as the treasure in our earthen vessels…
And from the midst of it all came the likeness of four living creatures – their appearance was like a man! The result of us experiencing God as the One who blows upon our situation, who overshadows us and brings more life into us, as the purifying One, and as the treasure within – is that we become LIVING creatures, full of life and vibrant!
We are enlivened, and we become a real MAN (as God intended man to be) – fully expressing and manifesting God!
This man – these 4 living creatures who act as one entity and having the appearance of a man – is for the manifestation of God (they manifest God’s glory, and apart from the God’s glory cannot be manifested), for God’s move (when they moved, God moved; God’s move depends on them), and for God’s administration (as they moved on the earth, they carried out God’s administration, the administration of the One on the throne).
This is the fulfillment of God’s intention in His creation of man: Man expresses Him and man rules the earth/universe for God! And all these depend on the four living creatures having the appearance of a man – God’s desire and intention is fully related to man!
God’s central thought in His economy, and His arrangement are related to man. Lord, thank You for Your intention, Your desire, Your economy! What is man, that You remember him, and the son of man, that You visit Him (Psa. 8:4)?
