WEEK 3 — LEADER’S GUIDE

EZEKIEL 37:1-14 – THE GIVER OF LIFE

CONTEXT & HISTORICAL BACKGROUND The Book of Ezekiel falls into the prophetic genre. Part of the difficulty of reading the Old Testament is that the books as listed do not correspond to the chronology of Israel’s history. In general the Old Testament has four major sections: The Law (Genesis-Deuteronomy), History (Joshua-Nehemiah), Wisdom Literature/Poetry (Job-Song of Songs), and Prophets (Isaiah-Malachi). ​Within​ each of the groups the books run roughly in chronological order, but writings of different genres written contemporaneously are divided. For example, David wrote the Psalms during the time period recorded in 2 Samuel, even though the two books aren’t printed next to each other in our Bibles.

Ezekiel was a prophet of the Lord in the mid-600s B.C., actually around the same time as the prophet Jeremiah. Ezekiel prophesied in Babylon while Jeremiah prophesied in Jerusalem during and after the reign of King Josiah. You can read about Josiah in 2 Kings 22-23 and 2 Chronicles 34-35. Before his reign, God’s people in the promised land formed two kingdoms: Israel (in the north) and Judah (in the south). Judah ended up under the thumb of one of the most powerful ancient empires, the Assyrians. Around King Josiah’s time, they asserted their independence again, and began religious reforms. Ezekiel would have been a young boy at this time. He grew up only to see the new Babylonian Empire conquer Judah and carry off the young men of Judah to Babylon (including Daniel; see Daniel 1:1-7). Ezekiel was among them (Ezekiel 1:3).

Ezekiel spent the first five years of his ministry prophesying that God would destroy Jerusalem because God’s people had abandoned Him (see Ezekiel 16 for an extremely poignant description). Not listening to Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, God’s people witnessed the foretold destruction when the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar razed Jerusalem in 587 B.C. (see Ezekiel 33, 2 Kings 25, 2 Chronicles 36). Following this Ezekiel was tasked with bringing a message of hope to Israel. In this week of curriculum we’ll explore our relationship with the Holy Spirit as “The Giver of Life,” a powerful image played out in Ezekiel 37. We’ll talk about who the Holy Spirit is, and what he does as we enter into a relationship with him.

RELATED PASSAGES Romans 8 – ​The role of the Spirit in regeneration as explicitly outlined by Paul in the New Testament.

Galatians 5​ – The work of the Spirit as manifested in those being regenerated: The freedom of the Spirit and the fruit of the Spirit. As a practical application, Galatians 5 can be a basis for the examen.

KEY TERMS ● Breath: In​ Hebrew this word is ​ruah​, which means “breath” or “wind,” but it also means “spirit.” In the Greek the word ​pneuma​ carries the same range of meanings. This word was chosen for the Greek translation of the Old Testament, and it is the same word used when Jesus says, “​Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit [​pneuma​].” In verse Ezekiel 37:1 and 14 in the text clearly establishes this meaning. ● Son of Man: ​A term in the New Testament that Christ takes for himself, based largely on prophecies from the Book of Daniel. When a Christian sees this phrase she is invited to consider the ways it points to Christ. Here Ezekiel can be seen as a type of Christ: He proclaims the message of YHWH to the dead, sending the Spirit of God upon them. ● The Lord: ​The term here is YHWH, which most English translations translate as “LORD” with small-capitals to distinguish it from other divine names like ​Adonai (often translated as Lord). While there are certainly times the New Testament associates the Son with the Old Testament YHWH, the New Testament also identifies the Father this way. Partly this points to the fact that both the Son and the Father are fully divine, and so the divine name YHWH applies to both. In Ezekiel 37 we can read YHWH to point toward the Father, who sends for the Son of Man to preach to the bones. In doing so we can see deep echoes of the Trinity in this Old Testament passage.

HERMENEUTICS: HOW TO READ THE OLD TESTAMENT The Trinity in Ezekiel: ​The Spirit is released by the Word at the direction of YHWH. Here we have an Old Testament icon of the Trinity which is mirrored throughout the rest of Scripture. Jesus, the Word (John 1:1), releases the Spirit (John 16:7) to accomplish the purposes of the Father (John 5:19-21). The language in the “Key Terms” section further fleshes out the trinitarian reading of Ezekiel 37. Learning to see the activity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament helps us to read the Old Testament better as​ Christians​. Every page of Scripture points to the revelation of God in Christ.

The Church in Ezekiel​: Part of what makes reading Ezekiel 37 great for discussing the ongoing​ role of the Holy Spirit is how it forces us to engage with Scripture in a deeper way. The chapter itself shows Ezekiel given an image, and that image is a metaphor for Israel, as revealed in Ezekiel 37:11: Israel is the dead army, and God will restore them to Babylon. While this story is literally and directly about God, Israel, Babylon, and Jerusalem, it’s even ​more so​ a story about God, the Church, the City of Man, and the City of God. If Christ’s church represents true Israel (9:8), God’s interactions with Israel in the Old Testament can be read to apply metaphorically to God’s relationship with his church. There are limits to this: the church isn’t a nation-state led by a human monarch in possession of a physical land whose enemy is another nation-state. But the church is a holy nation (1 Peter 1:29) who looks to the promised land of God’s spiritual kingdom (John 18:36), led by the King of Kings (1 Timothy 6:15) against our final enemy, death (1 Corinthians 15:26). Ezekiel 37 can be read in the same allegorical way.

KEY THEMES The Breath of Life: ​In relation to the Holy Spirit, the whole of Ezekiel’s vision seems to point to one dominant role: the Holy Spirit comes to bring life to God’s people. When one looks throughout Scripture one sees that the opposition of life and death is a (if not the​) predominant theme in Scripture. Paul calls Death the final enemy (1 Cor. 15:36); Christ came to remove the fear of death by defeating the master of death (Heb. 2:14-18); knowing God is eternal life (John 17:3). This death introduced in Genesis not only affects us bodily, but spiritually as well, producing disorder, disintegration, anxiety, and corruption in our minds, hearts, bodies, relationships, and loves. The image of dead bodies carries through to the New Testament. In Ephesians 2 Paul calls us “dead in our transgressions and sins.” We are the dead bodies in the valley of dry bones.

Ezekiel 37 illustrates in a beautiful way how God deals with this reign of death in our lives. What brings the bones to life? The breath. This Holy Spirit is the ​Giver of Life​. In Genesis 2:17 God breathed and man was made alive. In John 20:20 Christ breathed on his disciples, and new life was given to them, the ​re-​creation of man. New life comes through the Holy Spirit, the breath of God. This process of coming spiritually alive is called regeneration. The Holy Spirit is beginning the work of regeneration even before we recognize his activity: he comes into the world to convict us and draw us to Christ (John 16:8). There’s an invitation here: God always wants to bring us to life and proclaims this desire in Ezekiel. Ezekiel 37 also shows us exactly what the Holy Spirit does in the life of the believer who hears that proclamation and accepts it: he gives makes us “come to life and [stand] on [our] feet;” he “sets us free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2). We experience this at our conversion and baptism, what the New Testament calls being baptized with the Spirit. But Ezekiel 37’s most obviously points to the final resurrection of our bodies. Our bodies, at the end of history, will be raised, just as the dry bones in Ezekiel 37. This doctrine is central to the Christian gospel.

The Sustainer of Life​. In addition to ​giving​ life, the Spirit sustains​​ human life. The Holy Spirit doesn’t stop giving life at our conversion. We’re invited into more and more life. Jesus calls the Spirit our helper (​parakletos​). The Holy Spirit does a number of things in the life of the Christian. First, the Holy Spirit is our source of God’s ongoing presence in our lives, fulfilling Christ’s promise, “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” The Holy Spirit works in us and grows us. This is called sanctification. The process is not always easy or fun. The Spirit convicts us and refines us. But in doing so the Spirit heals us, producing more life. This work in us by the Holy Spirit produces the fruit of the Spirit, listed by Paul in Galatians 5:22-23.

As we see in the last few verses of Ezekiel, the Holy Spirit also sustains us by giving us hope​. In Ezekiel, beset by the evil of the world and their own hearts, the people of God despair: “Our hope is gone.” The Lord responds to this by giving them the Spirit and a promise. The Holy Spirit gives us sustaining hope. Paul writes “Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13). It should not be lost on us these verses sit in the center of a discussion of spiritual gifts. “These three” are a work of the Spirit and a gift. The New Testament parallels this Old Testament theme. In the New Testament the Holy Spirit functions as a kind of down payment of our future salvation (see 2 Corinthians 1:22; 5:5; Ephesians 1:13-14). In a verse that illuminates the imagery and message of Ezekiel 37, Romans 8:11 shows that the presence of the Holy Spirit in us now is the promise that at the end our bodies will be raised again. This is the final resurrection. In regard to this, Paul says in Romans 5:1-5:

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand. Let us rejoice in the hope of sharing the glory of God. More than that, let us rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

The Role of the Holy Spirit. In​ the Old Testament one of the chief things the Holy Spirit did was function as God’s agent in human affairs. He worked in special ways in special people to accomplish God’s supernatural ends. So when the Spirit comes upon Samson, he is given supernatural strength to accomplish God’s purposes. In short, the Spirit endows people with the resources—he energizes​​ them—to accomplish a divine mission. Something to note is that in the Old Testament the Spirit wasn’t enjoyed permanently; his presence and power was transient, often passed on by the laying of hands or anointing with oils (e.g. 1 Samuel 16:13) and he would depart from people as well (e.g. 1 Samuel 16:14). This partial presence directed Israel’s focus to the future: part of the hope of Old Testament Israel was for an Anointed One who would possess and pour forth the fullness of the Spirit. Ezekiel 37:14 attests to this. The radical message of the New Testament is that Jesus Christ is the Anointed One who grants an ongoing, personal relationship with the Holy Spirit (John 16:7).

In the New Testament the Holy Spirit takes on a permanent presence, but fulfills the same purpose. The Holy Spirit equips the church to fulfill the purposes of God in the world. The Holy Spirit ​energizes ​us to become like Christ (Philippians 2:13-14), and in so doing we become “coworkers in God’s service” (1 Corinthians 3:9). Corporately the Spirit knits together Christ’s body, the church. This is an apt metaphor for our Ezekiel passage. Just as the bones were knit together and enfleshed, so too is the body of Christ unified by the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit has diverse gifts on the body; the Spirit prays for Christ’s body (Romans 8:26); the Spirit works through the body to “bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ” (Ephesians 1:10). Finally, the image of Ezekiel also forms an image of the Spirit’s final work in all people: the resurrection of the dead. At the end of secular history, we will be raised bodily again by the power that raised Jesus from the dead.

Experiencing the Holy Spirit: Prayer & Gifts​. The primary way Christians experience the Holy Spirit is through prayer. The Holy Spirit isn’t a cold point of doctrine to just learn about. One of the major points of this week is to help students see and experience the Holy Spirit relationally​​ . Ezekiel invites us to see the Holy Spirit as the one who gives us life. ​The Holy Spirit is a person whose presence vivifies those into whom he enters. Wherever we feel ragged, dry, and dead, the Holy Spirit’s presence offers living water. Paul invites us to recognize that a relationship with the Holy Spirit is “life and peace” (Romans 8:6). How do we access this? By receiving the Holy Spirit into our hearts; by prayer, where we spend time with the Holy Spirit; by reading Scripture prayerfully, letting the Holy Spirit speak to us through the word; by eliminating distractions so that we can prayerfully attend the whispers of the Spirit; and so on. At the heart of our relationship with the Spirit is prayer.

But the Holy Spirit also does work ​through​ us. In this respect the Holy Spirit may be the least understood person of the Trinity in Christian circles because of two errors: 1) He is ignored because people are uncomfortable with the idea of “spiritual gifts;” or 2) people are so enraptured by these gifts that they never discuss what governs the gifts, what the gifts are for, or how these gifts flow from the mission of the Holy Spirit. A healthy church will extol the Holy Spirit and eagerly desire spiritual gifts because they are an essential ministry of the Holy Spirit as Giver of Life. When discussing spiritual gifts, here are some boundaries to avoid error:

● Love is the governing ethic in the exercise of all spiritual gifts. ● The Holy Spirit’s work is ​for ministry​ (Acts 1:8). ● Gifts are manifested for the sake of others. “To each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.” (1 Corinthians 12:7) In the Old Testament the Spirit of God was (temporarily) given for the sake of serving or leading the community of faith. ● The exercise of spiritual gifts helps make the gospel known. At pentecost, tongues helped people understand; prophecy encourages the church (1 Corinthians 14:3); teaching helps people learn; etc. The gifts have a purpose! ● Spiritual gifts always reflect more about the grace of the Giver than the condition of the recipient. When asked who can bring the dry bones to life, the prophet says “O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.” Spiritual gifts are the work of God, not the boasts of man. ● Spiritual gifts—particularly prophecy—cannot compete or supercede what has been revealed in Christ and Scripture. Montanism​​ was a movement in the early church which held to this understanding of prophecy. The church condemned this, for good reason. Figures like Muhammad or Joseph Smith have started entirely new religions by claiming they recieved prophecies which modify or supercede Christ and Scripture. ● The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of order. Paul’s entire discussion of gifts in 1 Corinthians centers on the necessity of orderly worship (1 Corinthians 14). Another aspect of the Montanist controversy was their insistence on ecstatic experiences which sow a kind of chaos into a congregation. In history, it should be noted that those who we revere for having great intimacy with the Spirit were people who lived the most ordered lives (like monks and nuns). ● The Body of Christ needs every gift. None confers more worth on the Christian than others. ● No spiritual gift is the singular marker of salvation or the presence of the Holy Spirit in a Christian.

QUOTES & STORIES The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe C. S. Lewis

Chapter XVI What Happened about the Statues

"What an extraordinary place!" cried Lucy. "All those stone animals—and people too! It's—it's like a museum." "Hush," said Susan, "Aslan's doing something." He was indeed. He had bounded up to the stone lion and breathed on him. Then without waiting a moment he whisked round—almost as if he had been a cat chasing its tail—and breathed also on the stone dwarf, which (as you remember) was standing a few feet from the lion with his back to it. Then he pounced on a tall stone Dryad which stood beyond the dwarf, turned rapidly aside to deal with a stone rabbit on his right, and rushed on to two centaurs. But at that moment Lucy said, "Oh, Susan! Look! Look at the lion." I expect you've seen someone put a lighted match to a bit of newspaper which is propped up in a grate against an unlit fire. And for a second nothing seems to have happened; and then you notice a tiny streak of flame creeping along the edge of the newspaper. It was like that now. For a second after Aslan had breathed upon him the stone lion looked just the same. Then a tiny streak of gold began to run along his white marble back—then it spread—then the colour seemed to lick all over him as the flame licks all over a bit of paper—then, while his hind-quarters were still obviously stone the lion shook his mane and all the heavy, stony folds rippled into living hair. Then he opened a great red mouth, warm and living, and gave a prodigious yawn. And now his hind legs had come to life. He lifted one of them and scratched himself. Then, having caught sight of Aslan, he went bounding after him and frisking round him whimpering with delight and jumping up to lick his face. Of course the children's eyes turned to follow the lion; but the sight they saw was so wonderful that they soon forgot about ​him​. Everywhere the statues were coming to life. The courtyard looked no longer like a museum; it looked more like a zoo. Creatures were running after Aslan and dancing round him till he was almost hidden in the crowd. Instead of all that deadly white the courtyard was now a blaze of colours; glossy chestnut sides of centaurs, indigo horns of unicorns, dazzling plumage of birds, reddy-brown of foxes, dogs, and satyrs, yellow stockings and crimson hoods of dwarfs; and the birch-girls in silver, and the beech-girls in fresh, transparent green, and the larch-girls in green so bright that it was almost yellow. And instead of the deadly silence the whole place rang with the sound of happy roarings, brayings, yelpings, barkings, squealings, cooings, neighings, stampings, shouts, hurrahs, songs and laughter. "Ooh!" said Susan in a different tone. "Look! I wonder—I mean, is it safe?" Lucy looked and saw that Aslan had just breathed on the feet of the stone giant. "It's all right!" shouted Aslan joyously. "Once the feet are put right, all the rest of him will follow." "That wasn't exactly what I meant," whispered Susan to Lucy. But it was too late to do anything about it now even if Aslan would have listened to her. The change was already creeping up the Giant's legs. Now he was moving his feet. A moment later he lifted the club off his shoulder, rubbed his eyes and said, "Bless me! I must have been asleep. Now! Where's that dratted little Witch that was running about on the ground. Somewhere just by my feet it was." But when everyone had shouted up to him to explain what had really happened, and when the Giant had put his hand to his ear and got them to repeat it all again so that at last he understood, then he bowed down till his head was no further off than the top of a haystack and touched his cap repeatedly to Aslan, beaming all over his honest ugly face, (giants of any sort are now so rare in England and so few giants are good tempered that ten to one you have never seen a giant when his face is beaming. It's a sight well worth looking at.)

***

“[The Holy Spirit] is like a sunbeam whose grace is present to the one who enjoys him as if he were present to such a one alone, and still he illuminates land and sea.” - St. Basil

THREE MAIN POINTS 1. The primary role of the Holy Spirit is to bring life. In our relationship with God, we need to know that God desires us to have life; he wants to restore us and love us. He gives us the Spirit to do this. 2. The Holy Spirit sustains us and continues to breathe life into us. In doing so he resides in us as a living hope; he equips us to spread the living power of God to others; and he produces in us the fruit of new life. 3. The Old Testament is relevant to the church! Christ is painted on every page, and the way God works in the Old Testament sees its fulfillment in the work of God in the New Testament.

ADDITIONAL DISCUSSION QUESTIONS ● What is Ezekiel 37 about? How is it relevant to us? ● What is this passage meant to do for Israel? What does it mean for us? ● What images stuck out to you from the passage? What section spoke most to you? Why? ● What is the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian? ● Which part of your soul still feels dry, still feels like bare-bones in the desert? ● What do we learn about God from this passage? What do we learn about ourselves? ● Who is the Holy Spirit? ● Which parts of your soul are still dry, still bare bones? Where do you feel the dominion of death has seeped into your soul? ● What do you think the Holy Spirit does in a Christian’s life? ● What are some ways the church interacts with the Holy Spirit wrongly or deficiently? ● How do we know we have a relationship with the Holy Spirit? How do we know he’s working in our lives? ● Who is Assyria ​for us​ as Christians? ● Where do you see the Trinity in this passage?

ADDITIONAL APPLICATION & PRACTICE Interacting with the Spirit​. One of the ways we most directly interact with the Holy Spirit is through prayer. Every day this week, pray that you would ​feel​ the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life and that you would see the work of the Holy Spirit in your life.

Examen​. At the end of this week as part of your examen, meditate on the fruit of the Spirit as listed in Galatians 5:22-25 and ask yourself which of those items you saw displayed in yourself this week, and which items you need the Spirit to produce.

GOING DEEPER Video. ​“Holy Spirit” - The Bible Project. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNNZO9i1Gjc

Video.​ “Understanding the Holy Spirit” - N. T. Wright. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyKFMww1OVA

Video.​ “Overview: Ezekiel 34-48” - The Bible Project. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDeCWW_Bnyw