Expert: Rev. Frank Ricketts - 11/1/2007

Question
Bright Blessings Rev. Ricketts, My question concerns Ezekiel Ch. 1.  This is so difficult for me to understand. I am aware that this is God's presence. But the description/s are confusing to me. Is there more deeper meaning to all the graphic description/s to the "4 Living Creatures???"

Answer
God is attended and served by an innumerable company of angels, doing his commandments and hearkening to the voice of his word. This denotes his grandeur which engages his allies to trust him and his enemies to fear him.
The introduction to this vision of the angels is very magnificent and awakening, v. 4. The prophet, the heavens open, looked , looked up (as it was time), to see what discoveries God would show him.
The vision itself. A great cloud was the way this vision was delivered, in which it was conveyed to the prophet.
The cloud is accompanied with a fire, as upon Mount Sinai, where God resided in a thick cloud; but the sight of his glory was like a devouring fire, and his first appearance to Moses was in a flame of fire in the bush; for our God is a consuming fire.
The fire is surrounded with a glory. Though we cannot see into the fire, we see the brightness that is round about it, the reflection of this fire from the thick cloud. Moses might see God’s back parts, but not his face. We have some light about the nature of God, from the brightness which encompasses it, but we have not have an insight into it, because of the cloud spread upon it.
Out of this fire there shines the colour of amber. We are not told who or what it was that had this colour of amber, and therefore I have to assume that it was be the vision, which came into Ezekiel’s view out of the midst of the fire and brightness; and the first thing he took notice of before he viewed the particulars was that it was of the colour of ambe. The living creatures which he saw coming out of the midst of the fire were seraphim.
The likeness of four living creatures; not the living creatures themselves (angels are spirits, and cannot be seen), but the likeness of them, a representation, as God saw fit. The likeness of these living creatures came out of the midst of the fire; for angels derive their being and power from God. The prophet himself explains this vision (ch. 10:20): I knew that the living creatures were the cherubim, which is one of the names by which the angels are known in scripture. To Daniel was made known their number, ten thousand times ten thousand, Dan. 7:10. But, though they are many, yet they are one, and it is made known to Ezekiel here; they are one in nature and operation, as an army, consisting of thousands, yet called one.
Their nature. They are living creatures; they are the creatures of God, the work of his hands; their being is derived; they have not life in and of themselves, but receive it from God.
Their number. They are four being sent forth towards the four winds of heaven, Mt. 24:31. Zechariah saw them as four chariots going forth east, west, north, and south, Zec. 6:1.

Their qualifications
By their general appearance: They had the likeness of a man; they appeared in a human shape,
By their faces: Every one had four faces, looking four several ways.
By their wings: Every one had four wings.
By their feet, including their legs and thighs: They were straight feet (v. 7); they stood straight, and firm, and steady; no could make their legs to bend under them.
By their hands (v. 8): They had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides, an arm and a hand under every wing. They had not only wings for motion, but hands for action.
Their motions. The living creatures are moving. Angels are active beings; it is not their duty to sit still and do nothing, but to always be employed.

So basically, these four living creatures were angels for God.

Visit:   http://www.daystart.org