The Uncaged Glory Text: Ezekiel 10:15-17
Introduction: A God on the Move
We modern Christians have a bad habit of trying to domesticate God. We build our comfortable church buildings, arrange our neat and tidy programs, and expect God to show up on schedule, bless our efforts, and then stay put until we need Him again next Sunday. We want a God who can be managed, a God who fits into our architectural plans and our five-year strategies. In short, we want a God who can be boxed in.
The prophet Ezekiel was ministering to a people whose entire world was collapsing precisely because they thought they had God in a box. The box was the Jerusalem Temple. They had come to believe that the physical structure, the Ark of the Covenant, and the Levitical rituals were a kind of divine tether. As long as they had the Temple, they had God. They could indulge in the most grotesque forms of idolatry and immorality, as Ezekiel details in previous chapters, and yet still believe themselves secure because, after all, God's house was in their zip code. They had turned the glorious presence of the living God into a good luck charm, a national mascot.
But the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is not a tame God. He is not a local deity. And in the book of Ezekiel, God shatters their false security with a vision so strange, so alien, so terrifyingly mobile that it should disabuse us of all our cozy notions. He reveals His glory to Ezekiel not in the familiar confines of the Holy of Holies, but in exile, by a pagan river in Babylon. And this glory is not static. It is on a throne, but the throne is a chariot. A fiery, spiritual, all-terrain vehicle of unimaginable power and complexity. The vision of the cherubim and the wheels is God's declaration of independence from every box we try to build for Him. He is showing His people, and us, that His presence is not tied to real estate. His glory is leaving the apostate Temple, and He is on the move. This is a terrible word of judgment for those who presume upon His grace, but it is a glorious word of comfort for the faithful remnant in exile. God is with them. He has not abandoned them; He has abandoned the corrupt institution that bore His name.
This passage describes the movement of this divine chariot, this mobile throne room of the King of the universe. And in its synchronized, Spirit-driven motion, we learn a fundamental truth about the nature of God's sovereignty. He is not constrained, He is not frantic, and He is in absolute, perfect control.
The Text
Then the cherubim rose up. They are the living creatures that I saw by the river Chebar. Now as the cherubim went, the wheels went beside them; also when the cherubim lifted up their wings to rise from the ground, the wheels would not turn from beside them. When the cherubim stood still, the wheels would stand still; and when they rose up, the wheels would rise with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in them.
(Ezekiel 10:15-17 LSB)
The Throne Guardians Ascend (v. 15)
The action begins with the lifting of the throne itself.
"Then the cherubim rose up. They are the living creatures that I saw by the river Chebar." (Ezekiel 10:15)
Ezekiel makes it plain for us. These beings are the same ones he saw in the initial, overwhelming vision of chapter 1. He identifies them as cherubim. Now, we have to get the Valentine's Day cherubs out of our heads immediately. These are not chubby, winged babies with tiny bows. These are the guardians of God's holiness, the very beings stationed at the entrance to Eden with a flaming sword to block the way back to the tree of life. In the Tabernacle and Temple, their images were woven into the curtain of the Holy of Holies and overlaid in gold upon the Ark of the Covenant, the mercy seat. They are the throne-bearers of the Almighty. John, in the book of Revelation, sees them surrounding the throne, leading the worship of heaven. They are terrifying, powerful, and utterly devoted to the majesty of God.
When they "rose up," it signifies that God's throne is ascending. This is the beginning of the departure of the glory of God from the Temple. It is a moment of immense and dreadful significance. The cherubim are not acting on their own initiative; they are the living vehicle of God's sovereign will. God is pulling up stakes. The divine presence that had been the singular glory of Israel is now preparing to leave. This is not a retreat; it is a strategic redeployment. God is moving His command center from a place of rebellion to a place where He will preserve His people.
Unison of Spirit and Machine (v. 16)
Next, Ezekiel describes the perfect, supernatural coordination between the living creatures and the mysterious wheels.
"Now as the cherubim went, the wheels went beside them; also when the cherubim lifted up their wings to rise from the ground, the wheels would not turn from beside them." (Ezekiel 10:16 LSB)
Here we see one of the strangest parts of the vision. These are not ordinary wheels. They are described in chapter 1 as wheels within wheels, covered with eyes, able to move in any of the four cardinal directions without turning. They are a picture of God's omniscience, His all-seeing providence, and His absolute freedom of movement. He is not limited to a single path. He can go sideways, backward, forward, instantly, without effort. He is like the queen on a chessboard, able to move in any direction with sovereign freedom.
The key here is the perfect unity of motion. When the cherubim move, the wheels move. When the cherubim lift, the wheels lift. There is no friction, no hesitation, no lag time. The spiritual beings (cherubim) and the mechanical constructs (wheels) are perfectly integrated. This is a picture of the created order operating in flawless obedience to its Creator. There is no division between the animate and the inanimate, the spiritual and the physical, in the execution of God's will. All of creation is an instrument in His hands. This is a profound rebuke to any form of dualism that would pit spirit against matter. In God's economy, they work in perfect harmony to accomplish His purposes.
This synchronized movement demonstrates that God's providence is not clumsy. His plans do not have hitches. The spiritual realities and the physical events of history move together as one seamless operation. When God decides to act, all the necessary components, both seen and unseen, move in perfect concert.
The Animating Principle (v. 17)
The final verse of our text gives us the reason, the operating system, for this perfect unity.
"When the cherubim stood still, the wheels would stand still; and when they rose up, the wheels would rise with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in them." (Ezekiel 10:17 LSB)
Ezekiel reiterates the perfect correspondence: when one stops, the other stops. When one rises, the other rises. And then he gives the explanation: "for the spirit of the living creatures was in them." The same animating life force, the same spiritual intelligence, was in both the cherubim and the wheels. They were not two separate entities coordinating with each other; they were one functional unit, driven by a single, shared spirit.
What is this spirit? It is the Spirit of God. It is the divine will, the divine energy, that moves all things. This is a graphic depiction of what the theologians call divine concurrence. God's Spirit is so intimately involved with His creation that it moves in perfect accord with His will. The cherubim and wheels do not have to consult a map or have a committee meeting. They move as a single organism because they are impelled by a single Spirit.
This is a picture of the ideal state of the church. The church is to be a body with many members, but one Spirit. When the Spirit of God is truly governing a people, there is a unity of purpose and action that is supernatural. There is no division between the "spiritual" members and the "practical" members. The prayers and the work, the worship and the witness, all move together in perfect harmony because they are all being directed by the same Holy Spirit. The discord, the friction, the infighting we so often see in our churches is a sign that we are not being moved by the one Spirit, but rather by a host of competing, selfish spirits.
The Gospel in the Chariot
This vision of God's mobile glory is a terrifying judgment on apostate Israel, but it is also a glorious prophecy of the gospel. Where is this chariot ultimately going?
First, it demonstrates that God is not homeless. Though He leaves the Temple made with hands, He is still enthroned. He is going to be with His people in their exile. This is a promise that God will never leave His true people, even when He judges the corrupt institutions that claim to represent Him. He is with Daniel in the lion's den and with the three young men in the fiery furnace. His presence is not dependent on a building in Jerusalem.
But the ultimate destination of this mobile glory is the incarnation. The Apostle John tells us that "the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father" (John 1:14). In Jesus Christ, the full, untamed glory of God took on human flesh. God's presence was no longer in a stone temple, but in a living man. Jesus is the true Temple, the place where God and man meet.
And what did Jesus do? He demonstrated the perfect unity of Spirit and action. He did nothing of His own accord, but only what He saw the Father doing (John 5:19). He and the Father were one. The Spirit was upon Him without measure. He was the perfect embodiment of that Spirit-driven unity Ezekiel saw in the vision. Every word, every action, every miracle was in perfect sync with the will of the Father, executed in the power of the Spirit.
And now, through the New Covenant, that same Spirit is in us. Paul says, "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16). The glory of God did not just move from the Temple to Christ; it has moved from Christ to His people, the Church. We are now His mobile throne on earth. We are the vehicle through which His glory is to be made known to the nations. And we are to operate with that same Spirit-driven unity. When we move, we are to move together, animated by the one Spirit, for the one purpose of glorifying our King. He is not in a box. He is enthroned on the praises of His people, and He is on the move, extending His kingdom until it fills the whole earth.