The God Who Robs Graves Text: Ezekiel 37:1-14
Introduction: The Cemetery of Modernity
We live in a boneyard. Our entire civilization is a vast, sprawling valley of dry bones. We are surrounded by the skeletal remains of dead hopes, dead ideologies, and dead institutions. The great promises of the secular enlightenment, that man could, through his own reason and technology, build a paradise on earth, have crumbled into dust. What we are left with is a culture of despair, cynicism, and exhaustion. Our politics are brittle, our universities are hollowed out, and our art is grotesque. The bones are very many, and they are very dry.
And into this valley of death, the modern man, like the ancient Israelite in exile, whispers the same creed of hopelessness: "Our bones are dried up, and our hope has perished. We are completely cut off." They look at the decay and conclude that this is all there is. The best we can do, they think, is to manage the decay, to rearrange the bones into more pleasing patterns, to write solemn poems about the nobility of our inevitable extinction. They trust in political committees, in technological fixes, in educational reforms, but all this amounts to is bone-polishing. It is lipstick on a skull.
But the Christian faith does not offer to polish the bones. It does not offer a program for managing the decay. The Christian faith proclaims resurrection. Our God is not a mortician; He is a grave-robber. He is the Lord of the living, which means He is necessarily the Lord of the dead. The vision given to Ezekiel is not a quaint story for a children's Sunday School class. It is the paradigm of God's work in the world. It is the pattern of personal regeneration, of church reformation, and of national restoration. It is a divine manifesto against the lordship of death and a declaration of war against the tyranny of despair.
This passage forces a question upon us, the same question God forced upon His prophet. As we look out upon the ruins of Christendom, as we see the church in the West looking more and more like a scattered collection of dry bones, God corners us and asks, "Son of man, can these bones live?" And how we answer that question reveals everything about the God we claim to worship.
The Text
The hand of Yahweh was upon me, and He brought me out by the Spirit of Yahweh and caused me to rest in the middle of the valley; and it was full of bones. He caused me to pass among them all around, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley; and behold, they were very dry. He said to me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" And I answered, "O Lord Yahweh, You know." Then He said to me, "Prophesy over these bones and say to them, 'O dry bones, hear the word of Yahweh.' Thus says Lord Yahweh to these bones, 'Behold, I will cause breath to enter you that you may come to life. I will put sinews on you, make flesh come up upon you, cover you with skin, and put breath in you that you may come alive; and you will know that I am Yahweh.'
So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, a rumbling; and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, sinews were on them, and flesh came up upon them, and skin covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then He said to me, "Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, 'Thus says Lord Yahweh, "Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these who were killed, that they may come to life." ' " So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they came to life and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great military force.
Then He said to me, "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold, they say, 'Our bones are dried up, and our hope has perished. We are completely cut off.' Therefore prophesy and say to them, 'Thus says Lord Yahweh, "Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, My people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am Yahweh, when I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves, My people. And I will put My Spirit within you, and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, Yahweh, have spoken and done it," declares Yahweh.'
(Ezekiel 37:1-14 LSB)
The Divine Tour of Death (vv. 1-2)
The vision begins with divine initiative and a stark diagnosis.
"The hand of Yahweh was upon me, and He brought me out by the Spirit of Yahweh and caused me to rest in the middle of the valley; and it was full of bones. He caused me to pass among them all around, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley; and behold, they were very dry." (Ezekiel 37:1-2)
Ezekiel does not stumble into this scene by accident. He is taken there, seized by the hand of God and transported by the Spirit. This is the first principle of all spiritual understanding. We cannot diagnose our own condition. Left to ourselves, we will call our deadness "dignity," our decay "progress," and our boneyard "a diverse and vibrant community." It is only when the Spirit of God grabs us by the scruff of the neck and forces us to look at the reality of our sin and death that we can see things as they are.
And the sight is one of absolute hopelessness. This is not a hospital; it is a morgue that has been picked clean by vultures. The bones are "very many," indicating the scale of the disaster. This was the whole house of Israel, wiped out. And they were "very dry," indicating the length of time they had been dead. This is not a fresh corpse. This is ancient death. All moisture, all memory of life, is gone. This is a picture of what sin does. It does not merely wound; it kills, and it disintegrates. This is the state of Israel in exile, and it is the state of every man born in Adam. We are not sick and in need of a doctor. We are dead and in need of a resurrection.
The Question of Omnipotence (v. 3)
God then poses a question that is designed to expose the limits of human power and the foolishness of human reasoning.
"He said to me, 'Son of man, can these bones live?' And I answered, 'O Lord Yahweh, You know.'" (Ezekiel 37:3)
From a human perspective, this is a ridiculous question. Can disintegrated, sun-bleached, scattered bones live? Of course not. Don't be silly. The laws of biology, chemistry, and common sense all scream "No!" God is baiting the hook. He is forcing Ezekiel to confront the apparent impossibility of the situation. He asks this same question of us today as we survey the ruins of our culture. "Can this nation, given over to perversion and idolatry, live?" "Can this church, compromised and cowardly, live?"
Ezekiel's answer is a masterpiece of faithful submission. He does not give the answer of sight, which is despair ("No"). Nor does he give the answer of presumption, which is foolishness ("Sure, I'll get some glue!"). He gives the answer of faith: "O Lord Yahweh, You know." He turns the question away from the evidence of the bones and directs it toward the character of God. He is saying, "I don't know what is possible for bones, but I know who You are. The answer is not in the bones; the answer is in You." This is the fundamental posture of faith. It is a radical distrust of what we can see and a radical trust in the one we cannot see.
The Absurd Command (vv. 4-6)
God's solution is as scandalous as the problem is vast. He commands an act of apparent madness.
"Then He said to me, 'Prophesy over these bones and say to them, 'O dry bones, hear the word of Yahweh.' ... and you will know that I am Yahweh." (Ezekiel 37:4, 6b)
God does not tell Ezekiel to start a program. He does not tell him to form a committee on bone-reassembly. He tells him to preach. To talk to dead things. Can you imagine a more foolish activity? It is like yelling at a graveyard, demanding that the tombstones pay attention. This is why the preaching of the cross is foolishness to the world (1 Cor. 1:18). We are in the business of speaking the life-giving Word of God to people who are spiritually dead, deaf, and dry.
And notice what the bones are commanded to do: "hear the word of Yahweh." The first act of a resurrected being is to hear. Life begins when the Word of God penetrates the deafness of the dead heart. God then outlines His plan. He says, "I will" do everything. "I will cause breath... I will put sinews... I will make flesh..." Salvation is a monergistic work. God does it all. We contribute nothing but the sin and the bones. And the ultimate goal is doxological: "and you will know that I am Yahweh." God raises the dead for His own glory, so that His power and His name might be known.
Anatomy Without Anointing (vv. 7-8)
Ezekiel obeys, and the results are both astonishing and terrifyingly incomplete.
"So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, a rumbling; and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, sinews were on them, and flesh came up upon them, and skin covered them; but there was no breath in them." (Ezekiel 37:7-8)
The preached Word has power. It is not an empty gesture. As Ezekiel speaks, there is a rattling. The bones begin to find their proper connections. Skeletons form. Then sinews, flesh, and skin. An army of bodies is assembled. This is a picture of external reformation. This is what happens when a church gets its doctrine right, when it structures its worship correctly, when it has all the outward forms of a living body. It is an impressive sight. It is orderly. It looks right.
But then we come to the most chilling phrase in the chapter: "but there was no breath in them." It is possible to have a perfectly assembled body of truth, a perfectly structured church, a perfectly orthodox confession, and still be dead. This is the church at Sardis, which had a reputation for being alive, but was dead (Rev. 3:1). This is dead orthodoxy. It is form without power, anatomy without anointing. It is a collection of beautiful, well-assembled corpses. This is a perpetual danger for those of us who rightly prize sound doctrine. We can have all the bones in the right place and still have no life.
The Second Prophecy: A Plea for the Spirit (vv. 9-10)
The work is only half done. A second, different kind of prophecy is required.
"Then He said to me, 'Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man... Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these who were killed, that they may come to life.' So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they came to life and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great military force." (Ezekiel 37:9-10)
Ezekiel's first task was to preach the Word to the bones. His second task is to pray to the Spirit for the breath. The Word and the Spirit work together. Preaching the Word assembles the body; the breath of the Spirit animates it. We must be people of both the Word and the Spirit. To preach without praying for the Spirit to give life is to be an arrogant anatomist. To pray for the Spirit without preaching the Word is to be a contentless enthusiast.
The breath, the Spirit (the Hebrew word is ruach for all three), comes from the "four winds." This means the Spirit is sovereign. He is not a tame force we can control or summon at will. He is the wild wind of God. We cannot command Him, but we are commanded to call upon Him. And when He comes, the corpses become an army. They don't just wake up; they are enlisted. They stand on their feet as "an exceedingly great military force." God does not save us to be museum pieces. He saves us to be soldiers. The purpose of resurrection is conquest in His name.
The Divine Explanation (vv. 11-14)
Finally, God removes all doubt about the meaning of the vision. This is not an abstract lesson in theology; it is a concrete promise to His covenant people.
"Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel." God is speaking to the despair of His people in exile. They thought their story was over. They thought God had abandoned His promises. God shows Ezekiel this vision to say that with Him, the story is never over. He can resurrect a dead nation just as easily as He can assemble a skeleton.
The metaphor shifts from a battlefield to a cemetery. "Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, My people." This is a promise of national restoration from the "graves" of exile in Babylon and Assyria. But it is more. It is a promise that points to the ultimate resurrection at the end of time. And it is a promise of the New Covenant.
"And I will put My Spirit within you, and you will come to life." This is the heart of the New Covenant, promised just a chapter earlier (Ezekiel 36:27). The life God gives is not just an external animation, but an internal indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This is the source of all true and lasting life.
The vision ends with a bedrock assertion of God's sovereign faithfulness. "Then you will know that I, Yahweh, have spoken and done it." God's Word is performative. What He speaks, He accomplishes. His promises are not hopeful suggestions; they are declarations of what will be. He speaks, and He does. This is the foundation of all our hope. Our hope is not in the condition of the bones, but in the character of the God who speaks to bones.
Therefore, our task as the church in the boneyard of the 21st century is clear. We are to do what Ezekiel did. We are to prophesy to the bones. We are to preach the Word of God, in all its life-giving power, to the dead culture around us, commanding them to hear. And we are to prophesy to the breath. We are to get on our knees and plead with God to send His Spirit from the four winds, to breathe on the slain, that they might become the army of the living God. For He has spoken, and He will surely do it.