Identification Test

Let’s return to the best book for knowing the Holy Spirit at work, the Book of Ezekiel. The Holy Spirit is not immediately introduced to us as the Holy Spirit in Ezekiel. When we first meet him, Ezekiel simply introduces him as the Spirit. One Bible version that got this introduction right, the Contemporary English Version (CEV), rendered the translation of Ezekiel 1:12 like this:

The four living creatures went wherever the Spirit led them, and they moved together without turning their bodies... (Ezekiel 1:12; CEV)

The word spirit has been misinterpreted in almost all English Bible translations. Of the 36 we surveyed, only 4 capitalize the s in Spirit as they should. The CEV is one of them, but that’s only 1 out of every 9 translations getting it right. Much too few!

The translators of the CEV and the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) understand something else: that the Holy Spirit is not in the wheels Ezekiel saw. In case you've forgotten, Ezekiel saw huge wheels which followed the four living creatures around. He describes them here:

... I saw a wheel on the ground beside each creature with its four faces. This was the appearance and structure of the wheels: They sparkled like topaz, and all four looked alike. Each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel.

As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the creatures faced; the wheels did not change direction as the creatures went. Their rims were high and awesome, and all four rims were full of eyes [lenses] all around (Ezekiel 1:15-18).

In case you're wondering--yes, physics has proven that it's possible to have a wheel spinning within a wheel!

The translations that call the "spirit" of the passage the spirit (using a lowercase s) suppose the "spirit" of the passage to be an angel. We believe that he is the Holy Spirit. We’re definitely in the minority in that we interpret Ezekiel 1 to be speaking about the Holy Spirit.

Two other good translation teams that interpreted Ezekiel 1 as being a picture of the Holy Spirit's leadership role among cherubim are the HCSB and the DBT:

Wherever the Spirit wanted to go, the creatures went in the direction the Spirit was moving. The wheels rose alongside them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels (Ezekiel 1:20; HCSB/CSB).

Whithersoever the Spirit was to go, they went, thither would [their] spirit go; and the wheels were lifted up along with them: for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels (Ezekiel 1:20; Darby Bible Translation).

The first giveaway for why the Hebrew word spirit of Ezekiel 1 should be interpreted to be a capital s Spirit (the Holy Spirit) and not just an angel is that the Spirit of the passage acts as leader of four magnificent heavenly creatures, cherubim. He is clearly of higher authority than those magnificent angels. Who fits that description and is called the Spirit?

Not in the Spirit in the Wheels

The spirits of the cherubim are not only in the cherubim themselves, but inside large-rimmed wheels. Do you find that interesting? It is. But it gets more interesting. The wheels are covered with shiny lenses—like sequins. They’re called eyes, but we should not imagine them to be the human organs we know as "eyeballs" because that would be grotesque.

These are beautiful wheels from Heaven, below God's Throne. They’re filled with eyes in the sense that they are covered with shiny lenses that see things, like camera lenses. So, the four cherubim see everything--all things--through the wheels.

Do you get the sense that you are beholding powerful angels in Ezekiel 1? You are. They see all things through spinning wheels in spinning wheels. They have amazing proximity to the Almighty. But the most glorious thing about them is that these four cherubim follow a being called the Spirit.

We know that the Spirit must be the Holy Spirit—for one reason, because he dwells close to the Throne of God. Secondly, who else is a spirit and is authorized to lead the most powerful angels in Heaven? The four cherubim follow him wherever he goes. And the wheels follow the cherubim too.

Wherever the Spirit would go, they [the living beings] would go, without turning as they went… Wherever the Spirit would go, they would go, and the wheels would rise along with them… (Ezekiel 1:12, 20)

As a point of clarification: ‘The spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels’ (Ezekiel 1:20). The Holy Spirit was not in the wheels. The wheels had the spirit of the creatures in them. The wheels followed the creatures to whom they were bound spiritually--and those spirits in turn followed the Holy Spirit.

The point is that nobody should confuse the Holy Spirit with the spirit in the wheels. And nobody should confuse the Holy Spirit with God either...

Not God

The Holy Spirit in this passage is not God. In the next passage, the Glory of the LORD is God the Father. God is the One who says ‘This is the place of my Throne.’

The Holy Spirit does his typical action of snatching someone up, lifting Ezekiel upwards to bring him to the Temple.

The Glory of the LORD entered the Temple through the gate facing east. Then the Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the Inner Court, and the Glory of the LORD filled the Temple.

While the man was standing beside me, I heard someone [Yahweh God] speaking to me from inside the Temple. He said: ‘Son of man, this is the place of my Throne and the place for the soles of my feet…’ (Ezekiel 43:4-7)

This man we read of in chapter 43 is an angel, also called a man whose appearance was like bronze (Ezekiel 40:3) earlier in the book. He is the one who gives Ezekiel a grand tour of the Millennial Temple throughout chapters 40-47. Don't confuse him with the Holy Spirit who is never called a man in the Bible.

Yahweh Himself

Again, what Ezekiel calls the glory of the LORD refers to Yahweh Himself, the Blessed One, the One God and Father. We know that because he is the One who is seated on the Throne. We were already introduced to the One Seated on the Throne in chapter one.

Above the vault over their [the Living Creatures’] heads was what looked like a Throne of lapis lazuli, and high above on the Throne was a figure like that of a man. I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him.

Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the Glory of the LORD (Ezekiel 1:26-28).

What does it mean to look like 'glowing metal as if full of fire'? Probably something like the molten metal you see in the picture below. That's what the One God, our Father's body looks like, molten metal.

The One Spirit

So, what’s the point of reading so much from Ezekiel chapter 1? It’s a great introduction to the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He ministers below the One God, our Father. He should never be confused with God as his position is below God. He should not be confused with cherubim either, as he leads them.

There are other spirits in the passage—powerful all-seeing spirits. But the Holy Spirit is so superior to them that they follow him wherever he goes, and so do all-seeing wheels follow him. The Holy Spirit is indeed great, but also greatly misunderstood.

If you argue that the Holy Spirit is understood, then how could so many translation teams, the scholars who translate our Bibles, wipe him out of entire chapters of the Scriptures? Let's be indignant that they would do such a thing, as glorious as the Holy Spirit is and as important as the Holy Spirit is!

We want the One Spirit to be known in the Church, and we'll continue to work to that end.