Heavenly changelessness.
There is great resemblance between Ezekiel 1:1-28. and Ezekiel 10:1-22. Ezekiel is transported in spirit from the banks of the Babylonian river Chebar to the temple at Jerusalem. Yet the cherubim which he sees in the one place are exactly the same as those he has seen in the other. This fact of identity in great diversity of circumstances strikes the prophet as remarkable, and he chronicles it with emphasis. Earthly scenes change; heavenly facts remain.
I. THE RANGE OF HEAVENLY CHANGELESSNESS.
1. In various times. Divine grace is always essentially the same. On the very threshold of history Abraham is justified by faith; today faith is the one ground of the soul's becoming right with God. The Psalms of David express the inmost essence of religion for modern Christians. The gospel of the first century is the gospel for the nineteenth century. The Christ of history is the Christ of the future. If we can see the old familiar countenances of the essential Divine facts that cheered and warned and guided our fathers, we have just the vision that we need today—though, indeed, the old truths are to have fresh applications, and though, perhaps, we may have to remove the veils with which the errors of the past have sometimes obscured them.
2. In various places. The cherubim of Chebar were the cherubim of Jerusalem. The Christ of Nazareth is the Christ for London. The religion that dawned among the hills of Galilee spreads like a day over the whole earth, and shows itself as suitable for England as for the East, and as suitable for China and Africa and New Guinea as for Europe and America.
3. Under various circumstances. The quiet river bank was very different from noisy Jerusalem. Yet the same wondrous cherubim looked down upon both scenes, as the same stars of heaven gaze upon the city slums and the country villages, on the blood stained battlefield and the peaceful meadow. The same God is over all. The gospel of Christ is the same for all—rich and poor, learned and ignorant, young and old.
II. THE CAUSES OF HEAVENLY CHANGELESSNESS.
1. Inherent truth. Our better changes come largely from the correction of mistakes. We are always having to unlearn our errors, to slough the old skin. But truth abides. In heaven all is true. God's Word is true. Therefore while "all flesh is grass … and the grass withers … the Word of the Lord abideth forever" (1 Peter 1:24, 1 Peter 1:25).
2. Absolute perfection. Revelation came by stages of growth and development and through human channels. Hence its changes and the putting away of the old form of it in the Law for the new form of it in the gospel. But when we see through these earthly manifestations the really Divine behind them, we come upon absolute perfection, which is changeless.
3. Stable constancy. God is not fickle. His representative agents, symbolized by the cherubim, must be constant too. God will keep to his word. Therefore we may build upon his promise as on a granite rock. We change; he abideth faithful.