One of the most famous of all of Ezekiel’s
visions is that of the valley of dry bones in chapter 37. The Lord asks the
prophet, “Mortal, can these bones live?” And Ezekiel responds, “O Lord God, you
know.”
That is a good answer. Only God knows if
something that is dead can be brought back to life. Only the Lord can bring
that something, or someone, back to the land of the living.
Then the Lord tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the
bones and say, “O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.” This shows us that the
word of God is an essential ingredient to the giving of spiritual life. But
there is another essential ingredient as well.
“Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will
cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.” The words for breath and wind
in this chapter are the same as the word for spirit. Furthermore, we are told
that the dry bones that are brought back to life are the whole house of Israel,
God’s people. This is a picture of spiritual resurrection and restoration. It
is another way of saying that the Jews will be brought back to their homeland
of Palestine. But the key thing is that they will be brought back alive.
The important thing for us today is that we can
be brought to life in the same way. We too, apart from Jesus, are a valley of
dry bones. There are people that are walking around on the earth who may be
alive physically but are spiritually dead. They are simply dry bones walking
around. There are whole churches like this too. And the Lord can bring
individuals and churches that are simply a mass of dry bones back to life. The
way it happens is through the word of God and the Holy Spirit of God being
applied to the life of those spiritually dead individuals or spiritually dead
churches. I have seen it happen in both cases, and in both instances, as
Ezekiel experienced, it is a miracle to behold.
If we want this spiritual resurrection to happen
to us, then we must seek more of God’s word and more of his Spirit. These two
combined are the secret to spiritual resurrection and spiritual growth.
C. S. Lewis never wrote very much about the Holy
Spirit, but one point from Lewis I have found very helpful. He says that the
presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian is more important than
the feeling of the Holy Spirit. His actual presence is what begets Christ in
us. Lewis writes that the presence of God is not the same as the sense of the
presence of God. Our supposed sense of his presence may be due to imagination
whereas his actual presence may be attended with no “sensible consolation.”
Lewis draws an analogy to sex. He points out that the act of conceiving a child
ought to be, and usually is, attended by pleasure. But the pleasure itself
doesn’t produce the child. We may experience sexual pleasure without producing
a child, or we may produce children without pleasure. He argues that the
spiritual marriage of God and the
soul works in the same way. The sense of the presence of the Holy Spirit is an
added gift for which we should give thanks when it comes. In another place he
urges that we should accept the sensations of the Holy Spirit with
thankfulness, like birthday cards from God, but we should remember that these
sensations are only greetings, not the real gift. The real thing is the gift of
the Holy Spirit. The sensations are merely the response of our nervous system.
We ought not to depend upon the sensations. The Holy Spirit may be most
operative when we feel him the least. Sensations, to use another image, are
merely the push to start us off on our first bicycle. We will have much
pedaling to do later on. Such pedaling will be good for our spiritual leg
muscles. We should enjoy the push while it lasts but enjoy it as a treat, not
as something usual. (See my book, Mere Theology,
the chapter on The Holy Spirit, page 93.)
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