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Writing with Purpose: How Screenwriting and Blogging Bring Me to Life
What gives you direction in life? There’s something about the blank page—the endless possibility, the quiet invitation to create—that electrifies me. Whether it’s screenwriting or shaping words in this blog, writing has become more than just a craft. It’s my sanctuary, my heartbeat, my way of breathing in a world that never stops moving. But it’s more than just words on a screen. My daughter,…
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Understanding God’s Holiness Before His Judgment: Ezekiel 1
Why God Reveals His Holiness Before Judgment
Welcome to the next step in our Trust vs Belief Series!
Before God ever announces judgment, He reveals His holiness.
Ezekiel’s first vision is not primarily about strange creatures or prophetic symbolism. It is about preparing God’s people to understand the character of the One who judges.
We delved into the background and context of Ezekiel. Without that foundation, Ezekiel can appear to be little more than a collection of strange visions and future prophecies. Just as in Isaiah, we will find that Ezekiel is so much more than that.
The book of Ezekiel presents the holy character of God, the individual’s responsibility before God, the consequences of persistent rebellion, and God’s desire to bring His people to repentance and restoration.
If you are tired of shallow faith and ready for a deeper walk, The Sanctified Script invites you to slow down, open Scripture, and guard the gates of your heart and mind.
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Ezekiel’s Commission
Many of God’s prophetic voices have a personal encounter with Him, and each time, God has called these prophets to a rebellious and disobedient people.
It may seem simplistic, but what we’ve exposed is that when a people believe in God but fail to trust Him, they give place to systems, people, and places that attempt to replace Him.
Described in Ezekiel 2:1-3:3, we find Ezekiel’s prophetic commission. It details his empowerment by the Spirit, his appointment to a rebellious nation, and the symbolic eating of the divine scroll.
God sends Ezekiel to the Israelites, describing them as an obstinate, hard-hearted, and rebellious house that has revolted against God for generations. He is told to deliver God’s message whether the people listen or refuse.
The messenger’s goal is never to be consumed by whether people listen to the message. The primary goal of the messenger is to be faithful to the message.
Gwendloyn Cummings
Ezekiel’s success is measured by faithfulness to the message, not by the people’s positive response. God warns Ezekiel not to fear the hostile environment, which is metaphorically compared to briars, thorns, and scorpions.
There is a key lesson here for those called to ministry—the goal of the messenger is never to be consumed by whether the people listen to the message. The primary goal of the messenger is to be faithful to the message.
It is always prudent to remember this lesson when the message becomes hard, and the consequences of repeated rebellion become visible on the horizon. The messenger can warn, but cannot save. Belief and trust in God can.
Reading this passage of Scripture can stir up our own intrepid opinions of our relationship with God.
The truth be told, our society today resembles Jerusalem. The same script, just different characters.
Israel may have wandered down the road into idolatry, but believers today have their own set of idols:
- Obedience blended with self-protection - Calling blended with ambition - Service blended with resentment - Worship blended with hidden compromise
The people mixed worship of YAHWEH with other loyalties, values, sources of security, and cultural practices. Anything that consistently draws us away from the practices that bring us closer to God can become an idol.
Then chapter 3 begins with the scroll.
The Scroll Must Become Part of the Message
A hand presents a rolled scroll filled with words of lament, mourning, and woe, pointing directly to upcoming judgment. Ezekiel is commanded to eat the scroll, which he digests internally so that his proclamation flows from an inner assimilation of divine truth instead of external recitation.
Despite the harsh message of judgment, the scroll tastes sweet like honey in his mouth, symbolizing that God’s justice and ultimate purposes are righteous and good.
Application
There are three internalizations that we can take away from Ezekiel’s eating of the scroll:
- Prophets do not just memorize words; they digest them. - The message becomes an inseparable part of the prophet’s identity and body. - The spoken word flows from a deep, personal connection to the message.
God’s word tastes sweet because divine revelation is inherently good, perfect, and life-giving. The message often brings bitterness, grief, or pain because it demands judgment and exposes human sin.
According to Jeremiah 15:16 and Revelation 10:9-10, we see other instances where God had the prophets metaphorically “eat” the words of their message. Each time, the messages may have been hard for the prophets, but the eating of the “message” tasted sweet in their mouths.
These are consummate examples of what it means to apply trust to belief and align with God. Their alignment with God is what enabled them to receive and disseminate God’s message.
It’s what we know today as lived experience.
Because God is holy, He judges sin.
God’s Glory Before God’s Judgment
Now that we’ve discovered how God views a rebellious nation, we can move to the first vision that Ezekiel records in the book.
Ezekiel 1:4-28 describes a profound divine encounter featuring a mobile throne-chariot, four living creatures, and the luminous glory of God addressing exiles in Babylon.
Ezekiel’s depiction of God’s glory appears throughout three extended visions that connect the book’s themes of judgment and restoration (Ezekiel 1-3; 37; 40-48). This glory represents a revelation of God. It functions as the presence of Israel’s cosmic YAHWEH , mandating and empowering Ezekiel as God’s representative.
We can see this theophany depicted similarly in Isaiah 6. Ezekiel sees God’s throne room. He sees the reality which visible signs pointed to: the glory of God in heavenly places.
This first vision is set against the backdrop of a great storm cloud with flashing fire approaching, symbolizing God’s sovereign judgment and control even over foreign Gentile nations. In it we find these elements:
- Cherubim: Four-winged beings possessing four distinct faces—human, lion, ox, and eagle—representing all of creation serving under God’s rule - Wheels within Wheels: Interlocking, omnidirectional wheels covered with eyes signify God’s complete omnipresence and omniscience across the earth. - The Sapphire Throne: Above the expanse of the creatures sits a brilliant figure with human likeness radiating fiery splendor, enclosed by a rainbow-like brightness. - Transcendence and Mobility: Unlike fixed temple systems, God’s mobile throne proves He is not bound to Jerusalem and remains with His exiled people.
As we move further into our study in the book of Ezekiel, we’ll observe that this vision in chapter 1 is often compared to the vision in chapter 10, where God’s glory leaves Jerusalem.
Because God is holy, He sees everything.
What Ezekiel’s Vision Reveals About God
There are several items of note in Ezekiel’s vision. They inform us of God’s holiness and that nothing we do is hidden from God
God is holy, and rightly judges sin.
- God will not ignore sin and will see that every sin is punished. God’s holiness is seen in the fire. In Scripture, God is described as a consuming fire (Exodus 24:17; Deuteronomy 4:23-24 and 9:3; Hebrews 12:29). - God’s holiness is seen in the four living creatures. The living creatures are cherubim , and every time they are mentioned in Scripture, they are guardians of God’s holiness: - Genesis 3:24 – Protectors of the Garden of Eden - Exodus 25:18-21 – On the top of the Ark of the Covenant - Exodus 26:1; 36:8 – Woven into the tabernacle curtains
God knows everything and is everywhere
- The wheels and the wheel within a wheel demonstrate God’s ability to go anywhere. His movement is always forward-facing. With this vision, God is invading Babylon and needs no one’s permission to do so. He is not limited to the temple in Jerusalem. - The rims that were full of eyes show He sees and knows everything. God’s people may no longer be in Judah, but He can still see them just as clearly.
God is sovereign
- God is glorious, but He is also merciful. Just as the Israelites, we’ve done nothing to deserve His mercy. Ezekiel describes the brilliant light surrounding the One on the throne as a rainbow in a cloud on a rainy day (Genesis 9:13-17). - Thinking back to the days of Noah, the rainbow was meant to remind us not only that God would no longer cover the earth with water but also that even in wrath God is merciful. Despite all the looming clouds of judgment, the beams of the bow allowed rays of hope.
Ezekiel says, when I saw it, I fell on my face. No doubt! Isaiah, Peter, James, John, and Paul all had similar reactions when they were allowed to see just a glimmer of the Lord’s glory. They walked in trust with their belief and aligned themselves with God.
The question is not why so many in the Bible fell on the ground in the presence of the Lord but why there seems to be so little of it today.
Because God is holy, He cannot ignore rebellion.
Continue Reading - Trust as Refuge When Pressure Rises - Trust is reliance under pressure. It is not optimism, emotional calm, or passive waiting for heaven to fix everything. Trust is refuge in God. - Why Trust in God Begins With Knowing His Character - Discover how knowing God’s character strengthens trust during seasons of pressure, uncertainty, and spiritual refinement through Scripture-centered teaching. - Understanding the Consequences of Disobeying God - Explore what Isaiah teaches about disobedience, misplaced trust, idolatry, divine correction, and returning to God through repentance and obedience.
The entire series can be found at https://flair-for-writing.com/trust-vs-belief-series/
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Why This Matters Today
There are several important facts that we can glean from this text:
- If we fear God will abandon us because of our sin, Ezekiel 1 should provide us with some measure of hope. - If we find ourselves in the middle of a season of instability, we should rejoice that God will use it to free us from those things that hamper us from fulfilling God’s purpose in our lives. - God speaks clearly to the exiles, and now, through Christ, God speaks clearly to us. - For believers today, we see God’s glory in Christ as we are conformed to His image.
There are times in our lives when we feel like we are in exile, too, but we are not without a hope or a future.
From Ezekiel, we can be thankful for several things:
- We can thank God that He is still the same God that Ezekiel saw in His vision. - We can thank God that despite the rebellion of humanity and the weakness of His people, God has preserved, and will forever preserve His people and His Word. - We can thank God that the worst form of discipline for His people was Calvary, where He took it upon Himself!
Reflective Questions
- What impression of God would someone pick up watching the way we live out our Christian faith? - Would the impression be anything like Ezekiel’s vision?
Because God is holy, His mercy is never separate from His holiness.
Throughout Scripture, God reveals Himself so His people will know Him before they experience His discipline. That same invitation remains today. The question is whether we will respond with trust and obedience.
Many people are not struggling because they lack desire. They are struggling because they do not yet have a structure for what God is showing them.
This is work I do through writing, teaching, and structured content. I help bring clarity to what feels uncertain so it can be understood and lived out with conviction.
If you’re ready to move from reflection to structured clarity in your writing, your work, or your calling:
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External References
Heiser, Michael S. What Does the Vision in Ezekiel 1 Mean? Online, October 24, 2022.
Landon Dowden, Exalting Jesus in Ezekiel (Nashville, TN: Holman Reference, 2015), Eze 1:4–28.
Millard Lind, Ezekiel, Believers Church Bible Commentary (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1996), 378–379.
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