Ezekiel is a book of visions. The first section of this book (ch. 1) presents a vision of the appearance of the glory of the Lord, revealing how God is manifested, how God moves, and how God administrates His government through the four living creatures. Through the coordination of the living creatures, God is able to move and administrate. In the second section (chs. 2—32) God comes as the consuming fire to judge His people and the heathen nations. After the judgment God comes in to recover His people by life. The third section (chs. 33—39) is the section of recovery. The fourth section (chs. 40—48), which concerns the holy building of God, comes out of the recovery by life and consummates the book. Thus, Ezekiel begins with the appearance of the glory of the Lord and ends with the holy building of God. This indicates that God’s goal is the building.
Every book of the Bible begins in a unique way. For instance, Genesis begins in this way: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Matthew and John begin in a very different way. Matthew 1:1 says, “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The book of Ezekiel also begins in a very peculiar way. The first three verses of Ezekiel are a special, specific, extraordinary introduction to the book.
Ezekiel 1:1-3 says, “Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. In the fifth day of the month, which was the fifth year of king Jehoiachin’s captivity, the word of the Lord came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and the hand of the Lord was there upon him.” In this introduction four main things are covered. First, this is a book of vision, and these introductory verses show us the year, the month, and the day that Ezekiel began to see the visions. Second, these verses show us the place where he saw the visions. Third, here we have a word concerning the man, the person, who saw the visions. Fourth, in this introduction we see the conditions for seeing the visions.
Regarding the introduction to Ezekiel, the first thing we need to consider is the date, with the year, the month, and the day.
The year was the thirtieth year. This refers to Ezekiel’s age. At that time Ezekiel was thirty years of age. According to Numbers 4:2-3 and 1 Chronicles 23:3 a priest, a Levite, started to serve the Lord at the age of thirty. The Lord Jesus also began to serve God in His ministry at the divinely legal age of thirty (Luke 3:23). As a priest who had reached the age of thirty, Ezekiel was qualified to start his priestly ministry.
Here we have the principle that to realize spiritual things and to see heavenly visions, we need the maturity in life. The age of thirty signifies maturity. By the time the priests reached the age of thirty, they were regarded as mature. Therefore, the phrase in the thirtieth year indicates that Ezekiel, being thirty years of age, was mature. This indicates that if we would see the visions in the book of Ezekiel, we must have the maturity in life. Christians today have difficulty understanding this book because most of them lack the maturity in the divine life. Spiritually speaking, not many Christians have reached the age of thirty, and thus it is hard for them to understand the visions in this book.
In Ezekiel 40 through 48, the portion of this book that is devoted to God’s building, the number thirty is used for three kinds of things. The outer court of God’s temple in 46:22 has four corner courts, each of which has a breadth of thirty cubits. These four corner courts are the places for the priests to prepare the offerings for the people to eat and enjoy. According to 40:17 the outer court of the temple has thirty chambers. When the people come together to worship God, they may enjoy the rich offerings in these thirty chambers. Ezekiel 41:6 mentions another thirty side chambers. These are around the temple on three sides, in each of the three stories. In every story there are thirty side chambers. All these side chambers indicate the fullness of the temple. When we put these verses together, we can see that thirty is a number related to preparing Christ, ministering Christ to others, enjoying the riches of Christ, and expressing the fullness of Christ. Hence, in the Bible the number thirty signifies the maturity in life to prepare Christ for others, to enjoy Christ ourselves, and to express Christ in all His fullness. When Ezekiel saw the visions recorded in this book, he was thirty years of age. He was a mature person, able to prepare Christ and to minister Christ for others’ enjoyment and able also to enjoy the riches of Christ himself and to express Christ in all His fullness.
The number thirty was not only significant for Ezekiel but is also significant for us as believers in Christ today. Just as Ezekiel had to be mature in order to serve as a priest, to see the visions, to prepare Christ as the offerings for others’ enjoyment, to enjoy the riches of Christ, and to express the fullness of Christ, so we also need to be matured in our spiritual life so that we can see the visions concerning Christ and His Body, prepare Christ for others’ enjoyment, and enjoy all the riches of Christ to become the fullness of Christ as His expression.
In the book of Ezekiel the number thirty is formed in two ways: five multiplied by six and three multiplied by ten. Mainly it is constituted of three times ten. In the Bible the number ten, which is the complete number of a man, is composed of two fives, of five times two. Consider, for example, the ten virgins in Matthew 25. Five virgins were wise and five were foolish. Here we see that the ten virgins were divided into two groups of five. With the Ten Commandments, there were five commandments on one tablet and another five commandments on a second tablet. The Ten Commandments, therefore, were also divided into two groups of five. The number five signifies the responsibility we can bear by having God added to us. Four is the number of the creature, and one is the number of the Creator. When the Creator is added to the creature, the creature is able to bear responsibility. The number two is the number of testimony, union, and balance. When the Lord Jesus sent out the disciples, He sent them two by two. The number ten, composed of two fives, signifies that as creatures we have God added to us so that we may be able to bear responsibility. It indicates that we are graced to bear responsibility before God in the way of testimony, union, and balance.
As shown in the following chapters, this responsibility is in three layers, or stories, signifying the three persons of the Godhead—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Three is the number of the Triune God, and thirty signifies God’s threefold nature being in man. Thirty is therefore an important number signifying man with the Triune God in him bearing responsibility in a complete way. From all this we can see that in Ezekiel the number thirty indicates that the creatures have the Triune God added to them so that they can bear the responsibility in the Triune God. This is the maturity in life that we need to prepare Christ for others’ enjoyment, to enjoy Christ in a full way ourselves, and to express Christ as His fullness. Only by having this kind of maturity will we be able to see the visions of the book of Ezekiel.