Hymns, #212 in the Chinese hymnal may be translated literally as follows:
Twenty-three years ago when I was giving the Life-study of Ezekiel in Taipei, I wrote this hymn concerning the wind, the cloud, the fire, and the electrum based on the vision revealed in Ezekiel 1. Strictly speaking, wind is not good, a cloud is not very welcome, and fire is even worse. In Ezekiel 1, however, the wind, the cloud, and the fire all signify the Holy Spirit.
The coming of wind and a cloud indicates the outbreak of war and troubles. Once the Holy Spirit comes, there is also trouble. The Holy Spirit comes first as a storm wind and then as a great cloud, bringing war. This war first starts within you, causing you to war against yourself. The believers in the Lord all had this experience at the time they heard the gospel. When you hear the gospel and the Holy Spirit starts to work, your inner being is in turmoil as you struggle whether or not to receive the gospel. This is the wind with the cloud stirring in you. Simultaneously, a great fire is kindled to burn away all the negative things in you. Eventually, the electrum is produced.
Electrum is an alloy of silver and gold. Gold, signifying the nature of God, is the base of the New Jerusalem. Without gold as the base, the city cannot be built. The Christian life is a life based upon the golden nature of God. If we do not have God as our golden base, our Christian life is a mess, and we are not able to be built up as part of God’s building.
What this hymn describes is the work of the Holy Spirit. The first stanza says that the Holy Spirit as a storm wind blows not from the four corners of the earth but from heaven, that is, from God. When this wind blows upon us, we hear the gospel, and there is a strong stirring within us. The blowing eventually softens our hardened heart and enlivens our entire being so that we are completely renewed and altogether freed from our sins. In Genesis chapter one, at the beginning of God’s creation, His Spirit brooded like a hen over her chicks. Similarly, stanza 2 says that when the great wind covers and overshadows us, it broods over us to regenerate us, sanctify us, and make us spiritual that we may be the dwelling place of God.
Stanza 3 says that the Holy Spirit as the fire comes also to burn within us. Once we believe in the Lord, our first experience is a battle, a warring within. We were once wicked, filthy, and fond of worldly entertainment. But now that we have believed in the Lord, the Holy Spirit begins to rule within us, and there is conflict. From the time the conflict starts, the fire comes forth, spreading intensely to every corner to consume all the things that displease God. The fire burns away all defilements and all common things, thereby purifying us so that we may be exactly like God, holy and without blemish. Stanza 4 says that the glowing electrum is manifested and shines into our heart that we may partake of God’s nature. The result is that divinity is mingled with humanity, and the human spirit is joined to the divine Spirit; thus, God’s life is expressed through us.
This is the story of Ezekiel chapter one. When the Holy Spirit blows, He is like a great wind and a cloud coming to brood and to hatch. He is also like the burning fire which burns away everything other than God; this burning produces God. Ultimately, what comes out of the wind, the cloud, the fire, and the electrum is a person—the Lord Jesus sitting on the throne as the One who expresses God in His humanity, as seen by Ezekiel in 1:26. The four Gospels in the New Testament describe the Lord Jesus from four angles. The Gospel of Luke shows us that the Lord Jesus was a man in whose human virtues the divine attributes were expressed. That was divinity mingled with humanity and the human spirit joined to the divine Spirit so that God’s life could be expressed in the form of man, which is divinity expressed through humanity.