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August 21 Today’s Reading: Ezekiel 9-12 “One Man Among Them” Ezekiel 9:2
The prophet of God saw the Lord Jesus standing beside the brazen altar as the Executioner of Divine justice upon the wicked. Beginning at the sanctuary of God, he shall pour out God’s furious wrath upon all his enemies. His eye will spare none. He declares, “As for me also, mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity, but I will recompense their way upon their head” (Ezekiel 9:10). Then he said to his prophet, “And, behold, the man clothed with linen, which had the inkhorn by his side, reported the matter, saying, I have done as thou hast commanded me” (Ezekiel 9:11).
Sealed This Man, this seventh Man, with the inkhorn by his side, is our dear Savior, the Lord Jesus, the perfect Man, the Man of Grace, the God-man, our Mediator. He wrote the names of God’s elect in the book of God, and put the mark of God upon their foreheads, preserving them from judgment (Ezekiel 9:3-4). This man, the Lord Jesus, has marked the foreheads of God’s chosen remnant. He commands his angels to hurt not the earth until the 144,000 (God’s elect) have been sealed in their foreheads (Revelation 7; 2 Pet. 3:9). Noah must be in the ark before the rain falls. Lot must be in Zoar before Sodom is burned. And God’s elect must be called before judgment falls upon the earth (2 Peter 3:9).
Linen This seventh Man is the Man of Mercy. He “was clothed with linen.” That is not the clothing of a warrior, or the clothing of an executioner, but the clothing of a priest engaged in his priestly work in the holy of holies. The Man Ezekiel saw is Christ, our great High Priest, who has made atonement for the sins of his people, who has entered in once into the holy place, with his own blood, where he sat down, having obtained eternal redemption for us. There he sits on yonder throne in fine linen, clean and white, which is his perfect righteousness and our perfect righteousness, the righteousness of the saints.
Inkhorn Our dear Redeemer is not here seen wearing a slaughter weapon at his side, as the others, but an inkhorn. In ancient times writers and secretaries, those who kept records, wore their inkhorns at their sides, so that they were always handy. Seeing this picture of my Savior, I cannot help thinking that the inkhorn is intended to represent his wounded side. From that wounded side, his precious blood gushed out in a mighty stream, and washed away our sins forever!
Done In the last day, when he has made all things new, when all his people are gathered in, and he delivers the kingdom up to the Father, presenting his ransomed holy, unblameable, and unreproveable before the presence of his glory, he will say with joy, “Lo, I and the children thou hast given me” (Isaiah 8:18). Then, the Man Christ Jesus, Jehovah’s righteous Servant, who undertook our cause before the worlds were made (Ephesians 1:12; John 10:16-18), shall say, “I have done as thou hast commanded me” (Ezekiel 9:11).
Don Fortner
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