
Originally Posted by
Wick Stick
I don't read Ezekiel 1 that way. I view it as an apocryphon/apocalypse. That is to say, when Ezekiel describes things, I take those images as clues to be interpreted by finding similar language in earlier books. What is spoken, either by the author or angel, I take as literal, meant to be explanations of the images.
In one sense, they are identical. But in another, fundamentally opposite. Having a hard time with yes/no, here. Let me try a parable instead.
A man decides to build a house. He thinks long and hard about all the attributes that will be part of the house. Then he sits down, and he draws everything out. He has some skill, and he finishes creating a set of blueprints.
Next he obtains material, and he builds his house. Since he is skilled, he creates a perfect rendering based on his ideas and blueprints.
The relationship between the blueprints, and the actual house that was built, models the relationship between the spiritual and the physical. The man does not live in the blueprints as a stick figure on the page. He lives in the physical, material house. Yet the blueprints and plan precede the building. Without them, the house does not exist. Everything that is created is made out of material, but it is made according to a form, a plan, a thought.
All of Creation has these two attributes - Form and Substance.
Now, let's try to apply that to a man. We exist as minds within bodies. That the body is material seems evident. But the mind belongs to the other category - it exists as thoughts and plans. When a man dies, the body wastes away, and returns to dust. But the mind returns to abide within The Mind - that is, God.
And I find in my Bible that God has promised us a resurrection - that is, new bodies, and I mean bodies of a material kind.
That doesn't meant they are identical to the former bodies. Our bodies now do not take their form according to our plans and thoughts. They thrive or perish according to other factors - entropy and environs and our appetites. The new bodies are said to be pneumatikos - that is, they are driven perfectly by the mind that inhabits them. It is the difference between being a passenger in the car, and driving the car.
Did that make any sense?