Rumble
Riding God’s Portable Throne!
Part 3
April 20, 2022 – Fotet.org
Any discussion of God’s cloud demands a look at Ezekiel 1 and 10.
These two challenging and interesting chapters offer the prophet’s description of God’s “portable throne.”
The throne’s portability and large wheels demonstrates God’s throne as a massive chariot (Ezekiel 1:14-21) serving as His means of judgment or as a war machine that can move instantly to be wherever God wants to go.
In Psalm 104:3 the psalmist sees clouds as God’s chariot. If we stop to reflect, most regular clouds are generally on the move, sometimes rapidly so. Thus, since they’re always on the move, Psalm 104:3 is saying that clouds can become God’s means of transport.
Ezekiel introduces his description of the throne with a reference to clouds:
As I looked, behold, a stormy wind came out of the north and a great cloud, with brightness around it, and fire flashing forth continually, and in the midst of the fire, as it were gleaming metal.
Ezekiel 1:4 ESV
The “gleaming metal” is likely a reference to Christ who is riding “in the midst” of the cloud. Compare the description of Christ’s feet at Revelation 1:15: “His feet were like unto brilliant metal as if they burned in a furnace.”
In Ezekiel 1:27-28, the prophet concludes his description with a reference to the One riding the cloud, mentioning a stunning display of God’s glory:
I looked at Him from His waist up. He looked like hot metal with fire all around Him. I looked at Him from His waist down. It looked like fire with a glow that was shining all around Him. The light shining around Him was like a rainbow in a cloud. It was the Glory of the Lord.
The Good News Translation
describes the rainbow mentioned in verse 28 as “the dazzling light which shows the presence of the LORD.”
Again, in Ezekiel 10:4, the prophet cannot miss the glory of God radiating from His cloud:
Then the glory of the LORD went up from the cherub, and paused over the threshold of the temple; and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of the LORD’s glory.
A broad look at Ezekiel’s description of God’s portable throne makes it clear that God revealed more about the “inner workings” of His cloud to Ezekiel than to anyone else. The passage is a good example of God’s exercising His sovereign prerogative to reveal knowledge according to His purposes.
Interestingly, about the only element missing from the description of the portable throne in Ezekiel 1 and 10 is smoke. Clouds are there, as are fires of coal and lightning, but no smoke. It may be that God, choosing to reveal never-before-secrets about His cloud and throne, purposefully removed the smoke to permit the prophet a better view.
Likely, Psalm 18:11 is a poetic description of God’s riding His portable throne where David alludes to the cloaking effect of the cloud: God “made darkness His secret place; His canopy around Him was dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.”
Isaiah 19:1, where the prophet writes that “the LORD rides on a swift cloud and will come into Egypt,” is another verse where God’s transporting Himself wherever He wishes while cloaked in His brilliant cloud.
An even better-known example of the Cloud Rider appears in Daniel 7:13 describing Christ’s second coming:
Daniel was watching in the night visions, and behold, One like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him.
Keep an eye out for part four tomorrow.
God’s amazing portable throne with wheels inside wheels described in Ezekiel 1 and 10.
