Professor: Rushdoony Dr. R.J.R.

Subject: Systematic Theology

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 14 of 19

Track: #14

Year:

Dictation Name: 14 The Cherubim

[Rushdoony] Let us worship God. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth, thus saith the high and lofty One who inhabiteth eternity whose name is holy. I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit; to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite. If thou shalt seek the Lord Thy God Thou shalt find Him, If thou seek Him with all thy heart and with all thy soul. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God who art the author of all things and in terms of whose will and purpose all things move. We thank Thee that by Thy sovereign grace Thou hast made us a part of Thine eternal purpose. Give us grace therefore so to walk day by day that our eyes may ever be fixed where Thy true purpose is to be found, in Christ our Lord. Bless us this day and always and grant that our hearts and minds be open to Thy word, and that by Thy Spirit we may be made strong in Thee. In Jesus name, Amen

Our scripture the morning is from Ezekiel 28:11-19, and our subject as we continue our studies in the doctrine of authority is The Cherubim. Ezekiel 28:11-19

“11 Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,

12 Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, thus saith the Lord God; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.

13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.

14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.

15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.

16 By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.

17 Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.

18 Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffic; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.

19 All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more. 

In the hands of fallen man things depreciate, not only things but words also. This is certainly true of the key word in our text, cherubim and cherub, cherubim is the plural of Cherub. The idea we have now days of cherubs or cherubim is of little baby-like angelic things flitting around on picture post cards and Christmas cards, totally without meaning; just beautiful little objects. Nothing could be further from the truth. Popular art as with angles and many other things has seriously distorted scripture. We meet with the Cherubim first of all in Genesis 3:24 where the Cherubim with flaming swords keep the fallen man out of the Garden of Eden. In I Samuel 4:14 we meet them again and God is said to be enthroned upon the Cherubim, an image we meet with again and again.

We are not told much about the real cherubim except that they are next to God, they are creatures beyond our ability to imagine, but we do know something from scripture about their significance for us. Moreover the interesting thing is that pagan antiquity was well aware of cherubim, and the cherubim were recognized as symbols of authority; so that the insignia, as well of the thrones of pagan kings had some kind of depiction of cherubim. From one country to another the depiction varied, but one thing was clear, although pagan antiquity did not know what cherubim looked like, they knew the Cherubim somehow represented authority, were symbols of authority and were next to God so that if there were authority on earth the Cherubim were used to symbolize them. Not only so, but when we have depictions of Canaanite gods seated upon their thrones they are flanked by cherubim. Thus cherubs or cherubim were always associated with the gods and with kings as a symbol of power and of authority. The scripture tells us they are real beings next to God, representing Him, symbolizing for us authority. 

Cherubim were carved at either end of the mercy seat in the holy of holies; they represented the throne of God and the power of God, his government. We encounter references to them in Exodus 25:18-22 and Hebrews 9:5, in Ezekiel the tenth chapter. We find they were, according to Ezekiel 26 verse 31 and II Chronicles 3 verse 7, embroidered on the curtains and the veils of the tabernacle and on the walls of the temple. 

The symbolic use of cherubim in antiquity tells us how pagans understood their meaning. They symbolize authority. Ezekiel’s words concerning the king of Tyre were thus understandable to the king of Tyre and to others, because at this point the pagans clearly understood what the Bible meant by Cherubim, what they set forth, what they symbolized. So that when this prophesy is made to the king of Tyre he knew what it meant, whether he believed it or not. We know that some of the profits did include the pagan nations in their prophesies and sent their prophesies to them saying “Thus saith the Lord” and “this is the judgment of God upon you.” Over the generation this prophesy concerning the king of Tyre has had very fanciful interpretations. Some have insisted it has reference to Satan; there is no authority for that. We do know what has been understood concerning this & what I have to say is nothing unusual or new, the meaning has been well understood over the generations. Patrick Fairbairn more than a century ago, great Scottish expositor, gave a careful and specific interpretation of it.

Just in passing the stones that are described that are not familiar to us, the sardius was probably the Ruby, it could have been the sard or carnelian, the Carbuncle was either modern jasper or green jade, and the stones of fire represented power, the God-like authority and our God is spoken of in Hebrews as a consuming fire. But now to the meaning of this, the key of Tyre is compared to Adam in the Garden of Eden. More than Adam he had great power in a developed, in a civilized context, surrounded by wealth. Tyre was Phoenicia, the Phoenicians were remarkable traders, their trading enterprises carried them all over the Mediterranean world and far afield. We do know that Phoenicians regularly traded in Ireland and also in Britain. As a result Tyre was a center of very great wealth and prosperity, so in a sense he had perfection, everything men in that day could dream of. His life we are told sealed up the sum of available wisdom, beauty, power and wealth. It represented the finest in the human ideal and in the human scene of his day. He sat, we are told, upon the Holy mountain of God; that is upon the pinnacle of power, a power from God by the providence of God. Moreover to have power, to have a rich and favored place in life is to inhabit God’s sanctuary according to scripture, it is to be like the Cherubim, near to God in His power and authority. 

Now we’re not used to thinking this way. We have so long separated things material from things spiritual because of a false spirituality, we fail to see that in the Bible God presents this picture of wealth, of power, of prosperity and a general ease of living, as being greatly favored, as being close to the cherubim, or like unto the cherubim. So God says that wherever there is an authority that prospers, an authority that lives with ease and without problems, it is comparable to being near the cherubim, or with the king of Tyre, like unto the cherubim. The importance of this prophesy should now be obvious. Wherever great power is to be found we must see it as due to God’s providence. It can come as a blessing or as judgment on an era, but a concentration of wealth, of authority, and of a general prosperity in a civilization is to be seen as making it into a potential new Garden of Eden. 

It is interesting that in the first half of the last century people sometimes spoke of America in the early years of this republic as a new Eden. Because they saw in terms of scripture, in terms of the kind of prophesy given in Ezekiel that God was bringing a combination of blessings to focus here in this country. So man was, as it were, in a Garden of Eden; or another term used, in the happy republic. Now Ezekiel’s language tells us a great deal about God’s intentions concerning Eden. God’s goal for history, it is a glorious, a prosperous world paradise under God and His word. The purpose of Godly authority is to develop such an order. Even before Patrick Fairbairn, Carl Friedrich Keil the German commentator said of this text, and I quote “the king of Tyre is called a cherub because as an anointed king he covered, or overshadowed, a sanctuary like a cherubim upon the Ark of the Covenant. What this sanctuary was is evident from the remark already made at verse two concerning th