The One sitting on the Throne has the Appearance of a Man: a God-man is on the Throne

It is marvelous to realize that the One on the throne has the appearance of a man (Ezek. 1:26) – a God-man is on the throne! This shows that God wants man to be on the throne, and for this He Himself became a man, and He wants an enlargement of Christ to rule and reign for Him.

The entire Bible shows us a mysterious thought concerning the relationship between God and man; God doesn’t want man to merely worship Him and fear Him but He wants to be mingled with man to be expressed and represented in man.

God created man in His image, according to God’s kind, so that man would receive God as life and everything within, with the result that man would express God and represent Him (see Gen. 1:26). This is what God desires: He wants to gain a corporate man who has His life and nature, who looks like Him, and who expresses Him and represents Him.

However, man fell, and instead of being filled with God’s life he was filled with Satan’s life, thus becoming mankind, the fallen mankind. But God’s plan and purpose could not be overturned; He Himself became a man, mingling divinity and humanity, and established a prototype of being a God-man, a man mingled with God, a man in whom God lives, is expressed, and is represented.

God became a man to produce God-man kind – He became man so that, through death and resurrection, He would regenerated and thus produce many believers in Christ, the many sons of God, the many God-men!

Now everyone who believes into Christ and receives the Lord as life within becomes a God-man, a man of God, a man filled with God and mingled with God, a man who is recovered back to God’s original intention to be expressed and represented in man.

God’s desire is to become the same as man is and to make man the same as God is, so that God would be expressed with His image and represented with His authority in man.

Therefore, God Himself has been man-ized, and man is being God-ized; we will never become God in the sense of being worshipped but in the sense of having God’s life, nature, expression, and function, and ruling and reigning with God.

What a wonderful economy! How grateful we are to the Lord for opening our eyes to see God’s original intention in creating man, and for making us God-men for us to express Him and represent Him!

The One sitting on the Throne has the Appearance of a Man: a God-man is on the Throne

The One who is sitting on the throne in Ezek. 1:26-27 looks like a man, yet with Him there’s the appearance of the glory of the Lord. This is very different from the human concept and the religious concept, both of which say that the One on the throne is God.

Yes, God is on the throne, but in His economy He has become a man, Jesus Christ, and this One after death and resurrection was ascended to the highest point in the universe and was enthroned to be Lord of lords and king of kings! Hallelujah!

Now the One who is on the throne, the One ruling over the universe, is not just God but a Man, a God-man, Jesus Christ, who is a perfect man and a complete God; He looks like a man, yet with Him there’s the appearance of the glory of the Lord.

The One sitting on the throne is not only God but also man; He is the God-man, the man-God, the mingling of God and man (Acts 7:56). This has a twofold significance:

1. There’s a connection between Ezekiel 1:26 and Genesis 1:26. In Genesis 1:26 we see that God created man in His image to express Him and with His authority to represent Him; this is God’s purpose in creating man.

Man was created in God’s image and according to His likeness so that he would receive God as life and express Him (Gen. 1:26-27; 2:9). God’s intention in giving man dominion was to subdue God’s enemy, Satan, to recover the earth, and to bring the kingdom of God to the earth (Matt. 6:10, 13).

God wants man to subdue His enemy, and He will gain this; He gained Jesus Christ, the first God-man, who is on the throne as a Man-God, a God-man, and He will gain it with His believers who overcome and will rule with Him as kings.

God wants man to subdue His enemy; He is looking for people, believers in Christ who are willing to be gained by Him, who would actually be able to subdue Satan – not just defeat him, but subdue him, until there’s no resistance from his side.

Then, He wants to recover the earth, and bring in the kingdom of God. This is God’s intention in Genesis 1:26, and this is what He obtains in Ezekiel 1:26 – a God-man is on the throne.

2. Through incarnation God became a man, lived, died, resurrected, and ascended as a man, and now the One on the throne is a Man (John 6:62; Acts 7:56).

The first man, Adam, failed God; instead of taking in God as life and living by Him to express Him and represent Him, he partook of the devil’s thought and was corrupted to become fallen mankind.

The second man, referred to in 1 Cor. 15, is Jesus Christ; He came as God mingled with man to fulfill God’s purpose in creating man according to God’s kind.

The Lord Jesus is the individual fulfillment of Genesis 1:26, and through His death He crucified the old man, and in His resurrection He created in Himself one new corporate man (Eph. 3:11).

Now this new man is growing and being perfected, until God will gain on earth a corporate new man bearing His image and representing Him, and this man will be on the throne with God to deal with the enemy of God.

The One on the throne is a Man; even after His resurrection, Jesus is still a man on the throne – He is a God-man. When He returns, He will be the Son of man; when He establishes His throne in Jerusalem, He will be the Son of man, the embodiment and expression of Jehovah to be king in Jerusalem.

Praise the Lord, there’s a Man in the glory – a God-man is on the throne! Thank You Lord for becoming man, being mingled with man, and bringing man on the throne. Hallelujah for Jesus Christ, the first God-man, who has overcome the enemy and is now sitting on the throne of God! Praise the Lord, the One sitting on the throne has the appearance of a man – He is God mingled with man, and all authority was given to Him in heaven and on earth! Hallelujah, we all are being brought to the throne to rule and reign with Christ!

The One on the Throne Looks like Electrum and Moves like Fire to Burn and Enlighten

The One on the throne of God has the appearance of a man, and from the appearance of His loins and upward He looks like electrum, while from His loins and downward He looks like fire (Ezek. 1:27); there was brightness all around Him.

This is both mysterious and wonderful; if you try to picture all these types in Ezekiel 1, some of them can’t be represented in human terms – which shows that they should be applied spiritually, having spiritual significance.

Yes, the One on the throne above the clear sky has the appearance of a man, but at the same time He has the sight of electrum from loins up and the appearance of fire from loins down. What does this mean, and how can we apply this to our Christian life?

The upper part of a man, from his loins to his head, is usually the part of feeling and sensation, and signifies his nature and disposition. According to His nature and disposition, the Lord Jesus – the God-man on the throne – has the sight of electrum: He is the Lamb-God, the shining glorious redeeming God sitting on the throne, having the glory of God (electrum is an alloy of silver and gold).

The lower part of a man’s body is mainly for moving; the appearance of fire from the loins downward signifies the Lord’s appearance in His move.

If we apply this to our Christian experience, when the Lord comes to us, He comes as fire, then when He stays with us, He becomes electrum, and when He moves through us, He moves like fire.

When we touch the Lord, He shines on us to enlighten us, burn anything that’s not of Him away, and search us inwardly; He sanctifies us by infusing us with Himself in His presence.

Then, when He stays with us, after we are burned, enlightened, and searched, He becomes the glowing electrum; there’s something shining and glorious about the redeeming God who lives in us, something so wonderful and precious.

When we move, He moves in our move, and He continues to burn in us, enlighten us, and search us, and what remains will be the electrum – a mixture of gold and silver, signifying the Lamb-God, the redeeming God.

In His move, He is like fire, and in His abiding in us, He is like shining electrum. We need to experience the Lord as the One on the throne, and we need to let Him burn in us, enlighten us, and search us, until there’s a solid quantity of God being deposited in our being as a shining testimony.

Lord Jesus, we love You and we open to Your shining, burning, searching, and infusing. Have a way in our being, Lord; have a way to remove by searching and burning anything that doesn’t match Your holy nature. Infuse Your element into our being and gain a solid deposit of Your being in us. Lord Jesus, give us the experiences we need for us to be transformed and produced as the God-men who can rule with You on the throne. Fulfill Your purpose in us.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by brother Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Ezekiel, pp. 124-130 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Ezekiel (1), msg. 8 (week 8), The Man on the Throne.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # In the flesh by incarnation, / Into man He God hath brought; / By His death and resurrection, / Into God He man hath brought; / God and man together mingled, / In Himself is fully wrought. / Now in heaven by ascension / He is seated on the throne; / All the lordship, all the headship, / He Himself doth fully own. (Hymns #277)
  # Shining One—how clear the sky above me! / Son of Man, I see Thee on the throne! / Holy One, the flames of God consume me, / Till my being glows with Thee alone. (Hymns #1159)
  # Son of Man, Son of Man on the throne today; / Son of Man, Pioneer, He has led the way; / Following, how we sing, Jesus leads us on; / We are marching with the Victor to the throne. (Hymns #1189)