I.　The spiritual history of every normal Christian should be a continual cycle involving the experience of God as the wind, the cloud, the fire, and the electrum—Ezek. 1:4:

A.　Whenever God visits us and revives us, His Spirit blows on us like a mighty wind to bring a spiritual storm into our life, into our work, and into our church, causing us to be dissatisfied and concerned about our spiritual condition and to have a turn in our spiritual life—v. 4.

B.　The cloud is a figure of God as the Spirit abiding with His people and covering them in order to care for them and show favor to them—v. 4; Exo. 13:21; 40:34-35.

C.　The fire signifies God's burning and sanctifying power; the more the fire of the Holy Spirit burns in us, the more we are purified and enlightened—Ezek. 1:4; Deut. 4:24; Heb. 12:29.

D.　The electrum, composed of the elements of gold and silver, signifies the Lamb-God, the redeeming God—Ezek. 1:4; Rev. 22:1:

1.　The more we experience the wind, the cloud, and the fire, the more the electrum is constituted into our being, making us a people who are filled with the Triune God and who manifest His glory—Eph. 3:16-17, 21.

2.　The issue of the spiritual transactions involving the blowing wind, the cover?ing cloud, and the purifying fire is the glowing electrum—the radiant expression of the redeeming God.

II.　The more we experience God as the blowing wind, the overshadowing cloud, the burning fire, and the glowing electrum, the more we are enlivened with the divine life to become the four living creatures—Ezek. 1:5a:

A.　The four living creatures are reckoned not as individuals but as a group, one entity.

B.　That the four living creatures bear the likeness of a man and that God on the throne also bears the appearance of a man indicates that God's central thought and His arrangement are related to man—vv. 5b, 26; Gen. 1:26; Psa. 8:4-8:

1.　According to the vision unveiled in Ezekiel 1, man is the means for God to manifest His glory, for God to move on the earth, and for God to administrate on the throne.

2.　God uses the wind, the cloud, the fire, and the electrum to enliven us in order to gain man as the means for His manifestation, move, and administration.

III.　Ezekiel 1:11b-14 conveys a clear picture of the coordination of the living creatures—a portrait of the proper church life with the coordination of the members of the Body of Christ:

A.　The joining of the two wings (eagle's wings) of the living creatures is for their corporate moving in coordination—v. 11b:

1.　The wings of an eagle signify the grace, strength, and power of God applied to us—Exo. 19:4; Isa. 40:31; 2 Cor. 1:12; 4:7; 12:9.

2.　The eagle's wings are the means by which the living creatures are coordinated and move as one; their coordination is not in themselves but in God and by the divine grace, strength, and power—cf. Exo. 26:26-29.

B.　The move of the living creatures is not individual but corporate, the move of one entity in coordination; this is a beautiful picture of the coordination in the church as the Body of Christ, in which each member has his particular position and function, or ministry—Ezek. 1:12; Rom. 12:4-8; 1 Cor. 12:14-30; Eph. 4:7-16.

C.　The issue of the coordination of the living creatures is that they become burning coals, with the holy God as a consuming fire burning among them and within them; that both the Lord on the throne and the living creatures have the appear?ance of fire indicates that the living creatures are the expression of the Lord—Ezek. 1:13, 26; Heb. 12:29.

D.　The living creatures, having a proper coordination, will not walk but run, because they have the power and the impact—Ezek. 1:14.

E.　The coordination of the believers as members of the Body of Christ results in the corporate expression of Christ, in the move of God on the earth, and in the admin-istration of God on the throne, thus affording God a way to manifest His glory and accomplish His eternal purpose and plan—vv. 4-12, 26.

IV.　In the book of Ezekiel God's economy and God's move in His economy are signified by a great wheel—v. 15; Eph. 1:10; 3:9; 1 Tim. 1:4:

A.　The hub of this great wheel signifies Christ as the center of God's economy; the rim signifies Christ's counterpart, the church, which consummates in the New Jerusalem; and the spokes of the wheel spreading from the hub to the rim signify the many believers as the members of Christ—Col. 1:15-18; Eph. 5:30.

B.　The appearing of the wheels on the earth beside the living creatures indicates that God's move on earth follows the coordination of the four living creatures—Ezek. 1:15.

C.　The wheels being for the four faces of the living creatures indicates that if we would have the Lord's move, we must first live out the Lord, expressing Him—v. 15; Phil. 1:20-21a.

D.　All four wheels have the same appearance; this indicates that the move of the Lord has the same appearance in every church—1 Cor. 4:17; 7:17; 11:16.

E.　A wheel within a wheel indicates that in the move of the living creatures there is the move of the Lord; the inner wheel, the Lord as the hub, is the source of the power for the moving of the outer wheel, the church as the rim—Ezek. 1:16.