Ezekiel had a vision in the first chapter. The vision was of four creatures and each creatures
had four faces, “As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of
a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of
an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle” (Ezekiel
1:10). The appearance of the number four brings to mind the four personality
types. The fact each creature had four
faces indicates perhaps each creature had the ability to think in different
ways, to see the world through different views, mainly four different
views.
Have you ever noticed the old testament is split up into
four sections? There is the Torah, the
first five books of the bible. Then
there are the history books. These are followed
by the Literature books: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of
Solomon. It concludes with the books of the prophets. The New Testament is also split up into four
sections: the gospels, Acts (history of the church), the Epistles and the book
of Revelation (a book of prophecy, for some).
When I first thought about Ezekiel’s four faces, I thought about the
four section of the Old Testament and the four sections of the New
Testament. Perhaps there is an
alignment.
I also began to wonder why God gave us these four sections
in each testament. Perhaps it was
because certain sections would appeal to certain types of people. Perhaps there were four different
personalities and so, four different types of books. When you look at the personalities, you can
sort of guess at what books would appeal to what types of people:
Law, Gospels – Stabilizers
History, Acts – Analysts
Literature, Epistles – Persuaders
Prophets, Revelation – Controllers
You can think too much about these kinds of things, but it
is interesting to note there are certain aspects of the four faces that may
align with the sections of the Bible and personality types. For example, the face of the man could
represent intellectual thinkers like the analysts. The face of the lion could represent the controlling
personality. The face of the ox could be
the persuasive types and the eagle, who must find balance in flight could be
the stabilizer.
I like the fact all four creatures had all four faces. It reminds me we are called to put our best
face forward for any given situation. We
have the resources to be what we need to be when called to our best, however, we
typically get accustomed to looking at the world in one way and therefore favor
our view. This drives our personality.