word could mean "like the greatness" or "like the majesty" or "like the dominion". This

last meaning could comprehend, not only the glorious majesty of the Lord that was

usurped by Satan, but the delegated dominion given to Adam, which was lost. When

Adam at his expulsion from the garden saw the cherubim "tabernacled" (as the word

"placed" is literally), he saw a composite emblematic creature, with the face of a man,

a lion, an ox and an eagle (see Ezek. 1: 10), and in that emblem he saw himself (the

man) and the dominion he had lost (the animal creation) which according to Psa. 8: 6-8

and Paul's application of the words "all things under His feet", look back to the type,

Adam, and forward to the great antitype, Christ, pledging in Christ, the restoration of the

dominion that had been lost, and associating that restoration with redemption (the

Tabernacle and the flaming sword).

Without going into details, the following list of occurrences indicates the epochs in

which the cherubim appear in the Scriptures. It must be remembered that "the four

beasts" of the book of the Revelation are the same as the cherubim of the O.T. as a

comparison with Ezek. 1:-10: will prove.

It will be seen that the anointed cherub of Ezek. 28: refers to a period that lies

before the creation of Adam. This mighty being by aspiring to some measure of equality

with God, fell, and when he in the guise of the serpent tempted Eve, he used the same

blasphemous aspiration as the bait, "ye shall be as God". The tabernacling of the

cherubim at the east of the garden was a pledge to fallen Adam that the dominion lost by

sin would be restored. The references to Exodus, the book of Kings and the opening and

closing chapters of Ezekiel, relate the cherubim with Israel. The fact that both in the

Tabernacle in the wilderness and in the Temple in the land the cherubim are found in the

holiest of all, shows that this pledge of restoration is vitally associated with atoning

blood; the whole purpose is redemptive. Ezekiel shows the departing and the

returning glory linked with the cherubim, and the references in the book of Revelation to

the four "beasts" (literally "living ones" or "living creatures") lead on to Paradise

restored in Rev. 22:

As we survey this list of references, two things press for attention. Why are there SIX

sets of references? The whole purpose of redemption since the seven days of Gen. 1:,

the Jubilee with its 7*7 years, the great prophecy of Dan. 9: with its 70*7 years, seems

to demand that these epochs of cherubim reference should also fall into line. Yet there is

no reference in the N.T. apart from the Revelation that supplies the gap, if gap there be.

Again, the anointed cherub that sinned, seems to demand a corresponding reference to

Christ, the Lord's Anointed Who was without sin, Who, in contrast with the fallen one of