Commenting on Ezekiel's throne theophany, Peter R. Carrell wrote that
Ezekiel has ‘seen’ a manifestation
of God. But it can scarcely be the case that Ezekiel has seen God in the
fullness of his transcendent being. Procksch, for example, points out that
Ezekiel has not seen ‘the prototype of the divine Glory but rather the εικων του θεου’ (Procksch, ‘Berufungsvision’,
144).
That the manifestation of the LORD
should be perceived in human form is hardly surprising for two reasons. First,
there are other occasions in the OT when the LORD appears to human beings in
human form. Abraham saw the LORD in the form of a man (Gen. 18.1-2), Isaiah saw
the LORD ‘sitting on a throne, high and lofty’ (Isa. 6.1)—a description
indicative of an anthropomorphic figure. Second, if humanity is made in the
image of God (Gen. 1:26) then there is a certain logic to the manifestation of
God taking human form. (Peter R. Carrell, Jesus and the Angels:
Angelology and the Christology of the Apocalypse of John [Society for New
Testament Studies Monograph Series 95; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1997], 30, emphasis in bold added)
