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CHAPTER NINE
Ezekiel 18, 33-34
LIFE, DEATH AND DIVINE DELIGHT
A PRINCIPLES
Death can be torturous for those who have despised the highway of salvation, and the road-maker, Jesus Christ the Way, the Life and the Truth. In this case, to be way out is to be out altogether. It is enough to SEEM way out to this world, because of the truth, but to BE wayout from the way of life is like a voluntary bodily dis-coordination, a deliberate adoption of a spastic spirit, which though offered love and truth, meaning and task, decides to dance to a foreign tune, foreign to the truth, deliberately out of control.
In Ezekiel, the divine delight in deliverance from death, the advanced ending of the advanced case, is made plain repeatedly.
1) Thus it is found in Ezekiel 18:23: "Do I have pleasure at all, that the wicked should die ?" says the Lord GOD, and not that he should turn from his ways and live!"
In this case, many tell Him that this is not fair, that one who has sinned should be pardoned and enabled to proceed if repentant and real in his turning: but it is more than fair. It is gracious and the reason is this, that God DOES have pleasure, indeed delight in showing mercy, rescuing those to be redeemed, seeking and saving the lost (Micah 7:18-19), and in the process, burying sins in the depth of the sea, far off as in Psalm 103. As in the parable of the vineyard labourers, If He chooses to be liberal with His own, what does that have to do with the justice of giving all WHAT WAS AGREED! (Matthew 20:1-16).
2) Then in Ezekiel 18:30-31, we have an incandescent and progressive appeal.
Speaking of their at times almost unspeakable iniquities,
a) He declares that they will be judged for them, each according to the case.
b) He exhorts them to TURN, REPENT from the evil so that "iniquity shall not be your ruin."
It is to "cast away from you all the transgressions you have committed."c) He appeals to them, "Get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit." These are available in the Creator
who having free redemption in store with regeneration (cf. Jeremiah 31:31ff., Titus 2-3) is more than willing to bestow these things, even inviting people freely to COME TO ME! If you were in debt and a billionaire asked you to come for a disbursement, would you not find it relevant ? But God has bounty without limit, which can indeed be refused (cf. Acts 7:51), but it is not hidden!d) He exposes the fact that "I have no pleasure in the death of the one who dies ... Therefore turn and live!"
I love that 'therefore'. HE, not a whit less than the most horrendously guilty sinner without repentance, does not desire this event in life: death. The one who dies is not a facile part of the divine agenda. Death IS undesirable, both to the Maker of life and most often, to those who live, and the remedy is this, to take the ransom payment (Matthew 20:28), return to the Lord and put your trust in Him who both made and remakes what comes to Him for life, in these terms, even to Him who having borne all, broke each barrier, and dispensing with death, broke it with such divine liberality and force, that in Him is the way NEVER TO DIE (cf. John 11:25-26).
NEVER DIE, though death is the due for sin, that is a pinnacle of wonder, most natural once the disease of sin is accounted for, a restoration beyond all value, and praise God for that. I look forward to it as did Paul (II Timothy 1:12, 4:8), with relish.
Neither damnation of the wicked nor death for man is the desire of the Lord; but His desire it is which mediates mercy, and where man insists on keeping his heart to himself, he is like one voluntarily choosing the scorching desert. Let him not complain. God made the heart and it is necessary for man to seek Him where He may be found, not for the fulfilment of vagrancy.
3) Ezekiel 33:10-11
Here God instructs Ezekiel to commune with the people as follows: "If our transgressions and our sins lie upon us, and we pine away in them, how can we then live ?"
Here is empathy, understanding, compassion and sharing of the turmoil in the heart of slitherers, spiritual vagrants, the immiscible meanderers.
Now God launches into the most beautiful summons that there is:
a) "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked," He declares.
b) In what then does He take such pleasure ? It is this: "that the wicked turn from his way and live."
Neither in death itself, nor in its special charge on the wicked, does God have pleasure. It is, like a doctor seeking to deliver a smoker from lung-cancer, that he turn, accept another way, and so live.
c) The exhortation pours forth like a giant, cascading waterfall, say Victoria Falls, or Niagara:
"Turn, turn from your evil ways." The yearning, the longing is just as in Matthew 23:37 and Luke19:42ff., and suggested in Jeremiah 48.
d) God reasons with them. He gives reason for His burning yearning: "For why should you die, O house of Israel." God has different peoples to bring back, some here, some there (as in Romans 11), but His heart is not in favour of death. What is its fatal fascination, its evacuative force to drive out hope and help and blessing and deliverance ? Why DIE! for there is no life outside the Creator, Redeemer, the Sacrifice, the divine Substitute available to man (Isaiah 53, I Peter 2, Acts 4:11-12).
There is no other name. The puzzle, if that appeals to your mind, has no other solution. Vain indeed it is to fume and fester and complain and follow fleas in their philosophies, that bite the human race and lead to infection. There is a way to be made clearn (Isaiah 1:18), though your sins be as scarlet, they will be white as wool.
B PERSONS
Ezekiel was personally involved in suffering if by any means he might awaken Israel, bent on disaster like one who defies the commandments, and despises mercy. You see the revulsion he felt in bringing the point home, concerning the fate Israel was facing at that time, in his eating dramatics, and pseudo-paralytic posture. It was the same with Jeremiah (Jeremiah 15), who FELT the humiliation, the brunt of social squalor associated with his divinely provided challenges to the nation, the ostracism, the darkening of faces towards him, the misconstruction of his dealings, the inflammable words and burning words.
God provided for them both, with kindness and strength; but for Ezekiel there was the fact that the people could hear the intonations of his words, the pity, the drama, the compassion, rather like an enchanting opera. However, it was as an to art form they listened (Ezekiel 33:32-33). They did not heed the application, the principles or the point of the divine entreaty. Hear ? yes. Do ? no!
Indeed, Ezekiel (as in 18 and 33), was given principles about watchmen, anointed to warn the people, with their dangers bound to their mission, its proclamation essential. Further, in 33:7, Ezekiel joins their ranks: warning is no option, any more than death if there be no repentance.
But it is the LORD Himself who is the great Exponent and Warner. He was willing to die IN ORDER TO MAKE THE REQUIRED PAYMENT to cover justice; and DID SO. This intention is found in arresting form in Ezekiel 34. HE HIMSELF reveals (as if it were the Normanby invasion to liberate Europe, but this was for mankind, John 3, Titus 2-3), that HE is coming.
Faithless fellows the shepherds, those sent, in the main, and foul were their self-interested trampling of sheep and pastures for their own conceited exploitation (cf. II Peter 2). He therefore would come to seek and to save that which was lost, as you see when He did just that, in the fleshly format of Jesus Christ, the Righteous, the Just One (Acts 3:14-18). That was not only the atonement for sin but the exhibit of the intensity of His empathy, sympathy and cordiality, not some project, but to the very heart, reaching to the uttermost parts of heaven in its demands.
C THE ASCENT
Three Ascending Principles
Thus we have three ascending statements of principle in protestation
against death and damnation:
Ezekiel 18:23, 18:30-31, 33:11.
Three Degrees of Pre-emptive Empathy
The Watchman's Facility
Jeremiah's personal appointment to this facility
the Lord as personal interventionist to present free approach and pardon.
WHY DIE! is the keynote.
I WILL COME! is the outcome.
THAT HE SHOULD LIVE! is the motif.
33:31-33 enshrines the lament.
Alas as with many now, the
more His protestations and invitations soar,
the more they seek to escape,
even making a sophisticated and arty evasion in terms of song,
to suppress and supervene the thrust of mercy.
You can almost hear it, as in 33:30-33:
"Good prophetic stuff,
this preacher type knows how to put it together,
you really ought to hear this fellow."
Preciousness and Aggregates
God said He would come. He did. He came as the Messiah and preached reconciliation to the world, which evidently prefers incineration after judgment is duly complete. Why do men and women so often so harshly judge their neighbours, as if it were necessary, when they do not relish it performed on themselves by a perfectly informed, fair and even loving Creator-Redeemer! It is in general more blessed to give than to receive, but in this case when what is given is applied truth, the receipt of the gift to those depending not on Christ, but their own choices, whether in terms or idols or hopes or ideas, it is illimitably grievous to receive (John 3:16,19,36).
That, it is a progression for refusal; but why not keep it simple with acceptance. As considered before, God is not only dying to save, but He did, in the incarnation, actually do it, deliciously overcoming death in resurrection which like the creation, is a vast display of power. THAT is the transformation in truth which has more than the draw of the waterfall or the stars. It is life enduring for ever, encompassed in its grant (Romans 6:23).
Indeed, as with Ezekiel 33:30-33, as through the prophet, so through the Personal Lord, deep is the lamentation for those who insist on mortality, as in Matthew 23:37. As to the wilful blindness, as in Ezekiel 2:1 - 3:7. His astonishing ministry was characteristically this: though you speak to them, they will not hear you!
Was his then a divine mission which failed ? Not at all - see for example Ezekiel 36 - for though few came, each who does come is an accomplishment and a prize, as in Malachi 3:16-17, and collectively over the millenia they have aggregated as in Revelation 7.
"They shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts,
On the day that I make them My jewels.
And I will spare them
As a man spares his own son who serves him."
But let us look at SEVEN ASPECTS in these domains.
FIRST, there is this principle as shown in Ezekiel 33:18-19.
If someone turns from the ways of the Lord, and follows iniquity, he will "die because of it."
however, someone turns from the ways of evil, to the Lord, he will "live because of it."
Whatever may be redeemed, will be. GO away and if that be your will, so be it, there you are.
Come back and if that be your way, so be it, you are with the Lord who SEEKS you, as all, if by any means any may be found; for He came to seek and to save that which was lost.
SECONDLY, there is the practice of the matter. The principle of the watchman, as in Ezekiel 18 and 33, means more than this, that the one who sins will die, not someone else. It comes in Ezekiel 33 to a focus in first, the exposure of the principle of watching, that you TELL and then it is their warning finished, or you do NOT tell, and then you are responsible.
The we find in 33:7 that Jeremiah is appointed to perform such a service. It is he who now will warn, and as he warns, so he is cleared, for has he not told them, and are they not therefore responsible.
THIRDLY, there is the performance of the underlying matter. Thus, worthy as is the watchman work of the prophet Ezekiel, and harassing are the ways chosen for him to disseminate this warning and make it come to live, as seen in the first few Chapters of Ezekiel, the Lord is still not sated in His adventures into salvation, known from the first, and performed to the last (Romans 8:29ff.). Since, as we learn in Ezekiel 34, the under-shepherds, priest and prophet, have failed on the whole to an extent so vast and evil as to remind almost of the present state of the Gentile world, which also WILL NOT HEED, though told in ever so many ways at ever so much expense of vigour, energy and funds. THEREFORE He declares that HE Himself will come and save, seek that which is lost, perform as the Good Shepherd in person, help the weak, deliver from the strong, shame the pretenders and present a wonder of rescue and deliverance to the sheep whose shepherds have fed themselves, muddied the waters, and stamped in them.
So Christ did, sent from the Father as in Isaiah 48:15ff., as also seen in John 3, and so did He specifically seek and save what was lost, rebuke the proud, expose the hypocrites, fulfilling all as predicted, He Himself, God Himself, manifest in human form; for this is what was meant by HIS coming PERSONALLY to do the job Himself! and so it was precisely as in Philippians 2:1-12.
FOURTHLY, there is the propulsion for these vast undertakings. That is, as already seen in Ezekiel 18 and 33, summed up with power in the 33:11 verse, where in asseveration, affirmation, negation, exhortation, explanation you find the appeal of the Lord, who has NO pleasure in the death of the wicked, for He calls repeatedly and in great resounding appeal, presenting the case succinctly. WHY DIE ? He is not the One who has any pleasure in the death of the wicked, so TURN, and as in Ch 18, get you a new heart! Such are available on application. To be sure, it is only as the Father grants, but if you apply, the grant is sure; and it is not He who limits the grant by a certain spiritual stinginess, for the exact opposite is the scope of His vast desire to give life which does not die.
Thus the soul that tries to blame God for his non-salvation is far amiss. God has done all as in John 3 and Micah 2-3, to the uttermost conceivable in love, and without using the frightful domineering force for which so many in Islam are justly infamous, He invites all, takes all who come and ensures none who may in love be found, is lost. Such is His propulsive will as in Colossians 1:19ff., where it PLEASED the Father, having made peace through the blood of the cross, to reconcile ALL things, yes all whether in heaven or one earth, to Himself.
This is not sticking it in your back pocket as you run, but effusing it to your face and into your heart, where the waters reach as in Ezekiel 47, where marshiness from long rebellion is not the case, where scope is still there; and NOTHING is too hard for the Lord. Apply in faith and new life is yours, prepared in repentance, seized in the gift of grace, endowed with eternity, ensured in predestination; for ANY who is justified will be glorified, and thus when sin is forgiven through faith in His blood, the whole gift of salvation in Christ's vicarious sacrifice, then as faith adopts the glory of His resurrection, so it receives the assured result of the resurrection likewise of the one who believes.
There is the propulsion in love and mercy and love of mercy, for all these provisions and donations and appeals and actions, activities, entreaties and perseverances.
FIFTHLY, there is the prediction. Thus the death date of the sacrificial offering, the Messiah, on this earth, is given in Daniel 9:24-27 (cf. Christ the Citadel, Ch. 2), the mode of death in Psalm 22, Isaiah 52-53, the horror of this sacrilege in Micah 5:1-3, where also the birth-place for the incarnate God is named, the betrayal price is given in Zechariah 11, the reason for the action is given in Isaiah 53 for example, the result in Isaiah 54, the freedom of acceptance without price, in Isaiah 55, the focus on an actual child of a virgin, in Isaiah 7 as also seen in Matthew 1*1, the reality of the bodily resurrection of the Messiah in Psalm 16, His preparation in heart before He came in Psalm 40 and so on and on .... This is no sudden impulse, but an eternal thrust into time, at the stated time, for all time (cf. Hebrews 8-9, 6:19).
SIXTHLY,
there is the pathological basis for the divine action to remedy.
Thus in Proverbs we read
of the foolishness which so readily oppresses man. Proverbs 28:26 advises us
that "he who trusts in his own heart is a fool, but
whoever walks wisely will be delivered," while in 14:14 we find
that
"the backslider in heart will be filled with
his own ways, but a good man will be satisfied from above." "ALL," the
apostle declares in Romans 6:23, "have sinned and
fallen short of the glory of God." Sin kills as sand spoils a motor.
Redemption kills in payment, and the Messiah paid it, and for it, and it is His,
and He gives freely from it. It is eternal (Hebrews 9:12).
SEVENTHLY, there is the perfection of attainment, as seen above, to which one adds nothing, for nothing is to be added to it. It is the Lord's attainment in the atonement, and many are bought with the death which breaking death, like a fifth column, provides life eternal, through this work of the just for the unjust, to bring us to God. How miraculous it is for each child, born anew into the kingdom of heaven through the washing and regeneration of the Holy Spirit, based on this atonement of the Lord Himself, to have been reached. What a series and sequence of marvels from the day of the Lord till this present day. How wonderful to reflect, then of the day when all is over, the Lord speaks thus of His redeemed flock:
"They shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts,
On the day that I make them My jewels.
And I will spare them
As a man spares his own son who serves him."
That sinners should shine, become jewels and be treated as His own children, even by God, the faithful, unchanging, reliable, trustworthy, tender-hearted God seeking and finding the runaways and running their lives most cordially, and yet not in mere indulgence, but with the discipline of mission for Him, to reach and teach and preach to and help others, what is this ? It is both a startling wonder and a culmination not in catastrophe, as is the case of wilfulness, but in consummation.
NOTE