AUSTRALIAN BIBLE CHURCH

August 12, 2012

A Presbyterian body committed to Christ without Qualification and

The Bible without Compromise

EZEKIEL 18:19-31 and 33:11

JUSTICE DOES NOT EVACUATE FROM TRUTH

NOR MERCY FROM MAN

WHEN HE IS PREPARED  TO RECEIVE IT

  I  THE CONTROVERSY

There was a strange controversy between God and many in  Israel. Oddly, they seemed to feel that there was too much mercy. GOD for His part, was prepared to pardon the sinner when he turned back in repentance and faith, to do otherwise; but man felt this unfair. Moreover, God would not endorse punishing the son for the father, or the father for the son. The soul that sins shall die: unless mercy is sought  and obtained where it MAY be  found (Isaiah 55).

The divine message, at this point, is clear: There is a gap of grace. The term transliterated agape in New Testament relates  vitally. God  WILL NOT EXACT the past of the returning sinner, but pardons; and He will not exact on one family  member because of another. Man is made in the divine image,  and each is to be so treated. Not  fair! said the controversialists in Israel. Why not ? Can God not do with His own what He will ? Moreover WHAT is He doing but pardoning, so that He is not trying to exact,  like a flinty usurer, what He can get, but is interested in gaining the soul and  spirit in loving obedience and wise living, where He may  without violence, achieve this. It is a matter of a better perspective for a better result than mere judicial  penny-pinching. Far more, life itself is the exaction that  COULD be made of one  as of all, if you are going to despise divine grace: the soul  that  sins shall die (Ezekiel18:20).

Having  made such things clear, God then shows them a deeper heart, a more profound love, a mercy that delights to  operate (as in  Micah 7:19-20). one that both would cast all their sins into the sea, and subdues their iniquities, casting aside payments, swallowing up errors and strengthening with self-discipline and desire, to serve Him in fruitfulness of function and peace of heart.

EZEKIEL 18:30-32

2  THE RECOMMENDED REALISM

There is then  a series of prescriptions  for pardon and peace.

THE CALL TO REPENT

TURNING FROM  TRANSGRESSIONS - ALL OF THEM

SO AVOIDING INIQUITY AS RUIN

CAST AWAY THE BREACHES

GET A NEW HEART AND SPIRIT

DO NOT DIE, WHAT'S IN IT!

GOD IS NOT HE WHO DESIRES IT

Jeremiah in  31:31, dealing with the virgin birth (a woman in an  entire novelty encompassing a man with divine intent), deals also with the New Covenant, in Ezekiel  16:60 called  the everlasting covenant; and likewise he indicates in 16:19-21, that the revelation of God is to come to the Gentiles, who will cast  away their pallid substitutes for truth, their vacuities, emptinesses, seeing them now as lies. Indeed, Isaiah in 45 appeals to the "ends of the earth" to look to the Lord and be saved, just as 49-55 tells of the basis of the new and everlasting covenant. The  justice judgment of the Lord  in His equity, is  for one  and for all, essentialised in Christ. It does not grow old, even though the theocratic State of Israel would cease to be its mode of exposition (Isaiah 65:13-15).

That State had its own place in His plan (Isaiah 42,49), the blind to be brought back to their land, the very opposite of the spiritual, those who had been  near and were now far  from  the  Lord, those the Lord's servants specialising in blindness! God is deep as Paul points out in  Romans 11, and has many plans; but only one Gospel. His witness is in all things, both small and great; but His focus is on salvation.

The place of grace and equity, pardon and peace, it is in the Gospel for Jew and Gentile  alike,  so let us learn from Ezekiel 18. Bear your  own sins, do not seek to  export. Find your own regeneration from the regal pardoning power of Christ. Do not try to have it by proxy. Repent in your own heart, do not participate in a group mood instead.

EZEKIEL 33:11

3  THE PASSIONATE PRONOUNCEMENT

Here the prelude to the announcement is the need to be faithful in warning,  and it deals with watchmen. If you speak and they  do not hear, you are clear. But SPEAK! Do other souls not matter to you ? They matter to God. How much do they matter to Him ?

In 33:11, we find these components, in theme as in 18, but in this place with individuality.

THE DIVINE DECLARATION IS AS  DEEP AS HIS VERY LIFE.

NO KINK CALLS FOR DIVINE PLEASURE IN DEATH, HOWEVER WICKED THE ONE.

THE DESIRE IS TO REPEL IT AND TURNING TO THE CREATOR, TO LIVE.

THE CALL IS REPETITIVE, EXTREME IN PATHOS, DEEP IN INTENSITY,

'TURN', FOR WHY PUT IN A TENDER FOR DEATH.

On this occasion, passion  and  depth conspire to produce an infinitely clear depiction of divine love. There is nothing hidden; there are no mysteries. God is open. With ALL His being to the life itself, He has one desire for man, even for the expressly wicked. It is that they live, that they do not suffer ruin, and He calls repeatedly as in  Matthew 23:37, with an insistence unmistakeable, to one  as to  all. There are no aristocratic chambers: God wants ALL as in John 3,  where His mission in Christ was NOT  condemnation but salvation, the world into which He came (which is one) being the  object likewise of His desire, and that, for its salvation.

Whoever you are and wherever you are fallen, this is His desire, unmistakeable, unshakeable, implacable, otherwise specifiable only by the most  profound contradiction. If you hear  it, respond.  If you want it,  let no theological anodyne or addition confound you. Come and get it!