THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL

The Gospel is hidden throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. It is also hidden in the Book of Ezekiel, even if in plain view. But why is it hidden? I think that there are many reasons for this. For one thing, the Gospel is an offense – something that Israel was not ready to accept. They regarded any hint of it as unfair. Therefore, God confronted them about their charge:

·       “Yet you [Israel] say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way not just? Is it not your ways that are not just? When a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and does injustice, he shall die for it; for the injustice that he has done he shall die. Again, when a wicked person turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he shall save his life. Because he considered and turned away from all the transgressions that he had committed, he shall surely live; he shall not die. Yet the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ O house of Israel, are my ways not just? Is it not your ways that are not just? (Ezekiel 18:25-29 ESV; 33:17, 20)

What did Israel regard as unjust? God would punish the “righteous person” even if they turned from there righteousness the last day of their life. He would also exonerate the “wicked person” if he turned (repented) from his wickedness in the end.

From Israel’s perspective, this was unfair. The righteous had been performing righteous acts throughout their whole life and just turned away in the end. Certainly, according to Israel, his righteous deeds should have outweighed the few unrighteous deeds at the end. Likewise, the wickedness of the wicked should have outweighed whatever good the wicked had done in the end.

Make sense? Only if you believe that any of us can be good enough to deserve or merit anything good from God. Clearly, from a NT perspective, it is all about the grace of God and not about our merit. Paul therefore rhetorically asked:

·       “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. (Romans 11:34-36)

God never owes us anything besides destruction (Romans 6:23). Therefore, Paul credited God even for his labors:

·       But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. (1 Corinthians 15:10)

Perhaps surprisingly, this is also the message of the OT. God had corrected Job with these very words:

·       Who has first given to me, that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine. (Job 41:11)

God will never be beholden to us, but the OT saints understood that we are dependent upon His mercies, the only source of our blessedness:

·       Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. (Psalm 32:1-2)

Why is blessedness a matter of the mercy of God and not of our merit? Because no one had merit before God! Israel’s sacrificial system declared this. Whenever an Israelite sinned, they had to offer an animal to be slain in place of them. In his prayer, Solomon reminded Israel that everyone needed the mercy of God, even the “righteous”:

·       “If they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you are angry with them and give them to an enemy, so that they are carried away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near, yet if they turn their heart in the land to which they have been carried captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captors, saying, ‘We have sinned and have acted perversely and wickedly,’ if they repent with all their mind and with all their heart in the land of their enemies, who carried them captive, and pray to you toward their land, which you gave to their fathers, the city that you have chosen, and the house that I have built for your name, then hear in heaven your dwelling place their prayer and their plea, and maintain their cause and forgive…(1 Kings 8:46-50)

However, Israel quickly forgot these lessons about the mercy of God. Instead of allowing the Law to humble them by showing them that they were under a curse for any infraction (Deuteronomy 27:26; Galatians 3:10), Israel convinced themselves that they could atone for their sins through their good deeds. They could buy-off God (Romans 9:31-33). However, Scripture corrects this self-righteous thinking:

·       Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life, for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice, that he should live on forever and never see the pit. (Psalm 49:7-9; Job 33:24; Romans 3:19-20)

Israel should have known that they were dependent upon the mercy of God and not the bribery of good deeds or law-keeping. This is why they accused God of injustice. However, it was they who were unjust and needed the mercy of God. The Prophets of Israel continued to confront them with their sins. However, Israel would continue to insist that they were righteous:

·       “Though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, the stain of your guilt is still before me, declares the Lord GOD. How can you say, ‘I am not unclean, I have not gone after the Baals’? Look at your way in the valley; know what you have done…Also on your skirts is found the lifeblood of the guiltless poor; you did not find them breaking in. Yet in spite of all these things you say, ‘I am innocent; surely his anger has turned from me.’ Behold, I will bring you to judgment for saying, ‘I have not sinned.’” (Jeremiah 2:22-23, 34-35)

It was only because Israel had been self-deluded and self-righteous that they were able to charge God with injustice. They were unwilling to see their own injustice.

And how about the righteous who only turned from God in the end? They weren’t righteous in themselves. Even the righteous depended upon the mercy of God.

Ezekiel also prophesied about a fulfilled righteousness that would come through the promised New Covenant:

·       “For thus says the Lord GOD: I will deal with you as you have done, you who have despised the oath in breaking the [Mosaic] covenant, yet I will remember my [Abrahamic] covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant. Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you take your sisters, both your elder and your younger, and I give them to you as daughters, but not on account of the covenant with you. I will establish my [New] covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the LORD,  that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord GOD.” (Ezekiel 16:59-63)

God’s mercy would prevail in the end. He Himself would perform His mysterious atonement – His payment – for the sins of the world. They would see their sins and their Savior and would never again bring charges against Him.