…Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we rot away because of them. How then can we live?
Ezekiel 33:10
The gospel is not only present in the New Testament, but the Old Testament as well. The Old Testament is just as saturated with signs pointing to Christ and the ever-present work of God in salvation.
Ezekiel is another prophetic book that exposes the wretched state unbelievers are in, the need for a Saviour and the awesome work of the Trinity in salvation, from beginning to end. There are numerous verses that relate to the gospel in Ezekiel, but for the purpose of this article, I have chosen verses from chapters 33, 36 and 37.
Our Putrid State
…Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we rot away because of them. How then can we live?
Ezekiel 33:10
Ezekiel lived among the Jewish exiles in the Babylonian settlement, Tel-abib. He spoke to a people whom God had exiled due to their continued rebellion against God. In this verse, the Israelites finally seem to have gotten the reason for their captivity, but it was too late. They finally come to the realisation that they had sinned against the true and living God. The God that had brought them out from slavery, had shown an extraordinary level of patience and forbearance and had been the only reason the nation still existed.
They were finally convicted with the sin that they were revelling in, the immoral lifestyle they had been pursuing and the lifeless idols they had been worshipping.
When we are faced with the holiness of God (as mentioned in a previous article), we are confronted with our sinfulness. We cry out like Isaiah,“Woe is me! For I am lost… my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5) Like the Israelites here, we see the magnitude of our sins and the desperate state we are in.
God’s Displeasure
Even though we are morally repugnant to God’s holy nature, He still shows His displeasure at the death of the wicked while expressing His eagerness for us to turn from our ways.
Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?
Ezekiel 33:11
Realising that we are sinners, and we are guilty of God’s divine wrath and justice, the question remains: How can we make it right with God? What do we have to do in order to escape hell and make it to heaven? The universally accepted response is: Do as many good deeds as possible, hoping God overlooks the wrong and accepts you on the basis of your good actions.
…The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him when he transgresses… the righteous shall not be able to live by his righteousness when he sins. Though I say to the righteous that he shall surely live, yet if he trusts in his righteousness and does injustice, none of his righteous deeds shall be remembered, but in his injustice that he has done he shall die.
Ezekiel 33:12-13
As God makes it clear in these verses, it is impossible for the “righteous” man to ever achieve true righteousness before God. Before men, one might be able to appear good, sincere and honourable, but before the purity of God, he is just another pile of bones.
The Wicked
14Again, though I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ yet if he turns from his sin and does what is just and right, 16None of the sins that he has committed shall be remembered against him. He has done what is just and right; he shall surely live.
Ezekiel 33:14,16
How about the wicked? Why do they have a better shot at getting to heaven than the righteous? Is God being partial here? Is he favouring the wicked over the righteous?
The righteous and the wicked here both realise that they are sinners and are deserving of God’s judgement, but while the righteous believe that they can make it right with God by continuing to do good deeds, the wicked realise that they can never merit eternal life because their wicked acts are far greater than any good deed they will ever do.
Ironically, the so-called “good deeds” that the world labours to perform is not righteousness in the sight of God. These deeds are done, not out of a love for God and to bring Him the glory, but to make oneself more worthy of heaven. The righteous, believing themselves to be righteous, have proved to themselves that they are in fact, not righteous! It’s like asking someone whether they’re humble and they reply, “Yes, absolutely. I’m as humble as they come.”
God at work
So what hope do we have? What chance is there for any of us of being right before God?
5Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”
Ezekiel 37:5-6
We are dead in our trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1) , we aren’t merely drowning, we are dead, pulled to the bottom of the sea by the weight of all the sins we have committed. There is no way of escape from God’s imminent judgement. No matter how hard we try, no amount of good can outdo the wrong. God cannot and will not overlook any evil (Habakkuk 1:13).
However, though we are not be able to save ourselves, God alone is more than able to save.
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
Ezekiel 36:25-27
Notice how it is God who does all the work in this magnificent process of salvation. He cleanses so that our sins might not be counted against us, He gives a new heart so that we will be able to love Him, He sends the Spirit within us so that we may finally be able to live righteously.
This all is possible through Christ. Only Jesus was able to live the righteous, spotless and perfect life that we could only dream of. Only He was able to die unjustly so that we, who are unjust, might be found worthy. And only He was able to rise up again so that we might be raised with Him in the end.
He bridges the once infinite gulf between God and man. He restores the once irreconcilable relationship. He resolves our hopeless dilemma.
Like the wicked man described in Ezekiel 33:16, none of our sins that we have committed will be remembered against us, and we shall surely live because the blood of Christ has washed us clean.
We can cry out with Paul when he writes “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? ” But as Paul immediately burst out in praise, we too can cry “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25)
