Ezekiel 18:30 - Meaning and Application

Here we have the conclusion and the practical lesson of the whole matter. After a fair hearing before sound reason, the verdict is on God’s side, and it is clear that his ways are just. You might expect the sentence to be condemnation, nothing less than, “Go, you cursed, into everlasting fire.” But here is a wonder of mercy: the time of grace and God’s patience is still being extended.

So, even though God will at last judge each person according to their ways, he still waits to show grace. He ends with a call to repentance and a promise of pardon for all who repent.

There are four necessary duties here, and they all point to the same thing. We must repent, meaning we must change our minds and our ways. We must be sorry for what we have done wrong, be ashamed of it, and go as far as we can toward undoing it.

We must turn ourselves from all our sins (Ezekiel 18:30, Ezekiel 18:32). That means turning around, away from sin, and even turning against it as an enemy we hate. At the same time, we must turn to God as the friend we love.

We must cast away all our sins. We must leave them and forsake them, with a firm resolve never to return to them. We must give sin a divorce, break every agreement we have made with it, throw it overboard like the sailors who threw Jonah out because he had brought the storm, cast it out of the soul, and put it to death as a condemned criminal.

We must also make ourselves a new heart and a new spirit. This was promised in Ezekiel 11:19, but here it is commanded. We must do what we can, and then God will not fail to give his grace. Augustine explains this well: God does not command impossible things, but by his commands he warns us to do what we can and to ask for what we cannot.

There are also four strong reasons given to press these calls to repentance. First, repentance is the only sure way to keep the ruin our sins are leading us toward. “So iniquity shall not be your ruin,” which means that if we do not repent, sin will be our ruin here and forever. But if we do repent, we are safe, like brands pulled out of the fire.

Second, if we do not repent, we will certainly perish, and our blood will be on our own heads. “Why will you die, O house of Israel?” It is a terrible thing to choose death and condemnation instead of life and salvation. The reason sinners die is that they will die. They keep going down the road that leads to death, and they will not accept the terms on which life is offered.

Third, the God of heaven does not delight in our ruin, but desires our good (Ezekiel 18:32). “I have no pleasure in the death of him that dies.” That means he takes pleasure in the recovery of those who repent. This should both assure us and encourage us to repent.

Fourth, if we repent, we are made alive forever. “Turn yourselves, and live.” The one who says, “Repent,” is really saying, “Live.” He is setting life and death before us, so the choice is plain.