Ezekiel 33:10 - Meaning and Application

These verses repeat the same truth we saw earlier in Ezekiel 18:20 and following. They clearly state the terms on which people stand before God, just as the earlier passage clearly stated the terms on which ministers stand. So it is no surprise that God repeats them here, even though their substance has already been given.

Notice first the complaints the people made against God’s dealings with them. God was opposing them through his providence, but their stubborn hearts were still not humbled. They worked hard to defend themselves, even while accusing God in the process. Their complaints had two parts, and both added guilt to their sin and deeper misery to their punishment.

First, they complained about his promises and kindness, as if there were no sincerity in them. Ezekiel had told them before, “You will waste away because of your sins” (Ezekiel 24:23). He had ended his warnings to Judah and Jerusalem with that message. Now they twisted it into an accusation, as if he had meant it absolutely, to drive them into hopelessness. In fact, he had spoken conditionally, to lead them to repentance. This is what happens when people with corrupt minds twist the words of God’s ministers and look for reasons to quarrel.

God offered them life and happiness, but they claimed he was mocking them with words they could never reach. “If our wrongs and sins are still on us, as you keep saying,” they argued, “and if we must waste away in them and live out a miserable captivity with no help from repentance, how can we live? If that is our fate, there is no remedy. We die. We perish. We all perish.” It is common for people who were bold and careless when warned against sin to fall into despair when called to repent. Then they conclude there is no hope of life for them.

Second, they complained about his warnings and judgments, as if there were no fairness in them. They said, “The way of the Lord is not equal” (Ezekiel 18:25). In other words, they acted as if God were unfair, partial, and too severe toward sin and sinners.

God answers both complaints with a clear and full reply. To those who feared there was no mercy left for them, he gives a solemn promise that he is ready to show mercy. When they spoke of wasting away in their sins, God quickly sent the prophet to tell them that their condition was sad, but not hopeless. There was still hope in Israel.

God has no pleasure in the ruin of sinners, and he does not desire it. If they destroy themselves, he will still be honored in it, but that is not what he takes delight in. What he delights in is his goodness, and he would rather sinners turn and live. He has said it, and he has sworn it. By these two unchangeable things, both of which make it impossible for God to lie, we have strong comfort. He swears by himself, since there is no one greater, saying, “As I live.” They wondered whether they could live even if they repented and changed. God answers, yes, as surely as he lives, true repentant sinners will live too, because their life is hidden with Christ in God.

God is also sincere and serious when he calls sinners to repent. “Turn, turn from your evil way,” he says. To repent means to turn away from evil, and that is what God requires. He urges it again and again: “Turn, turn.” He longs for them to be persuaded to turn, and to turn quickly, without delay. He will also enable them to do it, if they will only shape their lives toward the Lord (Hosea 5:4). He has promised to pour out his Spirit on them (Proverbs 1:23). And he will receive them, because this is not only what he commands, but what he warmly invites them to do.

If sinners perish in their refusal to repent, the blame is entirely their own. They die because they choose to die. In this they act against reason. “Why will you die, O house of Israel?” God would have heard them, but they would not listen.

Those who complained that God was unfair are answered with the rule God uses in judging people. That rule is so clearly just that anyone can see it. The Jewish nation, as a nation, was already dead and ruined beyond recovery. So the prophet turns to individuals, and the rule for them is much like the rule for nations (Jeremiah 18:8-10). If God speaks about a nation to build and plant it, and it later does evil, he will take back his kindness and leave it to ruin. But if he speaks about a nation to uproot and destroy it, and it repents, he will cancel the sentence and save it. The same is true here.

In short, the most impressive religious people, if they fall away, will surely perish forever in their turning from God. And the most openly wicked people, if they repent, will surely be made happy forever in returning to God. This is repeated again and again because it needs to be thought about again and again, and preached to our own hearts again and again. It especially needed to be pressed on this dull and senseless people, who said that God’s way was not fair. These rules of judgment are so plainly just that no other proof is needed beyond repeating them.

If those who once made a strong profession of faith throw it off, leave God’s good ways, and grow careless, worldly, and controlled by desire, then the profession they once made will not help them at all. Their religious actions, by which they kept up the appearance of faith for a long time, will not save them. They will surely perish in their guilt (Ezekiel 33:12, Ezekiel 33:13, Ezekiel 33:18).

God says of the righteous person that he will surely live (Ezekiel 33:13). He says this through his word and through his ministers. A person who lives rightly has reason to hear this in his own heart, and from his neighbors as well. “He shall live,” they may say. Surely such a person must be blessed. And it is certain that if he keeps going in righteousness, and if he is truly sincere in it, he will live. He will remain in God’s love and be happy in that love forever.

But righteous people, who have a good opinion of themselves and are well thought of by others, are still in danger if they trust in their own righteousness. That is how the case is described here: if he trusts in his own goodness and commits sin, and even makes a practice of it, if he does not merely stumble but turns into a false path and stays there.

This may be the case of a righteous person who has trusted in his own goodness. Many people who seemed very godly have been ruined by pride and self-confidence. He leans on the value of his own righteousness and thinks he has already made God so much his debtor that he may now dare to do wrong. He imagines that he has enough good deeds stored up to cover whatever evil he does later.

Or he trusts in the strength of his own righteousness. He thinks he is so settled in virtue that he can put himself into any temptation and not be overcome. By depending on his own ability, he is led into sin. Once a person grows bold near the edge of sin, he is soon pulled into its depths. This destroyed the Pharisees, who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and thought their long prayers and fasting twice a week would make up for devouring widows’ houses.

If righteous people turn to sin and do not return to righteousness, they will certainly perish in their sin, and all their former righteousness will be forgotten. Their prayers, their giving, and every good deed will no longer be counted. They will be overlooked as if they had never done them. The righteousness of the righteous will not save him from God’s wrath or the curse of the law on the day of his sin.

When a person becomes a traitor and rebel against his rightful ruler, he cannot defend himself by saying that he once was loyal and did useful service. That will not help him live. His former righteousness will give no comfort to God’s justice or to his own conscience when he sins. Instead, it will make his turning from God look even worse. For that sin he committed, he shall die (Ezekiel 33:13). Again, he shall die because of it (Ezekiel 33:18), and the blame is his own.

On the other hand, if those who have lived wickedly repent and reform, giving up their evil ways and becoming godly, their sins will be pardoned, and they will be counted righteous and saved, if they keep on in that change. God says to the wicked, “You shall surely die.” Your present path leads to destruction, and the pay of sin is death. This warning was meant to keep the righteous man moving on in righteousness, but he misused it and was encouraged to sin. The same warning is meant to frighten the wicked man away from his sins, and he may use it well and be stirred to return to God and his duty.

Many wicked people, rushing toward ruin, have been changed by God’s grace and brought to repentance and a holy life. He turns from his sin (Ezekiel 33:14) and is resolved to have nothing more to do with it. As proof of his repentance for wrong done, he restores the pledge (Ezekiel 33:15) that he had taken harshly from the poor, and gives back what he had stolen unfairly from the rich. He does more than stop doing evil. He learns to do what is right, and he practices what is lawful before God and man. This is a great change, because only a little while before he neither feared God nor respected people.

Such great and blessed changes have often been worked by God’s grace. The man who was walking the path of death and destruction now walks in the ways of life, in God’s commandments, which have life in them (Proverbs 12:28) and life at the end of them (Matthew 19:17). He keeps going in that good way without committing iniquity. He is still weak, but sin no longer rules over him. He does not regret his repentance, and he does not go back to the gross sins he once allowed himself.

The person who truly repents and returns will escape the ruin he was heading toward, and his past sins will not block his acceptance with God. Let him not waste away in his guilt, for if he confesses and gives it up, he will find mercy. He shall surely live, he shall not die (Ezekiel 33:15). Again, he shall surely live (Ezekiel 33:16). Again, because he has done what is right and lawful, he shall live by it (Ezekiel 33:19).

But will his former sins still be remembered against him? No, he will not be punished for them (Ezekiel 33:12). Though the wickedness of the wicked was very serious, he will not fall because of it on the day he turns from it. What was once his grief will not become his ruin. Now that he has truly separated himself from sin, he will no longer be separated from God. More than that, he will not even be reproached for those sins (Ezekiel 33:16). None of the sins he committed will be mentioned to him, either to weaken his pardon, lessen his comfort, or dim the glory prepared for him.

Put all this together, and judge whether the Lord’s way is not fair. It shows why God is right in destroying sinners and why he is glorified in saving those who repent. The conclusion is this (Ezekiel 33:20): “O house of Israel, though you are all involved now in the same trouble, there will still be a difference made between people in their spiritual and eternal state, and I will judge each of you by his ways.”

Though they were sent into captivity together, like good fish and bad fish caught in the same net, God will there separate the precious from the worthless and repay each person according to his works. So God’s way is fair and beyond objection. But as for the children of your people, God speaks of them as he did of Moses’ people (Exodus 32:7): “They are your people; I can scarcely own them as mine.” Their way is unfair. Their habit of arguing with God and his prophets is foolish and unreasonable. In every dispute between God and his creatures, it will always be found that he is right and they are wrong.