This is a hard chapter to read, one I certainly can't remember every being preached on before, or read aloud.
Ezekiel uses shocking language, crude analogies, to shock his listeners in self-awareness.
I apologize for the lateness of this post, I didn't have much time to study it, so what comes next is copied directly from Rayburn's study of Ezekiel 23.
In this atmosphere of complacency and self-congratulation, hardly anyone faces the facts about himself or herself; hardly anyone is prepared to acknowledge the truth about his character or her behavior and, as a result, virtually no one is prepared to accept that God is genuinely angry with the wicked every day and disgusted with the behavior of human beings in general and many who claim to be his people in particular. Judah was doing many things that were direct and public transgressions of God’s commandments, but she found it impossible to believe that God was really offended and that he was actually going to punish her as severely as he repeatedly said he would. Ezekiel’s language in v. 20 is a bucket of cold water to the face or a slap or a punch to the solar plexus. It is a way of getting the people to face the fact that God is disgusted with what they are doing and how they are living; he is angry with them in the holiest way; and they will pay dearly for their contempt for him and for his covenant and for his law.
...far more sinister error. It is antinomianism, not legalism that is the real danger and the capital error of the natural human heart. “Anti” against; nomos law. By antinomianism I mean the sinner’s quarrel with the authority of God and his law. It takes many forms, but its most basic form is the disinclination to take sin seriously, to take God’s holiness seriously and, therefore, to take God’s law seriously. The antinomian is not concerned about the fact that he is not doing what God requires him to do. He doesn’t think it matters all that much.
(me again)
Ezekiel is prophesying, preaching, pleading with these people to look their sin square in the face, to face the cold hard truth, and turn back to God before the judgment comes.
1 comment:
I loved Legge's point that our sin is always more serious to God than it is to us, because He is more holy than we are!
Sometimes we truly need to be shocked out of our apathy towards sin, and that's certainly what this chapter does!
Post a Comment