Ezekiel - Lesson 6

Lesson number six. So this was not just a show. Proclaiming the fall of Jerusalem, Ezekiel 5, 5-17. If we hear Ezekiel 5, 5-17 read orally, it is not surprising that many in our time have trouble with the first testament. And it's no wonder people prefer to call this part of the Bible the Old Testament rather than the first. That sort of gives them license to discard it. Indeed, of all the questions I get about this part of the Bible, the one I hear most often and one that is expressed with the most passion is, how can you worship the God of the Old Testament? He's so mean. He is so angry. He seems so graceless. It's texts like this one that make influential pastors like Andy Stanley want to say, first century church leaders unhitched the church from the worldview, value systems, and regulations of the Jewish scriptures. Peter, James, Paul elected to unhitch the Christian faith from their Jewish scriptures. And my friends, we must as well.The Bible did not create Christianity. The resurrection of Jesus created and launched Christianity. Your whole house of Old Testament cards can come tumbling down. Really? End of quotation. This includes the book of Ezekiel, and chapter 6 pours gasoline on that brush fire. On the surface, verse 13 is as offensive as it gets. Verse 13, when my anger will be spent and I will have vented my fury against them, then I will be appeased. And when I have spent all my fury against them, they will know that I am Yahweh. I have spoken out of my passion. Really? Is God really this petulant? Is it really only about releasing the pressure of his pent-up anger? What sort of God is this? A scholarly friend of mine from Sweden, but who teaches in Aberdeen, Scotland at the moment, she appeals to texts like this to argue that while we accept the authority of all scripture, that does not mean that all the pictures of God that are painted in the scriptures are acceptable at face value. She calls this crisis literature, articulating the theological meaning of this national catastrophe as God's powerful and just act, God's powerful and just act of punishment of Judah's crimes. In a critical review of my work on Ezekiel 16, she suggests that when we encounter texts like this, we need to take the stances of Abraham and Moses and Amos and argue with God that he cannot do what the text says he is doing or he threatens to do to Jerusalem. This is not what God is really like. These are Ezekiel's attempts to explain what happened in 586 BC, and we should not try to justify God as if he needs our justification. Well, as I have tried to demonstrate in an article, the God Ezekiel wants us to meet which I presented to a gathering of Ezekiel scholars at the Society of Biblical Literature's annual meeting in San Francisco in 2012. I obviously cannot agree with this approach, but that leaves us with a huge problem. How can we domesticate this wild and violent text and reclaim it as our scripture? I must say at the outset, God has no need for me, a mere mortal, to justify him, and that's not my intent now. My concern is that we try to understand him and that we let God be God on his own terms rather than forcing him into more palatable molds that we create. As my scripture, this passage invites me to recognize that the passion that God exhibits in this text is an essential part of his character. Of course, in our day, when we have lost sight of God in all his glory and power and holiness and grace and compassion, and we look at life primarily from our short-sighted anthropocentric perspectives, texts like this are difficult to understand because they paint a picture of God, his cosmos, and humanity that we don't see. Even though the evidence of human depravity is everywhere and in our faces, we are writing and reading books with titles like I'm Okay, You're Okay by Thomas Harris, San Francisco, in 1964 published. By 2004, had sold more than 15 million copies and been translated into more than a dozen languages. This chapter and the world around us, not just the Bible, but the world around us, remind us that all that the name of the book should really be, I'm a mess, and so are you. But that wouldn't sell, and so we keep it. I'm okay, and you're okay. It's a delusion. How then shall we understand Ezekiel 5, and how shall we understand the God who painted this self-portrait with such dark colors? I begin by proposing a few principles to keep in mind when we hear this text and others like it in this book and elsewhere in the Bible. Even in the New Testament, Matthew 23, Jesus, whoa, oracles are the same. Or John 15, where Jesus says, any branch in me that doesn't bear fruit, he will cut off, let it dry up, and then burn. Or Revelation 8, 13, whoa, whoa, whoa, to those who dwell on the earth. The principles I offer may not all make us like Ezekiel's God more than many do, but they should help us understand why Ezekiel talked about God this way. Principle number one, we need to recognize the genre and source of the message Ezekiel was to proclaim. Many critics argue that the book of Ezekiel does not give us a true picture of God, or should we say, a picture of the true God, to use an optic metaphor. This is not a photograph of what God is really like. Rather, it is Ezekiel's impressionistic portrait of God. This means that he is not claiming to describe divine reality. Here the prophet is venting, trying to describe how he feels about God. Well, if we've listened to this text with both ears open, we could not be farther from the truth, unless, of course, we insist that here we have further proof of Ezekiel's own mental delusions, that is, his pathological psychiatric state. When we hear or read these texts, we must ask, who is talking? Earlier I noted that it cannot be Ezekiel's voice that we hear here. As we saw in 326, the Lord has tied his tongue. The prophet is restrained from declaring private thoughts, including his concerns about his own people. He may speak only what God opens his mouth to say, and then every speech must be prefaced with, thus has the Lord, Yahweh, declared. Accordingly, in chapter 5, we learn who is speaking from the divine speech formulas distributed throughout. Thus has the Lord, Yahweh, declared, 5-5. Therefore, thus has the Lord, Yahweh, declared, 5-7. Therefore, thus has the Lord, Yahweh, declared, 5-8. The declaration of the Lord, 5-11. Then they will know that I am Yahweh, I have spoken out of my passion, 5-13. I am Yahweh, I have spoken, 5-15. And I am Yahweh, I have spoken, 5-17. Who's talking? As Ezekiel records his present prophetic experience, he emphasizes that he is not the one talking. In fact, we do not actually know the very words he spoke to the people. This is a record of what God said to him, not what he said to the people. The only words we hear are those of Yahweh. Principle number two. We need to notice the deliberate structure of verses 5-17. When we read this passage aloud, it might sound fragmentary and seem to bounce all over the place like a football does with a bad punt. But when we look a little closer, the prophet's rhetorical strategy is clear. First, verses 5 and 6, the indictment of Jerusalem. Second, two announcements of judgment upon Jerusalem, 7-17. The first announcement, which divides into two parts, the initial accusation and sentence, 7-8. The second accusation and sentence, verses 9-10. And then you have the second announcement of judgment, 11-17, with an accusation, 11a. The sentence, 11b-17. And there are several dimensions to this sentence. He talks about Yahweh's attitude toward Jerusalem, 11-13, Yahweh's objective for Jerusalem, 14-15, and Yahweh's agents of death in Jerusalem, 16-17. As I intimated above, the Lord signals the transitions with formulas. Thus has the Lord declared, or therefore thus has the Lord declared, or therefore fathers will eat their children, or therefore as I live. That little particle, laccane, therefore, therefore, therefore. In view of what we just said, therefore, watch out. Principle number three, we must link the present text to the sign acts in 4.1-5.4. The Lord didn't explicitly say, this is what the specific action, sign actions, Ezekiel has performed mean. But the links are obvious. Reinforcing 4.1, the Lord opened the interpretive segment with, this is Jerusalem, 5.5. Now there's no doubt for the audience. We may imagine the prophet pointing to the map on the brick as he announced the topic with Yahweh's words, this is Jerusalem. The series of sign actions was all about the fate of their city. For the exiles, this message would be critical because they believed that so long as Jerusalem still stood, God was with them and their hope in the future was secure. After all, in Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the temple almost 400 years earlier, he had declared, when your people sin against you and ignite your anger and you hand them over to their enemies and from the land of their captivity and they pray to you toward this land which you gave to their fathers, the city that you have chosen and the house that I have built for your name, then here in heaven your dwelling place, their prayer and their plea and maintain their cause. So they may still have been thinking about that. But the links to the prophet's dramatic actions are also evidence in his portrayal of the city's inevitable fate. First, the reference to fathers eating their children and children eating their fathers, verse 10, alludes to the starvation that Ezekiel's siege diet in 4, 9 to 11 had portrayed. And of course this comes out of the covenant curses of Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. Second, the specific references to one-third of the population dying by famine and sword and one-third being scattered in every direction allude to what he had done with his hair, with reinforcement then at the end in verses 16 to 17. But why is this so important? Well, it reminds Ezekiel's audience and us as his 21st century AD audience that in chapter 4 Ezekiel was not playing games with his strange antics. Though after watching him and listening to him for many years, Ezekiel described their response to his prophetic antics in 33 as we heard earlier. They come to you for entertainment but they don't care one bit about what you're actually saying. You're a crooner with a beautiful voice and so let's all go hear him. But they hear your words but refuse to comply with them. But when it comes and come it certainly will, they will know that a prophet has been in their midst. This observation applied not only to the words that came from Ezekiel's lips but also from his sign act performances. Principle four, we must interpret Yahweh's fury in the light of the history of Yahweh's relationship with Israel and the mission to which he called his people. Here are a few small details that we should note. First, in verse 5 Ezekiel alluded to the significance of Jerusalem not only for Israel but for his cosmic plan. I have set her in the center of the nations with all countries around her, with countries all around her. When God chose Jerusalem as the place where he would reside, he did not have the kings build him a house because he was homeless, nor did he do this to provide Israel with a good luck charm, a rabbit's foot to ward off danger. His home was actually in heaven and from the beginning his purposes in choosing Jerusalem were revelatory. This was not merely any city among many. God had assigned her a position at the center of the universe on top of the world. Solomon had clearly recognized her place in God's economy in his prayer of dedication, 1 Kings 8 41 to 43. Likewise, when a foreigner who is not of your people Israel comes from a far country for your name's sake, for they shall hear of your great name and your mighty hand and of your outstretched arm, when he comes and prays toward this house here in heaven, your dwelling place, and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to you, in order that all the peoples of the earth may know your name, and fear you as do your people Israel, that they may know that this house that I have built is called by your name. Remarkable statements like this occur only in a handful of contexts in scripture. After the signs and wonders of Egypt, Yahweh had performed these magnificent and awesome signs in Egypt on Israel's behalf that the Egyptians might know that he is Yahweh, Exodus 7 5 14 4 and verse 18. After crossing the Jordan, then Yahweh your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over as Yahweh your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we passed over, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of Yahweh is mighty, and that you may fear Yahweh your God forever. Third, after David's defeat of Goliath, this day Yahweh will deliver you into my hand and I will strike you down and cut off your head, that's gory text, and I will give the dead bodies of the hosts of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that Yahweh saves, not with sword and spear, for the battle belongs to Yahweh, and he will give you into our hand. He says that to Goliath, and then Hezekiah's prayer in the face of Assyrian threats, O Yahweh the God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth, you have made heaven and earth. Incline your ear, O Yahweh, and hear. Open your eyes, O Yahweh, and see, and hear the words of Sennacherib the Assyrian, which he has sent to mock the living God. So now, O Yahweh your God, save us, please, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O Yahweh, alone are God. 2 Kings 19, 15 to 19. These statements all link directly to the mission for which Yahweh had called Israel in the beginning. Exodus 19, 4, when they get to Sinai, the first words we hear from Yahweh's mouth, you yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you'll indeed listen to my voice and keep my covenant, you'll be my treasured possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is mine, and you will be for me a kingdom and priests and a holy nation. And then in Deuteronomy 26, 17 to 19. Today you have had Yahweh declare, I will be your God. You shall walk in my ways and keep my ordinances and commands and my demands, and you shall listen to my voice. Today Yahweh has you declare that you would be his treasured people, just as he declared to you, and that you would keep all your commands that he would set you high above all the nations that he has made for praise, fame, and honor, and that you should be a holy people belonging to Yahweh your God, just as he had promised. The Lord had chosen Israel to be his agent of revelation and grace to all the peoples of the earth. Jerusalem symbolized both his commitment to his own people, yes, but also to his grace shining to the whole world. More than a century before the birth of Ezekiel, after the demise of the northern kingdom of Israel, Isaiah and Micah had spoken of that great day in the future, in the last days when the mountain of Yahweh's temple will be established as the highest of the mountains. It will be exalted above all hills, and all nations will stream to it. Many people will come and say, come, let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his way, so we may walk in his paths. In that day the Torah will go out from Zion, and the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem. He will judge between the nations and settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. This was the mission, that they might be a light to the nations. Second, in terms of Israel's mission and her prospects, at the end of verse 513, Yahweh spoke of the time when his anger will be spent. That's hopeful. Then the people will know that in the past he had declared his warnings of judgment in his passion. This statement is key to the chapter, if not to Ezekiel's whole prophetic ministry. Yahweh's announcement of the impending destruction of Jerusalem and the decimation of the population had been driven by his passion. The word kinah occurs frequently in Ezekiel's preaching, 8.3, 8.5, 16.38, 16.42, 23.25, 36.5, 36.6, and 38.19. It's unfortunate that most English translations render this word as jealousy, because we tend to associate this expression with envy. But this leads us in a totally wrong direction of what is God jealous. The English word zeal is closer, but we rarely use that word in everyday speech. Our word passion comes closest, though here we must be cautious, because this word often carries strong sexual overtones. That's a problem. When used theologically, as Ezekiel does persistently, the Hebrew word kinah reminds us of the legitimate, indeed amazing, passion of God for the one he loves. In the first testament, God's kinah passion will be aroused, ignited, when a legitimate and wholesome relationship that he has with Israel is threatened by interference from a third party. Proverbs 6, 32 to 35, uses the word in its everyday context. Here we have it. The one who commits adultery lacks sense. Whoever does so destroys himself. He will get a beating and dishonor, and his disgrace will never be removed. For passion enrages a husband, and he will show no mercy when he takes revenge. See, it's a marital word. God is so committed to Israel that he cannot tolerate the thought of another God coming and claiming her for himself. This word expresses an entirely appropriate response by a husband or wife when another lover enters the picture. Since the marriage metaphor provides a basic image for understanding the Lord's covenant with Israel, the description of his response to infidelity as kinah is logical, but it's also natural. Indeed, kanah is not merely an attribute of God, it's an epithet. I am Yahweh your God, Deuteronomy 5, 9, an impassioned God, el kanah, or Deuteronomy 4, 24. He is consuming fire, impassioned God. At Sinai, Yahweh had committed himself to Israel, a devotion he expressed by his gracious redemption of the nation from bondage. And as their gracious Savior and suzerain Lord, he rightfully expected grateful and exclusive loyalty in return, out of gratitude, of course, not just out of duty. Remarkably, the gods of other peoples did not mind if their devotees worshiped other gods at the same time. But Yahweh's relationship with Israel was unique and very special. The intensity of his wrath at threats to this relationship was directly proportional to the depth of his love. Indeed, it arose out of the profundity of his covenant love. Because he felt so deeply, he had to respond vigorously, not because he was the saddest, enjoying the sight of others' pain, but because he delighted in his relationship with his people, which had been violated when Israel abandoned him and went after other gods. His fury over Israel's infidelity arose out of the depths of his love. And this is how we should interpret the refrain that we find at the end of verses 15 and 17, I am Yahweh, I have spoken. The reference is not so much to the present prophecy of Ezekiel, but to Yahweh's ancient promises of blessing and warning of the curse in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. We stumble at the fury of these curses, but they represented the Lord's urgent plea to Israel long ago, don't go that way, this is what will happen. Like a parent who threatens a child with punishment if they engage in dangerous or disobedient behavior, this warning doesn't arise out of malice or hatred, but out of love. We must interpret the Lord's present fury in the light of the history of Yahweh's relationship with Israel and the mission to which he had called Israel. That's principle four. Principle five, we need to recognize the fury of God as an expression of his justice in response to Israel's flagrant ingratitude for grace and their overt rebellion against him. Long ago, Yahweh had rescued his people from bondage in Egypt. He had called them to covenant relationship with himself. He had assigned them a privileged position of being his vassals and agents of grace and revelation to the world. But how had Israel responded? See how the Lord describes Israel's apostate behavior in chapter five. First, Israel's crimes represented riotous rebellion against and rejection of Yahweh's graciously revealed will, identified here as his ordinance, as the stipulations of the covenant. We should read statements like this in light of Deuteronomy 4, 5 to 8, where Moses had described the envy of the nations over Israel's privilege of knowing the will of their God. Look, I have taught you ordinances and stipulations, just as Yahweh my God commanded me, that you may put them into practice within the land you're entering to possess. So keep them, that is, put them into practice, for this is the mark of your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the nations, who will hear these ordinances and say, wow, this great nation is indeed a wise and understanding people. Look, which other great nation is there that has a God as near to it as Yahweh our God is to us whenever we call on him? And which other great nation is there that has righteous ordinances and stipulations as righteous as this whole Torah that I am presenting you today? For this reason, Yahweh can talk about Israel's wickedness exceeding that of the nations. The nations were indeed wicked, but they didn't know the will of God, because he had not revealed it to them, nor had their gods. But Israel had the Torah. Israel knew the will of their God. He had revealed it to them with brilliant clarity, and this was part of their unique privilege in the world. So when those who know the will of God behave like the nations around, their wickedness exceeds that of the Canaanites. In fact, Israel's standard of conduct didn't measure up even to that of the pagans, not even Sodom, as we will see in chapter 16, 48 to 50. But second, Yahweh assessed Israel's crimes as abominations, abhorrent acts. The word toevah occurs more than 40 times in this book. Fundamentally, the word speaks of actions that are most disgusting and repugnant to Yahweh. Here and elsewhere, it is used of witchcraft, sexual crimes, murder, idolatry. In verse 11, Ezekiel associates this word with the most disgusting objects shekudzim in the temple. As we'll see in chapter 8, this undoubtedly refers to pagan idols in the Lord's own house. 6. Principle number six. Yahweh's response to Israel's rebellion may appear excessive, but it is always measured, principled, and in accord with warnings he had issued within the terms of the covenant. If Yahweh's own people had ignited his fury, it was certainly not because he was out of control. He was petty. He was impulsive and threatening to take it out on an innocent people. This outburst expressed his response to the ingratitude, infidelity, faithlessness, and apostasy of his own people, on whom he had lavished his grace. His response would always be principled, controlled, and commensurate with the offenses committed. But how did the Lord describe his reaction? Well, first, he declared that when people, even those who claim to be his own, rebel against him and act like pagans, he becomes their enemy. The opening line of verse 8 is shocking, reflecting both the passion and the conflict in Yahweh's heart as he contemplated what was to him an excruciating fate for his people. Here it is. Therefore, thus has Adonai Yahweh declared, look at me against you. Yes, I, I mean, he's so excited he can't even put a sentence together. Yes, I will execute judgments in your midst in the sight of the nations. Yahweh was not finding any sadistic delight in this any more than he had when he destroyed the population of the earth with a great flood in Genesis 6 to 8. When God executes judgment, he always does so with a heavy heart, and especially when it concerns his own people. This is evident in verse 9. Because of all your abominations, I will do something in your midst I've never done before, and I'll never do anything like it again. God admitted that his coming action against his people was unprecedented and declared that he would never repeat it in the future. At the conclusion of a discussion of faithful and unfaithful stewards or vassals in Luke 12, 41 to 48, Jesus declared the principle by which God operated. A servant who knows what the master wants but isn't prepared and doesn't carry out those instructions will be severely punished. But someone who does not know and then does something wrong will be punished only lightly. When someone has been given much, much will be required in return. And when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required. Now, it's important to note that in our text, Yahweh himself is the subject of all the verbs. To be sure, in the end it will be Nebuchadnezzar's troops that destroy the city, but they will do so as God's agents, not independent operators, entrepreneurs. Note especially verse 11. I am against you. I will execute judgments among you. I will do what I have never done before. Because you've defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable and abominable practices, I will do the shaving myself. I will show no pity, nor will I show mercy. I will scatter you in all directions. This means that when Ezekiel had shaved his head and destroyed his hair, he had been acting out God's role in the coming judgment. Ezekiel didn't represent the Babylonian king. The one he represented was Yahweh. Second, when God would act in judgment, he would not be breaking his covenant with Israel, but keeping it to the letter. Look at the litany of resources of judgment the Lord had at his disposal. The plague, famine, to the extent of cannibalism, sword, wild animals, bloodshed. Indeed, Ezekiel highlighted Yahweh's role throughout. In the ancient world, evils were always thought to come from down below, from the netherworld. These were demons. Dever, the demon of the plague, the lord of the arrow. There are all sorts of demons all over the place. What happens in Ezekiel is there are no demons here. God has these agencies as his troops doing his business. In pagan thought, these expressions represent demons, ancient agents of Moab, the god of the netherworld. But here Yahweh claimed authority over all agents of death. He alone is the master of life and death, and he has at his disposal the host of resources that he marshals to execute his sentence against the wicked nation. He unsheathes his sword. Indeed, he commissions the shalach, the same verb that is used of all of these agencies here, is used of prophets elsewhere. He sends them out as his commissioned agents. But nothing here is merely reflexive, impulsive, or arbitrary. The Lord had spelled out the consequences of persistent rebellion precisely in terms of the covenant curses in the covenant documents. Listen to Leviticus 26, 21 to 29. If you remain hostile toward me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your affliction seven times over as your sins deserve. I will send wild animals against you. They'll rob you of your children, destroy your cattle, make you so few in number that your roads will be deserted. If in spite of all these things you do not accept my correction but continue to be hostile toward me, I myself will be hostile toward you and will inflict you for your sins seven times over, for your sins seven times over. And I will bring the sword on you to avenge the breaking of the covenant. When you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and I will give you into enemy hands. When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will be able to bake your bread in one oven, and they'll dole out bread by weight, but you'll eat it, but you'll never be satisfied. If in spite of this you don't listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me, then in my anger I will be hostile toward you, and I will punish you myself for your sins seven times over. You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters." Ouch, that's painful. The Deuteronomy version of these curses in 28, 52 to 57 expands on the last notion. They shall besiege you in all your towns until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout all your land, which the Lord your God has given you. And you shall eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the Lord your God has given you in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you. The man who is the most tender and refined among you will begrudge food to his brother, to the wife he embraces, and to the last of the children whom he has left. So you will not give up to any of them, any of the flesh of his children whom he is eating because he has nothing left in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you. The most tender and refined woman among you who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because she is so delicate and tender will be grudged to the husband she embraces, to her son and to her daughter, her afterbirth that comes out from between her feet, and her children whom she bears because lacking everything she will eat them secretly in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you in your towns. Ouch! Even more the reactions of the nations had been predicted. Furthermore, I will transform you into a ruin and make you a mockery among the nations that are around you in the sight of all who pass by. So you will be an object of mockery and derision, of horrifying object lesson to the nations that are around you when I execute judgments in your midst with anger and fury and furious chastisements. I am Yahweh, I have spoken. This is horrible stuff. This is horrible stuff. When God's fury raged and he destroyed the covenant triangle that he and the land and the people of Israel had been enjoying, he would not be breaking the covenant. He never does. He would be keeping the fine print, which of course the Israelites had not been reading. But that fine print was in there as an act of grace. If you go that direction, this is what will happen. Returning to verse 13 of Ezekiel 5, we must make one more comment on the effect all this has on God. When my anger will be spent and I will have vented my fury against them, then I will be appeased. And when I have spent all my fury against them, they will know that I am Yahweh. I have spoken out of my passion. But what does it mean for Yahweh to be appeased? ESV, satisfy myself. NIV, I will be avenged. Here the verb means to breathe easier. An effect achieved not only by dealing fully with a very evil situation, but also in God knowing that he has been true to his word, he would not go beyond it, nor would he overlook what had been required by the covenant to which he and Israel had signed on. In effect, he was saying, I had to do it, but it's over, and I will never need to do it again. Verse 9. This is not the response of a bullied teenager who has gleefully beat the pulp out of some poor victim, or what psychologists might call healthy venting. There is no glee in Yahweh's fury. Yes, it would be about God's honor and reputation, but this was not a narcissistic or egomaniacal exercise of power. The Israelites were his bride, his son, his beloved sheep. This would not be fun. This would not be just releasing the pressure in the divine belly. It would be about the integrity of God and his word. As we will see later, once this historical chapter had passed, once the word that the city has fallen will reach Ezekiel, Yahweh would indeed turn and look ahead to Israel's brilliant future. If the covenant declared that these would be the consequences of rebellion, it also declared that the judgment wouldn't be the last chapter. Deuteronomy 4, 30 to 31, and 31 to 10. There would be light on the other side of this deep valley that Yahweh, his land, and the people had to go through. This is tough, but what are the theological and practical implications that we could take from this? I conclude this conversation on a very difficult subject by asking how relevant this text is for us who claim to be New Testament Christians. Are we right in unhitching the Christian faith from texts like these? Let me give you a couple of brief responses. First, if we do, we violate a fundamental Pauline principle. All scripture is God-breathed and is useful, effective for teaching, rebuking, correcting, training in righteousness, so that the servant, vassal of God, may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. That's 2 Timothy 3, 16 to 17. The scripture of which he spoke included Ezekiel. Second, we dare never forget a fundamental tenet of New Testament, that Jesus was the embodiment, the incarnation of the God of Israel. Jesus is Yahweh. The two are equated. These are not two different gods, as the early Christian heretic, Marcin, argued. Jesus is the one and only God incarnate in human flesh, but constant in person and character, yesterday, today, and forever, Hebrews 13, 8. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we observed his glory, the glories of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, John 1, 14. Third, if you will unhitch your faith from these books, then you must also unhitch it from Jesus. Pronouncements of woe on the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23, and on his parable of the vine and the vinedresser in John 15. I am the true vine, my Father's the gardener. He cuts off every branch that doesn't bear fruit. He prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. You've already been pruned and purified by the message I've given. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. Yes, I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who remain in me and I in them will produce much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into the pile to be burned. This is what happened to the generation of Israelites, and this continues to be the principle by which the divine economy operates. And if you insist on unhitching your faith from Ezekiel, you must also unhitch it from the entire book of Revelation and from the book of Hebrews, which declares, Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near. For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversary. Anyone who has set aside the Torah of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, Vengeance is mine, I'll repay. And again, the Lord will judge his people. It's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. May the Lord remind us daily of the privilege of being heirs of the grace of God, first lavished on Israel and then embodied in Christ, and may we delight in serving him as a grateful response to that grace.