Today's reflection is on Ezekiel 39:21-29. Once again, I'll be working with the ESV text.
"Why do we fall, Master Bruce? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up again." So saith Alfred, the Wayne family butler in the Christopher Nolan film, Batman Begins. His maxim is one that probably warms the heart of many Americans. We want to see ourselves as ever-improving, evolving from strength to strength, even through our failures. But God has something slightly different to say in Ezekiel 39.
In these verses God deals with why He sent Israel into exile and reveals that it was to display His character of justice and righteousness. And by raising Israel from the dead post-exile, He works to ensure that neither Israel nor the nations of the earth will ever forget Him again.
God begins this section by declaring, "And I will set my glory among the nations, and all the nations shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid on them" (Ezek 39:21 ESV). God is concerned to show Himself to the whole earth and He has chosen to do so through the judgment of His people. By doing so, He shows that He is not a capricious god like the pagan gods; He does not show favoritism, and ignore the sins of some and punish others. No, the God of Israel is perfect justice and righteousness; He sees wickedness wherever it is and moves to punish. The pagan gods favored their own people, but not the Lord. Though He has chosen them, that does not mean He ignores their sin. And now He will show that by leading the house of Israel into exile.
Then, "The house of Israel shall know that I am the Lord their God, from that day forward" (Ezek 39:22). The punishment of exile is not simply a display for the nations, however. It is also for Israel. It seems that Israel had forgotten that God is just. The psalmist Asaph bears witness to Israel's ignorance in Psalm 50. "You give your mouth free rein for evil, and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother's son. These tings you have done, and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourselves" (Ps 50:19-21a). In Jeremiah's time, this hubris on the part of the Jews, that God either did not care about their sin or that He would not punish them was expressed in their phrase, "The temple of the Lord" (Jer 7:4). Yet, in their punishment God seeks to correct their ignorance. By defeat of their own strength and the humbling of their pride, God would reveal the truth of who they are and who He is.
"And the nations shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity, because they dealt so treacherously with me that I hid my face from them and gave them into the hand of their adversaries, and they all fell by the sword. I dealt with them according to their uncleanness and their transgressions, and hid my face from them" (Ezek 39:23-24). Now it becomes clear that God wants to show not just that He is a righteous God, but that the nations must know the reasons behind this judgment. Purity and faithfulness are God's standards for the whole earth, not just Israel, and so the exile of Israel is a warning to the nations; it is a gracious act because it reveals God's desire for the inhabitants of the earth, inhabitants who are constantly blinded by our own sin and unable to perceive God's will.
So God's judgment upon the nation of Israel had a double purpose; to declare His righteousness to the nations and to remind His people of His character. Ezekial goes on to show that the resurrection of Israel have similar purposes.
One scholar whom I heard speak about the Old Testament defined it as Israel's attempt to explain their existence. Of all the ancient peoples who had been conquered by the great empires of the past, Israel was among the few who returned to their land and continued to have a coherent and recognizable identity. How could this be? According to this scholar, the stories of the Old Testament are the people's attempt to deal with this question.
Now, behind this explanation are many presuppositions, one of the most obvious being that what is contained in the Old Testament is largely fabricated stories, told far after the events were supposed to have taken place. However, this perspective does tell us of how rare a thing it is for a people to return from an exile like the one Israel experience. What is God's explanation for this? Well, similar to the judgment, God declares that He raises Israel to new life in order that they might know Him and that the nations would see His holiness.
Verses 25-29 make this point repeatedly. When brought back, when the fortunes of Jacob are restored, Israel will be reminded of the goodness of their God and their own lack of merit for such action. Through exile they would be reminded that they are just like the nations around them, full of iniquity and wickedness, and therefore God's gracious act to restore them would be seen as just that: pure grace. "Then they shall know that I am the Lord their God, because I sent them into exile among the nations and then assembled them into their own land. I will leave non of them remaining among the nations anymore" (Ezek 39:28). Only through recognition of their sin could Israel then regain an appreciation of their God. And the exile provided the opportunity to clearly see both of these things.
On the part of the nations, through this rare event of a people reconstituted, they would see God's holiness; a holiness which does not express itself in judgment alone, but also in gracious restoration and resurrection. God's holiness is one that seeks to make others holy, as He is holy. And so He takes the dead, unclean, and unholy, and lifts them up and puts His Spirit upon them. He sanctifies and consecrates, thereby displaying that He is the source of all sanctity. The nations were meant to see not only that God judges but that God also restores, that they might then return to Him and be made clean.
As we walk the path of Lent, it is in some ways an exile for us. It is a journey of seeing our sin and being reminded of God's justice. Through prayer, fasting, reflection, meditation, and self-denial, we probe the depths of our being and find corruption and depravity everywhere. It is a sorry sight to see, but a necessary one. To ignore it is to try to pull a fast one on God, it is to repeat the mistake of Israel in Psalm 50 or Jeremiah 7. No, we must see it and we must repent; for even in that God is working to remind us of who we are and who He is. And that is a witness to the world around us, a world which ignores sin or celebrates it. By our repentance, we bear witness to a higher law, a better calling, a pure standard of God. And then, at the end of this time, and even throughout it, we will find that God restores us, He sanctifies us through the death of His Son. That even though we are sinful, full of sin, God wills to make us holy people. And that, too, is a witness to the nations, and to our neighbors. God is a great God, who seeks not the death of sinners, but that they might turn from their wickedness and be saved. He seeks to make the unclean clean, the impure holy, the exiles family.
So why do we fall? Not to learn to pick ourselves up again, but to learn that God picks us up and fills us with His Spirit.
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