In order that we may get the most possible benefit from this study, we will quote the portion of Scripture that it covers, beginning one verse back. It reads thus: "I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean; from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my judgments, and do them. And you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. I will also save you from all your uncleannesses: and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that you shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen. Then shall you remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations. Not for your sakes do I this, says the Lord God, be it known unto you: be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel. Thus says the Lord God; In the day that I shall have cleansed you from all your iniquities I will also cause you to dwell in the cities, and the wastes shall be built. And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by. And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited. Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I the Lord build the ruined places, and plant that which was desolate: I the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it." (Ezekiel 36:24-36)
There are some gracious promises in this lesson that can be appreciated by everybody; but the full benefit of it cannot be obtained without some knowledge of what has gone before. It is always a difficult matter to take a text out of its connection and to treat it as it deserves. A very brief outline of the conditions under which this scripture was written, and of God's purpose concerning Israel, will be of value both in this lesson and in the two that follow.
God brought the children of Israel out of Egypt in fulfillment of the promise made in the covenant with Abraham. (See Exodus 6:2-8) That covenant was confirmed in Christ (Galatians 3:16-17) and could be fulfilled only through His death and resurrection. In the inspired thanksgiving of Zacharias, the father of John the forerunner of Christ, we learn that Israel's being saved from their enemies, and from the hand of all that hated them was in performance of the promise of God to the fathers, and His covenant with Abraham, and their deliverance from their enemies was in order that they might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness all the days of their life. (Luke 1:71-75)
Their life, moreover, was to be everlasting, because the covenant made with Abraham was an everlasting covenant, and the promise was that he and his seed should have the land for an everlasting possession, which would involve their living for ever. (Genesis 17:6-8)
When the promise was made to Abraham, he was distinctly told that he should die before the land could be possessed, (Genesis 15:1-16) and Stephen tells us that he had not so much of the land as to set his foot on, although God had promised it to him.
Now since no word of God can fail, it necessarily follows that the inheritance which God promised to Abraham and his seed was only such an inheritance as can be obtained through the resurrection from the dead. This appears in the words of Paul when he stood before Agrippa: "Now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers unto which promise our twelve tribes instantly serving God day and night hope to come. For which hope's sake, king Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?" (Acts 16:6-8)
Every promise, therefore, to place Israel in their own land, involves the resurrection of the dead. The nature of the true Israel must also be borne in mind. "They are not all Israel, which are of Israel: Neither because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, in Isaac shall your seed be called. That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted for the seed." (Romans 9:6-8)
The children of promise are counted for the seed, because the word was "in Isaac shall your seed be called." (Romans 9:7)
Isaac was the child of promise, and he was born after the Spirit; (Galatians 4:22-29) therefore as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the children of God, and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ. (Romans 8:14-17) "And if you be Christ's then are you Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." (Galatians 3:29)
Only Christians indeed, therefore, those who are born of the Spirit, and who walk after the Spirit, are children of Abraham, and Israelites indeed. They are those in whom there is no guile. (John 1:47) "For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God." (Romans 2:28-29)
The children of Israel might have received the fullness of the promise soon after they left Egypt, for God was leading them to the Mountain of His inheritance, the place which He had made for them to dwell in, even the Sanctuary which His hands have established; (Exodus 15:17) and this is in the heavens, (Hebrews 8:1-2) in the New Jerusalem which is above, "the mother of us all." (Galatians 4:26)
But they did not believe, and therefore they could not enter in. (Hebrews 3:18-19) Ever since their failure, the promise has been left to us. (Hebrews 4:1) David was king over all Israel in the land of promise, yet when he sat in his house, "and the Lord had given him rest round about from all his enemies," (2 Samuel 7:1)
God said to him, "I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own, and move no more; neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them any more as beforetime." (2 Samuel 7:10)
And when David was delivering the kingdom over to Solomon, at the time when it was greatest, he said, in the presence and on behalf of all the princes and rulers of Israel: "We are strangers before You, and sojourners, as were all our fathers." (1 Chronicles 29:15)
It is only by taking out from among the Gentiles a people for His name, through the Gospel, that God builds up the house of David. (Acts 15:14-18) Christ is the One by whom the kingdom is to be restored to Israel, for: "The Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David: And He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of His kingdom there shall be no end." (Luke 1:32-33)
Ezekiel prophesied at the time of the captivity of Israel. Long before the time when the scripture that we are studying was written, he had said to Zedekiah, whose name was a reminder of his rebellion against God, "You profane, wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end, Thus says the Lord God; Remove the diadem, and take off the crown: this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it; and it shall be no more, until He come whose right it is; and I will give it Him." (Ezekiel 21:25-27)
When the kingdom passed from Zedekiah to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, three over-turnings or revolutions were foretold, which should give the dominion successively to Medo-Persia, Grecia, and Rome: then there should be no more world revolutions until the coming of Christ, who will destroy all the kingdoms of the earth, and scatter them like the chaff of the summer threshing floor, so that no place will be found for them, and will then reign for ever over an earth made new. (See Daniel 2:44-45; 2 Peter 3:10-13.)
We know, therefore, that the promises in this vision pertain to the work and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Certain it is that since the days of Ezekiel the Jewish people have never had a place of their own, so that the promise has not yet been fulfilled. It was not fulfilled by the return of Israel from the Babylonian captivity, and can be fulfilled only in Christ and His coming.
With this explanation, there need not much be said on the text before us, since it is straightforward reading. God promises to take His people from among the heathen, and bring them into their own land. The land which belongs to the people of God is no part of "this present evil world," (Galatians 1:4) from which they are delivered by the death of Christ, but the country for which faithful Abraham looked, "that is, a heavenly." (Hebrews 11:16)
In gathering them from among the heathen, to bring them into their own land, God sprinkles clean water, even the pure water of life, upon His people, to cleanse them from all their iniquities. "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses, us from all sin," (1 John 1:7) and the Spirit and the water and the blood agree in one. (1 John 5:8) The clean water with which God sprinkles His people as He gathers them is the blood of Christ. This cleansing is a thorough one, and since the filthiness which we have contracted among the heathen permeates us completely our cleansing involves an entirely new creation. God has to give us a new heart, which means a new life, "for out of the heart are the issues of life." (Proverbs 4:23) "If any man be in Christ there is a new creation." (2 Corinthians 5:17,RV)
He promises to put His Spirit in us, so that we shall walk in His statutes, and keep His commandments; for the law is spiritual. Then, says God, "you shall be my people, and I will be your God." (Ezekiel 36:28)
Compare this with the promise of the new covenant, (Jeremiah 31:33-34) and the promise to Abraham. (Exodus 6:6-8) The heathen will see the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham and his Seed, for they will all come up and surround the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, after it comes down from God out of heaven. (Revelation 20:7-9)
The people of God, redeemed from all their enemies, even from the last and greatest enemy, death, will go forth from the New Jerusalem over the renewed earth, and build cities and inhabit them, and plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them. (Isaiah 65:17-23)
It is true that before they go forth the wicked will be destroyed in the fire that renews the earth; but the heathen will nevertheless know that the Lord builds the waste and desolate and ruined cities, for they will see the proof of it in the New Jerusalem, which will stand upon the site of the old city, only greatly enlarged. (Zechariah 14:1-9; Isaiah 49:18-22) "Not for your sakes do I this, says the Lord God." (Ezekiel 36:32)
This is humiliating, and may well cause us to be ashamed and confounded, but is wonderfully encouraging. The reason why so many people become discouraged, and doubt the possibility of their salvation, is that they think that it is their own worthiness that must be taken into account.
"I am too unworthy for the Lord to take notice of me."
"I am so sinful that the Lord surely will not receive me."
Theses are common expressions. Now comes the most comforting assurance that our unworthiness has nothing to do with the case. It is not for our sakes, but for His own sake, that the Lord forgives our sins. "I even I am He that blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and will not remember your sins." (Isaiah 43:25)
So we can say with all boldness and assurance:
Just as I am, without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidd'st me come to Thee;
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
--Charlotte Elliott, Hymn: Just as I Am (1835)
--Present Truth, July 27, 1899--Notes on the International Sunday-School Lessons--Ezekiel 36:25-36
E.J. Waggoner