Ezekiel 11
Butler16. The exile should be short. Through its brief duration God would be their sanctuary. Although they were cast forth from the outward sanctuary at Jerusalem, yet God would be their real sanctuary in their exile. His presence was infinitely more and better than the Temple walls reared by Solomon. Shortly afterward the prophet sees the Lord leaving the earthly Temple (verse 23). H. C.
I will be to them for a little while a sanctuary. The blessing was provisional; they were to look forward to a blessing more complete. Canaan was still the Holy Land, the proper place of God’s presence. For a little while they were to be satisfied with His special presence in a foreign land, but they were to look forward to a renewal of His presence in the restored Temple of Jerusalem. Sanctuary does not mean here refuge or asylum, but strictly the holy place, the tabernacle of the Most High; Jehovah will Himself be to the exiles in the place of the local sanctuary, in which the Jews of Jerusalem so much prided themselves. “We have here the germ from which is developed (40-48) the picture of the kingdom of God in its new form, in its majestic perfection, with its boughs, branches, leaves and blossoms. The Lord is set forth as the sanctuary of Israel in Isa. 8:14 and in many passages in the Psalms, which show how universal was the spiritual view of the Temple, which, looking through the husk, fixed its regard upon the kernel, and upon the all-merciful presence of the Lord Himself” (Hengstenberg). B. C.
I will be to them as a sanctuary in the countries where they come. They at Jerusalem have the Temple, but without God; they in Babylon have God, though without the Temple. God will be a sanctuary to them, a place of refuge; to Him they shall flee and in Him they shall be safe, as he was that took hold on the horns of the altar. Or, rather, they shall have such communion with God in the land of their captivity as it was thought could be had nowhere but in the Temple; they shall there see God’s power and His glory so as they used to see it in the sanctuary; they shall have the tokens of God’s presence with them, and His grace in their hearts shall sanctify their prayers and praises, as well as ever the altars sanctified the gift, so that they shall please the Lord better than an ox or bullock. H.
This is a text for all our changes of place, for our journeys, for our absences. It is a text to take round the world with us if we are going. “I will be to them as a sanctuary.” Where? “In the countries where they shall come.” He builds a sanctuary for us just where we are, and as we are, into which, the moment we feel ourselves in any need or with any real heart desire, we may enter, and in which the more we desire and ask the more we shall behold, receive, and have. And this is more than trusting God for everything, it is—we may say it reverently—using God for everything, for He has said that He will “serve” us in everything except sin. For all our needs, through all our history, we may avail ourselves of God for those very ends and uses to promote which He has come down.
As this is a promise for all places, so it is for all states. In the coming time, when you will be sick, here or far off; when you will be glad to keep to the one room; when you will not know how it is to be with you; when “thoughts” will “arise in your heart”—not about yourself only, but generous and tender anxieties about wife and children, or husband and children, when you are gone—then remember this promise of your God and enter into it, and be at rest.
Or when, although physically well, you feel the forces of life too strong for you, and you are driven hither and thither; when change disturbs your peace, and loss upsets your calculations, and Adversity begins to blow his boreal blasts about you, and to darken your house with his wintry wing, then try to think, strongly, of the house he cannot enter, where is always warmth and always joy and plenty—this house, “I will be as a sanctuary.”
Or when troubled in mind, although well enough in health, and quiet and prosperous as to outward estate; when you have declined and fallen back, although perhaps you know not how it has been; when your lamp is smoking and giving little light, although the night is so dark about you; when you cannot see the new name written on the white stone; when the stone itself seems no longer white, but darkening rather into the black stone of condemnation, and the murmur of your distressed soul is: “Hath God cast me off? Hath He forgotten to be gracious? Is His mercy clean gone?” then try to think (think it now, that you may think it then) that God once gave you this promise, and that He gave it you for such a time and for such a trouble as yours.
For all times, and for all troubles, and for all needs, there is a present gracious God, with all His grace also present, to heal, to help, to love unto the end. A. Raleigh.
17-20. The Lord will bring this remnant home to their native land. They shall exterminate every vestige of idolatry and put away all those abominations which had been the ruin of their nation; and to crown all, God will give them “one heart"—not a heart divided between God and Satan—the holy Temple and abominable idols; but one heart, true and pure; and “a new spirit,” all unlike what they had before. These precious promises, clothed in strong but plain words, reappear somewhat amplified in chap. 36. Their rich and precious significance lies in the point that the Lord will put His own hand to the work of their thorough reformation; that He will reach their very hearts; that He will radically cure their horrible propensity to idolatry, and will turn their heart wholly to Himself. So turned and so renewed in heart and spirit, they will walk in His statutes and keep His ordinances with a willing, loving heart. They will be truly the Lord’s people, and the Lord Himself will be their God. As these words stand here, their first installment of realization must be assigned to the restoration under Zerubbabel—their first, but not their last. For, beyond a question, these promises in their ample range are Messianic, and pertain to the Gospel age, and preeminently to those latter times of this age when “all shall know the Lord, from the least to the greatest.” H. C.
19, 20. “And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of this flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh”—that is regeneration—“that they may walk in My statutes, and keep Mine ordinances and do them”—that is conversion. This difference is plain, comprehensive, far-reaching, and compels the following distinctions: Regeneration is internal, conversion external. The one is hidden except as manifested in the other. Each is a change. The one applies to character, the other to conduct; one applies to the heart, the other to the manner of life. Regeneration is a change internal, nal, moral, spiritual; and the text shows how needful and thorough the change is. Conversion is a change in the whole life, affecting one’s entire manner of living, especially his bearing toward God and God’s law and all Divine things.
The world’s plan, in all its schemes for reformation, is to work from without to within; God’s is just the opposite. Make the fruit good, says the world; make the tree good, says God. Mend the life, says the world; renew the heart, says God. Regeneration requires and guarantees conversion. A new life within gives a new life without. There is a principle within that becomes a governing principle. Have you been born again? Is your heart right in the sight of God? These are supreme questions. It is sad to see one supposing his heart right when it is wrong, as God sees it; striving after a right life, perhaps boasting that his life is right when his heart is all wrong. Better go to the bottom, and at once. We need heart back of life; regeneration back of conversion. J. M. Frost.
The evangelical doctrine affirms that man, as originally created, was like God in nature and like Him also in moral perfection; having the true knowledge of Him, and standing in intimate communion with Him through the sympathy of supreme and holy love; that no one of his constitutional powers was lost in the fall, though their activity was perverted, and their development hindered; but that the change which then took place was in the essential temper of his heart—selfish idolatry and sinful passion supplanting the Divine love which had preceded, and the inmost dispositions and tendencies of the soul being thereafter averted from God, and directed to selfish pleasure and gain.
The change now needed, therefore, is in this dominant spirit of the heart; to alter the dispositions, to fix the supreme affection upon God, and to restore the spiritual discernment which was possessed, but has been lost. And this is effected by the Divine Spirit, through the truth as His instrument, and especially through the revelation of God’s love, as declared, with transcendent fulness and tenderness, in His Son. When this is accomplished, no direct addition is implied to the inherent properties of the soul, but a change is realized in its temper, tastes, and spiritual activities, in its relations to God and its personal destiny; a change so radical, vital, complete, and so enduring in consequences, as to constitute a true regeneration. Conversion to the loving obe-
dience of Christ is its sign and fruit. The beauty of holiness flows from it into life. It is completed in sanctification. And, on the ground of Christ’s atonement, he who has not yet reached that sanctity, but in whom its principle has been implanted, is reconciled to God, and is treated as if he had been righteous; is, in other words, justified. R. S. S.