“And you, son of man, say to the children of your people, ‘The righteousness of the righteous will not deliver him in the day of his transgression, and as for the wickedness of the wicked, he will not fall by it in the day that he turns from his wickedness. Nor will he who is righteous be able to live by it in the day that he sins.' ”
This is not talking about sins that we commit because we are sinful and cannot help it, even though we try, it is talking about presumptuous sin. It is talking about an attitude of heart and mind taken up and clung to. If the righteous man deliberately turns to sin and disobedience as a way of life, all his previous righteousness will be of no avail. A man is not saved by the amount of his righteousness. Looked at from the human standpoint he is saved by his response to God's graciousness. And if that response ceases he is revealed as an unworthy sinner, and he cannot therefore count on any righteousness that he has done. For no amount of righteousness can save a man.
In the same way, if a man whose heart has been turned in the way of sinfulness has a change of heart and mind and turns to God and His graciousness, his past sins will be forgiven him. He will begin a new life in the mercy of God. All his past sins will have been done away.
This tends to raise many questions in the heart of a Christian concerning the fear of falling away, and what will happen to the one who does so. And its answer is that if a man falls away finally then he will not be accepted at the judgment. It will be no good pleading what he has previously done.
But the other side of things also has to be considered, the Godward side. God's promise is to save a man out of his sins, not to save him in them. His promise is to transform men's hearts and minds (2 Corinthians 5:17), to take them from one degree of glory to another (2 Corinthians 3:18), to work in His own to will and to do of His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). And He will not fail in those promises. He will confirm to the end those who are His (1 Corinthians 1:8).
A godly man was once asked, ‘Do you believe in the perseverance of the saints?' And that godly man replied, ‘No. I believe in the perseverance of the Saviour.' So those whom the Saviour saves will be persevered with. They cannot fall permanently back into sin, otherwise He would have failed. But it warns us that there is no peace in wallowing in sin on the basis of past experience. If Christ is truly at work within us our hearts will be right at the end, for He will ensure that it is so. There is no contradiction between Ezekiel and the Gospel.