THE EQUITY OF THE DIVINE JUSTICE (chap. 18)
EXEGETICAL NOTES.—The judgments announced in chaps. 8, 11, were intended to bring Israel to repentance. But this salutary purpose was frustrated by the manner in which these judgments were interpreted. The people considered themselves as innocent children suffering for the iniquity of their fathers, and that, therefore, repentance was useless. The prophet destroys this refuge by declaring that each man shall have to bear the punishment of his own sin. That punishment can only be averted by repentance (Ezekiel 18:21-29). Thus the rule of God’s judgments was equity.
THE UNGODLY PROVERB, AND THE DECLARATION THAT IT SHALL BE NO MORE HEARD IN ISRAEL (Ezekiel 18:1-4)
Ezekiel 18:1-2. “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” The same proverb is quoted in Jeremiah 31:29-30, where it is also condemned as an error. The meaning of it is sufficiently clear. The sour grapes which the fathers eat are their own personal sins which they commit; the setting of the children’s teeth on edge is the suffering consequent upon these sins, and which is visited upon the children.
Ezekiel 18:3. “Ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel.” Heb. “It shall not be to you.” The meaning is, that it shall be no longer morally possible for them to use this proverb; for they would be convinced of the justice of God’s ways, not only by the reason of the thing itself, but also by the judgments which would be sent upon them. The equity of God’s dealings would be vindicated in so clear a manner, that none would be bold enough to call it in question.
Ezekiel 18:4. “All souls are Mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is Mine.” They are His by right of creation. They have come from Him, the Fountain of Life, the Father of Spirits. “God would surrender His property if He permitted souls, whether individuals or whole generations, to suffer punishment for the guilt of others. In the likeness of God, on which the sentence “All souls are Mine” rests, lies the principle that souls cannot be degraded into servile instruments—that each can only be treated according to His works.”—(Hengstenberg). “In this verse God asserts His universal propriety in His rational creation. All the souls, i.e., persons—the noblest part of the constituent elements of the human subject being put for the whole. He had created them all, and having endowed them with those powers and faculties which are necessary to constitute them subjects of moral government, He had a sovereign and indisputable right to deal with them in equity according to their deserts. In punishing the guilty, He acts without respect of persons. The individual culprit is dealt with on the ground of his own personal deserts.”—(Henderson). “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” “Die, the end of a process,—the separation of the soul from its life-source, the Spirit of God (Deuteronomy 30:15; Jeremiah 21:8; Proverbs 11:19). This cannot happen without an act of God’s retributive justice, so that the punishment inflicted by God must correspond to man’s guilt.”—(Lange).
HOMILETICS
Two things are to be considered concerning this proverb—
1. The meaning of it. By “sour grapes,” the Jews understand sin, not sin simply, but such sins as bring heavy judgments of God upon a land or people, as idolatry, murder, oppression, drunkenness, profaneness, etc. The prophet Isaiah warrants this sense of sour grapes, when he calls the sins of Judah “wild grapes” (Isaiah 5:24). God looked that His vineyard should bring forth grapes, good fruit, justice, righteousness, truth; and it brought forth wild grapes, oppression, a cry, covetousness, lasciviousness, drunkenness, pride. Such sins are called sour or wild grapes, because they wound conscience, are burdensome unto others, are as distasteful unto God as such grapes are to us. They provoke Him to lay waste the vine that bears such fruit. By this proverb thus much is signified, that the fathers had sinned, and the children suffered for their sin; the fathers did that which was very offensive unto God, and the children were punished for it; they did eat the sour grapes, brought forth the bitter fruit, and these smarted for it; the children’s teeth were set on edge, they were punished for what their fathers had done. They thought and said that their fathers were the cause of all the evils which befell them. Like unto this proverb are these: “Kings sin, and the people suffer.” “The child offends, and the servant is beaten.”
II. The occasion. The princes and people going on in the wicked ways of their fathers, the prophets did threaten them with destruction of their temple, city and estate. Thereupon they said, “Our fathers did as we do, and they were spared; why should we suffer”? And when the prophets pressed the sins of Manasseh, as Jeremiah 15:3-4, “I will appoint over them four kinds, saith the Lord; the sword to slay, the dogs to tear, the fowls of heaven, the beasts of the earth, to devour and destroy: and I will cause them to be removed into all kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem.” When God stirred the prophets to tell them that for the sins of this king he would lay Jerusalem waste, as he had the ten tribes for Jeroboam’s sins, they then took up this proverb, and said, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the childrens’ teeth are set on edge.” Ahaz, Manasseh, Amon, and others of our forefathers, have sinned, and we must suffer! Or thus: Zedekiah and his counsellors had perfidiously broken covenant with Nebuchadnezzar, for which the prophets threatened utter ruin to all: hereupon the people said, “Our fathers have eaten sour grapes,” etc.; the kings and nobles have transgressed, and we shall be ruined for it! This proverb was grown common amongst them, both in Babylon and in Zion, it was tossed up and down and spread. Ezekiel tells them of it in Babylon, and Jeremiah in Zion (Jeremiah 31:29). The evil of this proverb was great, for besides their charging God with injustice and impartiality, hereby—
(1). They discovered their father’s sins and nakedness, and that without sorrow or repentance for them.
(2). Made light of anything the prophets threatened against them.
(3). Obstructed the way against future repentance, or profiting by the judgments of God which should come upon them. For being persuaded and possessed with this opinion, that they suffered unjustly for their father’s sins, not their own, they would never submit, mourn, condemn, but justify themselves.—(Greenhill).
The cause of the cessation of this proverb is the severity of the Divine judgments. When these appear, the fig-leaves fall off, the slumbering conscience awakens and cries out. “It is I and my sins!” There is a multitude of theorems and theological dogmas which are possible only in certain times, and slink away abashed when the thunders of Divine judgment begin to roll.—(Hengstenberg).
Either a man recognises in judgment—in the self-judgment of a believing repentance—his guilt before God, or God makes the whole world recognise it in us, through the judgment which overtakes us, even when we would deny our guilt. God swears by His life; for where His righteousness is called in question, His life in this world of sin and death is assailed.—(Lange.)
“The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” Hence—
1. God may lay what Punishment. He pleases upon the soul that sins. “All souls are Mine,” and the soul that sinneth shall suffer whatever I see good, according to the nature of its sin. However the words seem to impart an equal punishment for all sins, yet it is otherwise; according to the intrinsical nature, circumstances, and demerit of the sin, shall be the death. God will proportion the one unto the other; as He rewards men according to their works, so He will punish them according to their sins. God hath variety of deaths, and various degrees of those deaths, variety of afflictions, and various degrees of the same; He lays on which and in what measure He pleases. If states think good to inflict upon delinquents several punishments, and in high degree as they find men guilty, how much more may God. He smote Jehoram with incurable and sore diseases (2 Chronicles 21:18-19). He sent fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19). He did that in Jerusalem which He never did before, nor ever would do the like (Ezekiel 5:9-10). Neither these nor any that suffer in what kind soever, do suffer unjustly; men may pretend innocency, but if they suffer, and that severely, God is not cruel, they are not guiltless.
2. Sin is a deadly thing “The soul that sinneth shall die. Sin is the great murderer, it let death into the world, and keeps death alive. If there were no sin there would be no death, no punishment, but if men sin they must suffer. The old world sinned and died for it; Sodomites sinned and died for it; the Bethshemites sinned by looking into the ark, and fifty thousand of them died for it: Jerusalem sins and is burnt for it, and her children buried in a Babylonish grave; Ananias and Sapphira die for their dissimulation. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Let us then take heed of sin, whereby we offend that God who hath said, “The soul that sinneth it shall die.” He is a dreadful Majesty and ought greatly to be feared. “Who would not fear Thee, O King of nations? for to Thee doth it appertain” (Jeremiah 10:7). Fear is God’s due, and your duty; “Stand in awe,” then, “and sin not” (Psalms 4:4). If you sin, you must die; death is the king of fears, and God is the King of death; He can command it to seize upon you in a moment.—(Greenhill).
HOMILETICS
THE INDIVIDUALITY OF THE SOUL
These idolatrous Israelites complained that they were unjustly punished for the sins of their fathers. The innocent suffered instead of the guilty. “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” By nature’s law the man who eats sour grapes, and he alone, will feel the unpleasant sensation of the acid on his own teeth. They complain that the dealings of Providence, as expounded by the prophet, are contrary to the equity and justice of nature. And this complaint is, to a very large extent, founded upon a truth. Under God’s moral government the innocent do suffer for the guilty. All generations of men are subject to the stern law of inheritance, so that the email of sin and suffering falls to the lot of those who are innocent of the original transgression. But the prophet assures his countrymen that, despite all appearances to the contrary, God’s ways are equal. There is no injustice done to any man on account of any complication of his history with that of another, or with that of the human race. “As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel.” And the reason given is this:—“Behold all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die” Each individual soul comes from God, who is the fountain of life, is accountable ultimately to Him alone, and each man will be treated in sole regard to himself without reference to any other man. He who continues in sin will incur the penalty of death; which will be visited upon him for his own sins, and not for those of his forefathers. This death of the soul is not the loss of existence, but such death as the soul can suffer, i.e., moral and spiritual death, exclusion from God’s light and love. Such a man is dead while he liveth. His portion is a living death. This passage speaks to us of the origin, and of the individuality of the human soul.
I. The origin of the human soul. “All souls are mine.” They are God’s by right of creation, which is the strongest title of ownership. And God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). “The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). God is the “Father of spirits,” and “we are also His offspring.” “Man is from God as well as to God. He is of the blood-royal of heaven. The Bible itself, what is it but a biography of the soul?” Its noble and illustrious birth, beautiful childhood, and its terrible fall; its long and painful discipline of sorrow through the ages of history; the grace of God towards it in the gifts of salvation, the provisions for its perfect restoration through a Divine Redeemer, a paradise won for it beyond the grave—these great facts concerning the soul are the main burden of the Bible. To know, as a deep and heart felt conviction, the origin and worth of the soul is to be a religious man: to live a life founded on that conviction is to be a Christian.
II. The individuality of the soul. Each soul of man has a separate existence in eternity as well as in time. When we die we do not become an unconscious portion of the universal life. We are not absorbed into God, like a drop which falls into the ocean. We do not perish by infinite diffusion. Such is the teaching of the Bible. But—
1. It is very difficult for us to realise this truth. The truth we have to consider is—that each and every one of all who now live, or who have ever lived, is a distinct and independent being. There are certain facts and circumstances of human life which render it difficult for us to realise this truth. Take the case of the commander of a large army. Does such a man realise this truth fully when he sends a large body of men on some dangerous service? Or, does he not rather regard each man as one of the springs or wheels of a vast machine? To the whole collection of separate powers ministering to one end he assigns individuality. The only fact is not present vividly before him, that the real individuality is that of each single soul. And all men are liable, more or less, to make this false estimate. We are prone to class men in masses, and to regard them as we do the stones of a building which derives unity only from its form and from the disposition of all its parts to the general effect. We deal only with great unities; the separate portions do not enter into our thought. We have a tendency to treat abstractions of our own creation as real things. Thus we speak of national greatness. And what does this mean? It means that multitudes of men who happen to be living together at one time, and in the same country, are able to act upon each other and upon the world at large in such a way as to gain importance, power, wealth, and eminence. We regard these multitudes as one great body, and when one and another dies we do not consider it as the passage of a soul into the unseen state. Their places are supplied by others: the individual perishes, the nation remains. We think of the nation as still the same in its vast and energetic life, but we are apt to forget that it is only the component parts that are the true realities. Consider again, the multitudes of a great city. We gain an idea of human energy, of the splendour and magnificence of man’s works. But what is the real truth? Why, that each man in that city is his own centre, and all things about him are but mere shades among which he walks, as “in a vain shadow and disquieteth himself in vain.” Nothing outside of him can touch his soul or quench his immortality. He must live with himself for ever. He has an unfathomable depth within him, and an infinite abyss of existence.
2. We should make an effort to realise this truth. The truth, that all who have ever lived here and have seen the sun successively are alive now, each one in his own person; all those who lived before the Flood and in the ages since, all who have gained a name in the world, or who have died without fame—the good, the bad, the wise, the ignorant; all those whose names we see written in churches or churchyards, great writers whose works we see in our libraries, the workmen who have raised those great buildings and monuments which are the wonder of the world: they are all in God’s remembrance, and before His eye—they still live. To see a human being, even by a mere passing glance, is an act which, in its deep significance, is unlike all other occurrences in nature. The rain falls, the wind blows; but showers and storms have no existence beyond the time when they happened. They are gone, and are nothing in themselves. But when we have seen a child of Adam, we have seen the temple of an immortal soul. It lives on; and when here on earth it is seen no more, it is still somewhere awaiting God.
3. It is as individual souls that we shall return to God. We must all take that solemn journey which will bring us face to face with God. We cannot pass on one side of Him, or in any way avoid Him, but must go straight into His presence. Each man will feel that he is himself, and not another, and that the eye of God is upon him. When a few more years have come and gone, there will be no need of any effort of mind on our part, in order to realise the individuality of the soul. No need of any effort to realise the nothingness of this vain world when the world has for us vanished away and we are left alone with God. There is one Being to whom alone we are ultimately accountable. Strive to say at last in faith and hope, “Father, into Thy hands I commit my spirit.” “Lord, Jesus, receive my spirit.”