And the heathen shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.
The heathen shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel - (Ezekiel 36:23, "The pagan shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes").
Sanctify Israel - i:e., set it apart at holy unto myself and inviolable (Exodus 30:5-6).
Remarks:
(1) This vision is designed primarily to cheer up the desponding Jews in their captivity. They compared themselves, in response to national vitality, to dry bones scattered at the grave's month (Psalms 141:7). There seemed to them no hope of restoration to their former political and religious life as a people (Ezekiel 37:11); like bones in a valley, bleached by long exposure to the atmosphere, they sojourned in the Mesopotamian plain, helpless and hopeless, so far as human power is concerned. But faith leaves the question of possibilities with God, believing that nothing is impossible which He declares shall be done, however impossible it may seem to the eye of sense and human reason (Ezekiel 37:3). In this chapter God gives His promise of the resurrection of Israel, and faith accepts it accordingly (Ezekiel 37:5-6). The first step in their restoration is, the prophet, is directed "Prophesy upon these dry bones." As yet they were utterly senseless; therefore the prophet was to prophesy over them, not unto them.
But they were to be called on to "hear" the quickening word of the Lord. Ezekiel was so to prophesy that the word of the Lord should fall "upon" them. The result immediately followed: "There was a noise, and a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone" (Ezekiel 37:7). Then "the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above" (Ezekiel 37:8). As yet there was no breath in them. But this also was presently added, the Lord God by His prophet summoning the breath of life from the four quarters where they were scattered, and causing the vivifying spirit to "breathe upon the slain." So they came to life, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army (Ezekiel 37:10). Such is the life, national and spiritual, which is before Israel When she shall be restored to her own land (Ezekiel 37:12-14). God hath said it, and He will perform it (Ezekiel 37:14). Let us therefore not be faithless, but believing. Let the Jew occupy in our mind, and in our efforts, the prominent place which he does in the purposes of God.
(2) The vision secondarily also sets forth the spiritual resurrection of the people of God now through the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit; and then, hereafter, their literal resurrection also, through the same Spirit of Jesus (Romans 8:11), which raised Him from the dead, "according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself" (Philippians 3:21). It needs the same Almighty power to raise a sinner from his natural state of spiritual death as it does to raise a corpse to life. To man both alike are impossible. But faith believes in the power and will of God to quicken the dead, where to sense the case would seem hopeless (Ezekiel 37:3). It is in the hearing of the word of God (Ezekiel 37:4) that the Spirit moves: for "faith cometh, by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17).
The spiritual resurrection, however, is not instantaneously complete, but is progressive. At first there is the outward and inward preparation for the reception of the spirit of life; and then at last the breath of life enters the man, and he becomes truly born again of the Spirit. Let us never be satisfied with the outward semblances of spiritual life-the bones, sinews, flesh, and skin-which give the form beauty and life, but which are not the life itself. None but living believers shall stand before the living God. Prayer is the means whereby to obtain the breath of spiritual life both for ourselves and for others. Let us, then, often pray, "Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south: blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof (the spiritual graces of the Church) may flow out" (Song of Solomon 4:16). "Come, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live" (Ezekiel 37:9). No case is too desperate for the grace of God. So long as life lasts, "hope" need, never be "lost" (Ezekiel 37:11),: for though we men be "cut off for our parts," God is not cut short in power for His part. Then as to the literal resurrection of the body hereafter, we have the sure warrant of the word of Jesus, however 'incredible' it seem to reason (Acts 26:8), that "the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have dons evil, to the resurrection of damnation" (John 5:29).
(3) God's covenant-relation to Israel as His people (Ezekiel 37:12) is the ground of assurance that He will not allow death permanently to reign over them. Such, too, is the principle on which rests the future deliverance by Christ of all His elect people from the bondage of corruption at the general resurrection (Luke 20:37-38).
(4) As the separation of Judah and Ephraim (that is, the kingdom of the ten tribes) was the punishment of apostasy, and led to still further evils, religions and political, so hereafter, when both are one with God, through the spirit of life uniting them to the one covenant-Head, Messiah-David, they shall be united to one another, as no longer two, but one people (Ezekiel 37:15-19; Ezekiel 37:22). In respect to the spiritual Israel, the Church, nothing has more impeded the progress of the Gospel than the mutual divisions of professing Christians. Let us pray for the blessed time when all Christians shall be one inwardly and outwardly, as the Lord Jesus prayed, "That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me" (John 17:21). Meanwhile, if in non-essentials we differ for a time, let us endeavour at least to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
(5) God makes with all His elect, as with Israel, "a covenant of peace," and this "an everlasting covenant." He dwells in them now, as His earthly sanctuary, by His Spirit (Ezekiel 37:26). He will hereafter dwell among them visibly, with the fall manifestation of His glory, when "the tabernacle of God shall be with men" (Revelation 21:3); and "God Himself shall be with them, and shall be their God" (Ezekiel 37:27). Let us, therefore, as the redeemed of the Lord, live conformably to our high calling, and to such glorious hopes!