No not that kind of heart surgery, such as a transplant or an artificial replace of the organ that pumps your blood. Though we can be thankful that we live in a day and age when it is possible and highly successful, at least for physical heart surgery.
What I am talking about is the new heart that all people need. In this post we conclude our five-part series on Ezekiel chapters 35 and 36. In Ezekiel 36 verses 33-38, God recaps the promise he is making to Israel. The people and land will be restored and cleansed, and they will flourish. But this is only possible if they first allow God to give them a heart transplant.
As he has said numerous times throughout chapter 36, he will do it. They can count on him. He is true to his word. They were the ones that broke the ancient covenant, not him. He is there for them. They simply need to turn from their wicked ways and run into his open arms which are ready to embrace them.
If they do, what God says will happen will be no surprise to readers of this blog who have been following the Ezekiel series for that past six months. When Israel turns to God, and God gives them a new heart and new Spirit, restoring them to the land where they will flourish, then they will know that he is the Lord. Once again, he reminds them of his desire to be known by them, to be in relationship with them. This is the most repeated phrase in the book of Ezekiel. God wants to be close with his people, and it will require his work of heart transplant in their lives, enlivening them by his Spirit.
I find Ezekiel 36 to be an astounding chapter, and one of the most famous in the book of Ezekiel. In this chapter we see both God’s work in salvation (which we know was fulfilled in Jesus), and human choice to turn away from sin and live in light of that salvation.
Thinking about that ultimate fulfillment of the God’s promise in Ezekiel 36, we Christians can praise God that in Christ, and by his Spirit, we do have a new heart. So what does it mean for Christians to have that new heart, to have the Holy Spirit in us, living in light of that?
Larry Crabb says in his book, Inside Out, which has been a bit of a conversation partner during this five-part series, that we need the Word, the Spirit and the Community of the church.
In our study of God’s word, we learn what is true.
In our relationship with the Spirit, we receive conviction about how the truth applies to our lives, and we receive empowerment to live in step with the Spirit.
In our relationships in the church community, we receive accountability and encouragement.
We need all three. God is at work in all three. The new heart he promises is available to us. But it is not magic. It is a process of submitting ourselves honestly to the work of God.
So what will you do? Do you need a spiritual heart transplant? Turn to God, and embrace him in a new way.
We learned so far in this week’s five-part blog series on Ezekiel 35-36 that God says that he will give us a new heart of flesh, and a new spirit. What Spirit? That’s the next step in the transformation process. Learn about steps 1-3 here. Now we learn about the all-important Step Four in verse 27.
Step Four is that God will give us his Spirit! Amazing! The Spirit of God living in us? Yes! And for what purpose? God explains that the Spirit will move us to follow his ways.
Here we see the direct connection to the teaching of Jesus and his apostles in the New Testament. Jesus talked about fruit trees in very much the same way that God, through Ezekiel, talks about how a human heart changes. Jesus taught that you will know a person by their fruit, just like you know a tree by its fruit. If bad fruit comes from a tree, you know that something isn’t right inside that tree. But a proper tree produces good fruit. This is why Jesus will go on to say, “Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.”
The heart is the determining factor in how we will live our lives. The status of our heart will guide our thoughts, our words, our actions. If there are thoughts, words and deeds coming from our lives that are not honoring to God, then we need to examine our hearts. In his book, Inside Out, Larry Crabb says we will find a demanding heart there. While it is good to clean the outside of the dish, Jesus says, if we first clean the inside, we’ll clean the outside too. This is why God performs the ritual bath in verse 25, but what he really wants to get at is that stone cold heart.
He wants to transplant it not with another human heart, not with an artificial heart, not with pig’s heart (pig’s heart?…we talked about that in the previous post), but with a new heart that is enlivened by his Spirit. Of course, that’s precisely what happened in the early church in Acts 2 when the Spirit arrived, just as Jesus said he would. As the Apostle Paul writes, our bodies are temple of the Spirit, and thus we should walk in step with the Spirit so the fruit of the Spirit flows from our lives. We have the energy and power of God the Holy Spirit working in us to help us become more like Jesus.
Ezekiel, Jesus and Paul are not describing physical heart surgery. The kind of heart transplant they envision, the heart transplant that leads to changed lives, is done in the realm of our spirit and our will, and it is most often, but not only, a process of a lifetime.
As we continue through Ezekiel 36, God says that not only will he give them a new heart of flesh and a new spirit, his Spirit, he will also make their land flourish, which we read in verses 28-30. Finally in verses 31-32, he gets very honest with them once again. This beautiful process of God entering their world and lives and doing the work of transformation both inwardly, outwardly and in their land is because they themselves caused it. This is a critical piece of the situation. The people need to see their culpability. Change is not possible unless we first see that we need to change.
When it comes to change there are generally two kinds of people: those who see that they need to change, but feel powerless to do so. And those who do not see that they need to change, but they absolutely need to change. God, in this passage, seems primarily to be addressing the latter group, those who don’t think they need to change, those who look around their world, see the carnage of relationships and brokenness, and then blame others. Repeatedly in this passage, God is saying to Israel, “I am here for you, I am boldly and powerfully going to act on your behalf, but you need to see and acknowledge the truth of what caused this situation in the first place. You did!”
It is so difficult to have a truthful perspective of ourselves, especially when we are at fault. We hate to admit it. I hate to admit when I am wrong. Sometimes I think to myself, “I can’t possibly be wrong on this, or I can’t possibly be wrong that many times.” Could be in my marriage. Could be in my parenting. Could be in my role in the church. All of which matter deeply to me, and thus I want to improve in those areas. Yet, I can hate to be called out on even small ways I might be wrong. Maybe you know the feeling.
But notice God in this passage over and over and over saying to Israel that they need to get to a point where they loathe themselves. Where they are ashamed and disgraced. See the strong language God uses in verses 31 and 32. We might read that and think, “Geesh, God, that’s harsh. Aren’t you supposed to be loving and kind and gracious?” God wants us to hate ourselves? Doesn’t that sound wrong? We’re not supposed to hate ourselves, are we?
But notice how God uses these strong words. He is not saying that the people are to hate themselves. He is saying that they are to have a loathing and shame and disgrace for their sinful conduct. That is the right view of misconduct of any kind. A proper mindset is a negative opinion of our sinful conduct.
The problem, therefore, was that Israel did not have that negative view of their own sin. They blamed others. They blamed God. They kept sinning. They looked at their lives, which were in total shambles at this point, as their city and temple were destroyed and their nation was defeated, and yet even then they still blamed others! That is the sin of the narcissist, the arrogant, prideful, gas-lighting, manipulator. That is the heart filled with demands that Larry Crabb talks about in his book Inside Out.
Yet God is saying to Israel, “I am here. I am ready and willing to help you make the change you need, but you are part of this transformation.” God even says that he will go first. He’ll do the work of transplant, but they must participate too, and have a properly place loathing and shame and disgrace for their sin.
How about you? Does that resonate with the situation of your life? If so, God is ready to reach out to you, to change your life! His gracious, loving arms are wide open to welcome you!
How does God describe the process of human transformation, so that we are becoming the kind of people he wants us to be? We find out in Ezekiel 36, verses 24-32. Go ahead and read those verses and see if you can discern the steps of how God changes the human heart?
Do you see the process of transformation? There are multiple steps of transformation, and they are flooded with a two-word phrase that is repeated over and over and over. Did you see it?
“I will, I will, I will.” God will do it. This is a promise from God’s mouth about what he will do. What will he do? The work of transforming a rebellious, disobedient people, into the people of God. Let’s take a look at all the steps God will use.
First, in verse 24, God gathers his scattered people who have been exiled, like Ezekiel, in foreign nations. This speaks to restoration, which is especially meaningful to people who have been ripped away from their homes and carted off.
Second, God cleanses the people. In verse 25, we read the imagery of a ritual cleansing bath. We know that sprinkling a little bit of water on a person doesn’t cleanse them. For that you need a deep scrubbing. My dog hates baths. When I open the cabinet where we keep his shampoo, he knows what is coming next, and walks to the far side of the house. I don’t know why he hates it, but perhaps it has something to do with the fact that cleaning him requires a scrubbing, not just a simple sprinkling. To get his dog stink out of that thick fur is no simple task. God, however, is using the imagery of a ritual bath that does not intend to do what a scrubbing will do. What God depicts is a ritual, very much like the cleansing rituals from the Mosaic Law. The image is powerful, God doing the work of removing the significant amount of impurity from the people. Their sin, their rebellions, and specifically that of idolatry. While this is symbolic imagery, and not a literal bath (God is also not talking about the Christian practice of baptism), what this imagery teaches us is that God wants us to be clean, and he wants to help us. Notice that this cleaning is outward. Our outward actions matter. We are to be people who outwardly obey God. But outward actions flow from an inward place, don’t they? And that is what God gets to in the third step of transformation.
Step three: in verse 26, God goes to that inward place, the heart and the spirit. God is using the image of our blood-pumping organ to refer to our innermost being. Our heart, as it pumps blood, is the physical source of life. God envisions here a spiritual transplant surgery that seeks to replace the spiritual source of our lives. In our day and age, we are used to the medical miracle of heart transplants. It astounds me that such a thing is possible. You take out a bad heart, and you replace it with the good heart of someone who recently died, but whose heart is still strong. Then there is artificial heart surgery. I find that mind-blowing too, that we could make a heart, which is a fancy pump, and it can work in place of a heart of flesh. Perhaps still more amazing, recently surgeons at the University of Maryland performed the first ever successful transplant of a pig’s heart into a human being. The pig had to be genetically modified, but the transplant worked. Of course, long-term effects remain to be seen. But in Ezekiel 36, God is talking about a very different heart transplant surgery.
He says that their hearts are stone. Cold. Hard. Dead. The people are still physically alive, so we know that God is speaking symbolically here. He is talking about their love. They are lacking in love toward God and others, which was obvious by how poorly they behaved in turning away from him, committing injustices against humanity. That’s what it means to have hearts of stone. While your blood-pumper might be working just fine, you can have a heart of stone. Maybe you’ve felt it. We call it being cold-hearted. Dead inside. You see it in how some people treat other people. It can happen in Christians too.
My spiritual director advised me to read the book Inside Out by Larry Crabb, and it is excellent. Crabb suggests that the stone-cold heart is best understood as committing the sin of being demanding. Demanding of God. Demanding of other people. The difficult thing, Crabb says, is that we so rarely see ourselves as demanding. And yet, the sin of being demanding is extremely widespread. I urge you to read Crabb’s book to learn more about the sin of being demanding. More than likely, it’s in your heart.
I have to admit that I struggle a bit with what God is saying in Ezekiel’s prophecy. Remember all the “I will” statements? God says that he will do all the steps of transformation. There is no indication in this passage of human choice. What, then, about free will? Is God saying that he is going to remove the heart of stone against their will? I don’t think so. Consider what we know of God, and we must see this prophecy in line with everything else we know to be true. God honors human free will, even when those humans make horrible choices, like the choice to keep living with a heart of stone. So what is God saying with all of these “I will” statements? I believe it is best to view God as on the ready, standing next to his spiritual operating room with all his surgical tools, waiting for the person to say, “Ok, open me up, do the surgery. I’m done living the demanding life, Lord. I trust in you.”
After God says that he will give us a new heart of flesh, he also says he will give us a new spirit. What does he mean by “spirit”? Check back in to the next post, as we’ll find out?
This week on the blog we are seeking to learn if and how a cold heart can be transformed into a warm heart. In other words, can people change? If so, how? After learning about the prophecy against Edom in chapter 35, in the previous post, we now begin chapter 36, and God asks Ezekiel to prophesy to Israel. In this amazing prophecy in chapter 36, God describes how a cold heart can change.
To start off, please read verses 1-7. To summarize these verses, God is saying, “Israel the nations around you, like Edom which I just talked about, have plundered you and ridiculed while you have been going through your time of distress, but I am going to take care of them.” What distress? God is referring to the recent invasion of Israel by Babylon, during which time Babylon destroyed the land, including the city of Jerusalem, sending a second wave of exiles to Babylon.
Did the surrounding nations come to Israel’s aid? No. Instead, those nations saw an opportunity to enrich themselves, sending raiding parties in to see what the Babylonians left behind and take it. It was a land grab, punching Israel while they were down. To make matters worse, those nations, like Edom, also ridiculed Israel. The surrounding nations talked trash about Israel. That’s the worst, right? To not only lose the game, but also to lose when your opponent is arrogantly making fun of how bad your skills are. That cuts deep, doesn’t it? So imagine how Israel was feeling. Like losers. Like people with little hope.
In a situation of desperation, such as what Israel was experiencing, it seemed they forgot about their part in the awful situation. It wasn’t as if they were just unlucky, or surprised, or that this situation was random. The people of Israel had persistently turned their backs on God, and as we saw in previous chapters, God called Israel out as well. Now he will call out their sin again. They had lost their land, more of them were in exile, the surrounding nations were plundering them and ridiculing them, and God was watching. He was not happy.
What will he do? Pause reading this blog and see what God says in Ezekiel 36, verses 8-12.
How about that? God says he will restore them to the land of Israel where they will flourish! Skim down through those verses and look at the very positive words God uses: “produce, fruit, soon come home, I am concerned for you, will look on you with favor, I will multiply, towns inhabited, ruins rebuilt, increase, fruitful, prosper.” This is an extremely positive, hopeful message!
In verse 11 we read, “Then you will know that I am the Lord,” that most important phrase of the book of Ezekiel. God is saying that he is going to be involved in restoring Israel, and then they will know that he is the Lord. In their previous situation, they did not know that he was the Lord. Their relationship was broken. They were not in a loving, trusting relationship with him. But one day they will be.
How? How will this happen that Israel, who has not known God, will come to know him? In verses 8-12, he says that he will restore them to their land and cause them to flourish. Here God gives not only Israel, but us as well, a wonderful reminder that he is at work in the world. When we feel like he is not, when we don’t see evidence of his work, we need to dwell on the truth that he is still alive and active, desiring a relationship with not only his people, but the whole world.
There is a problem, though, and it is the problem of humanity’s rebellion against God. That problem is serious and needs to be dealt with. God does exactly that in verses 13-23. Go ahead and read those verses to see how God addresses the sinful rebellion of his people
As God reminds them that this mess they found themselves in was their doing, I find it so interesting how he describes their reputation in verses 20-21. Wherever the people of Israel intermingle with other nations, it was said of them, “These are Yahweh’s people, and yet they had to leave his land.” More than likely your English translation says, “They are the LORD’s people,” and it prints LORD in all capital letters. Whenever the Old Testament prints the word LORD in all capital letters, it is referring to the actual name of God, Yahweh. This is important because there were loads of gods in the ancient near east, and they all had names. The Egyptians had gods, the Canaanites had gods, and so did the Assyrians and Babylonians. Much of international relations in that time was a matter of whose gods were more powerful.
Of course, as we know from the history of the nation of Israel, their God Yahweh, is the only true God, and he is powerful beyond imagination. We read the stories of God’s power unleashed time and time again, giving tiny powerless Israel astounding victories. So Israel knew their God Yahweh was real, and that he was utterly more powerful than the supposed gods of the foreign nations, who were not really gods at all.
But what happens when Babylon invades Israel, defeats Israel, burns the city of Jerusalem down to the ground, including the total destruction of the temple of Yahweh, and then carts the people of Israel away? Who is more powerful now? Clearly the Babylonians believed that they and their gods were more powerful than Yahweh. That’s exactly what the Lord, Yahweh, is getting at in verses 20-21, when he says that his name is being profaned. Clearly the people of Israel are at fault that his name was being profaned. Their sinful rebellion let to this. But God is still God. He is still concerned for his name.
Notice how he expands on this theme with the very honest words of verses 22-23.
God says that it is not for their sake that he will restore them, but for the sake of his holy name. God is concerned for his reputation! He speaks truthfully pointing out that they had profaned his name. He doesn’t just say it once, but multiple times in verses 22-23. Though they have profaned his name by their rebellious behavior, he will show himself to be holy through them. That means there is still hope for them. God is bigger than their rebellion. He is not accepting their rebellion. He is not allowing their rebellion. He is saying that he will make a way that through them, his holiness will shine. And all the nations will know that he is the Lord.
We see God’s heart in this. It is a heart for people to experience change. That speaks of his desire for a close relationship with people. He wants people becoming the kind of people in which he will dwell. Don’t think about that in the abstract, as if that only applies to other people. Make it personal. That’s how God thinks about you and me. This was not just a promise for the ancient people of Israel. God says clearly that he wants all people to experience this. God’s vision is global. God wants all people to be people through whom his holiness can shine. But how? How will God do this work of transformation so that he can dwell with us?
We have seen in this section a critical first step toward transformation: an honest assessment of ourselves. While God said to Israel that he was going to rescue them, he also wanted them to be very clear about their current condition. They were rebellious and sinful, and they needed to see that, to own up to that. That is the first step in transformation, to admit who we really are, even if who we are is very difficult to admit to. Truth is the first step.
Check back in to the next post, and we’ll find out what comes next.
Many years ago, my wife Michelle and I sat in the living room of a young couple listening, somewhat shocked, as only one year after having done their pre-marital counseling and wedding ceremony, one of them said to the other, “I don’t feel love for you anymore.” The other spouse burst into tears.
How is it that a heart changes? And so fast. We clearly remembered the overwhelming joy of their dating years, their engagement, and finally on their wedding day, we could feel the burning hot glow of love they had for one another. What happened? Sadly, this story is all too familiar. A heart on fire can grow cold.
We can feel this toward God too, can’t we? What is the temperature of your hearts? If your heart is cold, is it possible for a cold heart to grow warm? Turn to Ezekiel 35, as we seek to answer the question, how does a heart change?
Chapter 35 is a prophecy against Edom, very similar to the prophecies against the other surrounding nations, which we studied in chapters 25-32, one prophecy of which was a brief prophecy against Edom. Now God gives Ezekiel another longer prophecy against Edom.
In verse 1 we read God asking Ezekiel to perform The Prophetic Stare once more: “Set your face against Mt. Seir,” which is located in Edom. Edom is, historically, a sister nation of Israel. If you go way, way back in ancient Israel history, there were twin brothers named Jacob and Esau. Their grandfather was a guy named Abraham, and their father was Isaac. Jacob was the younger twin, and thus he was not to have received the birthright and blessing from their father Isaac. In our day and age, this would mean that the oldest son would receive a much larger inheritance. But sneaky Jacob deceived their old blind father Isaac into giving him the birthright, and as you can imagine, when Esau found out, he was really angry. If you’ve ever had family drama around an inheritance, you know the feeling. So Jacob fled for his life, and eventually, with the blessing on him, God changed his name to Israel, and Jacob became the father of the nation. Esau, however, didn’t do so bad either, starting the nation called Edom, located just over the Jordan River to the east. Eventually the two brothers made up, but in the centuries to come relations between Israel and Edom on a national level were not always so great. And that’s why God now a couple thousand years after Jacob and Esau, asks Ezekiel to perform the Prophetic Stare against Mt. Seir in Edom.
Remember that the Stare has no power. It is just shining the light of truth on a situation. Because the truth that God wants to share here in chapter 35 is so similar to what we’ve heard many times in Ezekiel, I will only skim over it. In this new prophecy God calls out Edom for being opportunistic which Israel was suffering the devastation laid on them at the hands of Babylon. Look at the connection to the ancient history between Israel and Edom in verse 15. God mentions the inheritance of the house of Israel became desolate. What Jacob long before stole from Esau is now desolate, as Israel lost the land to Babylon.
Now God says that now Edom will be devastated, and multiple times he says, “Then you/they will know that I am the Lord.”
That’s the key phrase of Ezekiel. God wants to be known. By his people Israel, as well as by the people of other nations around. I am so glad that we are hearing this phrase again and again and again. It begs the question, “Do we really know God as deeply as we say we do? Do we really know God as he wants to be known?”
I’m concerned that we know of God, but maybe our knowledge is quite intellectual or shallow, but not close relationally or meaningfully. Do you remember back a few chapters when we talked about the difference between information and formation? Do we know the information about God, and what it means to believe in him, but do not have much of a relationship with him? How much do you really know God? How much is God really a part of your day? Your life? Is it possible that deep down in your soul you wonder about this? You wonder if there is supposed to be more to a relationship with God than accepting him as your savior, praying a prayer, and then going to church, reading your Bible and maybe participating in church events until one day you die and go to heaven. Do you wonder why during your earthly days, God feels distant and somewhat uninvolved? Is there more. What does it mean when he says, “then they will know that I am the Lord?”
Let’s not answer those questions. Let’s just allow them to cause our minds to wonder, as we continue with what God goes on to say in chapter 36. I think you’ll find it quite fascinating. We’ll start chapter 36 in the next post.
And that couple I mentioned at the beginning of this post, the couple in which one spouse said, after about one year of marriage, “I don’t love my spouse anymore”? They’re still married. They did the work of honest self-evaluation of their hearts and minds, work that led to still more work to nurture actions that showed hearts can change. We’ll learn more about how our hearts can change in the rest of the posts this week.
Have you heard the phrase, “That person will never change.” Or how about the similar, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Maybe you’ve heard yourself say, “That’s just the way I am.”
Years ago, I was in a conversation with someone who was describing their most recent conflict with their boss. The person’s response to their boss was, “Take me or leave me, that’s just the way I am.” The same person had been through a handful of jobs in recent years, each time ending in drama and conflict, to which they believed it was always the other people in the job, usually the boss, who couldn’t, but should have been able to, deal with the person’s attitude and personality. “I am who I am. Deal with it.”
I see two kinds of people in these situations. People who don’t want to change, and people who don’t think they can change. Are you in the latter group? Often we think we can’t change because for years we’ve tried, to little or no avail. We get frustrated at our efforts, most of which seem to be failures, and we think we are incapable of meaningful or lasting change. Know the feeling?
Or maybe you are in the former group, and you don’t want to change. Maybe you reason, “It’s good that I accept myself, and others should also.” It is good to have a healthy sense of self, but too often, in so doing, we are simply excusing our poor attitudes and behaviors. We don’t like to think of ourselves as needing to change, and we can grow a hard exterior to those who suggest we do need to change. While the wake of our lives is awash with broken relationships, we reason that all those people just couldn’t handle us, and that’s their problem, not ours. What is really going on, however, is almost certainly unchecked narcissism and arrogance in our lives. It is super difficult to see it, though, when we are boldly committed to our own rightness.
Is there an area of your life where you would like to be more of the disciple that Jesus wants you to be, but you are struggling or self-deceived? Is there hope for those of us would like to change but feel like we can’t? Are we just hopeless?
This coming week on the blog, we’ll seek answers to these important questions in Ezekiel chapters 35 and 36. Please read them ahead of time, and then I look forward to discussing it further with you next week, as we talk about the sometimes confusing and frustration process of change!
In the previous post, we read God’s description of human flourishing in Ezekiel 34. Some might say, “But wasn’t that a promise to the people of Israel?” Yes…and no. A case could be made that what God is saying is applicable to all people. But what about Christians? Doesn’t the New Testament only talk about human flourishing in heaven, where true followers of Jesus go after death? Does Jesus say anything about human flourishing during our lives on earth?
In John 10:10 Jesus remarks, “I have come that they might have life and life abundantly.” Jesus here indicates that one of his missional goals was that humanity would be able to experience abundant life. In teaching abundant life, Jesus is not talking about life after death. He does talk about life after death in other places, particularly when he uses the phrase “eternal life.” Abundant life, however, is the kind of life that Jesus desires people to experience in the here and now. The word the author of this passage, John, used, in the ancient Greek he originally wrote in is defined as “pertaining to a quantity so abundant as to be considerably more than what one would expect or anticipate—‘that which is more than, more than enough, beyond the norm, abundantly, superfluous’.” While this concept could be applied to physical abundance, the kind of life Jesus desires is not an outward abundance of things, but it is a deeper, more meaningful inward abundance. What an amazing picture of flourishing in the here and now!
As we conclude this five-part series on Ezekiel 34, we need to return to the first post in which we asked, “Does God keep his promises?” It depends what promises you think God has made to us. For example, God has not promised us an easy life. If you think human flourishing and the abundant life means an easy, comfortable, entertaining life full of great health, wonderful relationships, and lots of money and possessions, then God will not keep that promise. Because he never made that promise.
He promises instead a flourishing, abundant life in his Kingdom. We usher in that Kingdom when we have spiritual conversations with people to help them become disciples of Jesus, when we root out and eradicate injustice, when we trust in God, not in a human king or government. We live the flourishing, abundant life when we grow our relationship with the Spirit who lives with us. Think about how the Spirit brings flourishing, God with us, guiding us, comforting us in the middle of pain, never leaving or forsaking us.
So look back, evaluate how you understand the promises of God. See if you are labeling things as promises that are potentially your desires for an easy or pain-free life. Then turn to God. Make him your Shepherd, your true King. Spend time with him. Get to know him. Allow him and his Kingdom to saturate your life. Then in time, perhaps gradually, you will experience more and more of the flourishing abundant life Jesus promised. And he will keep that promise!
Have you ever wondered what heaven is like? I asked a bunch of questions about heaven in this post, when I previewed this five-part series on Ezekiel chapter 34. Now we get to an answer.
In Ezekiel 34 verses 23-31, God shares a new vision of hope for the people.
While God says that he will be the shepherd for the sheperdless, he will also bring them into a land where they can flourish. He is talking not about sheep, but he people, Israel. Though the people were in exile in Babylon, and though it seemed that Babylon was more powerful than God, God will rescue them. He will restore them, and he will give them the land. But it won’t be like it was before the exile. The wealthy powerful kings who betrayed them will be gone. There will be a new king, a new shepherd king, of the line of David. God will be their God, and this new Davidic king will be a servant prince.
God will also make a new covenant of peace. The old covenant was broken. But this will be a wonderful, better covenant. That word “peace” is very expansive in meaning. When we think of a peace deal, we think of the end of an armed conflict between nations. A peace treaty. God is thinking of something much more than that. It is the idea of human flourishing. A place and a means for people to be fruitful and multiply. No more injustice. Justice will reign. No more wealthy, powerful kings hoarding the resources, as there will be enough for all. This is not socialism or communism. It is the loving generosity of God, that flows from him into his people and through them to all. It is not coerced. It is the natural outflow of God’s covenant of peace, as his people are living in that peace.
There is safety. There is food. There is rain. There is freedom. Most of all, there is God. What a vision of hope! This is the place where the longings of your hearts are satisfied because God is there.
This is our hope too. In Jesus, we see that God absolutely has kept his promises. I think one of the best pieces of advice I ever heard about the hard times in life, the times when God seems absent is to remember the cross. On the cross, the Shepherd gives his life for the sheep. Remembering that he gave his life for us. It doesn’t mean the pain or doubt will leave. It means that we have a hope in life. Jesus has defeated sin and death and we will live again! There is more, so much more, than what we see in the news. Jesus is our Good Shepherd!
As we fast forward into the New Testament, we see how this is fulfilled in our lives. God gave us the Holy Spirit to comfort, guide and correct us as needed. Jesus promised to never leave us or forsake us, and we see how that is true by the Spirit living with us.
So is what we read in Ezekiel 34 a vision of heaven? It certainly is that. Heaven is the ultimate expression of the Kingdom of God. But remember what Jesus taught us to pray: “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” What we read at the end of Ezekiel 34 is also attainable now. Jesus said that we, his disciples, are to usher in the Kingdom. We are to help all people experience human flourishing. Just like a good Father wants his children to flourish, so does our heavenly father!
Does God care about the downtrodden, the poor, the hungry, the slave? Does he care about people who are going through pain? We can wonder about this when we are the downtrodden ones, when we are poor, hungry and enslaved. As we continue studying Ezekiel 34, we learn about God’s heart.
Ezekiel’s prophecy in chapter 34 is about how Israel’s shepherds mistreated and neglected their sheep. We learned in the previous post, the God wasn’t talking about shepherds and sheep. He was using shepherds and sheep to talk about Israel’s kings and people. Through the prophecy God declares that he has some rehab work to do because there were so many bad kings, and the people looked to human kings, as well as foreign kings, to save and protect them, rather than to God. We read about this remedial work in Ezekiel 34, verses 16-22.
God starts by noting that he will reach out to rescue and care for the lost, the injured and the weak sheep. We expect the owner of the flock to do just that. What he does next, though, can sound controversial. He says that the strong and sleek he will destroy.
Woah. What does God have against the strong and sleek?
It can seem that God is biased in favor of the poor and hurting, the marginalized, those who have faced injustice. Here we see God’s heart for justice, as he goes on to describe how the strong have committed injustice against the weak. The strong have allowed the weak to live in a world where they are floundering rather than flourishing.
In verses 17-19, we learn that the weak have been beaten down at the hands of the wealthy and powerful. The strong are like sheep who not only have their fill of the lush grass, but they also stomp on the uneaten grass, thus leaving none for any other sheep. The strong are like sheep who not only have their thirst quenched by clean water, but they also muddy the water, making it non-potable for the rest.
Note that God is speaking in general terms. He is not saying that these principles of injustice are at work in every single case. Sometimes the poor are poor because they made bad decisions. Sometimes the poor are poor because they spend their money unwisely, or they are lazy or gluttons. But often, far more often, the gap between the rich and poor is widened because the rich have the access and power to control the wealth gap, and they want to keep it that way. This is precisely what happened in ancient Israel. The wealthy powerful kings made sure that they stayed rich and powerful at the expense of the people.
At this point, God finally stepped in, saying, “Enough!” He allowed Assyria to defeat Israel to the north, and he allowed Babylon to destroy Jerusalem and Judah to the south. When God gave Ezekiel this prophecy, there was no more Israelite monarchy. Not in the north and not in the south. It was over.
Notice how God illustrates his intervention by describing that he will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. The fat ones are the wicked kings of Israel who abused and drove away the lean skinny sheep, who represent the powerless starving people. Now God says that he will shepherd a new flock, a flock made up of the skinny sheep. God will be the shepherd of the skinny sheep. God’s heart, in other words, beats for the downcast, the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the foreigner, the widow, the orphan, the refugee. This is a theological principle we see over and over and over in Scripture, in both the Old and New Testaments. God calls us to follow his heart, meaning that we should have a passionate concern for the marginalized as well.
In the previous post, we learned that in Ezekiel 34, God gave Ezekiel a prophetic word condemning the shepherds of Israel, because they selfishly cared for themselves while allowing the sheep to be hurt and preyed upon. But God wasn’t talking about shepherd and sheep. He was using them as a metaphor to depict what the kings of Israel and Judah allowed to happen under their watch for many centuries.
A summary of the history of the nations of Israel and Judah before Ezekiel’s era is a very, very sad story. Every human king of Israel had a rebellious streak, just as we all do. But it was after the reign of the great king Solomon, who himself had numerous issues, that the nation split in two. Ten tribes to the north formed the new nation of Israel, and two tribes to the south formed the new nation of Judah. The kings in the north were basically one bad king after the other. When I say “bad,” what I mean is that those kings in Israel chose not to follow the way of God. They themselves did evil, often motivated by greed and power, and they allowed evil to be done among the people. They led the people to worship foreign gods and idols, sometimes including child sacrifice, and they committed acts of treachery, slavery and injustice. In the end God allowed the foreign superpower Assyria to invade and conquer the northern kingdom of Israel.
In the southern Kingdom of Judah things were better. It was, however, a bit of a roller coaster ride, with bad kings following good ones, and so on. Some were quite wicked like the kings in the north, and some were exceedingly good, like King Josiah or Hezekiah, who made significant reforms to bring the kingdom back to God. But eventually, Judah had a streak of bad kings, which led to Babylon defeating Judah’s capital city, Jerusalem, and exiling 10,000 Jews back to Babylon, including Ezekiel.
During these centuries, whenever there was a bad king and the people would rebel, God would send prophets, pleading with the people and the kings to return to following God’s ways. Sometimes the kings and the people heeded the prophet’s words. Often the kings and people did not. They were too tempted and pressured by the powerful nations around them.
Even after that first wave of exiles was deported to Babylon, including Ezekiel, the people could think, “At least the temple is still intact.” As they sought to answer the question of whether God was keeping his promises, which we talked about in the previous post here, rather than consider their role in breaking the covenant, they looked at the temple standing strong as evidence that things were fine, they could keep doing what they were doing, which was behave terribly.
But that didn’t last long. Babylon eventually decimated Jerusalem, burned the temple and sent the people away. Exiled in Babylon, you can imagine people wondering, “Now, what about the promises of God?” God answers that question in Ezekiel 34, verses 11-15, by answering another question, “Who is the true king of Israel?”
There were plenty of human kings over Israel, but largely that human monarchy had been a disaster. Israel needed to see that God was the true king. In God’s covenant with Israel for centuries past, he said that if the people and kings of Israel would worship, serve and love God as their true king, and if their earthly kings would lead the people in proclaiming and obeying God as the true king, then God would bless them.
But the kings and people did not follow God, so now he proclaims that he is the true king, and he will shepherd his people. This is a theme that pops up in many places in the Bible, perhaps most famously by David in Psalm 23, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” In that psalm, while David was the human king, it is the Lord who was his shepherd. David, though he is king, has the right perspective on God.
Now in Ezekiel 34, God is attempting to restore that correct understanding of himself as the Shepherd King of the people. He has some rehab work to do because there were so many bad kings, and the people looked to human kings, as well as foreign kings, to save and protect them, rather than to God. We’ll learn about this remedial work in the next post.
Engaging Scripture 