ALL LIVES

ALL LIVES

Ezekiel 18:1-4 NET.

¹ The word of the LORD came to me: ² “What do you mean by quoting this proverb concerning the land of Israel, ‘The fathers eat sour grapes And the children’s teeth become numb?’ ³ “As surely as I live, declares the sovereign LORD, you will not quote this proverb in Israel anymore! ⁴ Indeed! All lives are mine — the life of the father as well as the life of the son is mine. The one who sins will die.”

It is very easy for us to go from day to day just looking at the world from our perspective. We are born into this world looking at it from our perspective. As we grow older, hopefully, we mature. Part of maturing is learning to look at things from other people’s perspectives. We learn to be considerate of others. That means we think of how our actions affect them: how they see us. Developing ways of seeing our world from other people’s perspectives is helpful and healthy. Sometimes we cannot see things clearly when focusing on how things affect us.

The Prophets in the Old Testament allow us to do the same thing on a higher level. They are written in order to give us God’s perspective. They help us to see things from God’s point of view. This is exactly why so many people avoid reading the Prophets. They are bothersome because they reveal how selfish and inconsiderate we can be. They reveal how wrong we are when we live our normal lives not considering that there is a heaven above us where God lives. We are accountable to him but don’t see him, so it is easy to live our lives as if he doesn’t exist.

This is called practical atheism. None of us would dare proclaim that we are atheists, but we often live as if there is no God above us to whom we are accountable. The people to whom the Prophets wrote lived like that. It was the Prophets’ job to slap them on the face and get them to wake up to a reality that they were ignoring: the reality of God’s existence and their accountability to him.

The Prophets were God’s mouthpiece. They received words from God and communicated those words to the people. Sometimes those words were words of comfort and consolation. When the people were hurting, God wanted them to know that he was aware of their plight and cared for them. He wanted them to know that help was on the way. The Prophets had the happy role of sharing the good news from God.

But the Prophets had another role as well. When the people were disobedient—when they were sinning and not living by God’s standards—the Prophets had the task of calling them to account. They had to share the bad news as well as the good news. They had to speak for God when God was angry at his people. They had to warn the people of the danger of God’s wrath.

Since the people were constantly straying away from God’s will and breaking their covenant with him, nobody wanted to see the Prophet. If the Prophet was walking down the street, the people would turn and walk the other way. They did not want to be reminded of their sin and unfaithfulness. They were comfortable thinking and living by their own standards and did not like to be held accountable for how different those standards were compared to how God thought and lived.

This is the world in which the Prophet Ezekiel lived. He was one of the people himself. He was just as guilty of looking at life from his perspective. So, before God could speak through him to his people, God often had to correct Ezekiel for his failures. That is what is going on in today’s text.

God’s question (2).

Ezekiel had been fond of quoting a proverb. It was not something Ezekiel made up. You can find the same proverb referred to in Jeremiah 31:29. It was a saying that people were familiar with. It said that the fathers ate sour grapes, and that caused their children to get numb teeth. What the fathers did changed the lives of their children.

As sayings go, it was not necessarily wrong. It could remind someone that their choices could affect their children’s lives. It could be a way of stopping yourself from doing something that might have negative consequences for those who come after you.

But that is not why people quoted that proverb in Ezekiel’s time. In Ezekiel’s time, people quoted that proverb as an excuse for not living up to God’s standards. They would live unrighteous, unfaithful lives and quote that proverb to blame bad choices made by their parents or ancestors for their sins.

It’s not my fault, they would say. I’m just living the life I inherited. If God has a problem, it’s not with me. He should deal with my ancestors. They got the ball rolling, so what I’m doing is all their fault.

So, God asks a question to Ezekiel. He asks the Prophet what he means by quoting the proverb. A proverb is like a tool. When used correctly, it can help people make course corrections in their lives. But this proverb was not being used correctly. It was being used to excuse bad behavior. 

God’s command (3).

God commanded Ezekiel to stop quoting that proverb. It was not being used correctly. It was not being used as a tool to foster wise living and a healthy lifestyle. So, the proverb has to go. From now on, such talk would be flagged to be deleted from anyone’s social media post. A warning would be given to anyone who used it. Such words would now be off-limits. They would be marked as inappropriate.

God is all for freedom of speech but bans us from unhealthy and dangerous speech. If what I am saying harms someone else, then the Lord commands me to shut up and stop saying it. If I am speaking as a representative of God and I am saying something he does not want me to say, then I am taking his name in vain. The Lord will not hold me guiltless if I do that.

The best way to deal with inappropriate activity is to STOP IT! If I’m hurting someone else, I need to STOP IT! If I’m misrepresenting God’s truth by telling lies, I need to STOP IT! If I’m looking where I should not be looking, seeking something I should not be seeking, God’s word to me is to repent of that sin and stop doing that.

God’s Justice (4).

But God is not just telling Ezekiel to stop quoting the proverb. He wants the Prophet to know why he needs to change his behavior. God does not just give commands. He also has a reason for every command he gives. He has a logical purpose for everything he commands and everything he prohibits. His purpose is not just “because I said so.”

God told Ezekiel the reason that he should no longer quote this proverb. He said it was because all lives are his. Literally, he said all throats are his. In Hebrew, if you wanted to talk about having power over someone’s life, with the ability to kill them or let them live, you would say that his throat is yours. That is what God said to Ezekiel. He said, “Notice, all throats, they are mine.

God is saying that not one person on the face of this planet is ever going to be condemned on the basis of who their Daddy is. For God, justice is something very personal. God has encoded that principle in his Law itself. Deuteronomy 24:16 says, “Fathers must not be put to death for what their children do, nor children for what their fathers do; each must be put to death for his own sin.” The principle is individual accountability.

All the pagan religions had taught the opposite principle. They taught that bad things happen because of someone else’s choice. You suffer because of a curse put on your family because of someone else’s sin or someone else’s greed. But the God of the Bible said that he does justice differently. He is not going to punish anyone for someone else’s crime.

Our God will dispense justice on Judgment Day, and not one stripe will come to anyone who does not personally deserve it. Therefore, not one of us can use our ancestry to excuse sin. Saying, “My Daddy made me like this,” is just as wrong as saying, “The devil made me do it.” When God punishes the lost for their sins, the principle is “The one who sins will die.” That is justice.

There will be people who stand before the throne of judgment and weep over their fate, but not one will ever be able to truthfully say that it isn’t their fault. Many will gnash their teeth in anger against God, but they won’t be able to blame the judge because each of them will see the law that they have transgressed. People will be redeemed because of Christ’s blood shed for them. But not one of those unredeemed will die because of someone else’s sin. All the unredeemed will die because each will personally deserve to die. That is how God does justice.

God’s mercy (21-23).

The good news God shares through Ezekiel comes later in the chapter. In verses 21-23, we read, “But if the wicked person turns from all the sin he has committed and observes all my statutes and does what is just and right, he will surely live; he will not die. None of the sins he has committed will be held against him; because of the righteousness he has done, he will live. Do I actually delight in the death of the wicked, declares the Sovereign LORD? Do I not prefer that he turn from his wicked conduct and live?”

That is the gospel. It says that anyone can be rescued from the consequences of his sin by repenting from that sin. God extends his hand to anyone who wants to be taken out of the hell that everyone deserves. That is grace. Grace is God giving us what we don’t deserve. Mercy is God not giving us what we deserve. Both God’s grace and God’s mercy are found in Christ. He is the Savior – the Rescuer.

Now, understand me. There is such a thing as inherited sin and inherited judgment. There is an instance where people die because of someone else’s sin. Inherited sin and judgment are what happened to the human race in Eden. God warned Adam and Eve that if they disobeyed his prohibition against eating from the forbidden tree, the race as a whole would be condemned to mortality. Because of their mortality, all humans would eventually die. God warned our ancestors that if they transgressed the commandment, both they and all their descendants would become mortal and eventually die.

We all know what happened. They transgressed, and God made good on his threat. The Apostle Paul said, “sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all people” (Romans 5:12). That is inherited judgment. All those graves outside in the cemetery are filled because of that inherited judgment. Not one of those people died because of their sins. They died because of their ancestor’s sin.

So, the God of the Bible tells us that there will come a day of Judgment. On that day, everyone will stand before God and answer to their creator for their sins. All it takes is one sin—one transgression against one law—to condemn a person to permanent destruction. The only thing that will ever keep anyone from that fate is God’s mercy.

That is why we all need Jesus Christ. His death on the cross is the only way out of the fate that we all deserve. So, Paul also says, “Just as condemnation for all people came through one transgression, so too through the one righteous act came righteousness leading to life for all people” (Romans 5:18). The one transgression took place in Eden and condemned us all to mortality and eventual death. The one righteous act took place on Calvary, resulting in “eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 5:21).

Grace is God giving us what we don’t deserve, while mercy is God not giving us what we do deserve. Both God’s grace and God’s mercy are found in Christ. He is the Savior—the Rescuer. He is the one who gave his life on the cross so that you and I can live forever.

God told Ezekiel to stop blaming others and take personal responsibility. He encouraged all his people to come to him in confession and repentance; they would find him ready to forgive and heal them. He says the same thing to you and me today. He tells us not to use any excuses for living in sin. He pleads with us to come to Christ, who offers us forgiveness and restoration.

God knows that we are sinners and that we sinned because we wanted to sin. He wants us to stop blaming others and seek his deliverance and grace. His door is open. All we have to do is walk through it. His grace and mercy are available for a limited time only. The price has already been paid. Our lives are his. All lives belong to him. He will either save them or destroy them. He wants to save us!