It’s a new year and our thoughts naturally tend toward making a fresh start and wondering how things are going to be different (and hopefully better) this year. But as believers, we have already experienced the freshest start possible. Our sins have been wiped away completely, and we are a new creation. Paul says as much in 2 Corinthians 5:17. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” We have a new birth, new life, new position, new nature, new goals, new relationships, a new mission, a new purpose … and many more. But the key to all of this, the only way anything becomes new – including us – rests with God and His divine initiative. And we learn about it, among other places, in Ezekiel.
The Problem
Ezekiel prophesied from Babylonian captivity and spoke to his fellow exiles. His words are blunt and direct. In chapter 18, he explains that everyone is accountable for his own sins. While the nation of Israel was surely being judged, each person would answer for his himself.
“Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways,” says the Lord GOD. “Repent, and turn from all your transgressions, so that iniquity will not be your ruin.”
Ezekiel 18:30
So the end result of sin is our ruin, that is, our eternal ruin. That’s a problem. And for God’s people exiled with Ezekiel, the destruction of Jerusalem was only a taste of what lay ahead.
The standards haven’t changed for us today. We are going to be held accountable for what we have done. And while the words “repent and turn from all your transgressions” are simple enough … our success with our resolutions for weight loss and exercise may give us some indication as to how that will go. Bottom line, if it’s our responsibility to keep ourselves sinless, we’re in big trouble.
The Solution
God, through Ezekiel, tells us what we need to get out of our dire situation.
Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Israel?
Ezekiel 18:31
Very simple. Cast away our transgressions. Get ourselves a new heart and a new spirit.
Okay … but that’s not something we can do. We can’t just get ourselves a new heart, especially since God is talking metaphorically and not about the blood pump in our chests. This is where we need the divine initiative.
The Initiative
God explains in Ezekiel 36:26-27:
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.
God actually said the same thing back in chapter 11 of Ezekiel, but now that people better understand the mess they’re in, He reiterates what He has done.
I will give. I will take. I will put. THEN we can walk and we can keep and do. If God doesn’t initiate the transaction, we have no hope. However, before we even understood the problem, God had initiated the solution.
And, like many things in Scripture, this is another retelling of the amazing story of what has done for us. In eternity past, He had the plan in place to save us from our sin. God came to find Adam, Adam didn’t go to God. He covered Adam and Eve with skins even before they asked. God called out a people for Himself. God decided to take on flesh and become one of us so He could redeem us. All of this great plan of salvation and rescue is because of God’s divine initiative. All things are made new because He made them new.
Next week we’ll look at the covenant that makes all things new.