The Unilateral and Gracious Work of God: New Covenant Goodness

Covenant, Exile, and All That

A covenant is a promise. When God promises something, there is nothing that can keep Him from following through with it. Job 42:2 confesses, “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” To be consistent, one must recognize that “all things” certainly includes keeping promises. Even when Assyria attacked Jerusalem and took Israelites as slaves to Babylon, God is faithful to His covenant promises. He is not a promise-breaking God. Consider Genesis 50:20, when Joseph tells his brothers who sold him into slavery, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”  Why was Joseph enslaved? There are dual reasons: first, because of the sovereign plan of God to save His people; second, because of the sinful anger of Joseph’s brothers. The same is true for Israel’s enslavement to Babylon. God ordained both their bondage and redemption. However, it was Israel’s covenant unfaithfulness that led them to exile, not God’s unfaithfulness or weakness. The Mosaic Covenant was given as a conditional list for obedience to distinguish Israel from the rest of the nations but was limited in its power and scope—namely in its ability to effectuate any substantial change to the person’s sinful disposition. The New Covenant in Ezekiel 36:24-28, however, is the unilateral covenant of God which regenerates dead sinners, enables them to obedience, and preserves them forever.

Profaning God’s Name… Whatsit To Ya?

At this point in the larger sequence of events, Israel was indicted for profaning the name of God among the nations (Ezekiel 36:18-21). This was a clear violation of the Third Commandment. Not only did it violate the letter of the law, but also the heart of it. God says in Exodus 20:2, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” It was the Lord who delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt, and yet here they are again, profaning the same God. Therefore, God delivered them back to slavery in Babylon. The motivation was God’s own holy name which is worthy of honor and praise. When that name is profaned, breaking the Mosaic Covenant, there was clearly established consequences. Deuteronomy 28 lists the covenant curses. Deuteronomy 28:45 summarizes the severity of these curses: “All these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you till you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes that he commanded you.” Exile from Jerusalem and enslavement in Babylon constitutes a judgement that God had given. Under the Mosaic Covenant, the blessings and curses were conditioned on Israel’s obedience or disobedience. There was a corporate aspect to this covenant that extended to all of Israel as a nation. The New Covenant was like the Mosaic in that God was the chief provider of blessing, but where it surpassed was that it was not contingent on mankind’s obedience. Rather, it was a unilateral act of God. The monergistic nature of the New Covenant is revealed especially through the personal language God uses in Ezekiel 36.

God Sovereignly Gathers His People

The details of Ezekiel 36:24-28 reveal the means by which God will vindicate His holy name and restore His people. Throughout his prophecy to the exiles of Israel, Ezekiel repeatedly employs the phrase, “I will…” Each of these phrases build upon the previous one. The passage begins with God’s promise: “I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land” (Ezekiel 36:24). Here, God addresses the most obvious consequence of Israel’s failure—their exile. Because Israel broke the Mosaic Covenant, they were scattered. Now, God promises a great exilic reversal. Take note: Israel cannot gather itself; God gathers them. It is nothing less than the sovereign and sole work of God.

A New Heart and New Spirit

Yet the restoration goes deeper than location. God continues in verse 25: “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.” The image of sprinkling is meant to evoke purification rituals from the Levitical sacrificial system. Blood or water was sprinkling as a kind of cleansing of sins. But Ezekiel moves beyond ritual purity to moral purity. The significance of this is that Israel was not only unclean on the surface, but unclean from deep within. They were corrupt by nature. Therefore, God promises to clean them from all of their uncleanness. Israel cannot clean itself; God cleanses them.

Verse 26 then shines a light on the most glorious promise in all of the Old Testament: “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” In Scripture, the heart is not only an organ that pumps blood. It is the center of human will, affection, and decision-making. The old heart of Israel has become stubborn and rebellious. Ezekiel earlier described Israel as hard hearted. However, now, God promises to perform heart-replacement surgery. Taylor writes, “The result of this psychological transplant will be that Israel will experience a real ‘change of heart’ and will become, by God’s gracious initiative, the kind of people that they have in the past so signally failed to be.”[1] A heart of stone is lifeless, cold, and resistant to God. A heart of flesh is living, warm, and obedient to God. Israel cannot replace its own heart; God takes the heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh. Only God is able to regenerate a dead sinner.

New Heart, New Covenant, New Life

The promise deepens in verse 27: “And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” While under the Mosaic Covenant, the law was given externally and was expected to be obeyed. However, obedience was not enabled. Meaning that Israel lacked the ability to obey God in any spiritually meaningful way. They could not earn right standing with God on their own merit. Romans 4 makes that clear. In the New Covenant, God provides His Spirit within His people in order to enable them in obedience. God does not only instruct obedience, He causes it. The Spirit becomes the unilateral worker toward covenant faithfulness in God’s people.

Finally, Ezekiel 36:28 says, “You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.” This phrase echoes the formula repeated throughout the Old Testament. The supreme goal of restoration is not just land, purity, and morality. The goal is restored relationship between God and man. Dyer writes, “Implanting God’s Spirit in believing Israelites will produce a new relationship between Israel and her God: You will be My people, and I will be your God.”[2] Israel is unable to do that on their own. They continued in apathy and rebellion. However, under the New Covenant the God unilaterally regenerates dead sinners, enables them to obedience, and preserves them forever. They now shall be God’s people and He shall be our God. What good and glorious news.

Footnotes

[1] John B. Taylor, Ezekiel: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1969), 232.

[2] Charles H. Dyer, “Ezekiel,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 1297.