Verse 32 For I have no pleasure - God repeats what he had so solemnly declared before. Can ye doubt his sincerity? his ability? his willingness? the efficacy of the blood of his covenant? Wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye - Reader, now give God thy heart. Though every man comes into the world with a fallen nature - a soul infected with sin, yet no man is damned on that account. He who refuses that grace which pardons sin and heals infected nature, who permits the evil principle to break out into transgression, and continues and dies in his iniquity and sin, and will not come unto Christ that he may have life; he, and he only, goes to perdition. Nor will the righteousness of a parent or relation help his sinful soul: no man can have more grace than is necessary to save himself; and none can have that, who does not receive it through Christ Jesus. It is the mercy of God in Christ which renders the salvation of a sinner possible; and it is that mercy alone which can heal the backslider. The atoning blood blots out all that is past; the same blood cleanses from all unrighteousness. Who believes so as to apply for this redemption? Who properly thanks God for having provided such a Savior?

An evil - An evil and sore affliction, a singular, uncommon one.

Eze 18:32

Turn yourselves, etc. As in Eze 14:6, but there is no ground for the rendering of "turn others," suggested in the margin of the Authorized Version.

So we close what we may rightly speak of as among the noblest of Ezekiel’s utterances, that which makes him take his place side by side with the greatest of the prophets as a preacher of repentance and forgiveness. In the next chapter he returns to his parables of history after the fashion of those of Eze 17:1-24.

HOMILETICS.

Eze 18:2, Eze 18:3

An old proverb discarded.

The proverb of the sour grapes was but an expression of a prevalent belief of the Jews, viz. that guilt is hereditary. Whatever element of truth there may have been in this proverb was overlaid and lost in a monstrous notion, which destroyed both the sense of personal responsibility and the conception of Divine justice, substituting doctrines of unavoidable fate and unreasonable vengeance on the innocent.

I. THE TRUTHS BEHIND THE PROVERB. This saying and the doctrine which it embodied were based upon dark, mysterious, but still true, facts of experience.

1. Children share in the sufferings produced by the sins of their parents. Sins of the fathers are visited on the children. This dread fact was recognized in the ten commandments (Exo 20:5). We see it confirmed by our daily observation of the world. The vices of the father and mother bring poverty, disgrace, and disease on the children. When the thief is sent to prison his children are left without bread. Fearful diseases appear in the constitution of innocent children following their parents’ profligacy.

2. Children inherit the appetites and habits of their parents. The child of the drunkard is predisposed to inebriety. This physical inheritance in brain and nerve is confirmed by the ceaseless, powerful, unanswerable lessons of example. Where the head of the family leads a loose life the children are brought up under evil influences.

II. THE FALSITY OF THE PROVERB.

1. God does not inflict real punishment on innocent children. They suffer, but they are not punished; for there is no element of Divine anger towards them in what they endure. God permits the suffering, and he uses it, as he uses other troubles of his children, for discipline. But he cannot look upon the poor victims of the vices of others with any disfavour. It is a piece of hypocritical Pharisaism on the part of society to treat the children who come of sinful parentage as though they were disgraced by their birth. The effect of sour grapes is purely physical. When we transfer the physical fact to the moral world we fall into a mistake.

2. Actual sin is not hereditary. If it were, men would be doomed to sin apart from their own choice. But the essence of sin is a self-willed rebellion against God. When freedom of choice is taken out of it the evil thing ceases to be sin; it becomes a moral disease. So long as we have individuality and personal wills we can choose for ourselves. No one is utterly the slave of moral disease, or, if such a person exists, be is a moral lunatic, and not responsible for his action. Therefore he should be put under lock and key. Moreover, responsibility is measured by opportunity, and moral conduct is seen in the amount of resistance offered to the terrible slavery of an inherited tendency to evil habits. The proverb of the sour grapes was not only a discouragement to children; it was an excuse for impenitence among grownup men.

III. THE EXPOSURE AND REJECTION OF THE PROVERB.

1. A familiar saying may be false. It may be a venerable lie, or, if true in its first utterance, it may have been exaggerated and so presented as to be false in its present application.

2. It is the duty of the teacher of religion to correct popular notions. This is the second occasion on which Ezekiel has exposed and repudiated a popular fallacy enshrined in the form of a proverb (Eze 12:22). Christ fought prevalent delusions (e.g. Luk 13:1-5); so did St. Paul (Rom 2:25).

3. There is an advance in revelation. The proverb of the sour grapes was never given with the authority of a Divine truth. But in the earlier stages of revelation there was not enough light to liberate men from the illusion on which it was founded. As revelation advances it dissolves moral difficulties and clarifies our vision of Divine righteousness.