The Great Reversal: God's Open Door Text: Ezekiel 18:21-23
Introduction: The Sour Grapes of Self-Pity
We come this morning to a passage that cuts straight to the heart of human responsibility and divine grace. The people in Ezekiel's day were languishing in exile, and they had adopted a sour proverb, a piece of theological self-pity. They were saying, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge." What they meant by this was that they were being punished for the sins of their ancestors. They saw themselves as helpless victims of a generational curse, trapped in a divine system of injustice. It was a convenient excuse, a way to blame-shift their own culpability onto a previous generation, and ultimately, onto God Himself.
Our generation is no different. We have our own sophisticated versions of this proverb. Some blame their genetics. Others blame their upbringing, their environment, their socio-economic status, or some historical injustice. The tune is the same, only the instruments have changed. The underlying message is this: "I am not responsible. My condition is not my fault. God is unfair."
Into this chorus of complaint, God speaks through His prophet Ezekiel to dismantle their entire framework of victimhood. The principle God lays down is one of radical, individual accountability. The soul who sins shall die. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. God judges every man according to his ways. There is no hiding in the crowd. There is no blaming your father's appetite for your own sour mouth.
But this declaration of personal responsibility is not meant to crush us under an impossible burden. Rather, it is the necessary groundwork for the glorious gospel offer that follows. If you are not personally responsible for your sin, then you cannot personally repent of it. And if you cannot repent, you cannot be saved. God has to establish the bad news of your personal guilt before He can deliver the good news of His personal grace. Our text this morning is the pivot point. It is the great reversal, the open door that God sets before every sinner, no matter how far he has gone.
The Text
"But if the wicked man turns from all his sins which he has done and keeps all My statutes and does justice and righteousness, he shall surely live; he shall not die. All his transgressions which he has done will not be remembered against him; because of his righteousness which he has done, he will live. Do I have any pleasure in the death of the wicked," declares Lord Yahweh, "is it not that he should turn from his ways and live?"
(Ezekiel 18:21-23 LSB)
The Conditions of Life (v. 21)
We begin with the glorious "but if," the hinge upon which a man's destiny can swing from death to life.
"But if the wicked man turns from all his sins which he has done and keeps all My statutes and does justice and righteousness, he shall surely live; he shall not die." (Ezekiel 18:21)
The first thing to notice is the verb: "turns." This is the Old Testament word for repentance. The Hebrew is shuv, and it means to turn around, to reverse direction. Repentance is not a slight adjustment of the steering wheel. It is a 180-degree turn. It is not simply feeling sorry for your sins. Judas felt sorry. True repentance is a fundamental change of mind that results in a fundamental change of direction. You were walking away from God; now you are walking toward Him.
And notice the scope of this turning. He must turn "from all his sins." This is not a partial or selective repentance. A man cannot say, "I will turn from my adultery, but I'm keeping my bitterness. I'll give up my theft, but I'm holding on to my pride." That is not repentance; that is renegotiating the terms of your surrender. True repentance is unconditional. It acknowledges God's authority over every square inch of your life. It says, "Whatever you call sin, I will turn from it."
But repentance is not merely negative, a turning from sin. It is also positive, a turning to righteousness. The man must "keep all My statutes and do justice and righteousness." This is crucial. Repentance is not an empty house. When you sweep out the demon of lust, you must invite in the Holy Spirit of love and self-control. If you don't, seven worse demons will come back to that empty, swept house. You cannot just stop doing bad things; you must start doing good things. You turn from injustice, and you turn to doing justice. You turn from falsehood, and you turn to doing righteousness. This is the fruit of repentance, the necessary evidence that the turning was genuine.
And what is the result? "He shall surely live; he shall not die." This is a covenant promise. The wages of sin is death, but the result of turning to God is life. This is not just biological existence. It means life in fellowship with God, life under His blessing, life as it was meant to be lived. This is the great offer. The past does not have to determine the future. Your slate can be wiped clean.
The Divine Amnesia (v. 22)
Verse 22 expands on this incredible promise, revealing the depth of God's forgiveness.
"All his transgressions which he has done will not be remembered against him; because of his righteousness which he has done, he will live." (Ezekiel 18:22 LSB)
This is one of the most staggering promises in all of Scripture. "All his transgressions... will not be remembered against him." This is not to say that the omniscient God literally forgets them, as though He has a faulty memory. Rather, it means He will never bring them up again as a charge against the repentant sinner. He will not hold them over your head. He will not use them as evidence in the courtroom of heaven. For all judicial purposes, they are gone. They are blotted out, covered, cast into the depths of the sea.
This is divine amnesty. Think of the weight of a man's accumulated sins. Every lie, every lustful thought, every bitter word, every act of selfishness. God says that if that man turns, the entire rap sheet is incinerated. It will not be remembered. This is what the New Covenant promises in even greater clarity: "For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more" (Hebrews 8:12).
But we must be careful here. The verse says, "because of his righteousness which he has done, he will live." Is this teaching salvation by works? Is the man's new righteousness the meritorious cause of his life? Not at all. We must read this in the context of the whole of Scripture. No man's righteousness can ever be perfect enough to satisfy the demands of God's holy law. The "righteousness" spoken of here is the evidence of his repentance, not the basis of his acceptance. It is the fruit, not the root. The root is the grace of God that enables the turning in the first place. This man lives because God has graciously given him a new heart to turn and obey. His obedience is the proof of his new life, not the price of it. The New Testament clarifies that the only righteousness that can truly make us live is the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, imputed to us by faith. This passage in Ezekiel is the gospel in seed form.
The Heart of God (v. 23)
Finally, God reveals His own heart, His motivation for making such a gracious offer. He asks a rhetorical question to silence all accusations of being a cruel or arbitrary tyrant.
"Do I have any pleasure in the death of the wicked," declares Lord Yahweh, "is it not that he should turn from his ways and live?" (Ezekiel 18:23 LSB)
This is a profound glimpse into the disposition of God. God is not a cosmic sadist who delights in the suffering of His creatures. His fundamental disposition, His revealed will of desire, is for the repentance and salvation of sinners. He does not delight in judgment for judgment's sake. Judgment is His "strange work" (Isaiah 28:21). His delight is in mercy.
Now, some will get tangled up here. They will ask, "If God doesn't take pleasure in the death of the wicked, and He is sovereign, then why do any wicked people die?" We must make a crucial distinction. In one sense, God does take pleasure in the execution of His justice, because it vindicates His holiness and His righteous character. Psalm 135 says, "Whatever the LORD pleases, He does." The destruction of Pharaoh at the Red Sea was a display of God's glory in which He certainly took pleasure. So in His decretive will, the will of His sovereign decree, God does ordain all that comes to pass, including judgment.
But in His preceptive will, the will of His command and desire, what He reveals as good and right for us, He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He does not delight in their destruction as such, but rather delights when they turn and live. Think of a good and righteous judge. He takes no malicious pleasure in sentencing a criminal to prison. He may even do so with a heavy heart. But he does take a solemn satisfaction in upholding the law and seeing justice done. God's heart is not torn. He is perfectly just and perfectly merciful. His justice is satisfied at the cross, and His mercy is offered freely to all who will turn.
The Great Reversal in Christ
This entire passage points us forward to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the ultimate fulfillment of this great reversal. How can a holy God simply "not remember" our transgressions? How can He remain just while justifying the ungodly? Because our transgressions were remembered, fully and completely, and charged to the account of Another.
On the cross, Jesus Christ became the wicked man. "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us" (2 Corinthians 5:21). He did not turn from His own sins He had none. But He took our sins upon Himself. And He did not live; He died. He died the death that our wickedness deserved.
And because He died in our place, we, if we turn to Him in faith, can be treated as the righteous man. We are given His perfect record. We keep all of God's statutes in Him. We do justice and righteousness in Him. And because of His righteousness which He has done, we shall surely live; we shall not die.
The offer in Ezekiel is a true and wonderful offer. But it finds its power, its reality, and its guarantee in the substitutionary death and resurrection of Jesus. God truly has no pleasure in your death. He proved it by sending His own Son to die in your place. His question echoes down through the centuries to us today: "Why will you die?" The door is open. The price has been paid. The invitation is clear. Turn from your ways, and live.