The Terrible Possibility and God's Straight Ways Text: Ezekiel 18:24-29
Introduction: The Sour Grapes Fallacy
We are in a section of Ezekiel where the Lord is dismantling a popular and self-pitying proverb that was making the rounds among the exiles in Babylon. The proverb went like this: "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge." What they meant by this was simple blame-shifting. "We are in this mess, this Babylonian exile, not because of our own sins, but because of the sins of our fathers, generations back. We are innocent victims of circumstance, paying for crimes we did not commit."
This is the oldest trick in the book, going all the way back to the Garden. Adam blamed Eve, and Eve blamed the serpent. It is the native tongue of fallen man to deflect responsibility. Modern culture has perfected this into a high art form. We have built entire ideologies around the notion that our problems are the fault of our parents, our society, our economic bracket, our historical circumstances, anything and everything but our own sin before a holy God. We are all professional victims.
But God will have none of it. Throughout this chapter, He demolishes this proverb with the sledgehammer of individual responsibility. He declares, "The soul who sins shall die." You will not be judged for your father's sin, nor for your son's. You will stand before God and give an account for your own life, your own deeds, your own rebellion. This is a terrifying doctrine for a generation that wants to blame everyone else, but it is also a glorious and liberating one. Because if you are responsible for your own sin, it means you are also responsible to repent of it. And if you repent, God promises to receive you. The same principle that condemns also opens the door to grace.
The passage before us today is the sharpest edge of this argument. God presents two hypothetical cases: the righteous man who turns away, and the wicked man who turns back. And in doing so, He confronts Israel's complaint that His ways are not fair, not just, not "right." But as we will see, the problem is not with the straightness of God's path, but with the crookedness of our own.
The Text
"But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness, does injustice, and does according to all the abominations that a wicked man does, will he live? All his righteous deeds which he has done will not be remembered for his unfaithfulness which he has committed and his sin which he has committed; for them he will die. Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not right.’ Hear now, O house of Israel! Is My way not right? Is it not your ways that are not right? When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness, does injustice, and dies because of it, for his injustice which he has done he will die. Again, when a wicked man turns away from his wickedness which he has done and does justice and righteousness, he will preserve his life. Again, he considered and turned away from all his transgressions which he had done; he shall surely live; he shall not die. But the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not right.’ Are My ways not right, O house of Israel? Is it not your ways that are not right?"
(Ezekiel 18:24-29 LSB)
The Apostate's End (v. 24)
God begins with a sobering and dreadful possibility.
"But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness, does injustice, and does according to all the abominations that a wicked man does, will he live? All his righteous deeds which he has done will not be remembered for his unfaithfulness which he has committed and his sin which he has committed; for them he will die." (Ezekiel 18:24)
Now, this is a verse that makes many systematic theologians nervous. Does this contradict the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints? Can a truly regenerate man, one who is righteous in Christ, fall away and perish? The answer is no, but we must be very careful here. The Bible teaches both the perseverance of the saints and the necessity of persevering. God's Word is full of stark warnings about the danger of falling away, and these warnings are one of the primary means God uses to keep His saints from falling away. A guardrail on a cliff's edge is not a suggestion; it is a severe mercy.
We must understand what "righteousness" means in this covenantal context. Israel was a mixed body. There were those who were outwardly members of the covenant, who were circumcised, who offered the sacrifices, and who maintained a form of external righteousness. They were "righteous" in the sense that they were part of God's visible people and conformed to the external standards. But not all Israel was true Israel. The one cast out as a branch was a real branch, not just a piece of tumbleweed caught in the limbs. There is such a thing as a genuine, covenantal connection to Christ that is not salvific in the final sense. Think of Judas. Think of Demas. Think of those in Hebrews 6 who were enlightened and tasted the heavenly gift.
This verse is describing a man who had all the external markers of righteousness. His checklist was impressive. But he "turns away." He apostatizes. He commits "unfaithfulness," a word that speaks of covenant betrayal. And when he does this, what happens to all his previous good deeds? They "will not be remembered." They are nullified. Why? Because his final state reveals the true nature of his heart all along. His righteousness was never rooted in a true, saving faith that perseveres to the end. It was a performance, a temporary conformity, a house built on the sand. When the storm of temptation came, it revealed its foundation, and great was the fall of it. He will die in his sin, not because God is fickle, but because the man's own actions have demonstrated his ultimate allegiance.
The Divine Indictment (v. 25)
Israel's response to this clear principle is to accuse God of injustice.
"Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not right.’ Hear now, O house of Israel! Is My way not right? Is it not your ways that are not right?" (Ezekiel 18:25)
This is the creature putting the Creator in the dock. This is the clay telling the Potter, "Your design is flawed." The audacity is breathtaking. They had a proverb that blamed their fathers, and now they have a direct accusation that blames God. Their complaint is that God's standard is unfair. "It's not fair that a lifetime of good deeds can be wiped out by a final act of rebellion." But this is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of righteousness.
God's response is a sharp, rhetorical counter-question. "Is My way not right? Is it not your ways that are not right?" The word for "right" here can also mean "weighed" or "proportioned." They are accusing God's scales of being rigged. God turns it back on them: "No, your scales are crooked. Your moral compass is broken."
Men always do this. We create our own standards of fairness, which are invariably self-serving, and then we judge God by them. We think it is unfair for God to demand total, lifelong allegiance. We want a God who grades on a curve, who will weigh our good deeds against our bad and let us in if we have a passing grade. But the God of the Bible is not a cosmic bean-counter. He is a holy Father who demands faithful love. Unfaithfulness at the end of a relationship reveals the nature of the entire relationship. A man who is faithful to his wife for fifty years and then abandons her for another woman is not a "mostly faithful" husband. He is an adulterer. His final act defines him. This is God's standard, and it is perfectly straight.
The Principle Restated and Reversed (v. 26-28)
God then restates the principle of apostasy and follows it with the glorious reverse case: the principle of repentance.
"When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness, does injustice, and dies because of it, for his injustice which he has done he will die. Again, when a wicked man turns away from his wickedness which he has done and does justice and righteousness, he will preserve his life. Again, he considered and turned away from all his transgressions which he had done; he shall surely live; he shall not die." (Ezekiel 18:26-28)
Verse 26 simply repeats the dreadful warning of verse 24 for emphasis. If you abandon the covenant, you will die in your sin. The path you are on when you die is the one that determines your destination.
But then comes the gospel pivot in verses 27 and 28. What about the wicked man? What about the man whose entire life has been a catalogue of rebellion, injustice, and abomination? Is his fate sealed? Is he doomed by his past? Not at all. If that wicked man "turns away from his wickedness" and begins to do what is just and right, he will "preserve his life."
This is the heart of repentance. Notice the key phrase in verse 28: "he considered." The Hebrew implies that he saw, he reflected, he understood the nature of his sins. This is not a mere emotional outburst or a deathbed panic. It is a conscious, deliberate turning. He sees his transgressions for what they are, and he turns away from all of them. The result is absolute: "he shall surely live; he shall not die."
This is the glorious asymmetry of the gospel. The righteous man's past good deeds cannot save him if he turns to wickedness. But the wicked man's past sins will not condemn him if he turns to righteousness. Why? Because God is not interested in a resume; He is interested in a heart. Repentance is not about tipping the scales back in your favor. It is about abandoning your own scales altogether and casting yourself entirely on the mercy of God. When a man repents, God does not remember his former sins. They are blotted out, washed away, removed as far as the east is from the west. This is the very thing Israel was complaining about. They thought it was unfair that the apostate's good deeds were forgotten, but they conveniently overlooked the astounding grace that the repentant sinner's evil deeds are also forgotten.
The Stubborn Complaint (v. 29)
Despite this glorious offer of life, the house of Israel doubles down on their complaint.
"But the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not right.’ Are My ways not right, O house of Israel? Is it not your ways that are not right?" (Ezekiel 18:29)
It is a sad and stubborn refrain. After God has laid out His just and merciful ways with perfect clarity, they still insist on their own crooked assessment. It is like a man with a bent ruler insisting that the architect's blueprints are skewed. Their problem is not intellectual; it is moral. They do not want to submit to God's standard. They want God to submit to theirs. They are wedded to their victimhood, to their blame-shifting, and to their self-righteousness.
And so God leaves them with the question hanging in the air, a question that echoes down to our own day. "Are My ways not right? Is it not your ways that are not right?" The question is designed to force self-examination. The problem is not in Heaven. The problem is not with the straight edge of God's law and gospel. The problem, O house of Israel, the problem, O modern man, is you. Your ways are crooked. Your heart is bent. Your vision is distorted.
Conclusion: The Only Righteous Man
This chapter confronts us with two paths. The path of the man who starts well and ends in ruin, and the path of the man who starts in ruin and ends in life. It places the weight of responsibility squarely on our shoulders. We must consider our ways. We must turn.
But if we are honest, this chapter should drive us to despair. Who can do this? Who can maintain a lifetime of righteousness without turning? And who among the wicked has the power within himself to truly "consider" and turn from all his transgressions? The law is clear, our responsibility is clear, but our inability is also clear.
And this is precisely where the gospel of Jesus Christ crashes in. For there has only ever been one truly "righteous man" who never turned from His righteousness. Jesus Christ lived a life of perfect, unwavering faithfulness from beginning to end. He is the only one whose righteous deeds could stand on their own merit. And yet, on the cross, He was treated as the ultimate apostate. He died the death that the man in verse 24 deserved. All his righteous deeds were seemingly "not remembered" as He cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
At the same time, He became the wicked man for us. He took upon Himself all the abominations and transgressions of His people. He died for the injustice that we have done. He did this so that we, the truly wicked, could "turn" to Him in faith and be declared righteous. When we repent and believe in Him, God looks at us and does what He promised in verse 28. He forgets all our transgressions, and we "surely live." Our life is preserved not by our own doing, but because Christ did for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Therefore, let us abandon our crooked rulers and our self-justifying complaints. God's ways are not only right, they are beautiful. They are merciful. They are the only ways that lead to life. Let us stop accusing the judge, and instead flee to the advocate He has provided, the Lord Jesus Christ. For in Him, the crooked are made straight, and the dead are made to live.