The Title Deed of Obedience: Text: Ezekiel 33:23-29
Introduction: The Delusion of Nominalism
We live in an age of cheap grace and even cheaper identity. Men believe they can claim the blessings of a heritage they simultaneously despise. They want to be called sons of Abraham while living like sons of Belial. They want the inheritance without the obedience, the possession without the piety, the crown without the cross. This is the great lie of nominalism, and it is as old as the hills of Judea. It is the lie that says, "I am a child of the covenant because of my bloodline, my baptism, my church membership, my political affiliation," all the while their lives are a flagrant contradiction of the terms of that very covenant.
The people Ezekiel is confronting in our text today are the dregs left behind in the land after the Babylonian invasion. Jerusalem has fallen, the temple is a ruin, and the best and brightest have been hauled off to a foreign land. But these squatters, living among the "waste places," have cooked up a convenient theology for themselves. Their logic is simple: Abraham was one man, and God gave him the whole land. We are many, so surely the land is ours. They are laying claim to the promise on the basis of sheer mathematics and a misremembered history. They have the blood of Abraham in their veins, they are living on the dirt he walked on, and so they conclude the real estate is theirs by right.
But God sends Ezekiel to shatter this delusion with a series of brutal, rhetorical questions. God is about to teach them, and us, that covenant possession is not a matter of ethnicity or geography. It is a matter of ethics. The title deed to God's blessing is written in the ink of obedience. To claim the promises of God while living in open rebellion against His commands is not just folly; it is blasphemy. It is to treat the holy covenant of God as a common real estate transaction, where you can ignore all the clauses and still expect to keep the property. God will not be mocked in this way. The land is His, and He gives it to whom He will, according to His own righteous standards.
The Text
Then the word of Yahweh came to me saying, "Son of man, they who inhabit these waste places in the land of Israel are saying, ‘Abraham was only one, yet he possessed the land; so to us who are many the land has been given as a possession.’ Therefore say to them, ‘Thus says Lord Yahweh, “You eat meat with the blood in it and lift up your eyes to your idols as you shed blood. Should you then possess the land? You stand on account of your sword, you do abominations, and each of you defiles his neighbor’s wife. Should you then possess the land?” ’ Thus you shall say to them, ‘Thus says Lord Yahweh, “As I live, surely those who are in the waste places will fall by the sword, and whoever is in the open field I will give to the beasts to be devoured, and those who are in the strongholds and in the caves will die of pestilence. I will make the land a desolation and a desecration, and the lofty pride of her strength will cease; and the mountains of Israel will be desolate so that no one will pass through. Then they will know that I am Yahweh, when I make the land a desolation and a desecration because of all their abominations which they have done.” ’
(Ezekiel 33:23-29 LSB)
Presumptuous Possession (vv. 23-24)
We begin with the false confidence of the remnant.
"Son of man, they who inhabit these waste places in the land of Israel are saying, ‘Abraham was only one, yet he possessed the land; so to us who are many the land has been given as a possession.’" (Ezekiel 33:24)
Their argument is a masterpiece of self-serving logic. They look back to their great ancestor, Abraham, and they get the story half-right, which is the most dangerous way to get it. Yes, Abraham was one man. Yes, God promised him the land. But they conveniently forget the character of the man to whom the promise was made. They remember the promise but forget the piety. Abraham was a man of faith, a man who obeyed God, a man who left his home, who was willing to sacrifice his own son, who walked before God in righteousness. They want Abraham's inheritance without Abraham's faith.
This is the perennial temptation of covenant people. It is the error of the Pharisees who told Jesus, "We have Abraham as our father" (John 8:39). Jesus' reply was devastating: "If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did." The Apostle Paul hammers this same point home. True sonship to Abraham is not a matter of genetics but of faith. "Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham" (Galatians 3:7). These people in the waste places are claiming a birthright they have spiritually forfeited. They are like Esau, despising the covenant while demanding the blessing.
Their logic, "we are many," is also a fatal error. They think God's blessings are distributed by majority rule. They believe their numbers give them a claim. But God has never been impressed with crowds. He works through faithful remnants, not faithless majorities. He chose one man, Abraham. He saved eight people in the ark. He delivered Israel with Gideon's three hundred. God's calculus is one of faithfulness, not headcounts. Their pride in their numbers is simply another form of rebellion.
A Litany of Disqualification (vv. 25-26)
God's response, through Ezekiel, is a rapid-fire indictment. He holds up their claim to the land against the sordid reality of their lives. He asks two searing, rhetorical questions that are meant to leave them speechless.
"Therefore say to them, ‘Thus says Lord Yahweh, “You eat meat with the blood in it and lift up your eyes to your idols as you shed blood. Should you then possess the land? You stand on account of your sword, you do abominations, and each of you defiles his neighbor’s wife. Should you then possess the land?” ’" (Ezekiel 33:25-26)
God lists their disqualifications. First, "You eat meat with the blood in it." This was a direct violation of the Noahic covenant (Gen. 9:4) and the Mosaic law (Lev. 17:10-14). The life is in the blood, and the blood was to be treated as sacred, pointing forward to the ultimate atoning blood of Christ. To eat the blood was to treat life with contempt, to profane the sacred. It was a sign of a people who had lost all reverence for God's created order.
Second, "you lift up your eyes to your idols as you shed blood." Here we have idolatry and violence bound together, as they always are. To worship a false god is to devalue the true God, and when you devalue the God in whose image man is made, you will inevitably devalue man. Bloodshed follows idolatry as night follows day. They were looking to their worthless idols for deliverance while their hands were stained with the blood of their countrymen.
Third, "You stand on account of your sword." This means they trusted in their own strength, their own violence, to secure their place. They lived by the law of the jungle, not the law of Yahweh. Their possession of the land was not by faith, but by force. They were thugs, not heirs.
Fourth, "you do abominations, and each of you defiles his neighbor’s wife." The word "abominations" is a catch-all for all the detestable practices God hates, particularly the sexual perversions and idolatrous rites of the Canaanites. And then He specifies one of the most socially destructive sins: adultery. They had broken down the basic building block of society, the family. A man who will not honor the covenant with his own wife will certainly not honor a covenant with God. Their lives were a complete repudiation of the Ten Commandments. They were idolaters, murderers, and adulterers.
And after each charge, the question hangs in the air, dripping with divine sarcasm: "Should you then possess the land?" The answer is so obvious it hurts. Of course not. The land itself has covenantal antibodies. The law stated that the land would "vomit out" those who defiled it with such behavior (Lev. 18:28). They were not possessing the land; they were polluting it. They were not owners; they were squatters on death row.
The Inevitable Judgment (vv. 27-28)
Because their lives were a complete contradiction of the covenant, the curses of the covenant were now their only inheritance. God swears a solemn oath to bring total desolation.
"Thus you shall say to them, ‘Thus says Lord Yahweh, “As I live, surely those who are in the waste places will fall by the sword, and whoever is in the open field I will give to the beasts to be devoured, and those who are in the strongholds and in the caves will die of pestilence." (Ezekiel 33:27)
God's judgment will be comprehensive. There will be no escape. Whether they are in the ruined cities ("waste places"), out in the country ("open field"), or hiding in fortified places ("strongholds and caves"), judgment will find them. He unleashes the classic triad of covenant curses: sword, beasts, and pestilence. This is straight out of the script of Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. God is not being arbitrary. He is being faithful to His own warnings. He is keeping His promises, the terrible ones, because they have broken all the good ones.
The result will be the complete emptying of the land.
"I will make the land a desolation and a desecration, and the lofty pride of her strength will cease; and the mountains of Israel will be desolate so that no one will pass through." (Ezekiel 33:28)
The land they so arrogantly claimed will become a wasteland. Their "lofty pride," their trust in their numbers and their swords, will be utterly broken. The desolation will be so complete that even travelers will avoid it. God is hitting the reset button. He is scouring the land clean of their filth. This is a terrifying picture, but it is a necessary one. A holy God cannot and will not tolerate sin indefinitely. He will not allow His holy land to be a perpetual den of thieves, idolaters, and adulterers.
The Ultimate Purpose (v. 29)
But this judgment is not mindless destruction. It has a profound, pedagogical purpose. It is a severe mercy.
"Then they will know that I am Yahweh, when I make the land a desolation and a desecration because of all their abominations which they have done." (Ezekiel 33:29)
This is one of the great refrains of Ezekiel. God's judgments are self-revelations. They had forgotten who Yahweh was. They had come to believe He was a tame, tribal deity who was obligated to bless them regardless of their behavior. They had confused Him with the impotent idols they worshipped. Through this terrible judgment, God was going to reintroduce Himself. They would know that He is Yahweh, the covenant-keeping God, the God who is holy, who judges sin, and whose word does not return to Him void. They would learn through wrath what they refused to learn through grace.
This is the ultimate purpose of all God's dealings with men, both in judgment and in salvation. He does it all so that He might be known. He saves us for the praise of His glorious grace. He judges the wicked to demonstrate His righteous wrath. In the end, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Some will learn it in joy, others will learn it in terror, but all will learn it.
Conclusion: True Heirs of the Promise
The message of Ezekiel to the squatters in the ruins of Judah is the same message of the gospel to us today. Do not presume upon the grace of God. Do not think that an outward affiliation with the people of God is a substitute for a life of faith and repentance. Do not say, "I was baptized," or "I am a member of a good church," or "I voted for the right candidate," and think that this gives you a claim to the inheritance.
The question God asks is not, "Whose blood is in your veins?" but rather, "Whose faith is in your heart?" The evidence of true faith is a life of repentance and obedience. It is turning from your idols, whether they are made of stone or of self-esteem. It is trusting not in your own sword, but in the finished work of Christ on the cross. It is honoring the covenant of marriage. It is treating life as sacred.
The good news is that through Jesus Christ, we who were spiritual squatters, who had no claim on God, can become true sons and heirs. Through faith in Him, we are adopted into Abraham's family. We are given a new heart and a new spirit, one that desires to obey God's commands. The promise of the land finds its ultimate fulfillment not in a patch of dirt in the Middle East, but in a renewed creation, the new heavens and the new earth, which is the inheritance of the saints.
But the warning remains. To claim to be Christ's while living in a way that He calls an abomination is to store up for yourself wrath on the day of wrath. God is a consuming fire. He will not be trifled with. Let us therefore examine ourselves. Let us flee from idolatry, from violence, from sexual sin. Let us cling to Christ by faith, and in so doing, prove ourselves to be the true children of Abraham, heirs according to the promise. For it is only by His grace, through faith, that we can ever hope to possess the land.