The Public Relations of God: Judgment and Vindication Text: Ezekiel 39:21-24
Introduction: God's Press Release
We live in an age that is allergic to the concept of divine judgment. Our therapeutic culture wants a God who is a celestial guidance counselor, a divine affirmation machine, a God who would never dream of doing anything so gauche as to execute judgment. When confronted with the calamities of history, the modern mind defaults to two positions: either God is not good, or God is not in control. The one thing they cannot stomach is the biblical position, which is that God is both good and in control, and that the calamities of history are often the very instruments of His righteous judgment.
But the God of the Bible is not running for office. He is not concerned with focus groups or approval ratings. He is, however, intensely concerned with His public reputation. He is zealous for the glory of His own name. And this is not cosmic vanity; it is the foundation of all reality, goodness, and truth. For God's name to be glorified is the ultimate good for all creation. When His name is profaned, when His character is misrepresented, He will act. And His actions are not quiet, behind-the-scenes suggestions. They are public, visible, and designed to be understood. God's judgments are His press releases to the world.
In this passage from Ezekiel, we come to the divine commentary on the monumental judgment against Gog and his hordes. God is not content to simply win the battle; He is determined that everyone, both Israel and the surrounding pagan nations, understand precisely what happened and why. He is the narrator of His own mighty acts. He does not leave the interpretation up for grabs. He is setting the record straight. The exile of Israel, their suffering, and their deliverance were not a series of unfortunate geopolitical events. They were not proof that the God of Israel was weak or that the Babylonian gods were strong. On the contrary, God is here declaring to the entire world that every bit of it, from the sin to the sword, was part of His sovereign curriculum, designed to teach a lesson that would echo through history: that He is Yahweh, and there is no other.
This is a truth we desperately need to recover. We are tempted to apologize for God's judgments, to soften them, to explain them away. But God does not apologize for them. He displays them. He puts His glory, His hand, His judgments on center stage for all the nations to see, so that they might learn the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom.
The Text
"And I will put My glory among the nations; and all the nations will see My judgment which I have executed and My hand which I have placed on them. And the house of Israel will know that I am Yahweh their God from that day onward. And the nations will know that the house of Israel went into exile for their iniquity because they acted unfaithfully against Me, and I hid My face from them; so I gave them into the hand of their adversaries, and all of them fell by the sword. According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions I dealt with them, and I hid My face from them."
(Ezekiel 39:21-24 LSB)
A Global Display of Divine Power (v. 21)
We begin with God's stated purpose in His mighty acts of judgment.
"And I will put My glory among the nations; and all the nations will see My judgment which I have executed and My hand which I have placed on them." (Ezekiel 39:21)
God's glory is the public manifestation of His infinite worth and power. It is the visible weight of His being. And here, God declares that He is going to set this glory, this gravitas, right in the middle of the pagan nations. This is not for Israel's benefit alone. History is not a private conversation between God and His people; it is a public theater for the demonstration of His character. The nations are the audience.
And what is the program? What will they see? They will see two things: His judgment and His hand. Notice the active language. This is not something that just "happens." It is a judgment He has "executed." It is His hand that He has "placed on them." God is taking full credit. The destruction of Israel's enemies is not a lucky break. It is the deliberate, personal, and powerful intervention of the sovereign God. He is flexing His arm, and He wants everyone to see the muscle.
This is a direct refutation of all deism, which posits a God who wound up the clock of the universe and then went on vacation. Not a bit of it. The God of Scripture has His hands all over history. His hand is a metaphor for His active, personal power. When Egypt was struck with plagues, Pharaoh's magicians had to confess, "This is the finger of God" (Ex. 8:19). Here, it is not just the finger, but the entire hand. God is making it inescapably clear who is in charge. He is the primary actor, the protagonist, in the drama of human history.
Israel's Foundational Lesson (v. 22)
While the nations are the audience, Israel is meant to be the star pupil. God's actions have a specific, covenantal purpose for His own people.
"And the house of Israel will know that I am Yahweh their God from that day onward." (Ezekiel 39:22)
The great refrain of Ezekiel, and indeed of the whole Exodus story, is "that you may know that I am Yahweh." This is the goal of redemption. It is not primarily about our comfort, or our self-esteem, or even our happiness in a sentimental sense. It is about knowing God for who He truly is. To know Him as Yahweh is to know Him as the self-existent, promise-keeping, covenant God who is utterly faithful to His own character.
Israel's problem was that they had forgotten this. They had begun to think of Yahweh as a tribal deity, one god among many, whose power was limited. Their idolatry was a form of theological amnesia. The judgment of exile and the miracle of restoration are God's severe mercies, designed to jolt them back to reality. This great deliverance from Gog will be a turning point, a line in the sand. "From that day onward," their knowledge of God will be secured. This points forward to the New Covenant, where God promises to write His law on their hearts, and "they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them" (Jer. 31:34).
This knowledge is not abstract, intellectual data. In Hebrew, to "know" (yada) is to know personally, intimately, experientially. They will know Him as their God because they have seen His hand deliver them from certain annihilation. True theology is forged in the furnace of history, where God's promises are tested and His power is displayed.
Setting the International Record Straight (v. 23)
Now God turns His attention back to the watching world. He is concerned that they draw the right conclusions from Israel's recent history of suffering.
"And the nations will know that the house of Israel went into exile for their iniquity because they acted unfaithfully against Me, and I hid My face from them; so I gave them into the hand of their adversaries, and all of them fell by the sword." (Ezekiel 39:23)
This is a crucial verse for understanding the ways of God. When Israel was conquered and dragged off to Babylon, what would the nations have concluded? The natural conclusion would be that Yahweh was a weak god. He couldn't protect His own people, His own temple, His own city. The gods of Babylon, Marduk and company, must be stronger. Israel's exile was a public relations disaster for the name of Yahweh.
Here, God seizes the megaphone and corrects the narrative. He says, "Let me be perfectly clear. Israel's exile was not My failure; it was their iniquity." The reason they fell was not because My hand was too short to save, but because their sins were too great to overlook. They "acted unfaithfully," they broke covenant with Me. The exile was a covenant lawsuit, and I was the judge, not a helpless bystander.
The phrase "I hid My face from them" is a terrifying and profound description of covenant judgment. God's face represents His favor, His presence, His blessing. The Aaronic blessing was, "Yahweh make His face shine upon you" (Num. 6:25). To have God hide His face is the opposite of that. It is the deliberate withdrawal of His protective presence. It is to be left to the natural consequences of your sin and folly. When God hid His face, He "gave them into the hand of their adversaries." The Babylonians were not acting on their own initiative; they were the sword in God's hand, the rod of His anger (Is. 10:5). God is sovereign even over the pagan armies that He uses to discipline His own children.
The Unvarnished Truth (v. 24)
God concludes His explanation by reiterating the principle of His actions, leaving no room for misunderstanding.
"According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions I dealt with them, and I hid My face from them." (Ezekiel 39:24)
He doubles down on the reason. It was not arbitrary. It was not a fit of pique. It was a righteous, measured response. He dealt with them "according to" their sin. The punishment fit the crime. Their uncleanness, their ritual defilement through idolatry, and their transgressions, their ethical violations of His law, were the cause. God's justice is not blind; it is perfectly discerning.
This principle is unchanging. God always deals with men according to their ways. For those outside of Christ, He deals with them according to their transgressions, and the end of that road is the sword and the judgment. But for those who are in Christ, He has dealt with Christ according to our transgressions. On the cross, the Father hid His face from the Son. Jesus cried out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Matt. 27:46). He experienced the ultimate hidden face, the ultimate exile, so that we who believe might have the face of God shine upon us forever.
The sword of God's wrath fell on Him, so that we might be brought into the family. He was handed over to His adversaries, so that we might be delivered from ours. The entire logic of God's dealing with Israel in judgment finds its ultimate fulfillment and resolution at the cross of Jesus Christ.
Conclusion: The Vindication of God's Name
So what is the takeaway for us? This passage teaches us that God is jealous for His own name, and that all of history is ordered to the end that His name would be known and glorified. This is intensely practical.
First, it means that our sin is never a private affair. When the church is unfaithful, when we are characterized by uncleanness and transgression, we profane the name of God before a watching world. We give the nations an excuse to conclude that our God is weak, or irrelevant, or a fraud. The world is watching, and our lives are either an adornment to the gospel or a stumbling block.
Second, it teaches us that God's discipline in our lives is purposeful. When God hides His face, when we feel that sense of distance and abandonment because of our sin, it is not because He has ceased to love us. It is because He loves us too much to let us continue to misrepresent Him. His discipline is designed to bring us to repentance, to teach us again that He is Yahweh our God.
Finally, it gives us a robust, optimistic, postmillennial hope. The whole point of this judgment and restoration is so that the nations will know. God's plan is not to secretly rapture away a handful of believers while the world descends into chaos. His plan is to put His glory on display among the nations. The victory of Christ is not a secret, private victory. It is a public, historical, global victory. The Great Commission is the means by which this happens. As the gospel goes forth, the nations see the judgment of God against sin at the cross, and they see the hand of God in the transformation of lives and cultures. They come to know that He is Yahweh.
The day is coming when the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea (Hab. 2:14). Every judgment, every act of discipline, every deliverance, is a step toward that great day. God is setting the record straight, and when He is finished, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. And all the nations will see it.