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Welcome to the Cross References podcast on the Book of Ezekiel. In this study, you learn how every small piece of the Bible tells one big story- and most importantly, how they all connect to the cross and Christ.
Whether you’re a newbie Christian or a veteran Bible reader, my goal is that God’s Word will make more sense to you after every episode.
Host: Luke Taylor
The Sometimes-Confusing Relationship Between Faith and Works
Ezekiel 33:10-20
Ezekiel series, Part 59
Introduction
So we’re in this chapter called Ezekiel’s Greatest Hits. That’s my name for it. Ezekiel 33 recaps some of Ezekiel’s earlier lessons; in fact, some of my favorite lessons from earlier in the book. And today we’ll be looking at verses 10 through 20, which recap my favorite chapter of Ezekiel: chapter 18.
This is the chapter on personal responsibility. It was one of my most popular podcast episodes before, and it’s still getting a lot of play even today. If you heard the lesson on Ezekiel 18 before, don’t tune out, because even though this is recapping something we’ve already studied, I’m going to expand on it today.
A lot of people question how Ezekiel 18 fits in with the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith, not of works. We’re going to talk about dispensationalism. We’re going to talk about Calvinism and God’s sovereignty. And if you listen until the end, we’re even going to talk about the difference in worldly sorrow and true repentance that Paul discusses in the New Testament.
So you’re gonna get a lot of good theology if you stick around today on the Cross References podcast.
[theme music]
Javascript Bible
Welcome to the Cross References podcast, a Bible study where we learn how every small piece of the Bible tells one big story- and how they all connect to the cross and Christ.
My name is Luke Taylor, and my first job was as a web designer. I have said before that my first job was at a radio station. That is true, but my first job was being a web designer for a radio station. And in order to design websites, back in the day, we had to learn to code.
They have lots of ways to do websites today that don’t require you to know how to code, but “back in my day,” we had to learn code to do it. So there was HTML, CSS and another one I would use quite a bit called Javascript.
Now, one thing that I really liked about Javascript was the “if then” statements. In the code, you could write “if” this thing happens, “then” that thing happens. IF it is 10 o’clock in the morning, THEN show this image. IF the user clicks here, THEN make this popup window show up.
I liked Javascript because it made sense in my mechanically-minded brain. I wish all of life worked like this. Like a vending machine. IF you put in a quarter, THEN you’ll get a candy bar. It’s simple to me. And life is not always so simple. Theology is not always so simple.
But Ezekiel 33 is pretty simple. That’s why I like Ezekiel 33 so much. It’s like Javascript. IF you do this, THEN this will happen. We covered some of that last time as we talked about the first 9 verses of the chapter- about being a watchman. IF you warn the people, THEN their blood is on their own head. IF you do not warn the people, THEN their blood is on your head.
It’s a tough message, but it’s simple and clear. Ezekiel 33 explains the whole process.
Now, as we look at the next 10 or so verses, Ezekiel is going to give us another process. Who is responsible once someone has been warned? What are you supposed to do with that information? Is it ever too late to repent? So let’s enter into this section and discover that process.
V10-12, The Limits of Calvinism
Ezekiel 33:10-11
“And you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, Thus have you said: ‘Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we rot away because of them. How then can we live?’ 11 Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?
So it begins with the people playing victim a little bit. They say, “What’s the use of serving God when we’ve already blown it so bad?” Which, I can relate to that a bit. I’ve felt before like I made too many mistakes to serve God. God has been gracious with me, but I’ve definitely felt the emotions before of feeling like I’ve blown it. So that’s what Israel is saying in verse 10. “How then can we live?” I like the way it’s interpreted in my Daniel Block commentary: “Our rebellious and sinful acts haunt us | On account of them we are wasting away | How then shall we survive?” They’re saying, “It’s too late for us.”
So God corrects them as says, “I have no desire that you would perish. If you want to make things right, I will make a way for you to make things right.” In other words, if you’re still breathing air, there’s still a chance to repent and get right with God. If you aren’t dead, you aren’t done.
This line “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked” is a truth about God’s character throughout the Bible, despite whatever else you might think. Read everything in the Bible with this understanding of God’s character: He doesn’t desire the wicked to perish. He desires their repentance.
This is why a few months back I did a study on the gods of Egypt and how my belief is that God was using the 10 plagues not to simply torment the Egyptians, but to show them that their gods were fake and had no power to take care of them. God didn’t just want their suffering. He wanted their repentance and salvation.
So God comes back in verse 11 and says He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. A good cross reference for this is
II Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
These verses are talking about why God has not yet come back to judge the world. He is patient, giving all men everywhere more time to repent. If some of this sounds familiar, we also just covered a lot of this information in the lesson on Ezekiel 18 just a little bit over a year ago.
Now, by the way, there’s a big debate within Christianity about the sovereignty of God vs the free will of man. One of the major schools of thought within modern western Christianity is the Calvinism doctrine that God has predetermined for each person whether or not they will accept Him. That a person’s salvation is not their personal choice, but that God extends His mercy to only a select few people. And that if you are not one of them, then God does not draw you to believe in the Gospel. Your heart is hardened against accepting the call of salvation, and so free will is taken out of the equation.
Now, I disagree with that view, gently. I understand why some people believe it. But I can’t square that view with verses like Ezekiel 33:11 or II Peter 3:9. Why would God say that He desires for the wicked to get saved if He has already predetermined before they were born that they would reject His mercy? Why would God say that He desires and wills for them to be saved if His will is the only one that matters, because man has no free will? You see, I just can’t make sense of this verse on that doctrine.
And so I crack open my commentaries on this chapter, most of which are written by Calvinists, because most theologians are Calvinists and most of my books and commentaries on my shelves are by Calvinists. And there are many Calvinists that I love listening to and learning from on subjects other than Calvinism, so I’m happy to have their books. But as I crack open all these commentaries to see what they have to say about Ezekiel 33:11, they don’t address the contradiction with Calvinism. I’m not quite sure how to handle that, frankly.
How do you NOT address it? It’s the elephant in the room. So I’ve titled this section in my notes: The Limits of Calvinism. Because I feel like Calvinism runs headfirst into some verses and it’s just like the Juggernaut vs the Blob, to use an X-Men reference. That’s two comic book movie references in a row. The Juggernaut is the unstoppable force, the blob is the immovable object, and Calvinism is kind of a Juggernaut in theology, but I feel like this aspect of God’s character- that He desires all to repent and be in relationship with Him- is an immovable object.
So Calvinism may have a lot of truth to it, but I feel like it hits a wall at some point. I believe in the sovereignty of God, but I believe that some verses in the Bible unequivocally also teach the sovereignty of man. “Choose you this day whom you will serve” is another one. And this chapter is going to have some more of that, since it’s very focused on personal responsibility. So that’s the limits of Calvinism.
V12-13, The Limits of Dispensationalism
And now I want to talk about the limit of a different theological view that I’m a lot more sympathetic to: dispensationalism. I would probably be considered a dispensationalist. I say that because I’m premillennial and I believe in a rapture. So many people would call me a dispensationalist.
I have to confess, though, that I’m really bad at dispensationalism. I don’t think in terms of dispensations at all. I know there’s this whole framework where all of the ages are lined out and Adam and Eve are the age of innocence and we’re now in the age of grace- also called the church age- and I probably agree with all of that if I saw it mapped out. But I’m just not a very good dispensationalist because I never study it all mapped out.
I do believe that we’re in the age of grace because Ephesians 3 plainly says we are. So I have no problems with that idea. I’m just not the best guy to teach on it. Anyway, I do see a problem sometimes when dispensationalism is taken to too much of an extreme, and I saw this issue come up in studying some of these verses here. So first let’s read the verses.
Ezekiel 33:12-13
12 “And you, son of man, say to your people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him when he transgresses, and as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall by it when he turns from his wickedness, and the righteous shall not be able to live by his righteousness when he sins. 13 Though I say to the righteous that he shall surely live, yet if he trusts in his righteousness and does injustice, none of his righteous deeds shall be remembered, but in his injustice that he has done he shall die.
So this verse is essentially saying not to rest on your laurels; that if you turn from God and go back into a lifestyle of sin, you will die. And I believe this is talking about a spiritual death, not a physical death. I outlined this back in the lesson Ezekiel 18, that some try to make this about a physical death and not a spiritual death. But I explained back in that lesson why you can’t read that chapter consistently with that view. It does not work.
But then this creates a problem for the doctrines of once-saved-always-saved or perseverance-of-the-saints. Because this section of verses will pretty explicitly teach that you cannot expect to be saved if you get saved and then turn back into a lifestyle of sin. It says none of your righteous deeds shall be remembered.
So, one of my commentaries is by H.A. Ironside, and he is apparently a dispensationalist, but I wonder if he’s gone to an extreme form of dispensationalism called hyper-dispensationalism. And hyper-dispensationlism teaches that in previous ages- like the age of the Mosaic law- that God had a different way to get saved than salvation by faith. They believe that salvation was by works in the Old Testament and by grace in the New Testament.
So this is what H.A. Ironside says about Ezekiel 33: “We have already noticed, in considering chapter 18, that the principles set forth in these portions do not in any sense picture the grace of God as revealed in the Gospel. They have to do definitely with man under the government of God, and particularly in the legal dispensation.”
Now, I have to strongly disagree with this. H.A. Ironside believes that Ezekiel 33 only applies to the dispensation of Ezekiel’s day, and that this is how he makes sense of these verses that seem to teach a salvation by works instead of a salvation by grace.
I just have to say, as a dispensationalist- a very crappy dispensationalist, but a dispensationalist nonetheless- that I wholeheartedly disagree with the idea that there were dispensations in the Old Testament where God saved people by works. You have to have a limit on your dispensationalism, and this is the limit. That is hyper-dispensationalism and it is unbiblical.
Why do I say this? Because Galatians sets the record straight about salvation in the Old Testament. Galatians is the great book of the Bible that corrects wrong views about the Gospel, that there are no works that can save someone’s soul, that salvation is by grace alone. And to make this case,
Galatians 3:6 says
just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?
It was because Abraham believed. That’s why he was saved. His belief. So dispensationalism is great. But you can’t go overboard with it.
If you’re listening and you’re dispensational or not, if you’re Calvinist or not, I have no beef with you, but don’t go off the deep end with it. At the end of the day, these are manmade ideas to explain an eternal God and none of them are probably perfect. So don’t go too extreme with them.
I’m going to take a quick break here and then keep plowing ahead in today’s verses.
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V14-16, Faith and Works
So in the previous section, I explained why I have a sharp disagreement with H.A. Ironside’s explanation of this section. But I understand why he had a problem with it, because this section presents a legitimate problem for us in our theology.
Let me re-read verse 13 from before and we’ll talk about it:
Ezekiel 33:13
13 Though I say to the righteous that he shall surely live, yet if he trusts in his righteousness and does injustice, none of his righteous deeds shall be remembered, but in his injustice that he has done he shall die.
So it’s saying there that if you’ve been a righteous person, but then you go into sin, don’t think that your good works from before are going to save you. Your righteousness doesn’t mean anything if you don’t continue in it going forward. If you go back into sin, you’re lost again.
Now, that creates a problem for us because it sounds like salvation by works. Let me finish reading the section and then I’ll try to explain the confusing relationship between faith and works.
Ezekiel 33:14-16
14 Again, though I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ yet if he turns from his sin and does what is just and right, 15 if the wicked restores the pledge, gives back what he has taken by robbery, and walks in the statutes of life, not doing injustice, he shall surely live; he shall not die. 16 None of the sins that he has committed shall be remembered against him. He has done what is just and right; he shall surely live.
This is getting into that “if then” language that I like so much. The Bible’s Javascript. “IF the righteous does this, THEN he will be lost.” “IF you the wicked does this, THEN he will be saved.”
I like how plain and clear it makes things. But it does throw a wrench into our theology just a bit.
So I want to explain the confusing relationship between faith and works. I believe that faith and works are so intertwined that they are basically inseparable; that if you went to an Old Testament prophet like Ezekiel or an expert in the law like Moses or a patriarch of the faith like Abraham or Joseph and you asked them: are we saved by our faith or by our works- I believe they would have looked at you like you just asked them if a zebra is black with white stripes or white with black stripes.
In other words, they are so intertwined that it would be almost laughable to even try to separate them. Like, have you ever had a twist ice cream cone? I always get the twist cone when I go to Braum’s because then I don’t have to decide if I want chocolate or vanilla froyo. I can have both. Best of both worlds. If you don’t have a Braum’s where you live, then come to the midwest, get a frozen yogurt cone, and get the twist. Half chocolate, half vanilla, literally twisted together.
And it’s ice cream, so it’s inseparable. Once it’s in your cup or your cone, it’s mixed together. You’re never getting the chocolate away from the vanilla. They are intertwined, and you better get to licking it because it’s only melting together from here on out.
Now, imagine Abraham is working at the Braum’s cash register and he’s just handed you your froyo chocolate and vanilla twist cone, and you ask him, “Hey Abraham, could you take the chocolate out of my twist?” If you said that, he’s going to look at you like you just lost your mind.
And likewise, that’s how Abraham probably would have looked at you if you had asked him, “Hey Abraham, can I be saved just by my faith without doing any good works?” He’s gonna cock his head and squint his eyes and say, “That question doesn’t even compute. How can you say you’re going to have faith in God but not do what He says?” It just doesn’t make sense.
So then we get into the New Testament, and yes, Paul makes observations about salvation and that it’s by faith and not of works. That is true. But I would say that’s almost a more academic distinction than a practical one. And that’s OK to be academic. It’s OK for Paul to say, “You know, technically, it’s your faith that saves you and not your works.” That’s all good. Don’t misunderstand me and think I’m saying that you should trust in your works for your salvation. You can’t.
But we’ve kind of emphasized that so much in our evangelism these days that we’ve made it the central fact you have to know about getting saved. And it’s true so there’s nothing wrong with teaching something that’s true. But we’ve so emphasized the aspect of salvation by Christ’s work and not our own that I think some people miss the fact that following Jesus still means doing something. Not just saying, “Well Jesus did it all” and thinking that all I have to do is believe that and say some words in a prayer and that’s all God expects of me. That is not how Jesus presented salvation.
Jesus was not being academic. Jesus was being practical. Jesus said, “Don’t follow me unless you’re willing to drop everything, leave anything behind- including your own family- pick up your cross- be ready to suffer- You are my friend if you do what I tell you.”
See, the New Testament does not just tell us to confess Jesus as Savior, but to confess Jesus as Lord. Those are two different things. But you have to do both. You can’t make Jesus your savior but not your Lord. You can’t say you’re accepting His sacrifice for your sins if you’re not willing to follow Him and do what He says.
So this debate that we sometimes have among Christians about faith and works and can you be saved if you don’t do good works- this debate would seem kind of silly, I think, to the Old Testament prophets like Ezekiel. Because they’d be saying, “Why are you even arguing about this? Why are you even trying to separate faith from works?”
Have you ever heard that great song “trust and obey for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus than to trust and obey.” Very well-known song. Did you know that that song comes from the Hebrew word for faith. Shama (shah-maw). The definition of faith in Hebrew is: trust and obey.
So for them, having faith in God meant two things simultaneously: having trust in God to do what He said He would do, and to obey what God said for you to do. Trusting and obeying.
So if you asked an Old Testament saint if you could have faith in God without obeying Him, he’d probably look at you like the guy at Braum’s if you asked him for a twist cone without any chocolate. The question just wouldn’t compute.
Because think about how ridiculous this question would sound: can I follow God and not do what He says? Can I have faith in God and live in rebellion against His Word? Can I truly say that I believe in my heart that God is all wise, all knowing, all powerful, all good, and all loving, and yet reject certain parts of my life to His control because I think I know better than Him in some areas? Does that make logical sense whatsoever? No.
Now, do many people live that way? Absolutely. And it doesn’t make sense. But it’s not because God doesn’t make sense. It’s because people are stupid. And sometimes I’m pretty stupid, so I mean no offense.
But with that in mind, I hope Ezekiel 33 makes a title more sense. Ezekiel is not caring to make a distinction here between faith and works when he talks about salvation. I doubt that he even cared about that distinction. Am I saying that Ezekiel believed in salvation by works? No. I’m saying that question wasn’t even on his radar.
To him, to be saved meant you did what God said. Trust and obey.
And if you read Jesus- without even getting into the deep academic theology of Romans and what Paul wrote- if you read Jesus’ words alone, I think that’s what you’d walk away with. Jesus is my savior. Jesus is my Lord. And I don’t think I can have one without the other.
Housekeeping/Mailbag
Now, please don’t anyone take what I’ve said today to be against the doctrine of salvation by faith and not of works. That’s a clear New Testament doctrine. I love that doctrine. There is nothing about that doctrine that needs corrected.
What I’m doing today is trying to provide a bit of a balance against one of the extremes of that view. That view of salvation by faith alone is taken to such an extreme sometimes, or emphasized so much, that the importance of works is forgotten or de-emphasized.
My point today is to say that real saving faith is always accompanied by works. And faith and works are so intertwined that it really doesn’t make sense to say you have faith without works.
I haven’t mentioned James 2 yet today. I was going to, but I feel like I’ve talked long enough for this episode. James 2 is where it contains a famous verse that confuses a lot of people about the relationship with faith and works.
James 2 says
14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?
And then it also says
So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
Now, that kind of seems to contradict the idea of salvation by faith without works. And lots of people for many many centuries have struggled with reconciling James 2 with the words of Paul in Romans and Galatians. James 2 seems soooo diametrically opposed to other clear teachings in the New Testament that it’s kinda weird. In fact, it’s so weird, it would fit very well with another podcast I do: Weird Stuff in the Bible.
So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to create a crossover episode between Weird Stuff in the Bible AND this episode, Cross References. All that means is that you’re going to see that episode posted in both feeds.
And then the week after that, I’ll be back from vacation and I’ll change the name of the podcast to The Book of Ezekiel: A Cross References Bible Study. I outlined all my reasons for THAT change in a special episode I released last Friday.
V17-20, WORLDLY SORROW VS GODLY SORRY
In closing today, I’d like to read verses 17 through 19, which recap today’s main idea and also, I feel, give us a case study in true repentance vs false repentance.
Did you know that people can falsely repent? They can say all the right words and feel all the right emotions, but not truly repent for whatever it is they did wrong, and thus do nothing to fix their relationship with God.
Ezekiel 33:17-20
17 “Yet your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just,’ when it is their own way that is not just. 18 When the righteous turns from his righteousness and does injustice, he shall die for it. 19 And when the wicked turns from his wickedness and does what is just and right, he shall live by this. 20 Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ O house of Israel, I will judge each of you according to his ways.”
So it starts with an accusation against God: “God’s way isn’t fair.” I don’t like that someone can be righteous and going along just fine in life and that they can turn away from God in their final years on earth and that all their good works they did before don’t count for anything. I don’t think that’s fair.
Ezekiel says, “Too bad. God is fair, you’re not.” It doesn’t matter what you think is fair. Instead, learn from this and finish well. Don’t rest on your past accomplishments to know that you’re saved. The only thing you should be asking yourself is: where am I right now?
Some people say, “I don’t like that someone can live a lifestyle of wickedness and be evil their whole life and then repent on their deathbed and then go to heaven. I don’t think that’s fair.”
Ezekiel says, “too bad. God is fair, you’re not. God is the judge, so you want to get on His justice system.” Yes, if the wicked lives wickedly his whole life and then right at the end, turns from his wickedness and truly repents, then he will be saved. That’s how God’s grace works.
But this question of true repentance is what it all comes down to. God will save anyone who repents, but only if it’s true repentance. There is a false repentance that we should be aware of. If you asked most of the people in America if they ever walked an aisle and prayed a prayer, or if they ever asked God to forgive them of their sins, I bet 95% of people would say yes, at some point in my life, I’ve asked God to forgive my sins. And most of them probably felt some emotion and sorrow about the things they’ve done when they did ask God to forgive them.
But does that mean 95% of Americans are saved? If you look at the current news headlines, obviously not. So what’s missing from their repentance?
II Corinthians 7:8-12
8 For even if I made you sorry with my letter, I do not regret it; though I did regret it. For I perceive that the same epistle made you sorry, though only for a while. 9 Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. 10 For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death. 11 For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter.
So you see, there are two types of sorrow talked about here: Godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. What is the difference?
Look, all people feel guilt from time to time for the things they’ve done wrong. Saved, unsaved, regenerate, unregenerate, doesn’t matter. We all feel bad when we do bad things- most of us, anyway. But some of that guilt is just natural in our flesh, and some of that guilt is a conviction from the Holy Spirit. When you just feel guilty in your flesh, you feel bad and ashamed of yourself. You often want to say you’re sorry. You often want to make amends in some way. If you break my $50 lamp, you might want to replace the lamp by giving me another lamp, or $50, along with a shake from Braum’s for my trouble. And doing all that might relax your conscience and make you feel better. And all that is good!
But when it comes to our sins, there is nothing we can do to make amends for them. Only Jesus can take away our guilt permanently. If you try to make yourself right before God on the basis of your works- as we’ve talked about many times in today’s lesson- you will wear yourself out. You will never remove your guilt. As the verse said, “godly sorrow will leave no regret; the sorrow of the world produces death.” You will kill yourself trying to make up for all your sins before God because you can never do it.
But when you do truly repent and trust in Christ for your salvation, you stop working to justify yourself and you start working from a heart of gratitude. Notice that I didn’t say you stop working. You will still do good works. But your motivation will be gratitude to God for saving you and bringing you into His family. It won’t be a shame-based relationship with God. It will be a love-based relationship. “What zeal, what vehement desire!”
So I think these verses here at the end of our section today detail a few attributes of true, legitimate repentance. Verse 19 said: “when the wicked turns from his wickedness and does what is just and right, he shall live by this.”
So what will he do? He’ll turn from his wickedness. That means he’ll stop doing what he was doing before. There’s really no way to judge that if you get someone saved on their deathbed. We’ll never know until we get to heaven if they really meant it. But if someone does spend another six months or year on this planet after they get saved, their life should produce fruits of repentance. Sanctification. Turning from their wicked ways.
Verse 17- they won’t say that the Lord is unfair. They won’t complain about life being unfair. They aren’t blaming other people for their actions. They’re taking responsibility for what they’ve done. And then verse 18- they don’t repent for a day and then go right back into that same sin.
Then it says they will “live by this.” That means it’s not just a phase; it’s not just a season. Sanctification is the process of becoming more Christlike, and it starts when we get saved, and it continues until we die, no matter how long that is. We don’t go back into our sins. If we do, we have either lost our salvation, or we never had it to begin with.
And that’s how you know you’ve truly repented. Repentance doesn’t mean you become perfect. But it does mean you’ll at least be moving in the right direction. Repentance includes emotions, but the emotions are not the important part. The important part is the decision you make and the follow-through, which is evidence that God has changed your heart.
When you repent, it means you say that if you could do it again and get away with it, you still wouldn’t.
Thanks for listening to the Cross References Podcast. This has been Luke Taylor, reminding you to check out Braum’s.