Audio Transcript
Well, we are jerks to one another. We are sinners, and that means being mean. And, in Christ, we are each trying to become less of a jerk to one another. God can confront us for being jerks by showing overwhelming kindness to us. You’ve acted in a way that’s deplorable, and then God engulfs you with some enormous gentleness, and it breaks you over the conviction of what you have done to someone else. Has that ever happened to you?
The God who breaks us with kindness is our theme today, but we get there through a great question about Christian Hedonism. Recently in our Bible reading, on Friday of last week, we read Ezekiel 36 together. That chapter raised this question for Thomas.
“Pastor John, hello! As I understand Christian Hedonism, there are no tensions between God seeking his glory from us and us finding our delight in him. It’s a brilliant system that I love, but it leaves me wondering about Ezekiel 36:22, where God says to his exiled people, Israel, ‘Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came.’ You can probably see what I’m troubled by. How is God’s redeeming his people from their sin in tension with him seeking his own glory? I thought this was all resolved!”
Goodness gracious — I love our listeners. That’s a great question. They are such good Bible readers. It is exactly the right question to ask. And the key, I think, that unlocks the perplexity — and it’s an appropriate perplexity at first — is that the phrase “for the sake of” can have more than one meaning, both in Hebrew and in English.
“For the sake of” can mean “in order to do you good.” So, for example, in 2 Corinthians 5:21, Paul says, “For our sake [God] made [Christ] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” So, “for our sake” means “for our good”: that we might become God’s righteousness.
But “for the sake of” can also mean “because of” — not “for the good of,” but because of something in the past; not “in order to do you good,” but because you acted in a certain way. For example, in Matthew 5:10, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for [the sake of righteousness].” “For the sake of righteousness” means “because of their righteousness.” “Blessed are those who are persecuted [because of their righteousness].”
Benefit or Basis?
So, the question is this: Which of these meanings does Ezekiel intend when he says in Ezekiel 36:22, “It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act”? Does he mean, “I am about to act not to do you any good at all,” or does he mean, “I’m about to act not because of the way you have acted”?
Now, the answer to that question is really plain in the context as you keep on reading — and this passage in Ezekiel 36 is such a lavish description of God’s God-centered grace, which for a lot of people sounds like a contradiction, right? God-centered grace toward us — that sounds to them like an oxymoron, a contradiction, like, God can’t be God-centered and be gracious to us at the same time.
“God’s pursuit of his glory and his pursuit of Israel’s good are happening in one lavish act of God-exalting grace.”
This passage is classic to show that that is exactly the way God is. If God were passionate for his own glory, some people think, Well, then he can’t be passionate for my good. But this passage shows that’s the wrong way to think. In fact, if you don’t recognize that God can pursue his glory in a God-centered way while doing us good, you won’t be able to make any sense out of this passage at all.
It’s long, but I’m going to read it, because people are going to be blessed by just listening to the lavish grace, God-centered grace, God-exalting grace, in this passage. So, here it is.
Lavish Goodness
Say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act. (Ezekiel 36:22)
Now, what does that mean? Does that mean, “I’m not about to act for your good, just my good”? Or does it mean, “I’m not about to act because you’ve acted righteously”?
But for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. [That’s the first clue. They have profaned the name of God, and he’s about to act for that vindication of his holiness.] And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. [Now, watch what’s about to happen here; it just blows your mind.] I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. And I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you. I will make the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field abundant, that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations. (Ezekiel 36:22–30)
Are you kidding me? This is how God is going to vindicate the holiness of his name for the sake of rebellious, wicked people.
So, it’s crystal clear that when he said, “I’m about to act not for your sake,” he did not mean, “I’m not going to do you any good.” This is just lavish good, and he’s acting for his own sake, to vindicate his holiness. In fact, it means such lavish, over-the-top good, it is scarcely imaginable. God’s pursuit of his glory and his pursuit of their good are happening in one lavish act of God-exalting grace toward his people.
Now, he continues in Ezekiel 36:31 (and this boggles the mind and shocks egocentric people):
Then [when I’ve done all this amazing good for you] you will remember your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations. It is not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord God; let that be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel. (Ezekiel 36:31–32)
So, “not for your sake” means “not because of your righteousness.” “It’s not for your sake; it’s not because of your righteousness that I am about to lavish you with indescribable, immeasurable grace, declares the Lord. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways.”
Ashamed and Confounded
I can remember, Tony, in the fall of 1971, sitting in my rocking chair in Munich, Germany, every Sunday evening for several weeks, reading The Religious Affections by Jonathan Edwards and the chapter on evangelical humiliation (and that is the word he used). He unpacked Ezekiel 36 in a way that delivered me — it devastated me and it delivered me — from a popular deception. In the seventies, it was very popular.
They were saying in those days that the meaning of the cross of Christ was that it was evidence that God recognized in you a diamond of infinite worth, and he showed the worth that he recognized in you by paying an infinite price for you. And Edwards was pointing out that that’s exactly the opposite of what this text teaches.
Grace shown to Israel and grace shown to us in Christ are not evidence of our recognized worth but of the infinite value of the sovereign grace of God, owing to nothing in us. “It was not for the sake of your worth, O Israel, that I lavished you with grace. It was not for the sake of your worth, O Christian, that I gave the Son of God for you. It was to vindicate my holiness and to display the immeasurable greatness of the glory of my grace — not because of anything in you.”
So, Thomas, you have put your finger on a crucial scripture — oh, my. It does not mean there’s a conflict between the vindication of God’s holiness and the demonstration of his grace. It means that grace doesn’t respond to worth; it gives worth. It finds us treasonous and dead, and makes us children of God.
I had never heard anybody say that the outpouring of that kind of lavish grace should make me ashamed. The emotional dynamic was always “Leap for joy!” — which, of course, is true, but it misses a step. I can just point to place after place in my life where it’s the kindness of God and the kindness of people that make me feel like a jerk. Right? You’ve acted in a way that’s just so deplorable. And then, they or God shows you some enormous kindness, and the first response isn’t, “Well, of course; I’m worth being treated like that.” The first response is this: “Wretched man that I am!” (Romans 7:24).
