Page 13 - NOTES ON EZEKIEL

INTRODUCTION. 7
Holy Spirit’s function now to make good here below,
and which shall be enjoyed yet more, yea perfectly,
when the Lord shall have come, changing our bodies
into His likeness, and causing us to appear with Him
in the heavenly glory of that day.
It is mere ignorance and malicious unbelief to call
this judaizing. For it is no question of the sort when
we speak of the future prospects of Israel according
to the prophets. Judaizing really means the mingling
of Jewish elements with the gospel, and imposing
them on Christians now. But the very point of the
truth insisted on is, that Christians, caught up and
glorified with Christ, will then have disappeared from
the earth. Consequently it is the age to come, and
another calling, when Israel shall be grafted into their
own olive-tree. Hence, to look for the literal accom­
plishment of their visions is simply faith in the pro­
phets, not judaizing but rather a main safeguard
against i t ; for we are thus kept the more from min­
gling their hopes with ours because we expect them
to be fulfilled to Israel. The return from Babylon in
no way met the closing prophecies; but this proves
not the imperfection of Ezekiel’s foreshadowing, but
that his glorious anticipations are still to be fulfilled.
The “ all Israel” yet remains to be fulfilled when the
Redeemer comes to Zion. Ezekiel xx. 33 is perfectly
consistent with this; for Jeremiah and all the prophets
teach the cutting off of apostates and rebels. Hen­
derson therefore was not justified in saying that the
discrepancies between the ancient temple and that
described by Ezekiel are non-essential. They prove
on the contrary that we must either give up the in­