Page 177 - NOTES ON EZEKIEL

CHAPTER XXXV. 171
are at this moment cleaving to the revealed will of the
Lord for the church. Let them know that the Lord
will act according to the anger and envy Babylon feels
against such as stand faithful. The proud anti­
church is judged when the marriage of the bride, the
Lamb’s wife, is come. What is said against the church
and its privileges truly understood and acted on is no
light sin in God’s eyes : as with Israel of old, so now
what is said contemptuously against His people, cleav­
ing in their weakness to His grace and word, He
regards as said against Himself: “ I have heard.”
The chapter concludes with this sentence on the foe :
il Thus saith the Lord Jehovah ; When the whole earth
rejoiceth, I will make thee desolate. As thou didst re­
joice at the inheritance of the house of Israel, because
it was desolate, so will I do unto thee : thou shalt be
desolate, 0 mount Seir, and all Idumea, even all of i t :
and they shall know that I am Jehovah.” (Vers. 14,15.)
Never was a falser judgment, though all was false, than
that Jehovah will not yet restore and bless Israel, not for
any deserts of theirs, but in His own mercy through the
once rejected Messiah, who will as surely desolate the
enemies of Israel as He will make good all that He
promised to their fathers. But neither one nor other
dealing is the gospel, which contrariwise is now gather­
ing in indiscriminate grace from Jews and Gentiles for
heavenly glory with Him who is not Saviour only but
head of the church on high. We know Him not after the
flesh, nor by any judgments that He executes on Edom
nor even by His mercy to Israel, but as dead, risen, and
glorified in heaven according to the purposes of God
once hidden but now revealed in Him and His body.