Page 214 - NOTES ON EZEKIEL

208 NOTES ON EZEKIEL.

joint-heirs who are to be glorified, risen or changed, at
His coining, and then to reign together with Him in
His kingdom. And this active subjecting of all is not
the work of heavenly grace, but of power put forth oil
earth, of course not always in destruction, though the
kingdom opens and closes with it on an immense scale,
as we see here and in Revelation xx. 8, 9.
The moral effect of the judgment executed on Gog
and his host we find afterwards : “ And I will set my
glory among the heathen, and all the heathen shall see
my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that
I have laid upon them. So the house of Israel shall
know that I am Jehovah their God from that day and
forward. And the heathen shall know that the house
of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity: because
they trespassed against me, therefore hid I my face
from them, and gave them into the hand of their ene­
mies: so fell they all by the sword. According to
their uncleanness and according to their transgressions
have I done unto them, and hid my face from them.”
(Vers. 21—24.) The gospel meanwhile if believed
puts souls in association with Christ for heaven. The
sight of the judgments will be used by the Lord to
teach the nations righteousness on earth. Israel too
need to learn, and so they will, that He who so deals is
Jehovah their God “ from that day and forward.” It
will be plain and undeniable in that day that Israel
went into captivity for nothing but their iniquity; that
for this only did Jehovah withdraw His favour from
them and give them up to the sword of their enemies.
It is His retribution that explains their past history
with all its sorrows.