Page 73 - NOTES ON EZEKIEL

CHAPTER XV. 67
and lastly the vine of the earth when Christendom
abandons the grace and truth which came by Jesus
Christ, and at the end of the age divine judgment falls
unsparingly.
The vine is of no value if it be not fruitful. Other
trees, if they never bear or when they cease bearing,
may be excellent for purposes of art or utility. But
not so with the vine : if there be not fruit, it is only
good to be burnt. And if useless before the fire touches
it, what when both ends are devoured and the middle is
burnt ?
Just so, says the Spirit of God, is it with the inhabi­
tants of Jerusalem. Being barren of fruit Godward, they
are devoted as fuel for the fires of divine judgment. If
the Jews failed to represent the one true God, if they
falsified the testimony committed to their charge, if
they were traitors to His name, what could Jehovah do
but consume as enemies those who of all men had the
gravest responsibility to obey His law ? To wink at their
moral turpitude and their abominable idolatry could
not become the all-seeing God who was pleased to
'dwell there only among all the nations of the earth ;
and the time was not yet come to lay, in the death and
resurrection of Christ, the foundation of a new creation
which should neither fall nor pass away. The living
God must therefore deal with His people according to the
ground taken in covenant between Him and them ; and
hence the action here announced by the prophet. “There­
fore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, As the vine tree among
the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire
for fuel, so will I give the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
And I will set my face against them; they shall go