THE WORD OF THE LORD came to me: 2“Son of man, confront Jerusalem with her detestable practices 3and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says to Jerusalem: Your ancestry and birth were in the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. 4On the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to make you clean, nor were you rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths. 5No one looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you. Rather, you were thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised.
6“ ‘Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, “Live!” 7I made you grow like a plant of the field. You grew up and developed and became the most beautiful of jewels. Your breasts were formed and your hair grew, you who were naked and bare.
8“ ‘Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign LORD, and you became mine.
9“ ‘I bathed you with water and washed the blood from you and put ointments on you. 10I clothed you with an embroidered dress and put leather sandals on you. I dressed you in fine linen and covered you with costly garments. 11I adorned you with jewelry: I put bracelets on your arms and a necklace around your neck, 12and I put a ring on your nose, earrings on your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. 13So you were adorned with gold and silver; your clothes were of fine linen and costly fabric and embroidered cloth. Your food was fine flour, honey and olive oil. You became very beautiful and rose to be a queen. 14And your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, because the splendor I had given you made your beauty perfect, declares the Sovereign LORD.
15“ ‘But you trusted in your beauty and used your fame to become a prostitute. You lavished your favors on anyone who passed by and your beauty became his. 16You took some of your garments to make gaudy high places, where you carried on your prostitution. Such things should not happen, nor should they ever occur. 17You also took the fine jewelry I gave you, the jewelry made of my gold and silver, and you made for yourself male idols and engaged in prostitution with them. 18And you took your embroidered clothes to put on them, and you offered my oil and incense before them. 19Also the food I provided for you—the fine flour, olive oil and honey I gave you to eat—you offered as fragrant incense before them. That is what happened, declares the Sovereign LORD.
20“ ‘And you took your sons and daughters whom you bore to me and sacrificed them as food to the idols. Was your prostitution not enough? 21You slaughtered my children and sacrificed them to the idols. 22In all your detestable practices and your prostitution you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, kicking about in your blood.
23“ ‘Woe! Woe to you, declares the Sovereign LORD. In addition to all your other wickedness, 24you built a mound for yourself and made a lofty shrine in every public square. 25At the head of every street you built your lofty shrines and degraded your beauty, offering your body with increasing promiscuity to anyone who passed by. 26You engaged in prostitution with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, and provoked me to anger with your increasing promiscuity. 27So I stretched out my hand against you and reduced your territory; I gave you over to the greed of your enemies, the daughters of the Philistines, who were shocked by your lewd conduct. 28You engaged in prostitution with the Assyrians too, because you were insatiable; and even after that, you still were not satisfied. 29Then you increased your promiscuity to include Babylonia, a land of merchants, but even with this you were not satisfied.
30“ ‘How weak-willed you are, declares the Sovereign LORD, when you do all these things, acting like a brazen prostitute! 31When you built your mounds at the head of every street and made your lofty shrines in every public square, you were unlike a prostitute, because you scorned payment.
32“ ‘You adulterous wife! You prefer strangers to your own husband! 33Every prostitute receives a fee, but you give gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from everywhere for your illicit favors. 34So in your prostitution you are the opposite of others; no one runs after you for your favors. You are the very opposite, for you give payment and none is given to you.
35“ ‘Therefore, you prostitute, hear the word of the LORD! 36This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Because you poured out your wealth and exposed your nakedness in your promiscuity with your lovers, and because of all your detestable idols, and because you gave them your children’s blood, 37therefore I am going to gather all your lovers, with whom you found pleasure, those you loved as well as those you hated. I will gather them against you from all around and will strip you in front of them, and they will see all your nakedness. 38I will sentence you to the punishment of women who commit adultery and who shed blood; I will bring upon you the blood vengeance of my wrath and jealous anger. 39Then I will hand you over to your lovers, and they will tear down your mounds and destroy your lofty shrines. They will strip you of your clothes and take your fine jewelry and leave you naked and bare. 40They will bring a mob against you, who will stone you and hack you to pieces with their swords. 41They will burn down your houses and inflict punishment on you in the sight of many women. I will put a stop to your prostitution, and you will no longer pay your lovers. 42Then my wrath against you will subside and my jealous anger will turn away from you; I will be calm and no longer angry.
43“ ‘Because you did not remember the days of your youth but enraged me with all these things, I will surely bring down on your head what you have done, declares the Sovereign LORD. Did you not add lewdness to all your other detestable practices?
44“ ‘Everyone who quotes proverbs will quote this proverb about you: “Like mother, like daughter.” 45You are a true daughter of your mother, who despised her husband and her children; and you are a true sister of your sisters, who despised their husbands and their children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite. 46Your older sister was Samaria, who lived to the north of you with her daughters; and your younger sister, who lived to the south of you with her daughters, was Sodom. 47You not only walked in their ways and copied their detestable practices, but in all your ways you soon became more depraved than they. 48As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, your sister Sodom and her daughters never did what you and your daughters have done.
49“ ‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. 50They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. 51Samaria did not commit half the sins you did. You have done more detestable things than they, and have made your sisters seem righteous by all these things you have done. 52Bear your disgrace, for you have furnished some justification for your sisters. Because your sins were more vile than theirs, they appear more righteous than you. So then, be ashamed and bear your disgrace, for you have made your sisters appear righteous.
53“ ‘However, I will restore the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters and of Samaria and her daughters, and your fortunes along with them, 54so that you may bear your disgrace and be ashamed of all you have done in giving them comfort. 55And your sisters, Sodom with her daughters and Samaria with her daughters, will return to what they were before; and you and your daughters will return to what you were before. 56You would not even mention your sister Sodom in the day of your pride, 57before your wickedness was uncovered. Even so, you are now scorned by the daughters of Edom and all her neighbors and the daughters of the Philistines—all those around you who despise you. 58You will bear the consequences of your lewdness and your detestable practices, declares the LORD.
59“ ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will deal with you as you deserve, because you have despised my oath by breaking the covenant. 60Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you. 61Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you receive your sisters, both those who are older than you and those who are younger. I will give them to you as daughters, but not on the basis of my covenant with you. 62So I will establish my covenant with you, and you will know that I am the LORD. 63Then, when I make atonement for you for all you have done, you will remember and be ashamed and never again open your mouth because of your humiliation, declares the Sovereign LORD.’ ”
Original Meaning
IF EZEKIEL 15 presents an oblique parable, sneaking assent from its hearers before confronting them with the realization that they have just condemned themselves, Ezekiel 16 adopts an altogether different approach. It is an “in-your-face” condemnation of Jerusalem, in which the identity and nature of the central figure of the extended metaphor1 is never disguised and frequently dictates the inclusion of otherwise incongruous details into the story. With graphic imagination and violent force, Ezekiel strips away the popular fiction of “Jerusalem the Golden” and replaces it with the figure of “Jerusalem the Prostitute.” Here we have an exposé of Jerusalem’s true nature, with the prophet taking the part of prosecuting counsel in the divine courtroom.2
The story starts out by depicting Jerusalem’s dubious origins. It began among the Canaanites, of an Amorite father and a Hittite mother (Ezek. 16:3). This was, of course, literally true of the city of Jerusalem. The city predated the arrival of the Israelites in the land of Canaan, and its prior population is called Amorite in Joshua 10:6. The word “Hittite” actually seems to denote two distinct groups of people in the Old Testament. In many passages it describes a local people from Palestine, the descendants of a man named “Heth” (e.g., Ex. 3:8, 17), while in other passages the reference is to the neo-Hittite kingdoms in northern Syria that succeeded the Hittite empire proper (1 Kings 10:29; 2 Chron. 1:17). Here in Ezekiel the reference seems to be to the former group, the native Canaanite variety.3
In contrast to Israel, who in her creed traced her heritage back to “a wandering Aramean” (Deut. 26:5) whose arrival in the land of Canaan was the result of God’s action in fulfillment of his promise, the city of Jerusalem’s roots in the land are entirely natural and pagan.4 Jerusalem’s prominent position is based on the accidents of history, not the acts of God; even before David captured it and made it his capital city, it was an important (pagan) city in its own right.
The child Jerusalem was born to heartless parents, however, who revealed their own depravity by abandoning the newborn infant. None of the usual obstetrical practices of cutting the navel cord, washing the child, covering her body in a mixture of salt and oil, and swaddling tightly for a lengthy period of time was carried out. Instead, alone and unloved, she was left in a field to die. The exposure of weak or unwanted children, especially girls, was an all-too-familiar spectacle in the ancient world.
Into that situation of helplessness and hopelessness, however, came God’s intervention. Passing by this sorry spectacle, he spoke his life-giving word, causing her to live5 and thrive like a plant of the field. To adopt our idiom, she grew like a weed. The word of the Lord was all it took to turn the field from a place of death (Ezek. 16:5) to a place of life (16:7). Subsequently, she grew up, reached sexual maturity (16:7),6 and attained an age appropriate for marriage (16:8). Historically, this period corresponds to the pre-Israelite period of Jerusalem’s history, during which time she existed and prospered (at the Lord’s command!), but was not yet directly included in his purposes.
At the end of this time, she once again came to the Lord’s attention, and he spread a corner of his robe over her, symbolically covering her nakedness (16:8). This was an act with quasi-legal status, affirming the choice of a bride, as in the case of Ruth and Boaz (Ruth 3:9).7 The Lord then gave an oath and entered into a covenant relationship with Jerusalem. In the terms of the metaphor, he married her. Again, the historical reality lies buried beneath the surface in the establishing of the Davidic covenant, which entails not simply the election of David and his descendants (2 Sam. 7) but also the election of Zion, David’s city, as the city of the Great King (Ps. 48:2).
The Lord’s choice of Jerusalem was not merely a legal and political convenience, however, but a true love match on his part. He did for the girl what no one else had ever done, washing off her blood, anointing her, and clothing her (Ezek. 16:8–9) in a threefold reversal of the circumstance of her birth, when she was not washed, anointed, or clothed (16:4).8 He provided her with a wardrobe fit for a queen, with embroidered dresses and shoes of fine leather (16:10). This is not merely elegant or royal clothing, however. She is clothed in materials that are elsewhere associated with the tabernacle, underlining her symbolic identity as the home of the temple.9
In addition, the Lord lavished on her an extensive supply of fine jewelry: bracelets, necklace, nose-ring, earrings, and crown (16:11–12). Virtually every part of the anatomy that could be bejeweled in the ancient Near East was attended to. Finally, she was fed with the very best: fine flour, honey, and olive oil (16:13). On account of her natural beauty (which itself was the result of the Lord’s decision to allow her to live in the first place) and of the splendor with which the Lord had endowed her, her fame spread far and wide (16:14).10
But another turning point in her fortunes takes place in verse 15. Instead of remembering that it was the Lord who had endowed her with all these blessings, she trusted in her beauty and prostituted her reputation. Like the prodigal son, she wasted her substance in riotous living. The beautiful clothes were used to adorn the high places where idolatrous worship occurred and to clothe the idols housed within. The gold and silver were used to manufacture the idols themselves; the flour, oil, and honey, which had been given to her for food, were offered instead to her idols (16:16–19). Even her children, those whom she had borne to the Lord, were not safe; they were sacrificed to the idols she had made for herself (16:20–21).
Again, this history of idolatry corresponds to the general trend of Israel’s behavior according to the account of the book of Kings. Even Solomon used part of his great wealth to build temples for the gods of his foreign wives (1 Kings 11:7–8), and the practice of child sacrifice is attested of Ahaz in 2 Kings 16:3 and Manasseh in 21:6, as well as more widely in the time of Jeremiah (Jer. 7:31; 19:5; 32:35).11 The high places were a perennial attraction to God’s people, repeatedly seducing them away from the worship of the true God (2 Kings 17:9–10).
This depiction of Jerusalem’s idolatry in terms of adultery has its roots in Hosea 2:4–14, where the northern kingdom of Israel is described as an ungrateful wife who takes the gifts of her husband and foolishly lavishes them on her lovers. Yet Ezekiel takes the same basic picture and develops it much further than Hosea had. Hosea’s Israel was simply a foolishly promiscuous woman; Ezekiel’s Jerusalem is a thoroughly depraved and degraded prostitute. Her behavior descends to ever deeper depths in Ezek. 16:23–34. In place of one type of location for her idolatry (the “high places,” bāmôt; 16:16), there are now two (the “mound,” geb, and “lofty shrine,” rāmâ; 16:24, 31). In place of adultery with idols, there now appear liaisons with human partners, with ever increasing promiscuity.
The language of lust becomes stronger: Jerusalem spread her legs for any who passed by (16:25), not least her “lustful neighbors,” the Egyptians (16:26). God’s judgment in reducing her territory was of no effect (16:27). Indeed, Jerusalem did not even act like a normal prostitute, for they at least are motivated to sin for material gain or out of financial desperation. Jerusalem, however, has been sinning at her own expense, so perverse in her lust that she pays everyone to join in her depravity (16:34).
Again, the historical background stretches the allegory almost to the breaking point. As a description of a woman, it is beyond the reaches even of the fevered imagination of the tabloid press. Yet as a picture of Judah’s political strategy, it fits perfectly. Judah had a history of looking for love in all the wrong places, seeking security not in the Lord but in the arms of a foreign power. In the days of Ahaz, it was Assyria (2 Kings 16:7). In the days of Hezekiah, it was Babylon (Ezek. 20:12–19). In the days of Zedekiah, it was Egypt (Jer. 2:36; Ezek. 17:15). These alliances were frequently costly to Judah, for accepting a major power as overlord carried with it a substantial price tag. The suzerain invariably expected to receive silver and gold as tribute in exchange for protection (2 Kings 16:8). Even then, only rarely did they deliver the hoped-for help.
But far more expensive in the eyes of the Old Testament prophets was the cost in religious terms. An overlord may or may not have forcibly imposed his state religion on the vassal state, but religious effects on the vassal nation were nonetheless real.12 Behind every act of international diplomacy stood the gods of the nations as guarantors of compliance. For this reason, such international cooperation inevitably involved a measure of recognition of the existence and power of the gods of the nations, along with an implicit affirmation that trusting in the Lord alone was not effective. The temptation to appeal to the gods that had apparently made the other nation great was powerful.
It was therefore not a coincidence that Ahaz introduced Syrian-style innovations into the Jerusalem temple immediately after meeting with Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, in Damascus (2 Kings 16:10–16). What may have seemed to politically oriented kings merely a good, if expensive, insurance policy, a means of covering all the bases, seemed to the biblical prophets a clear abandonment of Judah’s single-minded covenant commitment to the Lord. For them, imitation was the sincerest form of blasphemy.
For Jerusalem, the natural and inevitable consequence of an adulterous lifestyle was an adulteress’s death (Ezek. 16:38). The punishment is in accord with the crime. The normal practice was for adulteresses first to be exposed naked in public (16:37; cf. Nah. 3:5),13 followed by their stoning by the assembly (Deut. 22:22; Ezek. 16:40).14 Similarly, Jerusalem’s places of idolatry would be torn down, her wealth and possessions stripped away, leaving her in the state in which she began, naked and bare (Ezek. 16:39; cf. 16:7). Only then, when full circle had been reached and the one initially chosen for life had been sentenced to death and executed, would the Lord’s wrath finally be turned aside (16:42). Even then, it would be the silence not of mercy but of completion of the judicial sentence: All that she did had been returned on her head (16:43).
In the description of the death sentence to be carried out on Jerusalem, the historical realities are once again dominant. The sentence is executed by an assembly of Jerusalem’s peers, including her lovers (16:37). It involves not simply stoning her but death by the sword (16:40) and the burning down of her houses (16:41). Each of these reflects the actual historical downfall of the adulterous city, rather than the normal punishment of an adulterous woman.
In Ezek. 16:44 the imagery changes from the husband-wife relationship to mother and daughter. Whereas Jerusalem had previously been considered in relationship to her adoptive “family,” now her natural genetics are brought to the fore. She has proved herself to be a chip off the old block by despising her husband and children. She is like her mother, the Hittite, who was married to an Amorite (16:45), the people whose sins had led to their expulsion from the land of Canaan at the time of Joshua (Gen. 15:16). This statement serves not only to link this section with the preceding one but also to suggest that she stands to share their fate of being cut off from the land.
In addition, Jerusalem has a family resemblance to her natural sisters, Samaria and Sodom, who are the primary focus of this section. Samaria, the former capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, is described as her older sister—“older” (Ezek. 16:46) refers to her size rather than age. She stands for the larger, northern kingdom, while Sodom, the “younger” (or “littler”) sister, is physically smaller.15 Samaria lives to the north of Jerusalem with her “daughters,” that is, in the common Semitic idiom, the surrounding villages, while Sodom is to the south (16:46). Jerusalem is surrounded by sinners and fits naturally into their company, delighting to go along with the crowd.
What Sodom lacked in size, it more than made up for in reputation. Along with its other ugly sister, Gomorrah, it had become a byword for abomination (Gen. 19:4–9; cf. Isa. 1:10)—and consequent complete destruction (Isa. 1:9). As well as the sexual sin to which it gave its name, which may lie behind the “detestable things” (tôʿēbâ) of Ezekiel 16:50, Sodom is here cited for being proud, overfed, and untroubled by the cares of life, while neglecting the needs of the poor and needy (16:49). She is the epitome of social sin.
Samaria’s history of cultic sin was too well known to require further elaboration by Ezekiel. Ever since Jeroboam introduced his golden calves to the national shrines at Bethel and Dan and allowed a non-Levitical priesthood to preside over them (1 Kings 12:28–33), the northern kingdom had been regarded as theologically suspect. Samaria too had been judged by God for her aberrations and destroyed by the Assyrians (2 Kings 17:3–23).
Yet according to Ezekiel neither of these twin icons of sin could match Jerusalem’s record. She did more detestable things than either of them, making them seem (comparatively) righteous (Ezek. 16:51). In comparison to the pot, the kettle is barely scorched! The conclusion is inescapable: If God judged Sodom because of her sin and if he judged Samaria because of her sin, how will Jerusalem escape from his wrath (cf. 2 Kings 21:13)?
However, if the similarity between Jerusalem and her sisters serves to justify further God’s action in completely destroying her (Ezek. 16:58), that is not the only focus of attention here. Rather, the purpose of this comparison with her sisters in crime is designed to evoke a sense of shame on Jerusalem’s part (16:52). Just as in her pride Jerusalem once scorned Sodom for her sin, so now that Jerusalem’s sin has been uncovered, the surrounding nations scorn her (16:57). Now, instead of looking down her nose at Sodom and Samaria as beyond redemption, she will herself only be redeemed alongside them (16:53). Paradoxically, it is in that redemption itself that shame will be experienced as the inhabitants of Jerusalem realize how much worse they have been than the bywords of iniquity, Sodom and Samaria.
Though they have despised God’s oath and broken his covenant and must therefore be judged (16:59), yet judgment is not God’s last word. For though Jerusalem does not remember the days of her youth (16:22, 43), the Lord will remember the days of her youth and will therefore establish an everlasting covenant with her (16:60). In so doing, he will create in her the two qualities that are signally lacking in her at present, memory and shame (16:61).16 On the one hand, she will be profoundly aware of having broken the covenant, shattering it so completely that it can no longer stand as the basis of her self-identity vis-à-vis other nations (16:61). She will recognize that there is no goodness within herself to which she can appeal, no obedience that can form the basis for confidence in the presence of the Lord. In the language of Hosea, she will know herself to be “Not My People” (Hos. 1:9). She will be aware of the depths of her sin and ashamed of it.
On the other hand, she can also look back to the days of her youth, the days when, in the imagery of Ezekiel 16:4–6, she was similarly naked and bare before the Lord. If he chose her once, not on the basis of anything in herself but simply his own sovereign will, can he not do so again? If he covenanted with her once, may he not do so once again, this time forever? Were it not for the Lord’s own words it would be too much to hope for. Second chances like that simply don’t happen in real life. Lightning never strikes twice in the same place.
Yet that is precisely what the Lord affirms. He will remember his original covenant with her and establish it as an everlasting covenant (16:60),17 a covenant that precisely because it includes wanton sinners is big enough to include Sodom and Samaria alongside Jerusalem. The nations will view Jerusalem as an object lesson of the wideness of God’s mercy. On the day when the Lord “makes atonement” (kipper)18 for Jerusalem (16:63), she will remember and be ashamed; her tongue will be stilled19 and her pride humbled once and for all.
Bridging Contexts
NO DECORUM HERE. It is perhaps not surprising that this chapter is rarely preached on in our churches. In spite of the conclusion of Douglas Stuart that “those who wish to teach or preach on this chapter . . . can do so quite successfully and with decorum,”20 many still concur with the assessment of C. H. Spurgeon: “A minister can scarcely read it in public”!21 While certainly discernment must be exercised—it is understandable, for instance, why this passage is not found in children’s Bible storybooks—one wonders if contemporary Christians need to be as shielded from unpleasant realities as we tend to think. These same Christians are regularly bombarded with similarly shocking stories on the nightly news.
Furthermore, is it possible to teach this passage “with decorum” and not lose an essential element of its message? There are no new facts here about Israel’s history, and if we read it simply as a historical catalog of crime like 2 Kings 17, we lose all that this passage distinctively contributes to the message of Scripture. The whole point is the lack of decorum in Ezekiel’s manner. He will not “be polite” about Israel’s history of sin; instead, he is instructed to expose it in its full ugliness in the most graphic manner possible. Only thus can he get the point across.22
Differences in perspective because of cultural distance. But politeness is not the only thing that holds us back in our understanding of Ezekiel 16. Because of the cultural distance between then and now, we are likely to react to its message in significantly different ways from Ezekiel’s original message. They too would have been shocked by his graphic depiction of Jerusalem’s depravity. But other aspects of the picture would have struck them differently from the way they strike us. For instance, when we read of a passerby picking up an abandoned baby, it elicits no surprise in our minds. Our response is, “Of course he or she would rescue the baby and find someone to take care of it. What other choice is there?” But in the ancient world there was no “of course” about it. In those days, if you adopted every abandoned baby you found, your house would soon be bursting at the seams. It was an accepted tragedy.
Nor could Ezekiel’s audience immediately assume, as we do, that the mysterious stranger had favorable plans for the orphan. It was not unknown in antiquity for girl babies to be rescued for the purpose of prostitution rather than adoption. These differences mean that they would recognize more fully than we do the grace involved in the Lord’s action, picking up this stray and not merely allowing her to survive or even adopting her, but marrying her, lavishing on her every good thing.
Nor are we used to a wife being completely dependent on her husband. In these days of equality between husband and wife, the image of marriage conveys something quite different to us than it did back then. Our culture thinks of a coequal partnership, in which each party owns half of everything, unless there is a prenuptial agreement to the contrary. In contemporary society, it is also a relationship that can be dissolved as easily as it is made, if a better offer comes along. Indeed, in Hollywood films, adultery is regularly portrayed not only as acceptable but also as praiseworthy if it allows for self-fulfillment. The idea of marriage as a relationship of subordination and obligation on the wife’s part is alien to us.
In contrast, it is essential to Ezekiel’s metaphor that the wife is not an independent agent, free to seek self-fulfillment in the arms of another, and that death is the appropriate sentence for adultery. Only if we understand those cultural norms will we feel the ingratitude of the woman, who has taken the gifts that were lavished on her by her true husband and squandered them on her many lovers. Only then will we feel the just nature of the sentence imposed on her, feelings that would have been automatic for Ezekiel’s original hearers.
The danger is that because we may disagree with the cultural norms of marriage expressed in this chapter, finding them “politically incorrect” and “oppressive to women,” we may also therefore dismiss the teaching of the chapter. That would be like dismissing Ezekiel 15 because modern technology has, after all, found a use for charcoal-toasted vine branches. Ezekiel’s goal is not to affirm the abiding validity of the details of his picture, nor is he giving any justification to husbands abusing their wives. Rather, he is utilizing conventional norms to illustrate a deeper reality, namely, the relationship between the Lord and his people.
For whatever we conclude concerning the institution of marriage, the relationship of the Lord and his people is not a coequal relationship, in which we “own” whatever he gives us and we are free to choose whether we will serve him or another god. To think that way is to lose sight of the magnitude of his grace and mercy in choosing us in the first place. Every good thing we have, not just in material terms but even in the ability to think rightly about him and act appropriately in obedience, is a fruit of his Spirit in our hearts (1 Cor. 4:7) and a gift from him (James 1:17). Our relationship is a gracious bond, freely entered into on his part without any merit on ours. To be faithful to him is to experience eternal life; to depart from him is reprehensible adultery and depravity, which can only lead to death.
Contemporary Significance
PRESENTING SIN’S true ugliness. If the sermons preached in our churches were movies, what rating would the distributors give them? In many churches, every sermon would rate a “G” (“General Audiences”). There is nothing in them to offend anyone, young or old, seeker or convert alike. Like the seeker-sensitive church I mentioned earlier, we are eager to present people with “a delightful, thought-provoking hour.” We are concerned, as the quote from Douglas Stuart revealingly admitted, always to preach “with decorum.” The presence of Ezekiel 16 in the pages of Scripture urges us, at least in some situations, to pull off the kid gloves and present sin in its full ugliness. Fire and brimstone sermons that focus alone on hell and God’s wrath may be a serious misrepresentation of the true God, but so also are a continuous diet of polite, decorous sermons that only mention heaven and God’s love. Sin is ugly, offensive, and depraved, and people need to hear that side of the Christian message too.
One might illustrate the point by reference to the movie Schindler’s List. This film depicted as fully as it could the ugliness of the concentration camps in World War II Germany. It merited the “R” (“Restricted”) rating, which it received, limiting it to adult audiences. Now a portrayal of the same facts may perhaps have been made that would have only necessitated a “PG” (“Parental Guidance suggested”) rating, by passing over some of the more gruesome details. But the emotional impact of such a film would not have been nearly the same, for only in the details does the full depth of the horror emerge. Only an “R” rating portrayal does justice to the evils of Auschwitz and Belsen; similarly, sometimes only an “R” rated sermon does justice to the outrage of sin.
The ugliness in the cross. How else do you explain the obscenity of the cross? An innocent man—the only truly innocent man who ever lived—is convicted in a rigged trial, abused by his guards until he can scarcely walk, yet forced to carry his own cross on a back that has been flayed raw. Nails are forced through the living flesh of his hands and feet, and he is jerked upright to hang until, too tired to lift himself one more time, he suffocates. What good God could permit such a death? What loving God could permit his own beloved Son to undergo such agony? What awful thing could be so bad that only such an atonement could pay for it?
The answer is sin. In the cross, we see sin revealed in its starkest, most abominable ugliness. There, if we sweep away for a second the prettification with which we sentimentalize that terrible moment, we see God’s “R” rated answer to my sin. There is the “atonement” that God made (Ezek. 16:63), the ransom that he paid for his people (cf. Mark 10:45). The cost of our salvation was not silver and gold but the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:18–19). This is something that we all too easily forget. As Flannery O’Connor reminds us:
There is something in us . . . that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least be offered the chance to be restored. The reader of today looks for this motion, and rightly so, but what he has forgotten is the cost of it. His sense of evil is diluted or lacking altogether, and so he has forgotten the price of restoration.23
Remembering in our lives. The realization of the price of restoration should stir in our hearts remembrance and shame (see Ezek. 16:63). We should remember what we once were—and be ashamed. Perhaps, like the Corinthians, we were ourselves once sexually immoral or idolaters or prostitutes or homosexual offenders or thieves or greedy or drunkards or slanderers or swindlers (1 Cor. 6:9–11). Perhaps we were none of the above and proud of it, as the Jerusalemites prided themselves on not being like the Sodomites and Samaritans (Ezek. 16:56), and the Pharisee prided himself on being better than the tax collector (Luke 18:11). Perhaps we were convinced, like the rich young ruler, that we had fulfilled our obligation to our neighbors perfectly from our youth (18:21).
Whatever our own estimation of our righteousness or lack of it, the Bible tells us that all are alike in this matter. Every mouth is silenced before God, for “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). We were all, good and bad alike, by nature objects of God’s wrath (Eph. 2:3). Let us never forget what we once were, for that is the true measure of the greatness of God’s work in our lives. As Calvin put it: “If we desire, therefore, our sins to be blotted out before God, and to be buried in the depths of the sea . . . we must recall them often and constantly to our remembrance: for when they are kept before our eyes we then flee seriously to God for mercy, and are properly prepared by humility and fear.”24
The same reasoning led John Newton to instruct that his epitaph should simply read: “John Newton, Clerk; once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa, was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned and appointed to preach the faith he had long labored to destroy.”
The cross should also stir us to remember what we are now in Christ. Remembering what we once were is never to be an excuse for slipping back into our old ways. Though we were once objects of wrath, now we have been made alive with Christ, raised with him, and seated with him in the heavenly realms (Eph. 2:5–6). Those who once belonged on the Corinthian list are now “washed . . . sanctified . . . justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11). Such a change in being must inevitably result in a changed lifestyle, so that we no longer do the things we once did. Remembering in Scripture is never simply a mental exercise but one that issues in a particular course of action, based on the truth remembered.
Nor are we left with mere words to help us in our remembering. For we have been given the Lord’s Supper, along with its admonition: “Do this . . . in remembrance of me” (1 Cor. 11:25). In the Lord’s Supper, the gospel is made visible before our very eyes. In the tokens of broken bread and poured-out wine, we see with our eyes and recall in our hearts the body of Christ broken and the blood of Christ poured out.
But the Lord’s Supper is more than a symbol; it is a sacrament, communicating what it depicts. It is not simply the gospel in pictures; it is the gospel made sure to those who partake. Just as the ancient Israelites participated in the “fellowship offering” by eating together the body of the lamb that had been slain for them, so also we participate in Christ as we eat together the bread and drink the wine, the new covenant tokens of the body and blood of the Lamb of God (cf. 1 Cor. 10:16). The Lord’s Supper is, to apply more appropriately the words of the beef commercial, “Real food for real people.”
But our remembering of what we once were and, by the grace of God, what we are now must also have an evangelistic impact on our lives. If we were saved by our works, then it would be understandable for us to give up on many of those around us. There’s no way that they could earn their way into heaven. But there is room for neither pride nor despair when salvation is all of grace; it can reach down to Sodom as easily as to Jerusalem. It can touch the heart of a prostitute more easily than a Pharisee. Though the city is to be judged, yet it can be restored. Even the height of wickedness, whether you call it Sodom, or Jerusalem, or some other more contemporary name, is not beyond the reach of God’s grace. Why? Because of the all-sufficiency of the atonement God made in the death of Jesus Christ, the righteous for the unrighteous. The words of Fanny J. Crosby sum up the awesome magnitude of what Christ has done on the cross, and the impact that reality should have upon our hearts:
O perfect redemption, the purchase of blood!
To every believer the promise of God;
The vilest offender who truly believes,
That moment from Jesus a pardon receives.
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Let the earth hear His voice!
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Let the people rejoice!
O come to the Father, through Jesus the Son:
And give Him the glory! Great things He hath done!