Ezekiel 33:17

The exiles knew that the just wrath of God rested upon them as a nation and that their sins were unforgiven. So they asked, "Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we rot away because of them. How then can we live?" They also accused the Lord of inconsistency by saying, "The way of the Lord is not just." The answer the Lord sends them shows the principles by which He will deal with each person as a just God… Judgment rested on them as a nation, but the individual could still turn to the Lord in repentance.

The mouth of Israel is closed. Their complaints were only quibbles. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?… It is always likely to be this way. Those who put the Lord's ways on trial, whether in mercy or in judgment, have never seen themselves in His light. How humbling for Israel, or for anyone, that God should stoop to justify His own dealings! How humbling that He should press home to us the conviction of our own sinfulness!

The godless in Israel dared to challenge whether God was consistent in His dealings with the people. He took account of this. He came down in grace to reason with them. By then their ways had become so bad that He had left His own sanctuary… The Lord stooping this low is striking in the light of Deuteronomy 32:4: "The Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is He."

It was a day of judgment, not of grace, though some strangely confuse the two. Despair would achieve nothing. Repentance would. Past righteousness should not shield present sin, and past sin should not block turning away from it now. But such people had better walk humbly. The ways of righteousness never change. The wages of sin is death… So it was pointless for anyone to complain that the Lord's ways were not fair. It would be better if they felt their own sin.

For anyone who truly turned to Him, none of his past wickedness would be remembered against him… There was only one alternative. God still pleaded, as He had been pleading, that they turn from their evil ways so that they might live. Why would they die? Their death was their own choice and not His… But what is emphasised more is the mercy waiting for even the worst and vilest who would turn to God. Yet the people would lay all the blame on the Lord's ways, as if they were not fair. It was their own ways that were unfair, and their conscience must have told them so.

In Ezekiel the time has come to announce that the Lord could not act on the principles of His former dealings with Israel. He sets out a new line of conduct. He appeals to individual conscience. He will judge each person according to his own ways. The condition of the individual before God is everything now that the nation is judged.

They dare to measure how God governs by the standard of their own shallow thoughts — to weigh the infinite by the finite. In short, they measure God by themselves.