Ezekiel 33:20

The exiles knew that God's just wrath rested on 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 equal" (verse 20; see also 18:25, 29). In His answer Jehovah makes known the principles on which He, as a just God, will deal with each of them. "O house of Israel, I will judge each of you according to his ways." Judgment rested on them as a nation. But each person could still turn to the Lord in repentance.

The mouth of Israel is closed. Their murmurs were only quibbles. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?… It tends always to be like this. Those who put the ways of the Lord 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 on us the conviction of our own sinfulness!

The godless in Israel dared to challenge the consistency of God's ways in His dealings with the people. He took account of this and graciously came down to reason with them, at a time when their ways had grown so bad that He left His own sanctuary. Deuteronomy 32:4 shows how telling this condescension of the Lord is: "The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he."

In view of these judgments, God sets up a completely new principle. Individual conduct now becomes the ground of God's dealings, in contrast with the consequences of national sin (v. 10, 11). So the door was still wide open for each person to repent. That repentance rested on a testimony addressed to each one, whatever the national judgment might be.

Individual responsibility now becomes the ruling principle. But this does not set aside the call and duty of one man to warn many.

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. Past sin should not stop a person from turning away from it now… So it was useless for anyone to complain that the Lord's ways were not equal. It would be better if they felt their own guilt. Life belongs to those who walk righteously; death to those who turn from the Lord.

We must remember in all this that the subject is not the final account in eternity. It is entering now into the favour of God, or coming now under His judgment, in His government. Nor do we have the grace of God's mercy, as the gospel has shown it to us, spoken of at all. It is God's ways in government that are before us, which is the constant theme of the prophet.