Author: jetbrane
I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling.
I am postmillennial in my eschatology.
Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity
Reformed in my Soteriology
Presuppositional in my apologetics
Familialist in my family theology
Agrarian in my regional community social order belief
Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief
Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic
Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern
Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview
One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics
Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place
Some of my favorite authors,
Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc.
My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture.
Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him.
View all posts by jetbrane
“I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked” – God (Ezekiel 33:11)
Thank you for your comment Steve. I do think that you are misinterpreting Ez. 33:11 though as many people commonly do.
The viewpoint of the text is not that of God’s sovereign predestination: neither of election nor of reprobation. The viewpoint is ethical. The question is: how should we then live, if we pine away in our sins? Is there hope for the sinner with God? Therefore, the answer is: most certainly, in the way of turning. The sinner will taste that God is merciful and gracious, that He abundantly pardons, if he turns. The viewpoint is thoroughly ethical, Indeed, the sinner who turns is the elect, and, indeed, the sinner who does not turn is the reprobate;
Secondly, the Ezekiel passage is addressed to God’s people. Naturally, God takes no delight in the death of those who are related to Him by way of the covenant — even those who are only related to the covenant in its merely external administration. When you analyze the text closely in all its parts, you arrive at the following: 1.) God says something about Himself. He says that He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked; indeed, that He has pleasure in his turning and living. 2.) God swears to that which He says of Himself with an oaths as truly as I live! 3.) On the basis of this oath, in which God reveals what pleases Him, He comes to the house of Israel with the demand and the call to turn. If God really has pleasure in the turning and the living of the wicked, why should they then yet die? It is only because they hate God and love the way of wickedness!
Also Steve you seem to take no account of the second part of the text. It simply will not do, to make wicked in the first part refer to all wicked men without distinction, Such an interpretation is also guilty of doing violence to the text. For in the first part, the Lord declares wherein He has no pleasure; in the second part, He declares wherein He does have pleasure. We have to do, therefore, with a contrast. Now the Lord declares in the second part, that He has pleasure in this, that the wicked turn and live. He has pleasure, therefore, in the living of the wicked, only if he turns. Turning and living are inseparably connected with each other. But from this, it also follows that the wicked who do not turn are excluded in the first part of the text, those wicked God does delight in their destruction. This we know from texts like,
Deuteronomy 28:63 Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.
Psalm 135:6-11 The LORD does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths. He makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth; he sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses. He struck down the firstborn of Egypt, the firstborn of men and animals. He sent his signs and wonders into your midst, O Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his servants. He struck down many nations and killed mighty kings Sihon king of the Amorites, Og king of Bashan and all the kings of Canaan.
Proverbs 1:24-26 But since you rejected me when I called and no one gave heed when I stretched out my hand, since you ignored all my advice and would not accept my rebuke, I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you.
Ezekiel 5:30 Then my anger will cease and my wrath against them will subside, and I will be avenged. And when I have spent my wrath upon them, they will know that I the LORD have spoken in my zeal.
Revelation 18:20 Rejoice over her, O heaven! Rejoice, saints and apostles and prophets! God has judged her for the way she treated you.
Naturally we have to read Ezekiel 33:11 and 18:2 in light of these other clear passages Steve.
I am certain that we read the text this way; “I have no pleasure in this, that the wicked does not turn and dies, but in this, that he turns and lives. Whoever does not turn is certainly killed by God with eternal death, and God certainly has pleasure in this death as punishment for sin, for it is a manifestation of His justice. But whoever turns shall live, not because he turns, for that would never be able to earn life for him, nor to blot out his former sins; but because God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked who turns, but in eternal mercy has blotted out his unrighteousness.” And so, Steve, I’m sure you will have to agree with me, that this text, when read in light of other texts, is NOT arguing that God loves all men the same but as a salvific love for the sinner who turns.
Finally, I will end by noting what a rich source of encouragement this text is to people like me and all God’s elect people who yet remain shot through with wickedness. We have that assurance that if we but constantly turn to the Lord Christ God’s favor is upon us. I know as I struggle with the wickedness that remains besotted upon me, I rejoice in the fact that God turns me so that I am turned. I rejoice that Christ is my righteousness.
Thanks again Steve for your comment.