“‘Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, each according to his conduct,’ declares the Lord GOD. ‘Repent and turn away from all your transgressions, so that iniquity may not become a stumbling block to you. Cast away from you all your transgressions which you have committed and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! For why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies,’ declares the Lord GOD. ‘Therefore, repent and live’” (Ezek 18:30-32).
As we draw near to the Day of Atonement in Israel’s sacred calendar, many people in Israel are intentionally reflecting on their sins from the past year and seeking reconciliation with those they may have wronged. And if we are completely honest with ourselves, at the top of the list of those we have wronged is God. Because God is infinitely gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy, he delights in our repentance.
But according to Ezekiel 18, God does not merely desire a day of repentance. He commands us to “make ourselves a new heart and a new spirit,” without which we “will die” (v. 31). The question then arises: how can anyone actually do this for themselves in order to be right with God?
God’s faithfulness and infinite goodness move him to do for his people (and for all who believe) what we were completely unable to do for ourselves.
This question lies at the heart of Ezekiel’s theology. To answer it, we must interpret Ezekiel 18 in its literary context. According to chapters 1–24, the Sinai Covenant serves as a testimony against the people of Israel, showing that God’s judgment is just and that the fall of Jerusalem and their subsequent exile were more than deserved. A single day of repentance each year simply cannot fix the problem.
It is only when we look to the larger context of the book that we see an eschatological solution. God’s faithfulness and infinite goodness move him to do for his people (and for all who believe) what we were completely unable to do for ourselves. He gives us exactly what we need to be made right with him: “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances” (Ezek 36:25-27).
God’s solution to the Yom Kippur dilemma, therefore, is the provision of a new and better covenant, in which we are born anew through the sprinkling of heavenly water and the gift of God’s Holy Spirit. This is not only the core of Ezekiel’s theology, but also the central point of Yeshua’s conversation with Nicodemus. Oh, that this would be the year, dear friends, in which each of us receives by faith a heart of flesh through the supernatural cleansing power of God’s eternal Spirit.
“Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born from above he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ Nicodemus said to Him, ‘How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?’ Jesus answered, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God’” (John 3:3-5).
