Ezekiel 16

Ezekiel 16:1

JERUSALEM LIKENED TO AN ABANDONED BABY ADOPTED BY GODChapter 16 contains yet another parablethe parable of an abandoned little orphan, a dirty and filthy little child, for whom it would seem there is nothing that can be done. Ezekiel is not going to let us forget that he is giving us the Word of the Lord. We may not accept it, but it is still His Word.

Ezekiel 16:2

Who is the little orphan? Who is the little dirty, filthy child who has been thrown out? Who is this illegitimate child? It is the city of Jerusalem.

Ezekiel 16:3

This does not speak of the origin of the nation Israel; it is not speaking of Abraham and Sarah. The origin of the city of Jerusalem is in view here. The history of Jerusalem is that it was an Amorite city. We read in Gen_15:16, “But in the fourth generation they [that is, the children of Israel] shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.” Jerusalem was a Hittite city also. The Hittites were a great nation, and they controlled that land at one time. This is the background of Jerusalem, and it is nothing to brag about at all.

Ezekiel 16:4

She was an illegitimate orphan child who was just thrown outabandoned and not cared for.

Ezekiel 16:6

God says to Jerusalem, “I adopted you and made you My child.”

Ezekiel 16:9

He says, “This is what I did for Jerusalem.” I think the application to our lives is quite obvious: you and I have a pretty bad background. Adam and Eve became sinners, and you and I were born in iniquity. David said, “…in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psa_51:5), and David is no different from you and me. What do you have to boast about? Even if your ancestors did come over on the Mayflower, they were just a bunch of sinners saved by the grace of God. That is our origin, our backgroundwe were dead in trespasses and sin. What did God do for Jerusalem? God said to her, “Live” (v. Eze_16:6). To us He has said, “…Ye must be born again” (Joh_3:7). He has made a covenant that if you will trust Christ, He will save you. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (Joh_3:16). The Lord took that little illegitimate child, dirty and filthy in its own blood, and He said, “Then washed I thee with water.” Likewise, we can know the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. “I throughly washed away the blood from thee"the Lord Jesus bore my guilt on the Cross; there is no blood guilt on a child of God today. “And I anointed thee with oil"He anoints the child of God today with the oil of the Holy Spirit. “I girded thee about with fine linen"we can be covered with the righteousness of Christ in order that we might stand in the presence of God. What happened to this city? God says that when she became grown, a beautiful young lady, she played the harlot. She went over into idolatry and turned her back on Him. God have mercy on the Christian who will sell himself to the world for a bowl of pottage. Yes, Esau did sell out cheap, but many Christians also sell out cheap to the world today. The Devil could buy a lot of us, my friend. We so easily find ourselves going off again and again away from God and away from fellowship with Him. Oh, to be true to God in this hour in which we live!

Ezekiel 16:53

Verses Eze_16:53 and Eze_16:55 (as well as ch. 37) have been used by several cults to teach the doctrine of restitutionalism; that is, that everybody ultimately will be saved. Again, this is a case of resting doctrine on a few isolated verses of Scripture which will result in weird and unscriptural doctrine. In these verses and in Eze_37:12, where God says, “I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves,” God is not talking about the resurrection of the wicked to eternal life. In both instances He is talking about the restoration of a city or a nation, and it has no reference to the people who lived there years ago. Here in Ezekiel 16 He is saying that the city of Sodom is to be rebuilt. Now, personally, I don’t see anything there to attract anybody, but there is tremendous development today along the coast of the Dead Sea in that area. And in chapter 37 the Lord is speaking of the restoration of a nation, the nation of Israel. Actually, in the Old Testament we do not have the divine revelation concerning the future state that we have in the New Testament. God had no plan to bring back from the dead the saints of the Old Testament and to take them out yonder to a place prepared for them. He has told us that is His plan for us, but nowhere did He tell the Old Testament saints that. He told them there was to be a heaven down here on this earth, and that is the resurrection Abraham looked for. There is to be a restoration of the nation. You cannot read what is New Testament development of this doctrine into this Old Testament passage.

However, every Old Testament passage will conform also to New Testament teaching. The New Testament makes it very clear that there will be a twofold resurrection: the resurrection of the saved, and the resurrection of the lost who are lost when they are raised from the dead. Therefore, these verses deal only with the restoration of a nation. We must read them in their context and not draw any more from them than is there. This chapter concludes in a most glorious way: God is going to make good His covenants with the nation Israel. The sin of these people, their rebellion, their constant departure from Him, their backsliding, will not annul, abrogate, or destroy God’s covenant with them.

Ezekiel 16:60

God says that not only will He make good on the past covenants but He is also going to make a new covenant with them. Unfortunately, these passages of Scripture are not studied very much at all. When they are, they make it very clear that God still has a future purpose with the nation Israel.