Reformational Commentary on Ezekiel 39:24

"According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions have I done unto them, and hid my face from them." (Ezekiel 39:24)

Continuing the epilogue to the Gog-Magog assault described hitherto in Ezekiel 38-39, the Lord hereby reminds us why He had hidden His face from Israel (bar the occasional individual) for two millennia since Christ's ministry on earth.

That reason is, of course, that the Jews had turned from Him to transgress and become unclean, which they manifestly did in rejecting Christ during His ministry, in embracing an abominable works-based religion (Judaism), or at least paying lip-service thereto since many of them are only nominally religious and more accurately secular, and in fomenting some of the worst corrupting influences in the rest of the world through the media empires that are founded or owned by wealthy Jews; for example, most of the major Hollywood studios, that detestable source of ungodliness, were established by Jews¹; and the most wicked pornography website ever developed, the so-called "Only Fans", that has millions of women worldwide streaming pornographic images of their own bodies from their own homes online every day, was transformed into the abomination it is today by the late Leonid Radvinsky, who was its majority owner and driver behind its wicked content.

The Jews have accordingly been spoken of sarcastically as "God's special people" and viewed with disdain, not just in jealousy of their famous thrift, but also for their depraved behaviour, leading to entrenched stereotyping over the two millennia since their rejection of Christ; thereby they have profaned the Lord's Name, as follows:

"And I scattered them among the heathen, and they were dispersed through the countries: according to their way and according to their doings I judged them. And when they entered unto the heathen, whither they went, they profaned my holy name, when they said to them, These are the people of the Lord, and are gone forth out of his land." (Ezekiel 36:20)

But here in Ezekiel 39's closing verses, in the sweet epilogue, the long-estranged nation of Israel shall be once more drawn into the Lord's loving embrace, never to be removed from it again; and so God, Who is jealous for His own Name (as the next verse here in Ezekiel 39 reminds us), will permanently take away all reproach upon the Jews in the sight of the world for their ungodliness when He gathers them back into the Messianic fold, as follows in this address to them:

"And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, saith the Lord GOD, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes" (Ezekiel 36:23)

There is also a finality in at the close of Ezekiel 39 (in verse 29), bespeaking a reunion that cannot be reversed or unbroken, because the Lord will maintain that nation in a state of grace until He returns, their lesson have been finally and forever learned, so to speak, and their fusion with the Gentile church complete, bringing the great blessing promised by Paul in Romans 11:15 and opening the Philadelphian church age, as the English Puritans of old foretold.

And all of this is more lavishly promised back in Ezekiel 36's very own epilogue (and note the Reformed doctrine of sovereign grace, so hated by most so-called Christians today, plainly and undeniably set out in the section highlighted):

"For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God." (Ezekiel 36:24-27)

Here is a synoptic sequence, in the coming conversion of the Jews, of how God converts any sinner to Christ and sanctifies them on an individual level; He first elects them for salvation, then He declares them to be clean of sin (i.e. justified from eternity - a doctrine denied by some who should know better!)², then, along with a conviction of sinfulness and despair of self-salvation, He gives a new heart of selfless love and clean reverence towards God (which the natural man, being "dead in trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1), cannot effect), then He compels the sinner to come to Christ for mercy (which is a foundational act of the Spirit's indwelling since without Christ we can do nothing (John 15:5)), and finally He sanctifies the sinner by the Spirit's work in their lives (generally leveraged against the afflictions of God's chastening (e.g. Psalm 119:71, Revelation 3:19)).

But whereas the above chronology, or minimally the coming-to-Christ elements thereof, is typically drawn out in the true conversion of sinners, it appears that the Jews will experience it in an extremely condensed timeframe, so that a nation will be "born (again) in a day" (Isaiah 66:8), so to speak.