Ezekiel 21:3-4,26-27

There’s two things I want to mention in chapter 21 of Ezekiel. Firstly, verses 3 and 4:

‘…and say to the land of Israel, ‘Thus says the LORD: “Behold, I am against you, and I will draw My sword out of its sheath and cut off both righteous and wicked from you. Because I will cut off both righteous and wicked from you, therefore My sword shall go out of its sheath against all flesh from south to north.’ (Ezekiel 21:3-4)

There is a logic here that I think is quite important. God says he will cut off both the righteous (no sin) and the wicked (lots of sin) – and therefore His sword will be against everyone. This means that there is a true dichotomy between righteous and wicked – ie. You can’t be in between. This is true of us today because of the way we are forgiven. We are all wicked but Jesus’ blood has cleansed some of us so that we are righteous in God’s eyes. But this passage shows that it was just as true of people before Christ had come. There were no people that were good but not perfect. Even in those days there was no salvation by good works. We know that those who were righteous were looking forward to the cross of Jesus (whereas we look back to it).

The second thing is in verse 26-27:

‘…thus says the Lord GOD:
“Remove the turban, and take off the crown;
Nothing shall remain the same.
Exalt the humble, and humble the exalted.
Overthrown, overthrown,
I will make it overthrown!
It shall be no longer,
Until He comes whose right it is,
And I will give it to Him.” (Ezekiel 21:26-27)

The turban represents the priesthood, and the crown obviously refers to the king. Both of these had failed miserably in the last few generations – with wicked kings and idols in the temple. And God even promised to stop the line of kings from David because of the wickedness of Zedekiah. Here is a reiteration of that promise, but with added information. God is saying that the priestly line will stop as well, and everything will be turned upside down. Everything that the Jews know will be overthrown – the humble will be exalted, and the exalted will be humbled (sound familiar?!). The old order will change and the new will come in – that is until He who is right to be king and priest comes (and we know that is Jesus). I think it means when He comes the second time, to rule on earth, when the temple will be restored. Because even now, the old order is turned over, and the new order, the new testament, the covenant of Jesus’ blood is all the opposite to what we might expect. Because we serve the only One who has the right to be the King and Priest.