QT 7/13/2023 Ezek 16:59-63, The New Covenant is the only hope for a sinful world

Ezekiel 16:59–63 (ESV) —

59 “For thus says the Lord God: I will deal with you as you have done, you who have despised the oath in breaking the covenant, 60 yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant. 61 Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you take your sisters, both your elder and your younger, and I give them to you as daughters, but not on account of the covenant with you. 62 I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, 63 that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord God.”

 

NOTE: I think there are multiple covenants here. The old covenant (the law) was a conditional covenant based on works -- that is the covenant Israel broke. The covenant God 'remembers' is the Abrahamic covenant and is unconditional. The new covenant that God promises to establish (promised throughout Ezekiel and in Jeremiah) would silence Israel because of her shame, and Gentile nations (her sisters) would be her daughters.

 

The new covenant is a covenant of grace. Only a person who has truly been born again can appreciate his/her own unworthiness. When we stop and think of who we truly are, our shame wells up. But Jesus, died in our place. As Paul grew older, his recognition of his own sin grew deeper ("chief sinner," "worst of all sinners").

 

The atonement that God spoke of was a new atonement, the blood of the lamb of God, his firstborn -- the precious blood that washes us all clean.

 

Paul wrote:

 

Romans 7:21–25 (ESV) — 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

 

And in the next chapter, Paul wrote:

 

Romans 8:5 (ESV) — 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.

 

Where is my mind set?

 

PONDER:

1. Again, do I appreciate my own salvation?
2. And, do I take sin serious?
3. Finally, where is my mind?

 

PRAYER: Thank you for your word and the reminder of my own sinfulness and shame. Help me, in my mind, to set it on things of the spirit and not on things of the flesh. I am unworthy, and so, I am incredibly grateful for this salvation which I never deserved.