Ezekiel 33:11

Come now, you tightrope walker, walking on a tightrope of purity and chastity and every sort of sexual asceticism, you who, on the slender cord of a discipline like this, far from the path of truth, advance with reluctant feet, balancing the flesh by the spirit, moderating your desires by the faith, guarding your eyes through fear, why do you watch your step so anxiously?

Having considered God's generosity, we pray next for his indulgence. For of what benefit is food if, in reality, we are bent on it like a bull on his victim? Our Lord knew that he alone was without sin. Therefore he taught us to say in prayer, "Forgive us our trespasses." A prayer for pardon is an acknowledgment of sin, since one who asks for pardon confesses guilt. Thus, too, repentance is shown to be acceptable to God, because God wills this rather than the death of the sinner.

As a result, dearly beloved, it was necessary (by the designs of a secret plan) for the unchangeable God (whose will cannot be separated from his goodness) to complete by a deeper mystery the first intentions of his love. It was necessary that human beings, tricked into sin by the devil's wickedness, should not perish in opposition to God's plan.

Now therefore, Christians, since we know from the holy Scriptures and from divine revelations how great is the grace that God dispenses to those who truly run to him for refuge and who blot out their sins through repentance, and also how, according to his …

This is really what the Prophet Amos says: 'For three crimes and for four, I will not revoke my word, says the Lord.' Moreover, he says this same thing eight times. Now, this is what he actually is saying: you have entertained sin, I have pardoned you; you have done evil, I have forgiven you; you have not repented of your sins, I have excused you: did you also have to teach evil? What the Scripture implies is this: For three sins and for four, I shall not be angered against you, says the Lord.

Nothing makes God so angry as when people from despair of better things cleave to those which are worse; and indeed this despair in itself is a sign of unbelief. One who despairs of salvation can have no expectation of a judgment to come.

He wished that Adam's transgression had not occurred. And because God knew beforehand the transgression, he commanded him beforehand not to eat of the fruit of the tree. And because he did not submit to the order, justly he was punished.

How can we imagine without grievous blasphemy that he does not generally will all men, but only some instead of all to be saved?

At whatever age a person will do true penance for his sins and change his life for the better under the illumination of God, he will not be deprived of the gift of forgiveness.

The ministers of the grace of God have, by the Holy Spirit, spoken of repentance; and the Lord of all things has himself declared with an oath regarding it, "As I live, says the Lord, I desire not the death of the sinner, but rather his repentance;" [Ezekiel 33:11] adding, moreover, this gracious declaration, "Repent, O house of Israel, of your iniquity." [Ezekiel 18:30] Say to the children of my people, Though your sins reach from earth to heaven, and though they be redder than scarlet, and blacker than sack-cloth, yet if you turn to me with your whole heart, and say, Father! I will listen to you, as to a holy people. [2 Chronicles 7:14] And in another place He speaks thus: "Wash you and become clean; put away the wickedness of your souls from before my eyes; cease from your evil ways, and learn to do well; seek out judgment, deliver the oppressed, judge the fatherless, and see that justice is done to the widow; and come, and let us reason together. He declares, Though your sins be like crimson, I will make them white as snow; though they be like scarlet, I will whiten them like wool. And if you be willing and obey me, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse, and will not hearken unto me, the sword shall devour you, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things." [Isaiah 1:16-20] Desiring, therefore, that all His beloved should be partakers of repentance, He has, by His almighty will, established [these declarations].

We must prepare our hearts and bodies for the battle of holy obedience to his instructions. What is not possible to us by nature, let us ask the Lord to supply by the help of his grace.

He who has thus satisfied God, who by repentance for his deed, who by shame for his sin has conceived more of both virtue and faith from the very sorrow for his lapsing, after being heard and aided by the Lord, will cause the church to rejoice, which he recently had saddened, and will merit not only the pardon of God but a crown.

And yet God is gracious and merciful. He is called a God "of mercies and a God of comfort"; good as none else is good, and kind, and gentle, and full of pity, Who "willeth not the death of a sinner, but that he should be converted and live." Whence then, whence is that Day so full of agony and anguish? A stream of fire is rolling before His face. The books of our deeds are opened. The day itself is burning as an oven, the angels are flying around, and many furnaces are prepared. How then is He good and merciful, and full of lovingkindness to man? Even herein is He merciful, and He shows in these things the greatness of His lovingkindness. For He holds forth to us these terrors, that being constrained by them, we may be awakened to the desire of the kingdom.

Let us consider the grace of merciful God, and let us condemn the multitude of our own guilt. Behold, he sees sinners and endures them, tolerates those who resist, and yet daily calls them mercifully through the Gospel. He desires our confession from a pure heart, and has forgiven all that we have done wrong. The mercy of the Redeemer has tempered for us the severity of the law. For in it was written: If anyone does this or that, let him surely die. If anyone does these or those things, let him be overwhelmed with stones. Our Creator and Redeemer appeared in the flesh, promising not punishment but life to the confession of sinners; he receives the woman confessing her wounds, and sends her away healed. He bent the hardness of the law toward mercy, because those whom the law justly condemns, he himself mercifully frees. Hence it is also well written in the law that the hands of Moses were heavy; therefore taking a stone, they placed it underneath, upon which he sat; and Aaron and Hur supported his hands. Moses indeed sat upon a stone, when the law rested upon the Church. But this same law had heavy hands, because it did not mercifully bear with sinners, but struck them with severe punishment. Aaron means mountain of strength, and Hur means fire. Whom therefore does this mountain of strength signify, if not our Redeemer, of whom it is said through the prophet: "In the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of the mountains"? Or who is figured by fire, if not the Holy Spirit, of whom the same Redeemer says: "I came to cast fire upon the earth"? […]

We are naturally obliged to state our opinion clearly to such people, and to reply: O, you! Why do you reason to your own perdition rather than your salvation? And why do you pick out for yourselves the obscure passages of inspired Scripture and then …

For the wickedness of the wicked shall not hurt him in the day that he turns from his wickedness. If he acts righteously and walks in the statutes of life, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of his sins that he committed shall be remembered against him. Because he has made the decree of righteousness, he shall live by it.

Here is a particular message sent to those who yet remained in the land of Israel, and (which is very strange) grew secure there, and confident that they should take root there again, to tell them that their hopes would fail them because they persisted in their sins,

They questioned whether they should live, though they did repent and reform; yea, says God, as sure as I live, true penitents shall live also; for their life is hid with Christ in God. (2.) It is certain that God is sincere and in earnest in the calls he gives sinners to repent: Turn you, turn you, from your evil way.

Say unto them, as I live, saith the Lord,.... The following is the answer returned from the Lord by the prophet to their above complaint and reasoning; to which is premised the oath of God, showing the certainty, reality, and sincerity of what is said, which might be depended on as true: I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, &c. See Gill on Eze 18:23, Eze 18:31, Eze 18:32,

A yearning tenderness manifests itself here, notwithstanding all their past sins; yet with it a holiness that abates nothing of its demands for the honor of God's authority. God's righteousness is vindicated as in Eze 3:18-21 and Eze 18:1-32, by the statement that each should be treated with the closest adaptation of God's justice to his particular case.

IT is a token of the great mercy of God that He is very earnest in His pleading with men to turn from their sins that He may not be compelled to punish them, as He must do if they go on in their iniquities. A cruel governor is glad of an opportunity to show his severity and, therefore, not especially anxious to prevent offenses. But a kind, tender-hearted monarch He must be who leaves His Throne and comes down among the rebels and, with tears in His eyes, cries to them, "Oh, do not this wicked thing that I hate! Offend not against Me! Do not compel Me to take the sword out of its scabbard! Do not force Me to say that I will have no mercy upon you, but turn you, turn you from those evil courses which will certainly bring you mischief!" Sinner, God speaks to you tonight out of His Infinite Mercy. He has no pleasure in your death! It will give Him no satisfaction to cast you into Hell! He has taken an oath concerning it. "As I live," says the Lord God, "I have no pleasure in the death of him that dies," and to prove the sincerity of the oath, He cries, "Turn you, turn you from your evil ways: for why will you die, O house of Israel?" If you are not spared, but perish, it will not be because God is not merciful to you but because you are not merciful to yourselves! The text as it stands is a very earnest exhortation from God. It is directed, I doubt not, to all sorts of sinful men. And it is directed to such in all sincerity and honesty, for albeit we believe without reserve in the Doctrines of Sovereign Grace, we do not for a moment desire to lessen the force or explain away the reality of so earnest an appeal as this! We can preach from such a text with all sincerity and intensity—indeed, as much as if we did not believe in any Election of Grace! We would seek to give to all and every Scripture, the genuine meaning which it contains.

As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked - From this to the twentieth verse inclusive is nearly the same with Ezekiel 18, on which I wish the reader to consult the notes.

The mediæval mind turned centrally upon the pivot of Free Will. In their social system the mediævals were too much PARTI-PER-PALE, as their heralds would say, too rigidly cut up by fences and quarterings of guild or degree. But in their moral philosophy they always …

The heart of the true Middle Ages might be found far better, for instance, in the noble tale of Tannhauser, in which the dead staff broke into leaf and flower to rebuke the pontiff who had declared even one human being beyond the strength of …