God’s Glory in Our Salvation
by Pastor Eric Tuininga "Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Lord GOD, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. Ezekiel 36:22-38Dear people of God, called to be saints,In Ezekiel 36, God promises to glorify His name by accomplishing the salvation of His people. God promises to glorify His name by accomplishing the salvation of His people. And there are two main points in these verses. First, in verses 22 and 23 the reason: why will God save His people? And second in verses 24-28, the method – how will God save His people?
Our first point is the reason – why will God save His people? Before God teaches the people what He’s going to do, He wants them to understand why He’s doing it. Why is He going to save them? Look with me at verse 22, God says to Ezekiel: “Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came.”
God wants to make one thing very clear: Israel does not deserve to be saved. Israel deserves to be destroyed. What had they done? They had not obeyed God’s law. The law of God says “worship the Lord only”, but the people of Israel worshipped other gods. The law of God says “love your neighbor”, but the people of Israel hated one another. The rich did not care about the poor. Instead they oppressed them. We read in verse 18 that their land was filled with bloodshed and idol worship. They did not love God with all their heart, and they did not love their neighbors.
That’s why God destroyed their cities, devastated their land, and He sent the survivors into captivity. And it wasn’t done in a corner. All the other nations in the world saw what happened. And they knew that Israel claimed to be God’s special people. They knew that Israel alone, out of all the nations, belonged to God. And now they saw Israel defeated, destroyed. They saw God’s temple in ruins. And how did they respond? They assumed that God was weak. They assumed that God was not able to save His people because He wasn’t strong enough. Or they assumed that God was unloving. God must not really love His people, because if He did, He would help them. The nations of the world assumed that God was either powerless or heartless. Either He couldn’t help them, or He simply didn’t care. Do you see what was happening here? The nations of the world were mocking God’s name. They were dragging His reputation through the mud. They were saying, “what kind of a God is this, who can’t even save His own people?”
And the horrible thing about all of this is that this was Israel’s fault. It was because of Israel’s sin, that God sent them into exile, and now, because of their exile, God’s name was being mocked. Everywhere those exiles went, they profaned the name of God, because everyone who saw them accused God of being weak or unloving. That’s what verse 22 means when it says, “you have profaned My holy name among the nations to which you came.” And also in verse 23, “My great name which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them.” To profane the name of God means to defile it. It means to dishonor it, to treat it as worthless. That’s what the nations were doing to God’s name because of Israel’s sin.
The same thing happens today, doesn’t it? We sin, and the world sees it. The world says, “you talk the talk, but you don’t walk the walk. You claim to belong to Jesus Christ, but look at your lives – you quarrel, you gossip, you fight.” How many church-going teenagers engage in premarital sex? How many church-going fathers watch internet pornography? How many church-going families are more attached to the things of this world and the pleasures of this life than they are to the glory of God? And so just like Israel of old, by the way we live we defile the name of Jesus Christ.
That’s what you must see in the history of Israel. When Ezekiel condemns his own people for profaning God’s name, you need to see Him pointing the finger at you. Whether your sin is open for the world to see or whether you do a good job of hiding it – you deserve to be condemned like the Israelites. That’s where you stand. You have broken God’s law. You have not loved God with all your heart and you have not loved your neighbor as yourself. The wages of sin is death. Only when you come to see your sin – only then can you realize that salvation is all the work of God.
Salvation doesn’t come to us because we deserve it. It doesn’t come to us because we are a little bit better than the rest of the world. God says in verse 22, “I do not do this for your sake, O house of Israel.” Brothers and sisters, God does not save you for your sake. He doesn’t save you because you are likeable people. He doesn’t save you because you try hard or because you are good-looking or easy to love or anything else.
So why does God save you? It is for the sake of His holy name. Verse 22 says, “It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of My holy name.” You see, on our own we do nothing but drag God’s name through the mud by the way we live. And we might not value God’s name very much. But God does.
The honor of God’s name means God’s reputation, His character. To honor God’s name is to honor God. To dishonor God’s name is to dishonor God. And nothing is more important than the honor and glory of God. That’s why God can do nothing greater than to glorify His own name. What greater thing could God do than to give glory to Himself? There is nothing greater God could do. And that is why God will save you – He will save you so that His name will be glorified in your life. It’s not even first of all about you and your needs. It’s first of all about Him and His glory.
How does your salvation glorify God? Your salvation glorifies God by demonstrating that God is a God of mercy and love. He is good, and compassionate, for He chooses to save wicked sinners like you. Your salvation also glorifies God because it shows His great power, that in His power He is able to take people who are dead in sin and make them alive. When God saves you, all of creation can see His mercy, and love, and power, and by displaying those attributes for everyone to see, God is upholding the glory and the honor of His name.
If God is most concerned about His glory, then we must be as well. Ask yourself, is God’s glory the most important thing in your life? Is God’s glory the thing that you live for? It must be, if you would follow Him. Is God’s glory more important than your earthly possessions? Are you prepared to sacrifice them for the sake of His glory, if He calls you to? What about your friends, your health, your husband or wife, your parents, your children? Jesus said, “He who loves his father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.” It’s a question of where your treasure is. Is it in the pleasures of this life, or is it in the glory of God forevermore? When you finally come to the point where you can say, “Lord, your glory is more important than all these earthly things. Take all my idols that I cling to and smash them to the ground until there is only one thing that remains and that is You and Your glory.” When we come to that point, then we have a heart that reflects God’s heart.
Ephesians chapter 1 talks about this – how everything is for the purpose of God’s glory. In Ephesians 1 Paul talks about election, predestination, adoption, forgiveness – then Paul says all these blessings are for this purpose – that we should be to the praise of God’s glory. That’s what it’s all about. Israel was wicked, but God is going to save her, because He wants to defend the glory of His name.
Let this be a comfort for you. When you are worried that you are not good enough to be saved, then take heart: you are not good enough, but you are not saved because of your own goodness – you are saved for God’s glory. And God is glorified when the worst sinners like you are brought to salvation. That’s what Ezekiel 36 is all about: how God will glorify His name by taking these wicked Israelites who don’t deserve anything and bringing them full salvation. And the nations will be forced to acknowledge the glory of God because they will see that nothing less than almighty power and love could bring such an amazing salvation to such wicked sinners. As verse 23 says, “‘the nations will know that I am the Lord’, declares the Lord God, ‘when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.’” God will show Himself to be holy by the way that He works in your life.
We see this now in our second point: the method – how will God do it? How will He save you? How will He uphold the glory and honor of His name? God explains how in verses 24 through 28. In these verses, He describes your salvation the way you might describe a diamond, as you hold it up and turn it in the light to see all of its richness and beauty. In these five verses, God makes five promises to us. We’re going to look at each of these five promises in turn, one promise in each verse.
Promise number 1 is verse 24 – it’s the promise of a return from exile. Verse 24 says this: “I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land.” Remember: the land of Israel had been destroyed, and the people were scattered among the nations. But now God promises He will bring them back. He will call them home, to their own land. Then the nations will know that He loves His people, and that He is powerful to save them. This promise was partly fulfilled a few decades later when groups of exiles began to return under Zerubbabel and Ezra. Gradually, the temple was rebuilt, and Jerusalem was rebuilt as well.
But that return to Jerusalem was only a partial fulfillment of God’s promise. Many of the Jews did not return – many of them remained in Babylon. And although some returned, Israel never regained the earthly power and glory that it had in the days of King David and Solomon. Why not? Why didn’t God call them all back, and make Israel a glorious nation, like it had been before? Here is the reason, and it’s important to understand: God had something much better for His people than a physical, earthly kingdom in Israel. God was teaching them to look forward to the Christ, who would come and establish the kingdom of heaven. Christ’s kingdom was not an earthly kingdom. Christ said to Pilate, “my kingdom is not of this world.” So when we read verse 24 and we see God promise “I will gather you from all the countries”, we need to recognize that this is a promise not just for the Old Testament Israelites, but this is a promise for us today. It is God’s promise to you to gather you out of the nations and to bring you home – to the kingdom of heaven. Hebrews 12 talks about this when it says to you as New Testament believers, “You have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.” The earthly land of Canaan was only ever meant to be a picture, a symbol, of the far greater heavenly kingdom.
Brothers and sisters, do you see what God is promising you in verse 24? You by nature belong to this sinful world. You, God’s elect people, were scattered among the sinful nations, no different from anyone else. But for the sake of His own glory, God has chosen to call you with a supernatural call and He comes to each one of you and says, “be mine! Be separate from this world! Be a child of heaven! Yes you are filthy and wicked, but for My glory I call you, and I am bringing you to the promised land – to eternal life with Jesus Christ in heaven.” The theological term for this is effectual calling. It’s completely God’s grace – to call you out of your sin and misery and bring you home to Christ, where you will glorify and enjoy Him forever.
That’s the first blessing. The second promise is verse 25: God says, “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.” This is the promise of forgiveness of sins. In the Old Testament, things were often sprinkled with water in order to make them ceremonially clean. For example, if you touched a dead body, you would be considered unclean, and in order to become clean again you would be sprinkled with water. The sprinkling was a sign of spiritual cleansing. It was a sign or a picture of the forgiveness of sins. Much like today, the sprinkling of baptism is a sign or a picture that Christ forgives sins.
Remember the sin of these Israelite exiles. They had worshipped idols, and their hands and hearts were stained with blood, because they did not love their neighbors. That’s why this promise of forgiveness is so precious. They needed it badly, and so do you, and only God Himself can provide it. Only the water of Jesus’ blood can wash away your sin. It’s not something we can do ourselves. God doesn’t come to you and say, “go, find some water, wash your sins away, go ahead, you can do it.” God comes to you and says, “I will wash you! I will do it! I will make you clean! All of your sins will be gone, and you will be whiter than snow, and it’s not something you do - I, the Lord, will wash you.” Your forgiveness is all the work of God. That’s what it means to be justified. It means you are declared righteous by God, not based on your good works, but only on Christ. What a beautiful promise that God gives you not because you deserve it but for the glory of His name.
We’re looking at five promises of God. First, God calls you from exile. Second, God forgives your sins. The third promise is a new heart. Look at verse 26. God says, “And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” This is the promise of new life. And you need this promise, you need this blessing, because apart from God you are spiritually dead. You have hearts of stone. Imagine going to the doctor with heart trouble and the doctor tells you, “we have to operate - I’m going to take out your heart and I’m going to replace it with a stone.” If a doctor actually did that, it would kill you. If you have a heart of stone, it means you’re dead. But that’s the point. That’s how it is for us spiritually. We all by nature are born with hearts of stone. In other words, by nature we are dead. We hate God – we don’t love Him, we don’t care about Him, and we have no real desire to obey His commandments.
But again, it is God who will act here, for His own glory. It is the supernatural work of God – to take out your heart of stone and to give you a new heart – a heart of flesh. A heart of flesh is a heart that loves the Lord – a heart that wants to be near to God. A heart of flesh is a heart that comes to Jesus in faith. To become a Christian and receive this heart of flesh means that you become a new person. You are truly born again. The word for this is regeneration.
Christianity isn’t something you can add to your life, like a new job or a marriage. To become a Christian means you must die. Your old heart must be ripped out, so that the deepest desire of your soul is now to glorify God. You no longer live for yourself, you no longer care about the things of this world. Now your heart, at the core of your being, desires to know the Lord, to love Him, to enjoy His fellowship. In 2 Corinthians 5 Paul writes, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation”. What an amazing blessing that is! To be made a new creation – to be given a new heart of spiritual life! That is God’s promise to His children, here in verse 26.
The fourth promise is closely related to this one. It’s the promise we see in verse 27. God says, “And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and be careful to obey My rules.” This fourth promise is the promise of the Holy Spirit. It’s the promise that the Spirit will live in you and cause you to obey God’s law. You will be more and more filled with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. And just like everything else, this also is the work of God. He gives you the Holy Spirit, and He produces the fruit of the Spirit in your life. The word for this is sanctification.
This is a great comfort, because on our own we wouldn’t do it, would we? We are so prone to sin, that if the Holy Spirit was not working in us, we would fall right back into sin. Philippians 2 says, “it is God who works in you to will and to act, according to His good purpose.” Everything good in you is God’s work. And that’s a great comfort. Because often we feel so weak. We feel that we still so often fall into sin. But when you know that the Holy Spirit is at work within you, you can have hope, because He has promised you that if He begins a good work in you He will finish it until the day of salvation. And He has promised that when you call to Him in time of trouble, He will give you the spiritual strength you need. Luke 11:13 says the Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask. God never abandons His people. If you belong to Him, He never abandons you.
That’s why all these promises, here in Ezekiel 36, they all go together. If God has called you, He most certainly will forgive your sins. And if God has forgiven your sins, He most certainly will give you a new heart, and if God has given you a new heart He most certainly will give you the power of the Holy Spirit. We can talk about these different blessings, but really they’re all part of one package. They’re all part of the one salvation that God accomplishes. This is amazing grace! God has done everything for you. But God is not finished yet. God has even more blessings for you in the future.
Verse 28 is the climax of all these blessings – God has called you and forgiven you and made you alive and sanctified you, and now in verse 28 He makes this final promise: “You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be My people, and I will be your God.”. Here is the climax of covenant blessings: for us to have a relationship with God so that we are His people and He is our God. Isn’t that what you desire, more than anything in life? To have fellowship and communion with God? To know the peace and joy that comes when you are obeying Him, when you feel His love towards us? If you are a Christian, that will be your greatest and deepest desire, because nothing gives you greater rest – nothing makes you more alive – nothing satisfies your deepest needs, like fellowship and communion with Almighty God. You have it a little bit in this life. But you will have it perfectly, when God calls you home to be with Him forever.
He says in verse 28, “I will bring you to the land that I gave to your fathers.” You might think that God’s talking about the land of Canaan, but ultimately the land God has in mind is the new heavens and the new earth. Even in the Old Testament, the land of Canaan was only a picture pointing the people to heaven. Hebrews 11 says that even when the patriarchs were living in Canaan, they desired a better country, a heavenly one. The land God promised them, was the new heavens and the new earth. And they longed to go there.
We desire the same thing, don’t we? We want to go home, to the land God has promised us, the new earth. This final homecoming is described in Revelation 21. Listen closely: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away… And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God.” Do you see how all of Scripture fits together? The promises of Ezekiel 36 are fulfilled in Revelation 21 with a loud voice. Revelation 21 goes on to describe how God will wipe away every tear from your eyes. There will be no more death, no more sadness, no more pain, no more sin. Everything will be made new.
Those are the blessings God promises you here in Ezekiel. “I will be your God and you will be My people.” Nothing could be greater. And it’s all for the sake of the glory of God’s name. Israel didn’t deserve these blessings, and you who are the spiritual Israel – grafted in by faith – you by nature are no better. Yet God does it for you, in order to glorify His holy name, in order to display His goodness, His mercy and His love, in your life.
If you do not know this salvation in your life, then look to Jesus Christ. Admit your sins, and trust in Him. He never turns away anyone who comes to Him in true faith. And as you come to Jesus, not just once but every day, as you come to Him, remember that it is all the Lord’s work. The Lord is the one who has been calling you, forgiving your sins, and bringing you to salvation, so that His holy name will be glorified in your life.
Amen.