Introduction
THE LAW OF DIVINE RETRIBUTION AND MORAL FREEDOM.
Konig calls this chapter a “short catechism” by which Ezekiel hoped to show his countrymen their sins; but it may rather be called a sermon on divine justice and human freedom. God is exalted as the perfectly just One, whose word man must implicitly obey if he would himself be just. No man can truly be called “just” who is not just toward God, and he who is just toward God will be just toward all mankind. No divine punishment falls upon a man because of his father’s sin; there is no hereditary or ancestral guilt. On the other hand, no son need think to escape punishment because of his father’s righteousness. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” Ezekiel taught that safety and prosperity were not insured by being “children of Abraham” according to the flesh, but by living righteously, as Abraham lived. Heredity can neither save nor condemn. There is an individual responsibility, an individual guilt or righteousness, an individual power to repent of a sinful past or to forsake the way of righteousness, and the penalty or reward shall be according to the man’s free choices. The entire chapter emphasizes the freedom of the human will and the sovereignty of the individual soul.
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