Liberating the Will of Australia. Geoffrey Burn
Second Movement will show how the church in Corinth could not see how they had been shaped by the past and so they, as a community, had not truly understood the gospel of Jesus Christ.
So, all through the Bible, we see the importance of thinking in terms of corporate entities, not just individuals, and understanding that such groups can be held responsible as a group for failures. Having seen this, we can return to the book of Ezekiel, confident that Ezekiel is indeed addressing communities of people and holding them corporately responsible for their sin, knowing that this is not some sort of ancient failure to understand the primacy of the individual, but part of the way that world is under God.
Ezekiel gives one of the most robust responses in the Bible to the claim by a group of people that they are guiltless: they say that their present problems are the result of the sins of people in the past and not themselves. Ezekiel is addressing the generation of people who were alive at the time of the defeat of Judah by the Babylonians.60 Both Ezekiel and his readers regard the crisis as a punishment for sin. What is contested is who sinned.61 The people to whom Ezekiel is speaking quote the parable, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge” (Ezekiel 18:2). That is, they claim that their present predicament is the result of the sins of their forebears, not their own sin; they prefer to think of themselves as being unjustly punished rather than admitting their guilt (18:19), even to the point of claiming that it is God who is unjust rather than them (18:25, 29).62 Ezekiel claims that they are being punished for their own sins.
In order to be able to understand how Ezekiel deals with the people’s complaint in chapter 18, it is important to see that Ezekiel is consistent throughout the whole book in listing the sins of the present generation, that the way that they are sinning is the same as their forebears, and that it is the whole nation that is being addressed, although the leaders are also singled out for their culpability for the state of the nation. Right at the beginning of Ezekiel, God makes it clear that it is the present generation of people that are sinning, that they are sinning in the same ways as their ancestors, and that it is the nation as a whole which is being addressed:
He said to me, Mortal, I am sending you to the people of Israel, to a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have transgressed against me to this very day. The descendants are impudent and stubborn. I am sending you to them and you shall say to them, “Thus says the Lord God.” (2:3–4)
They are described as a “rebellious house” (2:5, 6, 7, 8; cf. 3:7). At various places, Ezekiel lists catalogues of the sins of the present generation. For example, in 5:5–11, the people have rebelled against God’s ordinances and statutes and defiled the temple “with all your detestable things and with all your abominations” (5:8). Jerusalem and the temple area are filled with the worship of things which are not God (ch. 8). The land is “full of bloodshed and the city full of perversity” (9:9). People “devise iniquity” and give “wicked counsel” (11:2; cf. 13:1–9) and “have killed many in this city, and filled its streets with the slain” (11:6). In 16:1–34, the people are pictured as having taken the gifts of God and used them to create idolatrous images and shrines and to give offerings to other gods, places of idolatrous worship have proliferated, they have killed their children and offered them to other gods, and they have consorted with other nations. In 22:1–16, there is a catalogue of wrongs: fathers and mothers are being treated with contempt, aliens face extortion, and the orphan and widow are wronged in law (22:7–8); there are lewd religious practices and distorted sexual relationships (22:8–11); the economic system is broken with bribes and extortion (22:12); and there is violence and death (22:13). The leaders are castigated for their part in perpetuating this culture (22:23–30; cf. ch. 34). It is clear that it is the present generation that is being judged for their sin (e.g., 7:3–4, 8, 9, 19). They are a “rebellious house, who have eyes to see but do not see, who have ears to hear but do not hear; for they are a rebellious house” (12:2–3). In chapter 20, Ezekiel argues that there has been a consistent pattern and history of rebellion in the people of Israel from the time it was brought out of Egypt, which is being continued by the people of the present day. He finishes by saying:
Will you defile yourselves after the manner of your ancestors and go astray after their detestable things? When you offer your gifts and make your children pass through the fire, you defile yourselves with all your idols to this day. (20:30–31; cf. 22:2–4).
In chapter 18, Ezekiel addresses the people’s claim that they are being punished for the sins of their ancestors. He asks:
What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge?” (18:2)
Ezekiel claims that God is just because the proverb is not true: God only punishes the guilty party. Ezekiel makes his case by giving three examples (18:5–18), which seem to be reflecting on Deuteronomy 24:16.63 It is important to note that Ezekiel is arguing by analogy: he is using legal language (i.e., for relationships between human beings) for the examples, and raising them to speak about relationships between human beings and God.64 Ezekiel is speaking to the whole community, not just to individuals. Paul Joyce notes that the “sour grapes” proverb (18:2) is a complaint of the present generation and that he addresses the people collectively as the “House of Israel” (18:25, 29, 30, 31)65 and there are other uses of the plural form of address in the same chapter (18:2, 3, 19, 32);66 although the legal examples that Ezekiel uses are about individuals from different generations, Ezekiel is speaking to the community as a whole. That is, when Ezekiel uses the legal metaphor to speak of the relationship between God and people, the individuality is about generations, not about persons.
The people claim to be in the third category: their fathers have sinned, and they are innocent (18:14–18). Ezekiel, however, says that the present generation is sinful; they are suffering the punishment of God for their own sin, for God only punishes the guilty.67 Of course, Ezekiel must show that the present generation really is guilty, which he does do, as was shown above. In a cheeky move, Ezekiel uses a generational parable back against the people when he says, “See, everyone who uses proverbs will use this proverb about you, ‘Like mother, like daughter.’ You are the daughter of your mother . . .” (16:44–45). That is, there is a generational proverb which is true of the people, and it is that they are continuing to behave like those who were before them.
In summary, in the initial encounter of Ezekiel with God, God pronounces the guilt of the present generation. Ezekiel consistently makes the important point that they are not only sinning, but also sinning in the same way as previous generations. God sees Israel as a corporate entity, with a continuity of existence through time that is more extensive than any particular generation, and which has a consistent history of sin; moreover, the present generation is continuing to sin in the same way as its forebears. That is, Ezekiel was prophesying to a nation whose actions showed that their will had been bound by their past and present actions.
Because the sins of the people are so obvious to the reader of Ezekiel, it is easy to assume that they were equally obvious to those living at the time. What if, however, the belief that they were being unfairly treated (18:25, 29) because of the sins of their ancestors (18:2) was genuine? That is, what if they could not see that the way that they were living was a deep anathema to God? What if they weren’t just being obdurate but rather genuinely could not see that there were any problems (12:2–3)? If this is the case, then we see that the bound will of Israel has blinded it to being able to see what is good.
This reading of Ezekiel should make us wary about any assertions that a line can simply be drawn under the past, claiming that it was the previous generations who did wrong, for subsequent generations, it seems, may continue to sin in the same way as past generations. In fact, the statistics and stories of continuing disadvantage of the First Peoples in Australia would, I suggest, mean that Australia is in a similar position to the people who were being addressed by Ezekiel.
Ezekiel goes further than his interlocutors and speaks of the dynamics of God’s relationship with people: it is possible both for righteous people to fall out of favor with God by their sin and also for sinful people to come back into favor through repentance (18:19–29). That is, there is no accounting, where the good is weighed against