Ezekiel 3:16

"And it came to pass at the end of seven days, that the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thy hand. Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul. Again when a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumblingblock before him, he shall die: because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteous deeds which he hath done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at thy hand. Nevertheless if thou warn the righteous man, that the righteous sin not, and he doth no sin, he shall surely live, because he took warning; and thou hast delivered thy soul."

"Wicked man shall die in his iniquity ... he shall die in his sin ..." (Ezekiel 3:18,20). "This warning that the sinner would die had a purely temporal reference," because, "As far as we can see, Ezekiel had little or no concept of a resurrection, still less of eternal life."[16] Such a comment as this is unacceptable, because it limits the meaning of God's Word to what the commentator supposes the inspired writer had in mind. These words were not the words of Ezekiel, but the words of God; and the arbitrary judgment of any man should not be allowed to restrict their meaning to what the arbitrary judge supposes to have been the conviction of the prophet through whom God spoke. This type of erroneous commentary must be guarded against continually as having no validity whatever.

"I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel ..." (Ezekiel 3:17). This figurative use of "watchman" was used of Jeremiah's work (Jeremiah 6:17), and is also found in Habakkuk 2:1. Likewise, Christian elders are said to "watch" for the souls of their members (Hebrews 13:17).

The statement here that a righteous man who turns from his righteousness will die in his sins makes Calvinists very nervous; and Feinberg warned against using this passage to teach the possibility of apostasy; but nothing is any more unreasonable, unprovable, or unlikely than the old cliche that, "Once saved, always saved!" Angels sinned and lost their place in heaven; an apostle (Judas) fell from his place, which was taken by another; and Paul even warned the Galatians that, "Ye are fallen away from grace" (Galatians 5:4); and that did not mean that, "They had abandoned the basis of grace for works of their own,"[17] as Feinberg thought, but that, they had abandoned reliance upon the work of faith for reliance upon the works of the Law of Moses! The great warning of 1 Corinthians 10:12 is a total fraud unless there is genuine danger of falling for every Christian who ever lived. "Let him that standeth take heed lest he fall."

Nor is the old Calvinistic excuse that, "In case a Christian or the Old Testament follower of God should fall away, he was never actually saved anyway, being merely a hypocrite all the time!" Feinberg honored this false cliche as follows.

"From the context of this passage and the general teaching of the Scripture, we must conclude that "the righteous person" of this chapter was not one who had the root of regeneration, but was righteous in outward appearance and deed only."[18]

The only thing wrong with such a comment is that it contradicts the sacred text which speaks of "a righteous man," not a hypocrite, nor a "pretended" righteous man, but a "righteous man."

There is, however, a legitimate softening of what is written here in the understanding of the passage by Keil.

"To turn oneself from his righteousness" denotes the formal falling away from the path of righteousness, not mere "stumbling or sinning from weakness."[19]

We believe Keil's observation here is correct, because it is proved by the example of Peter who even denied the Lord but was nevertheless retained in the apostleship. It is never the making of a mistake, however serious, that results in the falling from grace on the part of a Christian, but a deliberate forsaking of the way of truth.

One final word about the possibility of such a fall is that of the following passage.

"As touching those who once were enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and tasted the good word of God, and powers of the age to come, and then fall away, it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance" (Hebrews 6:4-5).

It would be absolutely impossible to designate a true Christian any more explicitly than this is done in the first four lines of this passage; and yet the possibility of such a true Christian's falling away is dramatically stated.

The dramatic new light from this portion of the Old Testament is seen in the shift of emphasis from the Israelite conception of salvation as applicable to their nation, to that of its being the concern of every single individual.

"The passage anticipates the great moral principle of Divine government (Ezekiel 18) that each man is individually responsible for his own actions, and that he will be judged by these and these alone."[20] People are never to be saved as nations, groups, races, or as any other classification, but as individuals.

"And I lay a stumblingblock before him ..." (Ezekiel 3:20). This cannot mean that God tempts any person whomsoever, because, "God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempteth no man" (James 1:13). "The expression here means that the temptations of the righteous are under God's providential control."[21]