Ezekiel 36:32

"Not for your sake do I this, saith the Lord Jehovah, be it known unto you: be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: In the day that I cleanse you from your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the waste places shall be builded. And the land that was desolate shall be tilled, whereas it was a desolation in the sight of all that passed by. And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are fortified and inhabited. Then the nations that are left round about you shall know that I, Jehovah, have builded the ruined places, and planted that which was desolate: I, Jehovah, have spoken, and I will do it. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: For this, moreover, will I be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them: I will increase them with men like a flock. As the flock for sacrifice, as the flock of. Jerusalem in her appointed feasts, so shall the waste cities be filled with the flocks of men: and they shall know that I am Jehovah."

THE GREAT OBJECTIVE IS GOD'S GLORY (Ezekiel 36:32-28)

"In the day that I cleanse you from your iniquities ..." (Ezekiel 36:33). This means that all of the great temporal blessings promised for Israel will come after the New Covenant has been established, and after Israel has accepted it, that at that time God will pour out all of these rich blessings upon Israel. Of course, that is not the way it turned out; but it is the way that it would have turned out if Israel had only accepted the Lord when he came.

What really happened was that Israel not only rejected the Saviour, they contrived his crucifixion by a cunning combination of suborned testimony, political pressure, and mob violence. They manufactured lies about his resurrection, they opposed with the bitterest hatred the work of the holy apostles and successfully enlisted the power of Rome itself against the Church. In that last sin, they also accomplished their own destruction. For Rome learned that the Church of Christ was a legitimate offspring of Judaism; and having been set against the Church through Judaistic efforts, Rome decided to destroy Judaism also. This resulted in the war against Jerusalem itself, the destruction of the Temple and the City, the murder of 1,100,000 of the Jewish people, the sending of 30,000 of them back into Egypt as captives, and a bitter campaign against Jews throughout the ancient Roman empire.

The contrast between this tragic record of what really happened and what God had intended emphasizes the awful consequences of Israel's refusal to accept Christ, not merely for Israel, but for the Church and for all mankind.

Despite this dismal tragedy which is verified not only by the New Testament but by the full history of the first century of this era, there are still people on earth who suppose that all of the wonderful things God promised to Israel in this chapter with reference to the vast population, the great cities, and the abundant prosperity are still going to happen. Feinberg caught the spirit of this expectation in these words: "The words of this chapter should fill us with joy. Is there not something the Lord wants you to do to work toward the day of Israel's deliverance and glory."[15]

Our Saviour wept aloud over the failure of Israel to receive the glory God intended, saying:

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, but ye would not (Matthew 24:37). If thou hadst known in this thy day the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, when thine enemies shall cast a bank about thee, and compass thee round and keep thee in on every side, and they shall dash thee to the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation (Luke 19:42-44)."

This is exactly what happened to the old Israel and it affords a dramatic contrast with what Ezekiel prophesied and what could have happened except for Israel's apostasy and judicial hardening.

Now should we pray for the day to come when the old racial Israel is going to be restored to glory? No! All of the glorious promises that once belonged to racial Israel now pertain exclusively to the New Israel. There is no revealed formula by which ancient peoples who missed their opportunities shall be able to find them again. The Saviour wept over their loss, but he could do nothing about it, and neither can we.