Ezekiel 14:12-23

There are two key lessons in this passage about judgement. The first is that when things reach a terrible state, as they had done in Jerusalem, people cannot be saved by the righteousness of others. The people would tend to rely on the status of Jerusalem, and maybe on the goodness of a few people. Yet God says that even if some excellent people lived in the place, they would only save themselves. In fact they could not even save their own sons and daughters, God gives the specific example of Noah, Job and Daniel. The Daniel here is probably not the Daniel of the Bible, but a figure of renown in ancient literature. People had to deal with their own sin.

Of course, we can only be saved by the righteousness of another, the person Jesus Christ. But to avail of ourselves of this we have to believe for ourselves, we cannot rely on the faith of others.

The second lesson is that when judgement is completed Ezekiel will see that God was absolutely right to execute the judgement. We worry about how a God of love can send people to hell. Yet when judgement happens all will see that God is absolutely just on all that He does. The tragedy will not be that God sends people to hell, but that this was what people deserved. All of us need to turn to Christ to escape and live.