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9/19 Reading Portions: 2 Samuel 15; 2 Corinthians 8; Ezekiel 22; Psalm 69
Ezekiel 22:11
“I will gather you and blow on you with the fire of My wrath, and you shall be melted in the midst of it.”
MELTED
Although God’s judgment surely came upon the wicked inhabitants of Jerusalem by Babylon’s armies, the entire chapter, like all passages of Scripture expressing God’s holy justice upon sin, is about Jesus Christ. The language of our verse today is particularly messianic in prophetic content. The people of Israel were gathered in Jerusalem because it was the time of the appointed spring Feasts of the LORD: Passover, Unleavened Bread, and First Fruits. And between the evenings at Passover, on the eve of Unleavened Bread, the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified as the precious Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). The fire of God’s eternal wrath and infinite justice was blown upon the Lord Jesus by the breath of God’s holy decrees. The heart of Jesus melted in the midst of God’s wrath, in Jerusalem, as He hung upon Calvary’s tree (Psa 22:14). Jesus suffered as if He were a wax figure thrown upon the face of the sun (Psa 97:5). As a result, the abounding work of Christ’s sufferings and sacrificial death impact the world in God’s work of salvation and sanctification.
Salvation. The truth of Christ crucified is powerful to call souls and save them from all over the world as, through the gospel, God…
…gathers the outcasts of Israel. Psalm147:2
Sanctification. The more one meditates upon the truth of Christ’s sufferings and sacrificial death, such as in the fulfillment of our verse today, the supernatural power of God is at work in us, humbling us by the depth of God’s love in Christ (Rom 8:38-39) and the extent of His grace in sparing not His own Son in order to save us (Rom 8:32). If we are not humbled by the infinitely valuable price that Jesus Messiah paid to redeem our souls from the wrath of God, we have not truly considered it.
God gather’d all His people in
Jerusalem to see
His Son who gave His life for sin
While hanging on a tree.