What is the meaning of Ezekiel 20:25? I also gave them over When the LORD says, “I also gave them over,” He is describing a deliberate act of judicial release. After repeated warnings, He stops restraining the people and lets them have what they insist on. • Psalm 81:12 illustrates this: “So I gave them up to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.” • Romans 1:24, 26, 28 confirms the same pattern in every age: “Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity… God gave them over to dishonorable passions… God gave them over to a depraved mind.” The giving-over is not God endorsing sin; it is God allowing sinners to taste the bitter harvest of their own choices, all the while remaining righteous and just. to statutes that were not good The “statutes” here are the idolatrous rules and customs Israel borrowed from pagan nations—practices diametrically opposed to God’s holy law. • 2 Kings 17:15 records Israel’s slide: “They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves.” • Jeremiah 19:5 highlights just how “not good” these statutes were: “They have built the high places of Baal to burn their own sons in the fire.” God’s perfect commands are always “holy, righteous, and good” (Romans 7:12). When His people rejected those, He allowed them to be ruled by the very opposite—showing by contrast how precious His law truly is. and ordinances by which they could not live Unlike the LORD’s ordinances, which are “for our good always, that He might preserve us alive” (Deuteronomy 6:24), these pagan rules led only to misery and death. • Leviticus 18:5 promises life to the one who keeps God’s statutes: “The person who does them will live by them.” • Ezekiel himself later echoes this in 20:11, yet here in verse 25 the people are experiencing the antithesis—a lifestyle incapable of sustaining real life. Every false way promises freedom but delivers bondage; Jesus’ warning stands true: “Everyone who sins is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). The dead-end ordinances of idolatry demonstrate how urgently sinners need the life-giving grace found only in God. summary Ezekiel 20:25 shows God’s severe mercy: after persistent rebellion, He lets Israel reap the consequences of their choices. He removes His protective restraints, hands them over to corrupt customs, and allows destructive rules to dominate them—rules that can never give life. The verse underlines two timeless truths: God’s law is always for our good, and rejecting it inevitably leads to bondage and death. |
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