David J. Engelsma on Ezekiel 18:23

Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God: and not that he should return from his ways, and live? (Ezek. 18:23)

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[Source: Protestant Reformed Theological Journal, vol. 47, no. 2 (April 2014), p. 69]

The correct, orthodox explanation of Ezekiel 18:23 … is that God is not the kind of God who takes pleasure in death, not even the death of impenitent sinners that He justly inflicts, and that He has eternally decreed. God is the God who has delight in life, life that is given by Him in the way of the sinner’s turning from sin back to God in true repentance. That God is the God who is pleased with the life of sinners in the way of repentance, and not a god who takes delight in the death of sinners, is the truth that provides needful assurance to sinners whose turning to God is hindered by the notion that God, after all, delights in the death of sinners and, therefore, will not forgive and save the sinner regardless of the sinner’s turning.

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More to come! (DV)