Vindication

 

Ezekiel 36:23 And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name … and the nations will know that I am the Lord when I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.

I looked up the word “vindicate” in the dictionary because it is not a word we use very often. I am glad I did so because it gave me much more food for thought as I meditated on this verse.   

To vindicate means to clear, as from an accusation. 

God is frequently accused of being an unloving or harsh dictator. 

What is the first thing most people say when something bad happens? "Why did God allow that to happen?" "If God is so loving, then how could He allow such terrible things to happen?" "There can't truly be a hell if God is so good and so loving as you say He is."

God's goal is to clear His name from such accusations by saving people from sin and wickedness.   

He explains this goal in Ezekiel 36:26-27.

✅"I will give you a new heart." 

✅"A new spirit I will put within you."

✅"And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh."

        God's goal is to transform me, to turn me into a person who reflects His true character to the people around me. Jesus called it being "born again."

✅"And I will put my Spirit within you."

✅"[I will] cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules." 

          God's goal is to give me the tools I need to live a transformed life by giving me His Spirit to guide my earthly journey. Jesus promised that to His followers just before He left earth (Acts 1).

By His powerful actions of salvation, His miraculous ways of rescuing people from spiritual and physical danger, God is defending Himself. He is vindicating His holiness.

When I see God at work in my own life or in the lives of those around me, I am seeing God vindicate His great name.  

And when I reach heaven, whether at death or at Jesus’ Second Coming, God will have vindicated His holiness completely, without question, for eternity.  

He has done, is doing, and will continue to do everything He can to vindicate His holiness, to convince people to worship Him and Him alone.

God's Reputation

 

Ezekiel 20:9 I acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations among whom they lived, in whose sight I made myself known to them in bringing them out of the land of Egypt.

All through the history of the Jews up until Ezekiel’s time, the Jews had seen God perform miracles on their behalf. 

From their salvation from famine through Joseph, to their deliverance from the Egyptians army at the Red Sea, to the conquest of the Promised Land, they and all the nations around them had seen the power of God on display in sometimes unexplainable events, and always in miraculous events. 

Because of that, it was especially grievous to God that His people Israel turned to idols rather than worship of Him, the only true God. They deserved punishment.

At least four times here in chapter 20, God says He spared the Israelites – He did not destroy them, but “merely” punished their sinfulness – so as to maintain His reputation among the Gentiles. 

As I think about that, I can see God doing the same thing now, in my generation. 

Amid all the wickedness in the world today, when even some who name the name of Christ fail to live it out in their lives, we still see God’s power displayed in miraculous events, unexplainable occurrences that leave people marveling. 

When someone is cured with no medical explanation,

     when a life is spared in some miraculous way,

          when a life is protected unexplainably.

 God is keeping His good reputation alive for all to see and acknowledge. Sometimes it just cannot be explained away, and it is then that even the unbeliever must stop and be amazed at the power of God.

God's reputation remains intact.