One of the most important themes of the book of Ezekiel is that of personal responsibility. The Babylonian exile that Israel is in is due to their actions and rebellion toward God. God had forewarned Israel of this, “’But if you do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments, and if you despise My statutes, or if your soul abhors My judgments, so that you do not perform all My commandments, but break My covenant, also will do this to you: I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever which shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. (Leviticus 26:14-16). Ezekiel is the “country” prophet while Daniel is the “city” prophet. While Daniel speaks about the restoration of physical Israel, Ezekiel works on the spiritual restoration and Israel being in that covenant relationship with God. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26

There are a couple considerations about what Ezekiel is telling them in this verse. They would have a new frame of soul, a mind changed, from sinful to holy, from carnal to spiritual. It was the carnal that got them into exile and it will be the spiritual that leads them out. For the Christian, repentance is the word that we use to describe this change. When the people killed Jesus, they were told to repent (Acts 2:38). The Lord told the lukewarm church at Laodicea to be zealous and repent (Revelation 3:19). The perspective of life cannot be focused on the material and on self, but on God and the spiritual.

They would have a heart in which the law of God is written, just as Jeremiah said God would do, “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (Jeremiah 31:33). This is the sanctified heart in which the almighty grace of God is victorious and turns it from all sin to God. The result is a pure heart that a Christian is to desire, “Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Timothy 2:22). 

The stony, senseless unfeeling would be taken from them. The ritual service of sacrifice would be replaced with love and devotion. Our Lord wants the same for all people today, “For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them” (Matthew 13:15). The spirit of stupor still affects people today (Romans 11:8). 

God would give them a heart of flesh. This does not mean that they did not have the organ in their chest that pumps blood through the body, but rather God would give them the ability to feel again. To feel the emotions of guilt, and loss, and sorrow, and love. Paul describes people today that do not have the capacity to feel these things, “Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth” (1 Timothy 4:1-3). 

David made the request after his sin for the thing that God is willing to do for Israel in their restoration, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10). This needs to be our objective because God is willing and waiting to change our hearts, minds, and emotions if we let Him.

One commentator wrote of this verse in Ezekiel, “That is, quite of another temper, hearkening to God’s law, trembling at his threats, molded into a compliance with his whole will; to forbear, do, be, or suffer what God will, receiving the impress of God, as soft wax receives the impress of the seal.”

By: Justin Odom