To God be the Glory FOREVER, AMEN AND AMEN! ! !

Some attempt to explain this text by saying Ezekiel 20:25-26 are the blasphemous words of the people. However, the Lord is clearly the speaker in these verses, not the people. Neither is Ezekiel 20:25 a reference to Ezekiel 20:11, as many have thought in both ancient and modern times. Nor is it an allusion to some aspect of the Mosaic law. Some may attempt to argue that this verse foreshadows Paul's recognition of the intrinsic deadliness of the law, which he explains in Romans 5:20, 7:13 and Galatians 3:19. But in fact Paul holds the opposite point of view: he denies that the law, which was inherently good, became evil for some through their disobedience (Rom 7:13). Furthermore, in Ezekiel 20 there is the clear echoing of the sentiment in Leviticus 18:5, "Keep my decrees and laws, for the man who obeys them will live by them. I am the LORD." That same thought is repeated in Ezekiel 20:11, 13 and 21. God's statues were such that men and women were expected to "live in them," not die from them.

Therefore the statutes mentioned in Ezekiel 20:25 cannot be statutes from the Mosaic code, some part of that law, such as the ceremonial law, or even the threats contained there. Certainly God's ceremonial commandments were good and came with promises. And the threats were never called "statutes" or "judgments" by Moses.

Ezekiel 20:26 makes clear what these statutes were. Israel had been defiled by adopting the Canaanite practice of sacrificing their firstborn children to the god Molech. Indeed, there is a quasi-allusion to the commandment given in Exodus 13:12: "You are to give over to the LORD the first offspring of every womb." However, the Israelites perverted the practice by offering the children to Molech instead of dedicating them to the Lord as he had prescribed. Israel also confused their perversions with another law of God, Exodus 22:29: "You must give me the firstborn of your sons."

In this manner, God sent them "a powerful delusion" (2 Thess 2:11) and "gave them over to the worship of the heavenly bodies" (Acts 7:42). In a sense, all this was a type of hardening in which all who did not renounce idolatry were given up to its power and control. That is why we find the verse concludes with the dreadful note "that I might fill them with horror so they would know that I am the LORD."

Isaiah 63:17 asks, "Why, O LORD, do you make us wander from your ways and harden our hearts so we do not revere you?" In the same way, God is said here to have given death-bringing statutes to the Israelites when he saw their perverse behavior toward his ordinances and commandments. To punish their unfaithfulness, he subjected them to influences that accelerated their already clear departure from the truth. They wrongfully thought they were observing the law of God. However, they had so distorted their thinking that they could no longer discern God's law from the law of the pagan land.

Likewise, when Ezekiel 20:26 says, "I polluted them in their gifts," or as the NIV has it, "I let them become defiled through their gifts," this text also speaks as if God himself polluted them so he might return them more quickly to their spiritual senses. Thus in both cases God's participation is dramatically stated to jar the consciences of a blinded populace. God identifies himself with the instruments of his wrath and of his providential chastisements as an answer to Israel's sin. Sin became its own punishment (Ps 81:12; Ezek 14:9; Rom 1:24-25).

Without stopping to acknowledge the presence of secondary, and culpable, causes, what God permitted and allowed is directly attributed to him. But on no account was there the least hint that the Mosaic law was to be faulted or judged beyond anyone's ability to live by.