Two Roads, One Destination
You may have heard about the Romans Road to Salvation. It starts with understanding that we are sinners (3:23), that the consequence of our sin is death (6:23a), that Jesus died for our sins (5:8), and as a result we have the gift of eternal life (6:23b). All we have to do is confess that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that Jesus was raised from the dead (10:9). This is an extremely easy way to understand God’s plan of salvation for us, and it might have been how you came to know Christ or understood salvation in a clearly organized manner.
Ezekiel also has a Road to Salvation, but it’s not as clear as Romans. It’s more of a “Backcountry Road.” It tells the same plan of salvation through the lens of exile, identity, and heart transformation. Who would have thought that a prophecy directed towards the Israelites in Babylon would include the Gospel message? Let’s take a look.
The “Heart of Stone”
Just as the Romans Road shows that we are sinners, Ezekiel shows that we have “inherited” sin. In Ezekiel, sin is described not just as ”bad behavior,” but as having a “heart of stone.”
And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh – Ezekiel 11:19
And I will give you a new heart, and 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. – Ezekiel 36:26
Having a heart of stone doesn’t just mean doing wrong things. Just as a stone, the heart is dead, unresponsive, and cold. This is how Ezekiel describes the heart that is “dead in the trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). We were born with this heart of stone. It’s what we inherited from Adam and Eve when they sinned in the garden of Eden. “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).
Ezekiel even notes that God searched for just one person to “stand in the gap” for the land and found no one. There was no one who would go against practicing extortion and committing robbery.There was no one who could speak out against evil and encourage them to turn to God because they had a heart of stone. “None is righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10).
The Personal Responsibility (Ezekiel 18:4)
So if we inherited the heart of stone, then we aren’t responsible, are we? After all it was Adam and Eve who sinned. We are merely victims who inherited this sin nature and the heart of stone.
This is where Ezekiel pulls the individual out of the crowd:
Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul who sins shall die. – Ezekiel 18:4
God reminds us that we aren’t just biological accidents or products of our parents. We are His creations. All souls belong to God. We cannot blame Adam for our personal choices. Adam may have given us the “heart of stone” as a sin nature, but we are the ones who act on that nature. We are the ones who decide to take the broken car and drive it into a ditch. Ezekiel establishes that we are personally accountable for the sin we commit.
The Great Impossible (Ezekiel 18:31)
We have now established that we inherited a heart of stone, and we are personally responsible for the cold, sinful actions that come out of this heart. How can we be freed from this? What do we need to do to restore our relationship with God? Ezekiel commands, “make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.”
Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? – Ezekiel 18:31
How are we to do that? How do we take our heart of stone and make it a heart of flesh? We cannot perform our own heart transplant. Let alone, we are like statues made of stone. We wouldn’t even have the initial thought to desire to make this happen. What kind of statue suddenly thinks that they want to have a heart of flesh?
Just as the Israelites in exile couldn’t walk home through the desert and reconstruct their nation without God’s help, we can’t take on a new nature on our own.
Divine Heart Surgery (Ezekiel 36:26-27)
It is God who causes us to desire a heart of flesh. God doesn’t give us a manual on how to do the heart surgery. He performs the heart surgery himself.
And I will give you a new heart, and 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. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. – Ezekiel 36:26-27
God opens us up, takes out the heart of stone, and replaces it with a heart of flesh. The heart of flesh enables us to look to God and follow his ways. He also gives us the Holy Spirit who guides and directs us to Jesus and to holiness. The Spirit continuously sanctifies us and makes us more like Jesus.
This is exactly the same message in Romans 8. The Spirit gives us life. The Spirit enables us to put sin to death and allow us to truly live.
If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. – Romans 8:11
For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. – Romans 8:13
Turn and Live
God wants us to live. He wants to replace our stone hearts with hearts of flesh. He wants to give us the Spirit who enables us to turn away from sin and live sanctified lives. This is God’s plea in Ezekiel.
For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn, and live. – Ezekiel 18:32
So whether you’re on the Romans Road or the Ezekiel Road, the destination is the same. It is not just going to heaven. It is about “coming home” from the exile of sin. It is about turning to life with God.