John Calvin Commentary Ezekiel 11:19-20

"And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh; that they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God." — Ezekiel 11:19-20 (ASV)

Since God had already spoken concerning the piety of the Israelites, he shows that they could not forsake their sins until they were renewed and so born again by his Spirit. Therefore, he seemed in the last verse to praise the Israelites; but because people too eagerly claim as their own what has been given them from above, God now claims for himself the glory of their virtues, of which he had previously spoken.

Their zeal in purging the land of all abominations was worthy of praise; therefore, the survivors of the people of Israel are deservedly celebrated, because they were impelled by the fervor of zeal to free the worship of God from all corruptions. But lest they should boast that they had done it in their own strength and from the impulse of their own hearts, God now modifies his previous assertions and shows that such a pursuit of piety would exist among the Israelites after he had regenerated them by his Spirit.

And this plea alone may suffice to refute the Papists, as often as they seize upon such passages from the Scriptures where God either exacts something from his people or proclaims their virtues. David does this; therefore, he does it of his own free will. God requires this; therefore, they argue, it is in the will of people that they are capable of performing all things.

Thus they trifle. But we see that the Prophet unites two things: namely, that the faithful elect of God strenuously attend to their duty and are intent on promoting his glory, even with ardor in the pursuit of his worship; and yet they were nothing by themselves. Therefore, it is added immediately afterwards, I will give them one heart, and will put a new spirit in their breasts. But we must defer the rest to the next lecture.

Prayer:

Grant, O Almighty God, that we may learn to cast our eyes upon the state of your ancient Church, since at the present day the sorrowful and manifest dispersion of your Church seems to threaten its complete destruction. Grant also, that we may look upon those promises which are common to us also, that we may wait until your Church emerges again from the darkness of death. Meanwhile, may we be content with your help, however weak in outward appearance, until at length it shall appear that our patience was not delusive, when we enjoy the reward of our faith and patience in your heavenly kingdom, through Jesus Christ our Lord. — Amen.

[Exposition continues from previous day's lecture]

In the last lecture, after Ezekiel had announced the conversion of the people, he at the same time taught that the unique gift of repentance would be bestowed, because when anyone has turned aside from the right way, unless God extends his hand, he will plunge himself even into the deep abyss.

Therefore, after a person has once left God, he cannot return to him by himself. We then briefly touched on this doctrine; now a fuller explanation must be added. As soon as we consider the Prophet’s words, we shall at once understand the matter. God promises to give the people one heart. Some explain this as mutual consent, but this does not suit, in my opinion.

In the third chapter of Zephaniah, at verse 9 (Zephaniah 3:9), “one shoulder” is taken in this sense. For when the Prophet says that God would make all call upon him purely and worship with one shoulder, he seems to mean that all should be unanimous and that each would encourage his neighbor.

But in this place, “one heart” is contrasted with a divided one, for the Israelites were distracted by vague errors. They should have listened to God’s precepts and subjected themselves to his law; then they would have been content with him alone and would have devoted themselves entirely to true piety.

But their heart was distracted: as when a woman does not preserve her fidelity to her husband but is led away by her lusts, nothing is at rest in her. So also, when the people revolted from the law of God, it was like a wandering harlot. We see, therefore, that the hearts of all the impious were divided and distracted, and that nothing in them was simple or sincere.

Now God promises that he would take care that the people were not drawn aside by their superstitions but remained in pure and simple obedience to the law. If anyone objects that the faithful endure a perpetual contest with the lusts of the flesh, and therefore their heart is divided, the answer is easy: “one heart” is understood in the sense of regeneration.

For although the faithful feel a great contest within them, and their heart is by no means whole since it is agitated by many temptations, yet as they meanwhile seriously aspire to God, their heart is said to be entire because it is not double or feigned. We understand then what the Prophet means. And in chapter 36 (Jeremiah 36), where he repeats the same sentiment, for “one heart” he puts “a new spirit,” as he also says a little afterwards, I will put a new spirit in their bowels, or inward parts. Just as by the word “heart” he means affections, so also by the “spirit” he signifies the mind itself and all its thoughts.

A person’s spirit is often taken for the whole soul, and then it also comprehends all the affections. But where the two are joined together, as the heart and spirit, the heart is called the seat of all the affections; it is in truth the very will of man, while the spirit is the faculty of intelligence.

For we know that there are two special endowments of the mind: the first is its power of reasoning, and the next its being endowed with judgment and choice. Afterwards, we shall say how people have the faculty of choosing and yet lack free will.

But this principle must be held: that the human soul excels first in intelligence or reason, then in judgment, on which choice and will depend. We see, therefore, that by these words the Prophet testifies that people need a complete renovation so that they may return to the way from which they once began to wander.

Afterwards he adds, I will take away the heart of stone, or the stony heart, from their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh. The word “flesh” is here understood in a different sense, for the Prophet alludes to the heart, which we know to be part of the human body, when he says, I will take away the heart of stone from their flesh.

When God regenerates his elect, he does not change their flesh, skin, or blood; the spiritual and interior grace has no relation to their body. But the Prophet speaks somewhat coarsely, so that he may conform his discourse to the understanding of an unrefined and simple people.

For “flesh” in the first clause meant the same as body, but at the end of the verse, a “fleshy heart” is used for a flexible heart. An opposition must also be marked between flesh and stone: a stone by its own hardness repels even the strongest blows of hammers, and nothing can be inscribed on it; but the fleshy heart by its softness admits whatever is inscribed or engraved on it.

The Prophet speaks somewhat coarsely, as I have said, yet the sense is by no means ambiguous: namely, since the Israelites were full of obstinacy, God afterwards changed their heart so that they became flexible and obedient; that is, by correcting their hardness, he rendered their heart soft.

He adds afterwards, that they may walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. Now the Prophet more clearly expresses how God would give his elect hearts of flesh instead of those of stone: when he regenerates them by his Spirit, and when he forms them to obey his law, so that they may willingly observe his commands and effectively accomplish what he causes them to will.

Now let us consider more attentively the whole matter of which the Prophet treats. When God speaks of a stony heart, he doubtless accuses all mortals of obstinacy. For the Prophet is not here speaking of a few whose nature differs from others, but as in a mirror, he puts the Israelites before us, so that we may know what our condition is when, being deserted by God, we follow our natural inclinations.

We conclude, therefore, from this passage that all have a heart of stone; that is, all are so corrupt that they cannot bear to obey God, since they are entirely carried away into obstinacy. Meanwhile, it is certain that this fault is acquired, for when God created man, he did not give him a heart of stone. As long as Adam stood sinless, doubtless his will was upright and well-disposed, and it was also inclined to obedience to God.

Therefore, when we say that our heart is of stone, this originates from the fall of Adam and from the corruption of our nature; for if Adam had been created with a hard and obstinate heart, that would have been a reproach to God. But as we have said, Adam’s will was upright from the beginning and flexible to follow the righteousness of God; but when Adam corrupted himself, we perished with him.

This, therefore, is why the heart is stony: because we have lost that integrity of nature which God had conferred on us at the beginning. For whatever Adam lost, we also lost by the fall, because he was not created for himself alone, but in his person, God showed what the condition of the human race would be. Hence, after he had been stripped of the excellent gifts with which he was adorned, all his posterity were reduced to the same lack and misery.

Thus, our heart is stony, but this is through original depravity, because we ought to attribute this to our father Adam and not cast the blame for our sin and corruption on God. Finally, we see what the beginning of regeneration is: namely, when God takes away that depravity by which we are bound down. But two parts of regeneration must be noted, which the Prophet also discusses.

God pronounces that he gives to his elect one heart and a new spirit. It follows, therefore, that the whole soul is vitiated, from reason to the very affections. The sophists in the Papacy confess that a person’s soul is vitiated, but only in part.

They are also compelled to subscribe to the ancients: that Adam lost supernatural gifts and that natural ones were corrupted. But afterwards, they obscure the light with darkness and feign that some part of reason remains sound and entire, and then that the will is vitiated only in part. Therefore, it is a common saying of theirs that human free will was wounded and injured, but that it did not perish.

Now they define free will as the free faculty of choice, which is joined with reason and also depends on it. For the will by itself, without judgment, does not possess full and solid liberty; but when reason governs and holds the chief power in the human soul, then the will obeys and forms itself according to the prescribed rule: that is free will.

The Papists do not deny that free will is injured and wounded but, as I have already said, they hold back something, as if people were partly upright by their own motion, and some inclination or flexible movement of the will remained toward good as well as evil. Thus indeed they prate in the schools, but we see what the Holy Spirit pronounces.

For if there is need of a new spirit and a new heart, it follows that the human soul is not only injured in each part but so corrupt that its depravity may be called death and destruction, as far as rectitude is concerned.

But here an objection is raised: whether people differ at all from brute beasts? Experience proves that people are endowed with some reason. I answer, as it is said in the first chapter of John (John 1:5), that light shines in darkness; that is, some sparks of intelligence remain, but so far from leading anyone into the way, they do not enable him to see it.

Therefore, whatever reason and intelligence there is in us, it does not bring us into the path of obedience to God, and much less does it lead by continual perseverance to the goal.

What then? These very sparks shine in the darkness to render people without excuse. Consider, therefore, how far human reason prevails, so that a person may be self-convinced that no pretext for ignorance or error remains to him. Therefore, human intelligence is altogether useless for guiding one's life aright. Perverseness appears more clearly in the heart.

For the human will boils over into obstinacy, and when anything right and approved by God is put before us, our affections immediately become restive and ferocious. Like a refractory horse that leaps up and strikes its rider when it feels the spur, so our will betrays its obstinacy when it admits nothing but what reason and sound intelligence dictate.

I have already taught that human reason is blind, but that blindness is not so evident in us because, as I have said, God has left some light in us, so that no excuse for error should remain. It is not surprising, then, if God here promises that he would give a new heart, because if we examine all human affections, we shall find them hostile to God.

For that passage of St. Paul (Romans 8:9) is true, that all the thoughts of the flesh are hostile to God. Doubtless, he here uses “flesh” in his own characteristic way, namely, as signifying the whole person as he is by nature and is born into the world. Since, therefore, all our affections are hostile and repugnant to God, we see how foolishly the schoolmen trifle, who feign that the will is injured, and so this weakness is to them instead of death.

Paul says that he was sold under sin. That is, insofar as he was one of the sons of Adam, he states: “The law works sin in us (Romans 7:14); I am sold and enslaved to sin.” But what do they say? That sin indeed reigns in us, but only in part, for there is some integrity that resists it.

How far they differ from St. Paul! But this passage also sufficiently clearly refutes comments of this kind, where God pronounces that newness of heart and spirit is his own free gift. Therefore, Scripture elsewhere uses the name of creation, which is worthy of notice. For as often as the Papists boast that they have even the least particle of rectitude, they reckon themselves creators, since when Paul says that we are born again by God’s Spirit, he calls us τὸ ποίημα, his fashioning or workmanship, and explains that we are created unto good works (Ephesians 2:10).

To the same purpose is the language of the Psalm (Psalms 100:3): he made us, not we ourselves. For he is not speaking here of that first creation by which we became human beings, but of that special grace by which we are born again by the Spirit of God.

If therefore regeneration is a human creation, whoever arrogates to himself even the least share in the matter seizes that much from God, as if he were his own creator—which is detestable to hear. And yet this is easily drawn from the common teaching of Scripture.

Now it follows, that they shall walk in my statutes, and keep my precepts and do them. Here the Prophet removes other doubts by which Satan has endeavored to obscure the grace of God, because he could not entirely destroy it.

We have already seen that the Papists do not entirely take away the grace of God, for they are compelled to confess that a person can do nothing unless assisted by God’s grace, and that free will is without vigor and efficacy until it revives by the assistance of grace.

Therefore, they have this in common with us: that a person, being corrupt, cannot even move a finger to discharge any duty towards God. But here they err in two ways because, as I have already said, they feign that some upright motion remains in a person’s will, besides claiming that there is sound reason in the mind. They afterwards add that the grace of the Holy Spirit is not efficacious without the concurrence or co-operation of our free will.

And here their flagrant impiety is detected. Hence, they confess that we are regenerated by the Spirit of God because we should otherwise be unable to think anything aright, namely, because weakness hinders us from willing effectively.

But, on the contrary, they imagine God’s grace to be mutilated. But how? Because, they say, God’s grace stirs us up so that we become able to will what is good, and also to carry out and perfect what we have willed.

We see, therefore, that when they speak of the grace of the Holy Spirit, they leave a person suspended in the middle. How far then does the Spirit of God work within us? They say it is so that we may be able to will rightly and to act rightly. Therefore, nothing else is given to us by the Holy Spirit but the ability; but it is ours to co-operate, and to strengthen and establish what otherwise would be of no avail.

For what advantage is there in the ability without the addition of the upright will? Our condemnation would only be increased. But here is their ridiculous ignorance: for how could anyone stand even for a single moment if God conferred on us only the ability? Adam had that ability in his first creation, and then he was still perfect; but we are depraved, so that as long as the remains of the flesh abide in us, which we carry about in this life, we must strive with great difficulties.

If therefore Adam quickly fell, although endowed with rectitude of nature and with the faculty of willing and acting uprightly, what will become of us?

For we need not only Adam’s uprightness and his faculty of both willing and acting uprightly, but we also need unconquered fortitude, so that we may not yield to temptations but be superior to the devil, subdue all depraved and vicious affections of the flesh, and persevere to the end in this wrestling or warfare.

We see, therefore, how childishly they trifle who ascribe to the grace of the Holy Spirit nothing else but the gift of ability. And Augustine expounds this wisely and discusses it at sufficient length in his book “Concerning the gift of perseverance, and the predestination of the saints;” for he compares us with the first Adam and shows that God’s grace would not be efficacious (except perhaps in the case of a single individual) unless he granted us more than the ability.

But what need do we have of human testimonies when the Holy Spirit clearly pronounces by the mouth of his Prophet what we here read? Ezekiel does not say, “I will give them a new spirit or a new heart so that they may walk and be endowed with that moderate faculty.” What then?

That they may walk in my precepts, that they may keep my statutes, and perform my commands. We see therefore that regeneration extends so far that the effect follows, as Paul also teaches: Complete, he says, your salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). Here he exhorts the faithful to the attempt.

And truly, God does not wish us to be like stones. Let us therefore strive and strain every nerve, and do our utmost towards acting uprightly.

But Paul advises that this be done with fear and trembling; that is, by casting away all confidence in one’s own strength. Because if we are intoxicated with that diabolical pretense that we are fellow-workers with God and that his grace is assisted by the motion of our free will, we shall break down, and eventually God will show how great our blindness was.

Paul gives the reason, because, he says, it is God who works both to will and to accomplish (Philippians 2:13). He does not say there that it is God who works the ability and who excites in us the power of willing, but he says that God is the author of that upright will, and then he also adds the effect, because it is not sufficient to will unless we are able to execute.

As for the word “power,” Paul does not use it, for it would occasion dispute; but he says that God works in all of us to accomplish.

If anyone objects that people naturally will and act by their own judgment and motion, I answer that the will is naturally implanted in human beings, so this faculty belongs equally to the elect and the reprobate. All, therefore, will; but through Adam’s fall, it happens that our will is depraved and rebellious against God. Will, I say, remains in us, but it is enslaved and bound by sin.

From where then comes an upright will? It comes from regeneration by the Spirit. Therefore, the Spirit does not confer on us the faculty of willing, for it is inherent in us from our birth; that is, it is hereditary and a part of creation that could not be blotted out by Adam’s fall. But when the will is in us, God gives us to will rightly, and this is his work.

Besides, when it is said that he gives us the power of willing, this is not understood in a general sense, because it ought not to be extended to the wicked as well as to the good. But when Paul is discussing human salvation, he deservedly assigns to God our willing uprightly.

We now understand what the Prophet’s words signify, and it seems that he denotes perseverance when he says, that they may walk in my precepts, and keep my judgments and do them. The whole matter had been explained in one phrase: that they may walk in my statutes. But because people always sinfully consider how they may lessen the grace of God and, by sacrilegious boldness, endeavor to claim for themselves what belongs to him, therefore, so that the Prophet may better exclude all pride, he says that we must attribute to God the walking in his precepts, preserving his statutes, and obeying his whole law.

Therefore, let us leave his own praise entirely to God and thus acknowledge that in our good works nothing is our own. Especially in perseverance, let us consider it God’s unique gift. And this is surely necessary if we consider how very weak we are and with how many and what violent attacks Satan continually assails us.

First of all, we may easily fall at any moment unless God sustains us; and then the thrusts of Satan by far exceed our strength. If, therefore, we consider our condition without the grace of God, we shall confess that in our good works the only part that is ours is the fault, as Augustine also wisely makes this exception.

For it is sufficiently known that no work is so praiseworthy as not to be sprinkled with some fault. The duties we discharge do not proceed from a perfect love of God either; instead, we always have to wrestle in order to obey him.

We then seem to contaminate our deeds by this defect. There is then in our good works that very thing which vitiates them, so that they are deservedly rejected before God.

But when we speak of uprightness and praise, we must learn to leave to God what is his own, lest we become partakers in sacrilege.

Now it follows, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. Under these words, the Prophet doubtless includes that gratuitous pardon by which God reconciles sinners to himself. And truly, it would not be sufficient for us to be renewed in obedience to God’s righteousness unless his paternal indulgence, by which he pardons our infirmities, is added.

This is expressed more clearly by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:33) and by our Prophet (Jeremiah 36:25–27), but it is characteristic of a scriptural phrase. For as often as God promises the sons of Abraham that they should be his people, that promise has no other foundation than in his gratuitous covenant, which contains the forgiveness of sins.

Therefore, it is as if the Prophet had added that God would expiate all the faults of his people. For our safety is contained in these two elements: that God follows us with his paternal favor while he bears with us and does not call us to judgment but buries our sins, as is said in Psalm 32:1-2: Blessed is the man to whom God does not impute his iniquities.

Conversely, it follows that all are wretched and accursed to whom he does impute them. If anyone objects that we have no need of pardon when we do not sin, the answer is easy: the faithful are never so regenerated as to fulfill the law of God.

They aspire to keep his commands, and that too with a serious and sincere affection; but because some defects always remain, they are therefore guilty, and their guilt cannot be blotted out except by expiation when God pardons them.

But we know that under the law there were rites prescribed for expiating their sins: this was the meaning of sprinkling with water and the pouring out of blood. We also know that these ceremonies were of no value in themselves, except insofar as they directed the people’s faith to Christ.

Therefore, whenever our salvation is discussed, let these two things be remembered: that we cannot be reckoned God’s sons unless he freely expiates our sins and thus reconciles himself to us, and then not unless he also rules us by his Spirit. Now we must hold that what God has joined, no one ought to separate.

Those, therefore, who by relying on the indulgence of God permit themselves to give way to sin, rend his covenant and impiously sever it. Why is this so? Because God has joined these two things together: namely, that he will be propitious to his sons and will also renew their hearts.

Therefore, those who grasp only one part of the statement—namely, pardon, because God bears with them—and omit the other part, are as false and sacrilegious as if they abolished half of God’s covenant.

Therefore, we must hold what I have said: namely, that under these words reconciliation is indicated, by which it happens that God does not impute their sins to his own.

Lastly, let us remark that the whole perfection of our salvation consists in this: that God reckons us among his people, as it is said in Psalm 33:12:

Happy is the people to whom Jehovah is their God.

There solid happiness is described: namely, when God deems any people worthy of this honor of belonging uniquely to himself. Let him only be propitious to us, and then we shall not be anxious, because our salvation is secure.