The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 2 — Section 449

possibilities in the present and in the future ; and also the truth we most want to know concerriing God-his character and disposition, his purpose of mercy, his supreme act of self-denying love, his overtures of grace, his summons to eternal life. III. lTs Two SOVEREIGN VIRTUES. 1. That of renewal. All kinds of fish live in its waters (vers. 9, 10); many trees grow and thrive on its banks, nourished by its streams (ver. 7); "everything lives whither the river cometh" (ver. 9). 2. That of cleansing. Such are the virtues of this river that, flowing into the Dead Sea., it sweetens even its salt waters and cleanses them of their bitterness, so that fish once more live therein: "Its waters a.re healed" (ver. 8). Such is the gracious and bene- ficent action of the truth of the gospel of Christ. (1) It is the source of new life; it revives a.nd it sustains. It finds men a.nd communities in spiritual death, and it irr.parts a. new a.nd blessed life; before it comes is a dreary moral waste, after its ,.·aters have begun to flow there is beauty and fertility. Peoples that seemed wholly lost to wisdom and to righteousness are regained; homes that appeared hopelessly darkened with sin and shame are made light with its beams of truth and grace ; hearts that were desolate and dea.thful are filled with peace and joy and immortal hope. Everything live.a where this blessed river comes. (2) It is the one great cleansing power. Into the darkest and foulest places it enters, and it brings with it sweetness and purity; corruption cannot live where its waters pass, but disappears before them. This is true, not only of the hearts a.nd the homes of men, but of districts, of cities, of countries. IV. lTs GLORIOUS ABIJNDA.NCE. (Vers. 8-5.) Once a small stream, it is now a broad, deep river, whose course nothing can check, whose waters are inexhaustibly full, whose beneficence nothing can measure. It has come down these many centuries, it bas girdled the whole earth, it will flow on and on until all the nations have been renewed. 1. Have we partaken of its life-giving waters? 2. Are we gaining there- from the healing a.nd the growth they will yield ?-C. Ver. 12.-The double service-meat and medicine. So nourishing should be the waters of this (allegorical) river that the trees which they fed upon it11 banks should produce a never-failing fruit and an unfading leaf, "and the fruit thereof should be for meat, a.nd the leaf thereof for medicine." The gospel of Jesus Christ perfectly fulfils the prophecy; its properties and provisions are such that it supplies ample food (or meat) for the sustenance, and all healing (or medicine) for the recovery of the human soul. Ta.king the latter first, as being first required, we ha.ve- L THE RESTORING VIRTUE OF THE GOSPEL. The leaf of the tree of life is "for medicine," or "for bruises and sores" (marginal reading). 1. How great is the need, for such medicine as this in "a bruised and sore" world like ours I On every hand are men and women who are chafed with the worries of life, who are perplexed with its problems, who are smitten and are sore by reason of its varied persecutions, who are worn and wearied with its excessive toils, who are badly wounded by its heavier sorrows, by crushing loss, by darkening disappointment, by saddening bereavement, by disabling sickness, by cruel disloyalty. And beyond these there are those who are stung with shame, who have been awakened to a sense of their guilt before God, and a.re filled with a holy shame, a compunction which is the first step to true blessednesR, but which "for the present" is grievous and distressing to the soul. 2. How invalu- able is the remedy which this tree of life provides I To such wounded hearts comes the be.a.ling Saviour; he comes (1) with tender sympathy, offering himself as the Divine Friend, who is "touched with the feeling of our infirmities;" (2) with the comfort of bis own example, as our Leader, "whose way was much rougher and darker thnn ours," and who asks us whether "it is not enough for the disciple to be as his Lord;" (3) with bis Divine a.id, ready, at our appeal, to revive us by his indwelling Spirit and grant UB such sustaining grace that, instead of groaning under the blow, we can even glory in bearing it for him (2 Cor. xiL 9); (4) with his gracious promises, offering pardon, peace, eternal life, to every penitent and believing heart; thus is he the Divina Bealer of the bruised and bleeding hearls of men. II. 'l'HE NOURISHING POWER WHICH IT POSSESSES, "The fruit thereof shall be for meat (or,' food']." When health bas been restored, when the medicine of the leaf baa done its work, then there needs to be sll6tenance in order that the recovered strength ea. XLVII. 1-23.] 'fHE BOOK OF 'l'HE PROPHET EZEKIEL. 465