The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 2 — Section 450

may be maintained. Shall we not find the nourishment where we found the healing? The gospel of Christ meets this our need by providing: 1. Divine truth. .All that truth concerning the nature, character, will, purpose, of God our Father and our Saviour which we have revealed to us in the Word of God, and more particularly in the teaching of his Son, who came forth from him and was one with him. .All that truth also which relates to our spiritual nature, to our duty, to our privilege, to our prospects. 2. Christian fellowship. For the society of the holy is a sustaining power that builds up and makes strong in faith and purity. 3. The action of the Spirit of God. We are "strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man." Such ample and such fitting food as this makes strong for testimony, for endurance, for energetic action, for growth unto the full stature of Christian manhood, for readiness for the· heavenly kingdom.-C. Vers.13, 14 (with eh. xliv. 28).-The threefold inheritance. "Ye shall divide the land for inheritance;" "Ye shall inherit it, one as well as another;" "I am their Inheritance . . . I am their Possession." These passages speak of two kinds of inheri- tance, and there is a third which remained to be revealed, and still remains to be possessed. I. THE MATERIAL INHERITANCE. .According to the prophetic vision the land of Israel was to be fairly divided among the different tribes. The prospect here held out is the possession of the soil-that soil which has within it the power of great material enrichment. Land we call "real property," as distinguished from that about which there is a measure of insecurity or fluctuation. '!'hose who own the soil own that which cannot be taken away, and which, though its market value may rise and fall, and though it may be greatly enriched by diligence or impoverished by recklessness, still has the possibility and the promise of produce and provision. Land, therefore, may well stand o.s the representation and type of all material inheritance. God gives to us here a certain heritage of this order; not, indeed, "one as another" in the sense of equality, for there is very great inequality. The inequality cannot be said to be due to Divine arrangement; it is rather the bitter consequence of all forms of sin and folly. God bas given us a large, ample, fruitful, beautiful world for our earthly home. And if we were but actuated by the spirit of justice and of kindness, though there might not be anything like the absolute equality of which some men dream, yet would there be a goodly heritage for every child of man-enough for the comfort of every home, for the training of every IIUnd; enough to satisfy, to bealltify, to gladden. But there is a better heritage than this. II. THE SPIRITUAL INHERITANCE, The Levites were not to have any land for their share; God himself and his service-this was to be their "Inheritance," this their "Possession" (eh. xliv. 28). What was true in their case is surely far more true in ours. To us to whom God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ I\ spiritual well-being is offered which does indeed constitute a noble heritage. "God h1111 provided some better thing for us" (Heb. xi. 40). For us thero is not the taogihle mountain, the visible fire, the audible trumpet, but an inheritance which eye cannot see, nor ear hear, nor could the heart of man conceive (see Heb. xii. 18 with 1 Cor. ii. 9); for us there is 11, redeeming God, an Almighty Saviour, a Divine Comforter, a holy and elevating service, a heavenly home. In this last particular we have a third heritage, compared with which any partition of the soil was small indeed. III. THE HEAVENLY INHERITANCE. There are those who pass through so great "a fight of afflictions" that even with all the boundless blessingR and invaluable treasures which are" in Christ Jesus," life may seem of little worth; for these, as indeed for us all, there is the fair prospect of "an exceeding and eternal weight of glory "-of such glories that the sufferings of time are "not worthy to be compared n with them ; the near presence of Christ; a home of perfect love and rest; reunion with the holy and the true; a. sphere of untiring, elevating service; a life of growing blessedness.--C. Vere. 22, 23.-Jew and Gentile. The introduction of this passage is an indication pf the figurative and spiritual character of the whole prophetic utteranco. The ideal ~omruunity, the kingdom of Christ, was to be one that would Jttract those that were without and that should welcome all that came; it should be a welcome homo to the EllEKIEL-II, i lJ 466 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL. [oH, xtvw.1-85,