First, Ezekiel 18[:27]: “He shall make his soul live.”
First, Ezekiel 18[:27]: “He shall make his soul live.”
(I) “ ‘When a wicked person turns away from his wickedness, he shall make his soul live’ (Ezek. 18:27). ‘To make his soul live’ is certainly doing something for his own justification.”
We respond. This prophetic passage describes repentance and its salutary fruit. It describes repentance on the basis of its consequence—namely, the correction of life—not because this constitutes repentance formally or finishes it completely, but because it is the immediate consequence and undoubted testimony of it. Such descriptions by synecdoche are very common in Scripture. In these the whole is understood from the part, what is sealed from the seal, the antecedent from the consequent. They set the better known, the more obvious before the eyes so that those points which are less obvious to the eyes may be understood, just as someone teaches another to recognize a tree from its fruits.
Therefore we proceed in this way. Turning away from wickedness cannot take place without faith in Christ being present. “Hearts are purified by faith” (Acts 15:9). “The Holy Spirit is given by faith” (Gal. 3:2), and He is the Author of renewal. Hence this turning away from wickedness to God includes faith in Christ. The fruit of repentance is “making the soul live” [animae vivificatio]. This is a Hebrew expression which occurs very often in the Scriptures: “He will make his soul live”; that is, he will save his life, he will not perish, he will live. Therefore the notion that a person can make himself live cannot be elicited from the prophet’s statement, since man is “dead in his sins” (Eph. 2:1). Rather, Christ is our life (John 14:6) not only in merit but also in effecting it. Through His Word we are called back from the death of sins to spiritual life (John 5:25). Life proceeds not from ourselves—He Himself makes alive; we are made alive. “The midwives made alive the Israelite boys” (Exod. 1:17). “You shall not make alive any soul of those peoples” (Deut. 20:16). “You will make alive my father” (Josh. 2:13), that is, you will preserve him in life. (See also Lev. 13:13; Josh. 6:25; Judg. 21:14; Prov. 17:15. See also our treatise On Free Choice [Commonplace XIV]; and Weigenmeier, Tabb. Gramm. Hebr.)