Ez. 22-23
The house of Israel has become dross to me; all of them are bronze and tin and iron and lead in the furnace; they are dross of silver.” (Ez 22:18). Bronze, tin, iron, and lead can be useful, yes, but they are detrimental to silver. They must be removed for silver to be and do as intended. The only way to remove them is to put the silver in the fire and melt it. This separates out the dross – the things that are not silver – so they can be removed. The more this process is repeated, the more pure the silver becomes.
So what is the silver here, and why does God say that the house of Israel is dross? I would say that the silver is God’s ultimate desire, which He repeated multiple times through His prophets. He wants a people to love and to love Him, so that they can be His people and He can be their God. This makes the dross anybody who does not love God as their only God. God wanted Israel to be His people but they did not want to be His people. He wanted to be their God, but they did not want Him to be their God. Thus, He put them through the fire of His wrath to separate out and make pure those who were faithful to Him.
This analogy doesn’t just apply to what God did to Israel and Judah in Old Testament times. It applies to His overall plan to separate out all of us who believe in the name of His Son, Jesus, and choose to be His people. And it applies to us individually, as He works in us to make us pure. I don’t want to be dross to God. I want to be part of His work of art – the gift that He is creating for His only Son, who bought us with a price. So I need to welcome the fires that He puts me thorough, knowing that they serve His good purpose for my good gain.
1 Pet. 1
It amazes me how frequently something I read in my daily New Testament passage coincides with something I read in my daily Old Testament passage. I just finished typing out some thoughts about God’s refining fire from Ezekiel’s prophecy. I said that I need to welcome trials that purify me for Christ who purchased me. And now I read Peter’s exhortation to rejoice in spite of various trials, which serve to test the genuineness of my faith that leads to my salvation. And I read that the prophecies of God’s grace were for my benefit, that I might believe the good news of Christ and know that He ransomed me with His own precious blood.
We live in a blessed time. We are able to see God’s plan lived out through His people and proclaimed through His prophets. In addition, we can also see the culmination and manifestation of that plan in the person of Jesus Christ. All that now remains is the completion of God’s plan. Because we can see that what God demonstrated and proclaimed to us came to pass, we can believe that what is yet to be will be as He has said. We can endure to the end, holding fast to a hope that we know cannot fail.