Ez. 27-29
God’s declaration of His coming judgment for the nations seems to have shifted. What was first due to their treatment of Judah is now due to their pride. And a good portion of it is directed straight at Tyre. I don’t know much about Tyre, other than that it was clearly a massive hub for trade, as evidenced in the Ezekiel 27 lamentation. But their pride must have been great. The destruction prophesied against her seems to be both complete and permanent.
God’s words to the prince of Tyre give me the impression that his pride was well founded from a human perspective. He was wise and brought great wealth and success to his city. But pride before God, the true provider of all wisdom, wealth, and success, is never well founded. And so God declared His judgment, “Because your heart is proud and you have said, ‘I am a god’.” (Ez 27:2).
Ezekiel goes on to declare God’s judgment against the king of Tyre. I have no idea if this king and the aforementioned prince are specific people, or if they are representative of something else. I have to say, though, that God’s message to the king of Tyre sounds awfully familiar. It sounds like it could be directed toward the Prince of Darkness, Lucifer, the fallen angel. So I’m leaning toward something symbolic about Tyre and her leaders. Whatever the deeper meaning is, I am encouraged to humbly serve God even if – especially if – I ever meet with great success or wealth.
1 Pet. 3
It is good to see that Peter and Paul preached the same message. And it is easy to see how this message of respectfully subjecting to your authorities and lovingly serving your subjects aligns with Jesus’ life and message (His life really was His message). This makes it a very foundational concept for living as believers in Christ. Of course, like most other things, grasping the concept is not at all the same as living it out. That’s where simple ideas become complicated. And when the other side of these relational equations doesn’t do their part, that’s where obedience gets hard.
One last comment on this passage is that I think I finally have a suitable (to me, anyway) explanation of what Baptism is and its role in our salvation. Peter notes that baptism corresponds to Noah and his family being brought safely through the water with which God destroyed the rest of the world. The ark, which brought Noah and his family safely through, was the manifestation of Noah’s faithful obedience to God. Peter goes on to say baptism “now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience.” (1 Pet 3:21b). It is not the baptism itself that brings us to salvation. We get baptized to put our decision to surrender to God into obedient action. Baptism is our ark. So, then, baptism is the external expression of our obedient submission to God.