Making His Love Nothing

We’re never even told her name.

But we know nearly everything else that there is to know of her.

Found in Ezekiel 16, her story begins with her utter defenselessness: she is an infant cast into a field to die. She was completely unwanted. Unloved. Thrown away. Entitled to nothing. There, the King found her. Chose her. Showed compassion on her, took her in, and washed her. He spared no expense in clothing, feeding, and adorning her. Though she came to Him with nothing, He showed her great favor. “You became mine,” the King declared (v. 8).

In His love, He gave her beauty and worth (v. 14).

When she grew to be a woman, the King did something completely unexpected and extravagant; He made a vow to this woman, binding Himself to her in a marriage covenant, swearing His everlasting faithfulness and love to her (v. 8).

But the story had only begun.

Because this woman, so deeply loved by the King, made a choice.

She chose not to believe that her union with the King could satisfy.

Deserting Love

Instead, she “trusted in her own beauty” (v. 15). She left her husband, went down to the streets of the city, and became a harlot. Repeatedly she broke her marriage vows. But unlike most prostitutes, this woman did not sell her body for a price. Rather, she paid men to sleep with her. She took the King’s gifts to her—her beauty, her jewelry, her clothing, her food—and she gave them all away to her lovers. She used what the King had given her for a purpose He had not designed.

“You also took your beautiful jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men, and with them played the whore. And you took your embroidered garments to cover them, and set my oil and my incense before them” (vs. 17-18).

Perhaps she believed her sin affected only her, but it damaged and destroyed so many others. In her rampant chase of idolatry and adultery, this woman eventually sacrificed her children—the King’s children—to idols (v. 20). She craved more sin, more gratification, more pursuit of self. She gave herself to Egyptians, to Assyrians, to Chaldeans (vs. 26, 28, 29), and still she was “not satisfied” (v. 28). Her behavior was so lewd that the pagan nations around Israel were repulsed by her. Even the Philistines were mortified by her conduct (v. 27).

She found, again and again, that gratifying her sinful whims and the desires of her flesh did not satisfy. Giving in to our flesh never does. The pleasure is short-lived. But rather than returning to the King where satisfaction is found, the woman dove headlong into her sin, desperately seeking pleasure anywhere.

“You played the whore also with the Assyrians, because you were not satisfied; yes, you played the whore with them, and still you were not satisfied. You multiplied your whoring also with the trading land of Chaldea, and even with this you were not satisfied” (vs. 28-29).

According to law, an adulterous woman was worthy of stoning, and one would expect the King to exercise His right. She had repaid His kindness, benevolence, and love with ingratitude, dishonor, and infidelity. In the wake of her self-sufficient quest to please herself, she had trampled upon His love. She had made His love nothing.

But what we find in Ezekiel 16 is not what I expected at all. Yes, the King is angry. Yes, He is hurt. Yes, He is jealous for her. And yes, she must accept consequences for her actions (vs. 58-59, 63). But look at this sorrow-filled response from the King:

“And in all your abominations and your whorings you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, wallowing in your blood” (vs. 22).

The King goes back to the moment when He first found her and had compassion on her. He reminds her of who He is. He does not say, “I’m finished with you.” He doesn’t threaten her. He doesn’t take back his love. Do you see that? Not once does He say, “I don’t love you anymore.” He calls her what she is. He uncovers the ugliness of her sin. He tells her there is consequence. But in His grief over her sin, He points to her broken promises and says,

“Yet I will remember my covenant with you” (v. 60).

The contrast is stark: He is not like her. He is not unfaithful. He will not turn away. His love is not conditional.

He makes a surprising statement in verse 30. “‘How sick is your heart,’ declares the Lord GOD, ‘Because you did all these things, the deeds of a brazen prostitute.’”

That word sick is also translated as weak and comes from the Hebrew word ‘amal, meaning “to droop, to hang down the head.” It was used in reference to a dying plant or a sick person, or to mean “to be sad” or “to be exhausted.” After all that this woman had done to the King, He did not look at her actions alone. He gazed straight through her to the heart behind the wickedness. He saw her hunger. He saw her dissatisfaction. He saw how her sin exhausted and weakened her.

All this, and still she did not understand that she was created to be satisfied by Him alone.

The satisfaction God brings to the human heart is something the psalmist describes from personal experience:

“You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (Psalm 16:11)

“On, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him! Oh, fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack!” (Psalm 34:8-9)

“For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.” (Psalm 84:10)

Alternative Gods

In the woman of Ezekiel 16, we begin to glimpse the reality that God does not drag us into a relationship with Him that satisfies.

He will call us to Himself, again and again. He will chasten His children, beckoning them back home. He will promise the joy that can be found in only Him. But He has given us a will. He does not strap us into a straitjacket and demand that we fellowship with Him. He offers a relationship unlike anything we can have on this earth with another human being—but He does not force us to be satisfied in Him. He only tells us, Come to Me, and He says, I satisfy, and then He waits.

Romans 10:21 quotes the Old Testament when it says, “But of Israel he says, ‘All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.’”

From the Old Testament to the New Testament, He has stretched out His hands to a people who don’t want Him. A people opposing His will. A people who are seeking satisfaction in all the wrong places. A people who have never tasted and seen, experientially, that God is good. All through history, God has offered His people Himself.

Yet all through history, they have sought substitutes. Alternatives. Other gods.

∙ “We want a human king.”

∙ “We want a golden calf.”

∙ “We want to be like the other nations.”

It’s easy to be hard on the Israelites. But what about us?

∙ “I just want to be happy.”

∙ “I just want acceptance.”

∙ “I just want to be valued.”

∙ “I just want to be good at something.”

∙ “I just want my dreams to come to fruition.”

Much too often, we’re far too in love with ourselves to really, truly want Jesus.

The Ezekiel 16 woman was not pursuing other lovers, in truth. She was pursuing herself. Her happiness. Her wants. Her god. She had become her own god, and this was why there was no room for the King in her heart.

I caught myself judging the Ezekiel 16 woman.

Didn’t she see how she was making God’s love nothing, how deeply her sin wounded Him? Did her marriage covenant mean so little to her? Did the King’s reputation mean nothing to her? Was there no gratitude and love in her heart for the One who had given her everything?

For a moment, I play judge. I sit in the courtroom and compare the Ezekiel 16 woman with others.

∙ She is not like the prodigal son, who returned to his father penitent and humble.

∙ She’s not like Mary Magdalene, weeping at Jesus’ feet while worshipping, remorseful over her sin.

∙ She’s not even like David. Though his hands were covered in the blood of the man he murdered to cover up his own adultery, the shepherd boy king ran back to the God his heart so loved in true repentance.

But the Ezekiel 16 woman? She had not returned home begging to be a servant. She had not prostrated herself at the king’s feet, weeping and worshipping. She had not run back to the King in repentance.

Once she wallowed in her blood, and now she wallowed in her sin.

I look at her and see something despicable and repulsive.

The gavel knocks loudly.

Unforgivable, I label her.

Staring Back at Myself

And my condemnation is sliced through by the thought, Now you understand salvation. At last you see yourself as you are.

I am silenced.

But the end of the story silences me further. The King tells the Ezekiel 16 woman (vs. 62-63),

“I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the LORD, that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord GOD.”

When I atone for you for all that you have done?

My heart stills beneath the weight of those words. Because after all of this, He points His finger at her and tells her He will pay for her sin. He will own the punishment for the sins she committed against Him! The disgust of the nations. The death she deserved. Even though she would not let Him satisfy her heart (“while we were yet sinners”), He would still satisfy her sin debt (“Christ died for us”).

It’s the gospel.

And suddenly, the woman of Ezekiel 16 is no longer nameless and faceless.

She is me.

And He’s saying my name when he says, “I will atone for you for all that you have done.”

I look at the sin I have run deliberately back to, time and time again, and I no longer see it through the lens of my selfishness and pride. My justification. My excuses. Now, I see it through the King’s eyes. Damaging. Repulsive. Destructive. Loveless. The reason He must go to the cross. The reason for His wounds. The cause of His affliction.

And I may not have been there at Calvary that day, but at last I comprehend that I am the reason He was at Calvary that day.

God takes my sin very personally because it’s what killed His Son.

Sin loses its appeal when I gaze too long at the Cross. I begin to see that I deserved no mercy. That I did not weep over my sin. That I did not run back to God, either. That I wounded Him and I didn’t care. That I caused His suffering and didn’t stop. That I am every bit as selfish and vile as the Ezekiel 16 woman.

The King knew her heart, just like He knows our hearts. He knew we would not be faithful. He knew we would cause Him great pain. He knew we would forget Him.

But in His love, He chose us anyway.

“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit.” (John 15:16)

In His mercy, He gave His life to rescue us from our sin.

“For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.” (Psalm 86:5)

And should we turn back to Him, should we choose to seek Him for satisfaction and leave our idols behind, He welcomes us with open arms.

“He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.” (Psalm 103:10-12)