Ezra 10:18-44

And among the sons of the priests there were found that had taken strange wives: namely, of the sons of Jeshua.

The list of offenders

For what purpose is this catalogue of names inserted here?

I. As a warning against sin. This catalogue shows us--

1. Sin extending to all classes.

2. Sin injuring the reputation.

3. Sin corrupting the influence.

II. As an example of genuine repentance.

1. They confessed their sin with sorrow.

2. They offered sacrifice on account of the sin.

3. They forsook the sin.

III. As an encouragement to genuine repentance.

1. Their sin was forgiven (Ezekiel 33:14).

2. The Divine favour was vouchsafed. (William Jones.)

A ram of the flock for their trespass.

Cheap expiations

Oh, that poor, poor ram! What a humiliation for the ram! That ram is always being killed, and cannot understand the reason why. A ram cannot save you. You might kill all the flocks that browse on the hill and still your sin would stain the centre of your heart and the palm of your hand. There are some things for which you cannot make up. There are some actions which lie beyond apology. There are some deeds which almost go beyond the large boundary of penitence. Some of us have been in danger of sinning ourselves beyond God’s mercy. Beware of every method of getting out of moral obligation and moral penalty by cheap ways, by expiations that cost you nothing. Every man must have a true expiation, but the true expiation includes the offering of himself as well as the offering of the priest and the victim. It is so in the cram of the Christ. He tasted death for every man; He bore my sins in His own body on the tree; yet I must be crucified with Christ. There is the difference between the true expiation and the false. The true expiation involves self-immolation; it involves fellowship with the sufferings of Christ that we may be made partakers of His resurrection. Christ being crucified for us is an aggravation of our sin it we be not crucified with Christ. Thus there is absolute loneliness in the priesthood of Christ, and thus there is a mysterious fellowship with that loneliness. There is a work which none but Christ could do, and there is a complete work which the poorest, meanest sinner has to do. The sinner does not offer Christ; it he did so that would be what we mean by a cheap or poor expiation. Christ was not offered by man; by man Christ was murdered; by God Christ was offered. Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. The Christian expiation is not a buying off or a calculated substitution: the expiation of Christ means that we are to enter into it, in a sense share the agony. The offering is all God’s, the substitution is all divine; but man is called upon to enter mystically, spiritually, and really into the offering of Christ and to be offered as it were with Christ--the sinner and the Saviour united in one sublime sacrifice. Do not imagine that you can buy yourself off by offering a ram. Do not suppose that you can make up for your sin by doubling your pew rent. Do not imagine that you can be forgiven every outrage against reason, justice, and conscience by doling out something superfluous from your own table to the hunger of the needy. Expiation touches the soul with agony, or it is a worthless offering. (J. Parker, D. D)