Ezekiel 2:3-5

Observe the characters to whom the Prophet is sent. The house of Israel. So the Lord Jesus declared. Matthew 15:24. But then observe, Israel included the whole Church of Christ. Nor so the Holy Ghost, in after ages, taught by Paul. If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise, Galatians 3:29. And so God the Father before had declared: Isaiah 49:6; John 17:2. Observe farther, the character of Israel, stiff-necked, rebellious, impudent children. But still children. Never lose sight of this neither. Though as the Prophet saith, they were all this and more, and had a whore's forehead, Jeremiah 3:3. yet were never they otherwise than children. Rebellious children, but not rebels. The Holy Ghost makes a nice distinction in the two terms all over the Bible. And I believe, that the Lord hath never once called his children rebels! yea, the Lord appears to have been angry with Moses for calling them so. Numbers 20:10. But the Lord expressly called those rebels among them, which were not in the Covenant. For all are not Israel which are of Israel. Neither because they are the seed of Abraham, (for such were the children of the bond-maid Hagar and of Keturah), are they all children, that is, children of promise. Romans 9:6. If the Reader wishes a clear apprehension of this subject, (and it is a blessed subject to the Church of the living God), let him see if he can find in all the Bible a child of God called a rebel. But on the contrary, he will find the reprobate expressly called by this name. Hence in the instance of Korah and his company, so are they called. Numbers 17:10. Again in Ezekiel 20:38 the Lord saith, he will purge out from among his people the rebels. But when at anytime, as in this Chapter, the Lord speaks of his children, his chosen, he calls them still children, though rebellious children: and pronounceth a woe upon them, (that is, great sorrow of heart, when recovered by grace to a sense of sin), but not everlasting woe for their rebellion. See Isaiah 30:8; Isaiah 30:8; Isaiah 65:2; Psalms 78:8. And that this woe is only meant temporary, the Lord speaks of those rebellious children, which he had before described, that he waited to be gracious to them. Isaiah 30:18. See Ezekiel 20:29.