This great prophecy had but a partial fulfilment, though a real one, in
the restored Israel. The land was given back, the nation _was_
multiplied, fertility again blessed the smiling fields and vineyards,
and, best of all, the people _were_ cleansed 'from all their idols' by
the furnace of affliction. Nothing is more remarkable than the
transformation effected by the captivity, in regard to the idolatrous
propensities of the people. Whereas before it they were always hankering
after the gods of the nations, they came back from Babylon the resolute
champions of monotheism, and never thereafter showed the smallest
inclination for what had before been so irresistible.

But the fulness of Ezekiel's prophecy is not realised until Jeremiah's
prophecy of the new covenant is brought to pass. Nor does the state of
the militant church on earth exhaust it. Future glories gleam through
the words. They have a 'springing accomplishment' in the Israel of the
restoration, a fuller in the New Testament church, and their ultimate
realisation in the New Jerusalem, which shall yet descend to be the
bride, the Lamb's wife. The principles involved in the prophecy belong
to the region of purely spiritual religion, and are worth pondering,
apart from any question of the place and manner of fulfilment.

First comes the great truth that the foundation, so far as concerns the
history of a soul or of a community, of all other good is divine
forgiveness (v. 25). Ezekiel, the priest, casts the promise into
ceremonial form, and points to the sprinklings of the polluted under the
law, or to the ritual of consecration to the priesthood. That cleansing
is the removal of already contracted defilement, especially of the guilt
of idolatry. It is clearly distinguished from the operation on the
inward nature which follows; that is to say, it is the promise of
forgiveness, or of justification, not of sanctification.