God is grieved when we turn to worship anything but him. Ezra’s visceral sorrow reflects the size of the offense against the Lord. In this text, we see the people’s need for a savior—we are “before [God] in our guilt,” as no one “can stand before [God] because of this” (Ezra 9:15). The need for forgiveness and transformation is gigantic. And God has provided! Jesus is the one who was consumed in anger, he was the remnant that was eliminated in our place (Ezra 9:14).

It’s unlikely that Ezra 9 tops anyone’s list of favorite chapters in the Bible. But with regard to grief over sin, few sections of Scripture are more instructive.
By way of background, Ezra is sent from Babylon to Jerusalem roughly 70 years after the first exiles made the journey. Ezra is both a priest and a scribe, and he will teach the law to the people in the rebuilt temple of God. Ezra 8 describes the travel to the holy city, then Ezra 9 opens with a bombshell.
The Faithlessness of the People
Ezra is told that many Israelites “have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands with their abominations” (Ezra 9:1). They have married women from the surrounding nations who do not worship God. And it gets worse: “And in this faithlessness the hand of the officials and chief men has been foremost” (Ezra 9:2).
Ezra’s response is dramatic.
As soon as I heard this, I tore my garment and my cloak and pulled hair from my head and beard and sat appalled. Then all who trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of the faithlessness of the returned exiles, gathered around me while I sat appalled until the evening sacrifice. (Ezra 9:3–4)
This is no run-of-the-mill sin. The identity and integrity of this new Jerusalem settlement is being compromised by these marriages. The issue is not mainly cultural or ethnic—it is about worship. Every spouse has enormous religious influence on their partner, and Israel’s history is peppered with unfaithfulness to God beginning with a marriage outside the faith.
Ezra grasps the severity of the situation, and he is undone. He is as torn up as his garment and facial hair.
While his ministry seems to have born fruit—witness those gathered with him who revere God’s word—the unearthing of sin this pervasive is devastating.
Communal Sin
Ezra sat appalled in his grief for a while. Then at the evening sacrifice (a public event), he fell on his knees to pray (Ezra 9:5).
O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens.  (Ezra 9:6–7)
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Written by Matthew S. Harmon |
Monday, July 22, 2024
Just as the sprinkling of blood sealed a particular people in the old covenant (Ex. 24:1–8), so here the inauguration of the new covenant requires Jesus to shed his blood for a particular people. That particular people is the “many” for whom Jesus gives his life as a ransom (Matt. 20:28). The combination of “many” and “forgiveness of sins” here in Matthew 26:28 forges a link back to the angelic announcement in Matthew 1:21 that Jesus “will save his people from their sins.”

The Ultimate Purpose of the Atonement Is the Glory of the Father
Before determining for whom Christ died,1 it is necessary first to establish the ultimate purpose of his death.2 Doing so provides a starting point for evaluating other purposes and benefits of Christ’s death as stated in Scripture. According to the Synoptics and Johannine Literature, the ultimate purpose of Christ’s death is to display the glory of God definitively. The Son glorifies the Father by doing the work of the Father, which is to accomplish effectively the salvation of those whom the Father gave him.
The Gospels repeatedly emphasize that everything Christ does is for the glory of the Father. According to John 1:14, a result of the incarnation is that “we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”3 By alluding to Exodus 33–34, John asserts that the same glory displayed to Moses is now visible in the incarnate Word.4 Just a few verses later John further explains that this same Word in the flesh “has made him [God] known” (John 1:18). The Greek verb used here (ἐξηγέομαι) means “to provide detailed information in a systematic manner—‘to inform, to relate, to tell fully.’”5 The stunning point that John makes is that, as the Word-made-flesh, Jesus Christ is the fullest revelation of God. As such, John intends the reader to see that everything that Jesus says and does is a manifestation of God’s glory.
Once Judas leaves to betray him, Jesus says to his remaining disciples, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once.” By sending the betrayer off, Jesus sets in motion the chain of events that will lead to the ultimate expression of God’s glory—his sacrificial death and triumphant resurrection. Thus the ultimate sign that displays God’s glory is the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ.6
Doing the Work of the Father
Scripture does more than simply present the death of Jesus as glorifying the Father—it sets his death within the larger framework of the Son glorifying the Father by accomplishing the work that the Father gave him to do before he ever took on flesh. The Son agrees to display the glory of the Father by redeeming the people that the Father gave to him.7 As a result, these redeemed people will participate in the intra-Trinitarian communion shared by the Father and the Son from all eternity.
Several passages in the Johannine literature describe this agreement. Let’s consider a particularly important one in the Bread of Life Discourse (John 6:22–58), where Jesus explains the work that the Father gave him to do. After identifying himself as the Bread of Life, Jesus asserts,
All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. . . . No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. (John 6:37–40, 44)
Several times in this section Jesus emphasizes that he has come down from heaven to accomplish the will of the Father. From this passage, the plan established by the Father and the Son may be summarized as follows: (1) the Father gives a specific group of people to the Son; (2) the Son comes down from heaven to do the Father’s will; (3) the Father’s will is for the Son to lose none of them but raise them on the last day; (4) these people come to the Son by looking on him and believing; (5) the Son gives them eternal life; (6) the Son will raise them on the last day; and (7) no one can come to the Son unless the Father who sent the Son draws them. Thus it is the Father’s election of a specific group of people that defines who comes to the Son and is raised on the last day.8
This progression seriously undermines the contention that “the decree of election is logically after the decree of atonement, where also, in fact, it belongs in the working out of the application of salvation. That is to say, the atonement is general, its application particular.”9 According to John 6:37–44, the Father does not plan to send the Son to save everyone, and then only elect some, knowing that apart from such an election none would believe. Such a contention suggests that redemption circumscribes election; in other words, God’s general beneficence to all of mankind ultimately drives the atonement, and election is necessary only because without it none would believe. But John 6 indicates that the Father gives a specific group of people to the Son for whom he then comes to die in order to give them eternal life.
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I think that point can be argued in an explicitly Scriptural way. Although, I don’t suppose ‘religion’ establishmentarians necessarily disagree with that point. What I think there is disagreement about is the criterion by which we should discern the respective assignments (to church and to civil government, concerning ethics), and what those assignments are.

Read Part 1 in the previous post.
In whatever way the English Dissenters/Nonconformists in the 1600s, the American Presbyterians in the 1700s, and Neocalvinists in the 1800s might have presented a Scriptural case against civil establishment of the church, I think Charles Hodge’s argument is a sound one.
Some Reformed establishmentarians, however, try to argue for—not the civil establishment of a single church institution/denomination, but rather—the civil establishment of ‘religion,’ whether that is conceived in broader Nicean orthodox Christian terms, or in relatively more narrow Protestant, or specific Reformed terms.
While I have highlighted the implied concern of Hodge’s argument regarding faith and worship, I take one of the main concerns of establishment of ‘religion’ to be ethics.
If we characterize part of Hodge’s argument as a sort of “exclusion” or “regulative principle” argument (viz, discipline in faith and worship are assigned the church, not to civil government, and therefore forbidden to civil government), and this is accepted arguendo, this nevertheless seems to leave open the question regarding ethics. The issue might be put this way: isn’t discipline regarding ethics assigned to both church and civil government, although the means of discipline differ?
For example, theft is a matter of ethics, the discipline of which is assigned to the church, and yet discipline regarding theft is also assigned to civil government. So, why does this not extend to some, if not all, other ethical matters, even including those that overlap with matters of faith/heresy and worship/idolatry, such as blasphemy? In light of this, we can raise this fundamental question:Is there any Scriptural criterion by which we can discern which ethical matters are assigned to civil government for discipline (if the set of ethical matters is not simply identical to those assigned to the church)?
As I understand it, many advocates of civil establishment of ‘religion’ employ a criterion of “public-ness”. So, for example, one may hold private blasphemous opinions and even privately worship in a blasphemous manner, but one should be civilly prohibited from “publicly” blaspheming, say, by publishing a book that says belief in God is stupid, dangerous, and evil.
The following is how Hodge’s Scriptural argument addresses this issue.
First, as an aside, notice that Hodge includes an initial 4th point (which may be said to concern sphere sovereignty) that I do not include in my quotation because it seems to me its character as a Scriptural point is not made explicit by Hodge. It focuses on the point of different particular ends ordained by God for these distinct institutions, so that the fact of their having the same general end does not permit the inference that they are assigned to identical matters.
I think that point can be argued in an explicitly Scriptural way. Although, I don’t suppose ‘religion’ establishmentarians necessarily disagree with that point. What I think there is disagreement about is the criterion by which we should discern the respective assignments (to church and to civil government, concerning ethics), and what those assignments are.
Second, I think Hodge’s last point about the coercive means instituted for civil government is the key to recognizing the criterion by which we can discern which ethical matters are assigned to civil government. (This is so, even if Hodge does not himself draw this out explicitly, but restricts himself to how we discern what is not assigned to civil government.)
Briefly stated, we may reason from Scripture on the issue like this: given the explicit institution of civil government in Genesis 9 by way of affirming the principle of proportionality in retributive justice, we must infer that the authorization of responsive coercion repeated in Romans 13 is restricted to the wrongdoing of prior initiation of coercion (aggressions) against persons and property. In other words, proportionality entails not only to what degree/extent coercion is used, but whether it is used at all. And to use coercion against non-aggressive immorality is disproportionate and violates the sword power authorized by God for civil government.
That, then, is the Scriptural criterion by which we can discern which ethical matters are assigned to civil government, and it’s the way Hodge’s argument, although requiring that elaboration, applies to not only establishment of a single church institution, but also to establishment of ‘religion’ concerning civil enforcement of ethics, or a public morality.
Gregory Baus is co-host of The Reformed Libertarians Podcast. He is a confessional Presbyterian living in Northumberland, Pennsylvania. This article is used with permission.
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