If a Person Does Them, He Shall Live

I have chosen as our title, a quotation from Ezekiel 20, “If a person does them, he shall live.”

This is a quotation from Leviticus 18:5. It is the same passage that Paul quotes in Romans 10 and Galatians 3, when Paul is talking about “the righteousness of the law” – and how the “law is not of faith.”

When people talk about Paul's view of the law, they always talk about Romans 10 and Galatians 3 – they always talk about Leviticus 18 – but they hardly ever talk about Ezekiel 20.

And yet, when Paul quotes Leviticus 18, he is not quoting Leviticus 18 in a vacuum. Ezekiel had already thought through the meaning of Leviticus 18. What does it mean that “if a person does them, he shall live”?