Objection 22

From Sovereign Grace and the Scope of Election: A Comparative Examination of Attainment Theology and Grace Theology, with Particular Attention to the Question of Whether God's Elect Are Found Among All Nations and Religions

Ezekiel 18:24, "when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness... he shall die.

Ezekiel 18 is national, legal, and temporal from its first verse: it corrects a proverb about fathers, children, and sour grapes, and its sanctions are the covenant life-and-death of the land, "why will ye die, O house of Israel?" (18:31). The righteousness in view is a man's own legal righteousness under the Mosaic economy, which was always losable because it was his own. The righteousness of the elect is Christ's, imputed, and "the gifts and calling of God are without repentance" (Romans 11:29). No verse about forfeiting one's own righteousness touches a righteousness that was never one's own.