Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has recently resigned over failures in his handling of one of the Church of England’s worst child abuse scandals. A damning report found a conspiracy of silence around the sadistic abuse of young boys both in the UK and in Africa, perpetrated by John Smyth, a prominent evangelical in the Church of England, and left unchallenged by bishops and others in church leadership. Several commentators have noted how church leaders can remain aloof from on-the-ground pastoral concerns and instead use their platforms for airing their own views on issues of little concern to local congregations. The daily spiritual needs of people’s souls are low in their priorities and when genuine wrongs are perpetrated, victims are easy to ignore. In perhaps less heinous cases, this picture is very recognisable in other churches too. When we drill down to the essential features of this situation, we find that God has already spoken His utter opposition to this kind of wickedness in the church. Long ago, He expressed His disgust at the prophets who brought defilement into His church by their conspiracy of cruelty and selfishness. Westminster Assembly member William Greenhill explains in the following updated extract from his commentary on Ezekiel.

Multi-faceted wickedness

Taking together the 25th and 28th verses of Ezekiel 22, you have expressed the sins of the prophets which defiled the land, making it to be called “The Uncleansed Land.” These sins are: conspiracy, cruelty, soul-murder, covetousness, inhumanity, and flattery.

Jerusalem was the holy city, the city of God, the place where God’s name was recorded, a type of the church of God in all ages. Yet there, even there, were wicked and false prophets. It shows us clearly that there will always be false prophets in the church of God. They were there in Christ’s time: “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing” (Matt. 7:15). They were there in Paul’s time: “there was one Bar-Jesus, a Jew, and a false prophet” (Acts 13:6). They were there in John’s time: “Many false prophets are gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). So many have gone out that there is a generation of them here to this day, and they will not cease as long as the Lord has His church in the world. There will be false prophets around even at doomsday.

Unhealthy consensus

Ezekiel says there was “a conspiracy of her prophets.” They combined together, all of one heart and mind. The evil prophets met in Jerusalem and consulted, and they consented to prophesy the same thing, and none of them should prophesy otherwise. If anyone did, they would cry them down, along with any who might follow them. Thus they “made a conspiracy” against the true prophets, and those who were truly religious, opposing God and godliness. Read for yourself how they set themselves against Jeremiah (Jer. 26:8), and stirred up the princes and people against him (Jer. 26:11), and how they prophesied the same things (Jer 13:17 and 6:14).

Threatening words

These prophets are “like a roaring lion ravening the prey.” Lions are fierce and cruel, especially when hungry. Just as lions first roar, to scare people and other animals, before they then hunt their prey, so wicked prophets roared against the true prophets and their followers. “This man is worthy to die,” they said about Jeremiah (Jer. 26:11) — not to be silenced, or imprisoned, or banished, but “to die.” Nothing but death would suffice them. They were greedy of the prey, and said he should “surely die” (Jer 26:8).

Destructive policies

“They have devoured souls.” “Souls” means “people,” by a figure of speech called synecdoche, where the part stands for the whole. These prophets preached dreams and visions out of their own heads, whereby they seduced and ruined multitudes (Eze. 13:10; Jer. 14:13; Jer 13:13).

When prophets fail to warn the people about their sins, they destroy them (Eze. 3:18), and it is the same when they present their own fancies instead of God’s word (Jer. 23:22 and 32). If only they had delivered the word of God, they would have turned people from evil ways, but by their lies and dreams they made them err.

Ambitiousness

“They have taken the treasure and precious things.” These prophets were false, and would not do the work of a prophet unless the people gave to them — and gave them the best things. Micah said the same thing: the prophets teach for money (Mic. 3:11), and prepare war for those who refuse to put into their mouths (Mic. 3:5). They did not necessarily take the people’s treasure by force, or steal away their precious things, but the way they behaved was that the people must give. They were not content with what was their stipend, but they had ways, arts, devices, to get more.

Note that an alternative meaning for the Hebrew word is glory, or honour. The sense then would be that these false prophets were ambitious, aspiring to high place and the glory of popular acclaim.

Highly incongruous wickedness

It was the men who should have openly declared against sin, who openly committed sin. “There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof.” They roared like lions, not caring who heard or saw them; they made many widows in the very midst of Jerusalem. They sinned notorious sins, and were not ashamed of them. “Both prophet and priest are profane; in my house have I found their wickedness, saith the Lord” (Jer. 23:11). In the temple, the most public place of worship, there they set up their idols and detestable things (Eze. 7:20).

When prophets and men in near relations to God are bad, they proceed from sin to sin, from degree to degree of the same sin, till they become impudent. These prophets conspired against those who were good in Jerusalem. They were cruel, murderous, covetous, inhumane, and all that even in the midst of Jerusalem. They did not blush at any or all these sins, only proceeded in their covetousness so that they got the treasure and precious things the people had.

Seen wickedness

God takes special notice of the sins of prophets. They are mentioned first in the general corruption that affected all sorts. There were priests’ sins, princes’ sins, and people’s sins, but the prophets are set in the front. They provoked God greatly. They did the most hurt. “From the prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the land” (Jer. 23:15). They were the corrupt springs, which corrupted the whole Jewish earth with the streams of their false doctrines, and the example of their sinful practices.

Their sins are spoken of in great detail in the Word, and set on record. God takes note of it all. They dealt falsely (Jer. 6:13). They “belied the Lord” (Jer. 5:12). They “taught rebellion against the Lord”’ (Jer. 28:16; 29:32). They “strengthened the hands of evil-doers,” so that no one returned from his wickedness (Jer. 23:14). They were “light and treacherous” (Zeph. 3:4). They deluded the people, and murdered their souls (Jer. 8:11; Eze. 13:10). They were exceedingly covetous, and greedy of gain from every quarter (Isa. 56:11; Mic. 3:5). They made the people forget the name of the Lord (Jer. 23:27). They were sly like foxes (Eze. 13:4).

When the prophets were defiled with such sins, they defiled the land with them, kindled the indignation of the Lord, and made Him say concerning them, “Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall” (Jer. 23:15), and that He would consume them by sword and famine (Jer. 14:15).

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