I think Anne answered the Ezekiel 18:23 passage just fine though I might add:

The operative word is pleasure: does God take pleasure in the death of the wicked? No. Does He decree that they die? Yes.

For we must remember the purpose of this passage: the people complain that they are judged on the basis of what their father's did (vs. 2). God declares that those who do right will live on the basis of what they have done, and those who have done wrong will die on the basis of what they have done. In other words, the passage in toto is about God's justice, not about His eternal decree to elect and reprobate.

Even in Romans 9, possibly the heaviest passage on reprobation in the whole Bible, we are told that God endures the wickedness of the 'vessels of wrath' with much long suffering. Though the death of the sinner is warranted by justice and thus God decrees it in accordance with His nature, we are not to think that He delights in it for death itself is contrary to the revealed will of God (that we might live - Ezekiel 18:32).

__________________
Rev. Daniel Kok
Pastor of Grace Reformed Church (URCNA)
Leduc, Alberta CANADA
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