Read Malachi
1-4 & Revelation
22
To discover:
As you read consider what
God rebukes in Malachi’s hearers.
To ponder:
Malachi
confronts sin in the growing post-exilic community in Jerusalem
and Judea . The book opens with a rhetorical dialogue in
which God affirms his love for his people. He proves this by appealing to the
fact that he loved Jacob (who became Israel )
over his brother Esau, whose land (Edom )
he has now turned into a wasteland in judgement, and which will forever remain
the “wicked land” under his wrath, despite the Edomites saying they will
rebuild. In declaring he “hated” Esau, God therefore means he was against him
because of his sin. And he states that on seeing him keep the Edomites down,
his people will praise his greatness and acknowledge his sovereignty extends
beyond Israel
(1v1-5).
What follows shows that the Jews
were no better than the Edomites. God asks why the priests don’t honour and
respect him as sons and servants should. Malachi anticipates them asking how
they have shown contempt. God’s answer is that they have defiled his altar with
imperfect offerings they wouldn’t even offer their governor. By asking if the
governor would be pleased or accept the priests for this, God shows his own displeasure
(1v6-8). And the same applies if we offer ourselves or our gifts only
half-heartedly to the LORD.
God urges the priests to implore him
to be gracious, and states he would rather have the new temple’s doors shut so
the priests would not light fires on his altar, because these fires are useless
as the offerings don’t please him. Likewise, he would rather we weren’t in
church than that we showed him contempt with insincerity. Yet God responds that
his name will one day be great throughout the world with incense and acceptable
offerings given (1v9-11). In other words, his promises through the prophets of
an everlasting kingdom of righteousness after the return and rebuilding of the
temple, is still some way off, but will be fulfilled.
1v12-13 implies that the priests
even scoff at the altar (Lord’s Table), calling it defiled (as if a wrong way
to worship), its offerings contemptible, and their service a burden – so
profaning the whole thing. Likewise, some ministers today charge aspects of
worship as evil, disgraceful and burdensome – such as the call to wholehearted
repentance. God is clear: Those who can give an acceptable sacrifice and vow
to, yet then give a blemished one, are cursed. The reason he gives is that he
is to be feared in his greatness. In other words, such flippancy denigrates his
holiness with knock-on effects in the wider community (1v14). This was exactly
the issue with Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5v1-11). And their fate did cause God
to be feared.
He continues that he will curse the
priests’ blessing, as he had already begun to do, if they do not listen and
determine to honour him from the heart. He would keep their descendents from
thriving, by causing this generation to be carried off with the dung from their
offerings – implying they will be discarded as unclean (2v1-3). God’s command
for them to repent is therefore so that he might continue his covenant with
Levi - to have his descendents minister as priests (Jer 33v21). The covenant
promise was of life and peace to Levi, and its stipulations were for him to
revere God, which he did by teaching the truth, walking uprightly and turning
many from sin. Of course the priesthood came later than Levi, through Aaron, so
this must refer to the faithfulness of the tribe in Israel ’s
early history (Ex 32v26-29). The LORD’s point is that priests should preserve
knowledge as God’s messengers, whereas these priests have violated God’s
covenant with Levi, by instead leading people into sin. This is why God says he
has caused them to be despised and humiliated before the people, perhaps in the
sense that the people saw them for what they were (2v4-9). All believers, and
especially ministers of the gospel, can likewise be faithful to the calling of
verses 5 and 6, or not.
Malachi now changes tack, charging
the people with breaking faith (ie. commitments) with one-another. His point is
that just as the people were created and fathered as a nation by one God, they
should be committed to each another. These truths lie behind our same
responsibility to live in love for our fellow Christians. Yet by not doing so,
the Jews had broken God’s covenant with the patriarchs by not living uprightly.
First, they had done the detestable thing of intermarrying with women of other
religions, and so desecrating the newly built temple, presumably by bringing
offerings having committed idolatry or been defiled by it through marriage.
This broke faith with fellow Israelites because it broke the commitment they
made together before God not to do this (as Neh 10v28-30). Such people were
therefore to be cut off from the community of Israel .
Second, others wept at the altar because God did not answer their prayers, when
this was only because he was acting as a witness to their marriage covenants,
which they had broken through unjustified divorce. Echoing 2v10 we again hear
God has made the married couple one in flesh and spirit because he wanted them
to raise godly offspring. And for this reason he urges them to guard their
spirits so they don’t break faith in such divorce, which God hates and likens
to violence against the wife – no doubt because of the pain and destruction it
brings on her (2v10-16). Both rebukes need to be heard by Christians in our
day, as does the intent God has for believing marriage.
Here we read that God was tired of
the people for saying those who do evil are good in his eyes – perhaps those
who intermarried or divorced in these ways. Yet he was also wearied by their
asking where he was – no doubt because, on the basis of the prophets compacted
predictions, they expected the rebuilding of the temple to be immediately
followed by God judging the nations and establishing his perfect kingdom with
him in its midst (2v17). God’s response is that he will send a messenger to
prepare his way, and then will himself come suddenly. He seems to refer to
himself then as “the messenger of the covenant” – perhaps implying he will come
as the angel of the LORD who accompanied the giving of the Mosaic covenant. The
point however is that, rather than bringing a time of joy and peace as the
people assumed, God will bring judgement because of their unfaithfulness. So he
asks who can endure his appearing, and says he will do two things when he
comes: refine the Levites so they will bring the people’s offerings in righteousness,
and judge those who engage in sorcery, immorality, dishonesty and oppression
(3v1-5). We should ensure we are truly repentant before longing to meet God!
Here God affirms he doesn’t change
so will engage with the people as he always has. He has ensured they are not
destroyed even though they have always turned from him. And as always, he
promises that if they return to him, he will to them. In anticipation of the
question over how they should return, he states they should stop robbing him by
failing to give the full tithes required of them for the running of the temple
(against Neh 10v32-39). He urges them to test him in this, by giving it in
full, trusting him to so bless their land with fruitfulness and delightfulness,
that all nations acknowledge it. We are called to similar faith-fuelled
generosity (2 Cor 9v6-11). God then charges the people with saying harsh things
against him in claiming it is futile to serve him and that they have gained
nothing by their obedience and mourning for sin, as the arrogant and evildoers
prosper, and those who challenge God escape. Such sentiments come all too
easily when God seems slow in keeping his promises (3v6-15).
We’re told some who heard all this
then feared God, encouraging one-another to honour him. We need such
one-anothering if we are to be faithful (Heb 10v24-25). It seems Malachi then
recorded their names before the presence of God in the temple to signify God
remembering them, to which God responded that they would be his, and would be
spared, as a son by his father, when God finally makes his treasured possession
– ie. the final community of the faithful (as Ex 19v5). This must refer to the
final judgement, when God will separate the righteous who serve God from the
wicked who don’t (3v16-18). Like these repentant individuals, if we fear God
our names are recorded for that day (Rev 20v15). Indeed, it will set the
arrogant on fire, leaving nothing of them. But those who revere God will
experience healing and life as under a sun of God’s righteousness, and will
trample the wicked like ash under their feet. In the light of this the people
are called to remember and so keep the Mosaic law, and are promised Elijah to
unite fathers and children in love, which was the key means faithfulness in
Israel was to be passed on (4v1-6). The point is that this messenger (as 3v1)
will get the people living in faithfulness so that when God comes he will not
strike the land with a curse, but find faithfulness.
No further revelation was given for
four hundred years, until Gabriel told Zechariah that his son John (the
Baptist) would do just this in the spirit and power of Elijah (Lk 1v17). And so
he prepared the way for God to finally come to his people in Christ, with
judgement and with salvation!
Praying
it home:
Praise God that
for his readiness to renew us so that we would be faithful to him. Pray that
you would offer the best of yourself and what you have wholeheartedly to him.
Thinking
further:
Well done. You’ve done it! To read an introduction to
Malachi from the NIV Study Bible, click
here.
As for the future: I may add further (and much briefer) reflections on the NT at some point. If you would like to hear if I do, just remain subscribed. It's been a privilege journeying through the Bible with you. All to God's glory. Jon
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