God's Love

Heavenly Father, we pray that by your Holy Spirit you will open your Word to our hearts and our minds, and our hearts and minds to your Word, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

We’re starting a new series of Sunday morning sermons in the Old Testament book of Malachi – the last book in the Old Testament. But, before we start, a modern person not brought up in the Christian tradition might ask “but why in the 21st century study the Old Testament?” The clearest answer is in Paul’s second letter to Timothy, chapter 3 (and referring to the Old Testament) he writes (2 Timothy 3.15):

the sacred writings…are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

Although the writings form an 'Old' Testament, they are prophetic and look forward to their fulfilment in so many ways in Jesus Christ. They witness to him. However, that’s only one half of the answer, for Paul goes on in verses 2 Timothy 3.16-17 to say:

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

So, the Old Testament has an educational and moral value. It can correct wrong ideas and wrong behaviour and train us in what is right and true, and how we need that today! As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, referring to the wilderness wanderings (1 Corinthians 10.6 and 1 Corinthians 10.11):

Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did…but they were written down for our instruction.

As Peter Adam, the Old Testament scholar, insists:

We can see that these two great purposes, the prophetic and the moral, are not mutually contradictory…[Therefore], what God has joined together, we should not separate.

So we are to study these Sunday mornings Malachi, which is a book pointing forward explicitly to Christ’s coming and has many lessons for the life of faith generally. And, at this point, you might find it helpful to open your pew Bibles to page 801 and Malachi 1.1-5 (or your devices if watching at home.) And in what I want to say, I have three headings. First, Malachi’s Introduction; secondly, God’s Love; thirdly, God’s Justice. So:

1. Malachi’s Introduction

How does Malachi himself introduce what he has to say? Look at Malachi 1.1:

The oracle [or ‘burden’ as it can be translated] of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi.

Every phrase in Malachi’s personal introduction is meaningful:

i). What he has to say in our verses, we’ll discover, is corrective. It was serious oracle – not light hearted. It was a burden. So we need to be ready to be challenged.

ii). But it was the word or a message of the LORD. Our God is a speaking God. In the New Testament we are told (Hebrews 1.1):

Long ago, at many times and in many ways God spoke to our fathers by the prophets [ie including Malachi], but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world

And as 2 Peter 1.21 says:

No prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

Yes, it came through the prophet Malachi in his own style, but at the same time, miraculously, the Holy Spirit ensured it was the word of God himself. And Malachi’s message is called in Malachi 1.1 the word of the LORD. The word LORD in the original is the most holy name of God (YAHWEH) the great “I am” – the one who is from everlasting to everlasting and the creator of space and time. So, being our maker, how unreasonable and foolish not to listen to, and learn from him, our maker, and his instructions.

iii). Malachi’s message (whose name means 'messenger') was in the first instance to Israel – the name of God’s covenant people. Going back centuries, historically Israel was another name for the patriarch Jacob. Even non-believers will know Jacob of “Jacob and Sons” (twelve sons) made famous by Lloyd Webber’s musical. For one of twelve was Joseph with his coat of many colours. And these sons’ families led to the formation of the twelve tribes of Israel.

However In the preceding centuries to Malachi (from King David in 1000 BC) to the Babylonian captivity in the 500s BC they had (both in the North and the South) a very chequered history. You discover this as you read the Old Testament. And one of the worst things was this Babylonian captivity. For Jerusalem was taken captive with its protective walls and beautiful temple destroyed and the people were forced into exile in Babylon. But then the Persians conquered the Babylonians, and Cyrus, the brilliant Persian leader, immediately encouraged the exiled Jews in 538 to return home. By no means all did. Back home the distinction between the Northern kingdom and the Southern kingdom of Judah was no longer operative. However, the temple was rebuilt and the so later were the walls under Nehemiah the Jewish commissioner acting under Persian authority. And it was in this time of transition that scholars think Malachi was prophesying to Israel – not individuals but to such of the nation as would hear.

So Israel in Malachi’s time was the name given to all Jacob’s descendents, having never left Palestine or those having returned home from exile. And they were to live faithfully in the terms of the Lord’s covenant, at the heart of which were those ten commandments given by God at the time of Moses. So this is the context for The oracle of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi. And so much for Malachi’s own introduction. That brings us to:

2. God’s Love (for his people, Malachi 1.2-3a):

“I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob's brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated.”

The first lesson Malachi wants to remind his hearers -the people of God collectively is that God loves his people. The LORD, the maker of this universe, loves them. So Malachi suggests that the fundamental question in theology is not about God’s existence. For deep down everyone believes in something. As G K Chesterton famously said:

When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they become capable of believing in anything.

No! The fundamental question in theology is what is God like? And fundamentally he is, first, a loving God. As Lamentations 3.22-23 says:

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

But it is love for his people. So the second lesson is that God loves his people when experiences make them doubt. And it’s typical of Malachi that he teaches by the dialogue method - by a statement of the fact followed by a response from the man in the street. So the fundamental statement is (Malachi 1.2):

“’I have loved you,’ says the Lord?” [And the response is:] “But you say, ‘How have you loved us?’”…

For those in the street hadn’t understood the lessons God had been teaching them. They didn’t count their blessings. For starters, the walls had been rebuilt and there was a new Temple. They only saw the negatives: there was Persian foreign rule; the new Temple was much inferior to the old one; and rebuilding the walls had been a struggle. So how does God try to persuade these people (disillusioned and discouraged)? And answer is in the third lesson namely that God’s love entirely depends on God’s grace. For Malachi’s audience needs to turn from their own thoughts and ideas, to what God has done in history – in fact in pre-history and the predestining purposes of God. So, through Malachi, God reminds them of Esau and Jacob (Malachi 1.2-3).

…“Is not Esau Jacob's brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated…

Esau and Jacob were twin brothers, the sons of Isaac and Rebekah (with Isaac the son of Abraham) but Esau was born first. However, God did not chose him (the first born) for renewing the covenant promises God made to Abraham first and then to Isaac. He chose Jacob as next, even after his dishonesty. With his mother’s connivance, he had virtually robbed Esau of his inheritance. So totally against expectation God promised Jacob (in a famous visionary experience, Genesis 28.14):

In you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed

And in later life Jacob saw the beginning of that promise of blessing in his son Joseph who became the Prime Minister of Egypt! But isn’t all this unfair? Fairness is the wrong category. Paul, helps us understand God’s electing love in our New Testament reading and in Romans 9.10-13 and the birth of the twins:

…when Rebekah had conceived children [the twins Esau and Jacob] by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls— she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.

So when God’s loves someone it's not for what they have done, it's simply because he loves them. It is free, unconditional, electing love. It’s entirely of God’s grace. And some of Malachi’s hearers would have remembered at this point Deuteronomy 7.7-8:

It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you.

This doctrine presents all sorts of intellectual problems, but if it's true, it's true and truly humbling. And that is the fourth lesson and briefly that God’s electing love is humbling. If you are a believer here this morning try this experiment, think of someone you know who have become positively anti-Christian. Then remind yourself that you haven’t gone that way entirely because God loves you not because you are better than they are. It is entirely because of God’s love. Yes, you should argue against them when it is appropriate, but humbly thinking “There but for the love and the grace of God go I”.

So, to recap, first God loves his people; two, God still loves is people when experiences make them doubt; three, God’s love entirely depends on his grace; and four, God’s love is humbling. That brings us thirdly, and finally, to:

3. God’s Justice

And Malachi 1.3-5:

…Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.” If Edom says, “We are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins,” the Lord of hosts says, “They may build, but I will tear down, and they will be called ‘the wicked country’, and ‘the people with whom the Lord is angry for ever.’” Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, “Great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel!

But does God ever hate? Some find that a difficult concept, but the answer has to be yes – for example, Proverbs 6.16-19 says:

There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and heads that shed innocent blood, a heart devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies and one who sows discord among brothers.

But some argue we are dealing here with a Hebrew idiom, where “love” and “hate” is used of people and are really meaning “prefer” and “to think less of”. That may be so, but that does not affect the critical issue. That is, Jacob was elected by God and Esau was not. Esau was passed over. Jacob was privileged, even though he was a sinner. Esau was not privileged and he and the people of Edom paid for their sins and so experienced God’s justice. And what the result of that justice (or God’s hatred) was is spelt out in Malachi 1.3-4:

“I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.” If Edom says, “We are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins,” the Lord of hosts says, “They may build, but I will tear down, and they will be called ‘the wicked country’, and ‘the people with whom the Lord is angry for ever.’”

And they were wicked. For, one thing, they notoriously joined with the Babylonians in the attack on Jerusalem at the beginning of the 500s BC (Obadiah 10-14). However, there is still a great mystery here. But, as Deuteronomy 29.29 says:

The secret thing belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do the words of this law.

God’s elective purposes will remain a mystery, but what Malachi reveals is that God is loving and also God is just and his love makes him hate evil. So there’s electing love and justice love. Both are vital, and, of course, their resolution was at the Cross of Calvary, where God so loved the world that he gave his only Son to suffer the justice we deserve. And there, according to 1 Peter 2.24:

[Jesus Christ] himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

So I close with the prophecy we know to be true. For that message of the forgiveness of sins and new life in Christ has already spread worldwide (Malachi 1.5):

Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, “Great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel!

Amen