Malachi: Return To Me - Week 1 (Malachi 1:1-5)
Malachi 1:1-5
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God's Love For His People
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Malachi 1:1-5 〰️ God's Love For His People 〰️
This week, we’re beginning our new series in the book of Malachi! As we say with every passage of Scripture, there is so much to learn and grasp that we could spend a lifetime on a single book of the Bible and still discover new layers of God’s written Word. With that in mind, we’ll be focusing on God’s call for His people to return to Him. This has been a recurring theme throughout the Old Testament, a cycle that we saw in our series in Judges last year. Israel abandons God, falls into sin, that sin leads them to suffering, they cry out to God, and God rescues them. Rinse and repeat.
Background on Malachi:
The book of Malachi is the last of the prophetic books of the Old Testament. While we do not know for certain who he is, we’re certain of his place in the canon of Scripture. The emphasis of this book is more on God and His character, rather than the life and person of the author. Malachi himself is a mystery, but there are clues throughout the book that can reveal a rough timeframe for when the events and authorship took place. Context and cultural events point to around 515 BC, as we read that the temple had already been rebuilt, with worship well established (1:6–11; 2:1–3; 3:1, 10), but with enthusiasm and devotion fading.¹
The content of this book is God’s message to Israel: Return to me in sincere and faithful worship. God’s people again had strayed from Him, forgetting His faithfulness and losing reverence for His glory. The primary vessel God used to guide His people was the established priests, who had failed to lead the nation in proper worship of the Lord.
“As other incentives to obedience, Malachi pointed to: (1) God’s demonstrations of love for Israel (1:2), (2) their spiritual and covenant unity with God and with one another (2:10), and (3) a coming day of salvation and blessing for those who fear him (3:1–6; 3:16–4:3)”²
1:1-5
The Lord’s first words to His people in this book are a statement of His character and of His history: “I have loved you.” (v2) Beautifully, v5 caps this section with God declaring that there will be no doubt of His love for His people. Despite all that Israel has done and all the grief they have caused the Lord, they are still His chosen people. The Lord contrasts the favor He has shown Israel (Jacob) with the favor He has shown the people of Edom (v4), the descendants of Jacob’s brother, Esau (Gen 25). God then shows His sovereignty and Lordship over all that He has created: “Though Edom says, “We have been devastated, but we will rebuild the ruins,” the Lord of Armies says this: “They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called a wicked country and the people the Lord has cursed forever.” (v4)
Often, when we read a passage like this, we can get lost in the phrasing, missing the intention of the passage. The focus of this passage is not that God is a God who demolishes His enemies, curses the wicked, or even blesses His people (even though all of these are true). The core of this passage is that God is the One who decides. The world and its definition of good and bad are anchored to and orbit around the unchanging Yahweh. Good things are good and evil things are evil because He says so. All throughout Scripture, we get a robust picture of God’s unchanging nature, even here in Malachi: “Because I, the Lord, have not changed, you descendants of Jacob have not been destroyed.” (3:6) James says that God is without variation (James 1:17), Numbers tells us that God does not change His mind (Numbers 23:19), and the psalmist declares that God is the same, never changing (Psalm 102:27).
So, with God’s unchanging nature, we know we have a constant, unchanging goalpost for what is good and right. And with that, we can read all of God’s Word and say, “The Lord is great, even beyond the borders of Israel.” (v5). God’s goodness is not determined by how we feel, and there’s some wonderful freedom in that. And this is the purpose of this word to Israel from God: that in all of their rebellion, unfaithfulness, and even suffering, they would see God’s unchanging nature. They looked to God, maybe through a period of their unfaithfulness and unwillingness to listen, and asked, “How has God loved us?” The answer is simple: He never stopped. He loved them by making them a nation, by delivering them from slavery, and by loving them with patience in their routine rejection of Him. God’s character and intentions never changed, and in it, He sought to redeem all people to Him through Israel.
And so, the same is for us. We have the immense privilege of reading all of God’s written Word to see His constant character. All throughout Scripture, God’s hatred for wickedness is seen, not because He loves arbitrary punishment, but because He is just. Few people, if any, would say that a judge who allows evil to run free is corrupt, yet our Western, knee-jerk reaction is to think of God in the OT as a God of wrath, and we don’t much like that. We think of God as only a God of wrath, but all throughout the Bible, there’s overwhelming evidence of His love and goodness far outweighing His wrath. In Exodus, as He’s giving His people the Law (for their own protection and holiness), He tells them unfaithfulness will bring punishment to the third and fourth generations, but their faithfulness will lead to a thousand generations of blessings. “Do not bow in worship to them, and do not serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing faithful love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commands.” (Ex 20:5-6). How beautiful is that? The Lord returns wickedness with consequences, but grants 250x the blessings and favor.
So as we read passages like this, we have to be willing to hold with an open hand our cultural bias or initial feelings on tough concepts like wickedness and people being “cursed forever” (v4). While we change and the world around us shifts in moral permissibility, our Lord is a constant. He hates evil today, just as He did 2500+ years ago. And God loves His people (that’s us: see Ephesians 2:11-13) today just as He did 2500+ years ago. Our hope and life are in Christ (Colossians 3:3), and we are rescued (hidden) from the wrath of God. We can read a passage like this and rejoice in 1) God’s faithfulness to always bring justice, even when the timing doesn’t match our liking, and 2) that in His kindness, God plucked us from the depths of our wickedness and redeemed us!
Discussion Questions
Could someone read Ephesians 5:1-17 for us?
What stood out to you from the passage?
Does this passage remind you of another part of Scripture?
Do you have any questions?
What characteristics of God do we see in this passage?
In what ways have you doubted the love of God like Israel does in v2?
How do you see God’s unchanging nature both in this passage and throughout the Old Testament?
When was the last time you thanked God for His greatness? What prompted it, and how did that moment deepen your love for Him?
1. E. Ray Clendenen, CSB Study Bible: Notes (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017), 1468.
2. Ibid., 1468.