Malachi Chapter Three, Fickle Israel

 

Malachi 3:7 Yet from the days of your fathers you have gone away from my ordinances and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD of hosts. “But you said, ‘In what way shall we return?’ [8] “Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, ‘In what way have we robbed you?’ In tithes and offerings.

 

Verse 7 leads with the word, “yet.” In the last verse God revealed His immutable nature to Israel. He reminded His covenant people that He is the unchanging One; He will always uphold His side of the covenant because He never changes. Contrasted to this are His people, with whom change is the norm. Israel’s history is replete with revival followed by apostasy, which brought about another revival. Great kings like David and Josiah brought great religious reforms into the nation. Other kings brought Israel down into the collective mire with them, forsaking the God of Israel in the process. To do evil, we His children must willingly forget Him. Knowledge of Him will compel us toward what is right; if we want to pursue the unclean we can’t have God in our thoughts. The first step of sin is to disavow God’s ruling prerogative in our lives and in our church. For Israel God never departed from among His people. Rather, His presence became the elephant in the room of which no one spoke for fear of being reminded of their sinfulness.

I suppose we might say that Israel (like all of humanity) is unchanging in one respect. Our sin nature, at war with the holy, always makes us traitors to what is good. We want what gratifies. We want the respect of men. We want the admiration of the vocal minority. We don’t want to feel alone, segregated from the vitality of our peer culture for clinging to what is true. That is especially so when what is being lauded as right is so diametrically opposed to truth that we know taking a stand would be personally costly.

 

Israel, since Moses’ day, has gone away from God. He draws them back, only for them to depart again. A great departure occurred when Moses sent spies out to look through the land of Canaan. Twelve men chosen from among the tribes stole through Canaan and brought back a bad report, weakening the resolve of the entire community of Israel, Numbers 13:31. Only Caleb and Joshua were resolute in their faith, encouraging the people to believe God and trust Him to accomplish what He said He would do, Numbers 14:9. As James warns, “Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles!” James 3:5. The doubt sown by ten men aroused the terror and mistrust of more than 600,000! See Numbers 1:46.

 

It really doesn’t take much for us to “go away” from God, as Israel did in Malachi’s time. God’s position is constant. When we are in Him we have drawn near to Him. When we are convicted of sin, our sin separates us from our Lord; we have walked away from fellowship with Him. When Scripture tells us that the Holy Spirit’s presence departs from men, this is only the repercussion of their departure from God. A holy God does not abide sin, nor will He indulge a saint walking in the flesh. Notice that God tells Israel that first they must return to Him. When they have repented and come back, He in turn will come back to them. That is because God dwells in light, and until we are ready to have our sin exposed for what it is there is no hope of approach and reconciliation. When we are ready to approach again, there is pardon for sin and renewed fellowship, 1 John 1:9, 2:1.

 

Israel inquires about the method of their return. Rather, it almost seems as if they are wondering where they have erred. In what shall we return? Is there some way in which we have strayed? Israel was given the covenant on Sinai: a unique agreement between God and a nation unparalleled in Earth’s history, not to be repeated again, Numbers 23:9, Psalm 147:19, 20, see also Deuteronomy 4:32-34. But the answer for that is simple: “You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, which if a man does he shall live by them: I am the Lord,” Leviticus 18:5. This verse is in reference to the contractual agreement between parties. The items of Israel’s obedience are listed in Exodus chapter 20, etc., while the relationship God would exhibit toward them nationally is outlined in Leviticus chapter 26.

 

The “life” that the Holy Spirit indicates is not one of an eternal, spiritual, nature. Note that unlike the gospel message indicating eternal or everlasting life (John 3:15, 16), the nature of this life has no descriptors. The verb in this verse “live,” is the Hebrew “chayay,” taken from “chayah,” which can mean, “to live, have life or preserve life.” This is how the verb was used in Genesis when it indicated how the animals boarding the ark would be kept alive. A good example of “chayah” is Deuteronomy 8:3, “that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.” The word for life then indicates not just physical existence, but the quality of one’s state so living. A man is not truly living until his will is subdued and subservient to the will of Him who is our Lord and Master. For life to yield pleasure and meaning we can’t simply chase after our physical wants with abandon; God knows we need them, and if we abide in His word and seek His will, He has already told us that we shall have these things, our daily bread as it were, Matthew 6:10, 11, 32-34.