Malachi Chapter Two, Guarding Knowledge

 

Malachi 2:7 For the lips of a priest should keep knowledge, and people should seek the law from his mouth; for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts.

 

Verse 6 stated the outcome of walking faithfully with God or where Levi was in position to Him. Verse 7 demonstrates why this is so important, or the applied purpose. The lips of a priest should keep knowledge, Malachi says. In the former verse Malachi stated in the negative that injustice was not found on the priest’s lips; now he says that is because a priest’s lips are not for perverting knowledge, but for keeping it. Like the cherubim kept the way to the tree of life (Genesis 3:24), so the priest was entrusted to keep God’s word for the people. All people, all walks of life, should seek the Mosaic Law from his mouth. Again in the previous verse Malachi tells us that the Law of truth was in fact in the mouth of Levi. Like a treasure ready to be dispensed to those who actually come looking for it, so was the priest’s reservoir of knowledge for the masses. The prophet summarizes why this should be so: because Levi is a messenger of the LORD of hosts. Malachi’s name meant what the function of the priesthood was to embody: the proclamation of God’s truth to His glory and human improvement. It can’t be otherwise. God doesn’t benefit from our acts of charity, in whatever form they come. No, it is people who benefit. Therefore the proper application of the Law was always to provide safety and moral freedom for God’s people. When the remedy was applied to correct iniquity in the hearer God was glorified. A simple truth might be derived from this. What benefits humanity from God’s word, applied with love, can only glorify the Author. The corruption of what is true, taught or practiced, brings reproach upon God and profanes His word.

The truest test for a messenger of the LORD of hosts, then, was his intentions toward others. Did he preach God’s word because love does no harm to a neighbor, therefore fulfilling the law? Or was there self-seeking and avarice involved? Jeremiah lamented the dreadful state of the priesthood, not to mention the office of the prophet of his day. God informed the prophet that for these reasons (among others) judgment was coming upon Judah and Jerusalem. “An astonishing and horrible thing has been committed in the land: the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own power; and My people love to have it so…from the prophet, even to the priest, everyone deals falsely,” Jeremiah 5:31, 6:13. The laxity began with those who were given the title of shepherds. They grew lazy and wanton watching God’s flock. In turn the flock began to stray, each to their own devices while the priests were more concerned with gain or fame than obedience. The result was moral disintegration from within, making the external structure brittle and incapable of outside pressures. It collapsed on itself in the end since the Jews built not on the rock of Christ but the sinking sand of presumptuous familiarity with Yahweh, their covenant God.

 

Christian teachers, be that elder, pastor, Bible study leader, Sunday school teacher: take to heart this lesson. If we find ourselves in the position of teaching, we must not only be ready to answer with God’s truth. Our lives must reflect conformity to His will. God’s truth isn’t purely intellectual. It isn’t meant to be stored like food in one’s larder. If you only stored away your food and never ate it, it is self-evident that you would promptly succumb to starvation. God’s word isn’t meant to be for external display (i.e. what we can memorize, or how we can wax eloquently with it). It is for consumption. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God,” Deuteronomy 8:3, Matthew 4:4. If knowledge is on the priest’s lips like crumbs from a meal and the Law is in his mouth, it is clear that the priest was commanded to internalize the word. Being nourished by the word makes one fit for service and then we may impart to others what we ourselves have tasted and known by experience to be good for the soul. Having only a form of godliness (again, an external representation or image of what is genuine) will NEVER turn a sinner from the error of his way. The successful son of Levi in verse 6 is also the studious, submissive, and Spirit-filled Levi of verse 7. “Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed…righteousness shall go before Him, and shall make His footsteps our pathway” Palm 85:10, 13. To walk with God is to go where He leads, to follow where He directs. The outcome is a flawless conglomeration of winsome attributes that reflect the godliness one has received from taking in God’s word by faith and, as our understanding permits, obeying from the heart. Faithful Levi served God in like manner. Malachi reminded the priesthood of his time that these things were so. If they feared God and the loss of their blessings (and potentially their life), they would heed the burden directed at them.

 

In the spirit of rightly dividing the word, as the priests of the temple ought to do, we should momentarily consider the fundamental nature of Biblical exegesis. I’m sure that nearly all of us have seen a woven tapestry at some point in our lives. I would liken the Bible to such a thing. It is a series of threads, woven together to form a complete picture. From behind we can trace the individual threads, and from the front we can appreciate the beauty of its internal coherence. Every thread being a verse, each one compliments the next while also reinforcing it: the definition of what is referred to as progressive revelation. That is why isolating verses cannot work. Eisegesis removes a thread and therefore destroys that verse’s purpose as it pertains to the whole image. The Bible is a masterpiece, a work of art that glorifies its Author. A tapestry is not meant to be dissected and appreciated simply in its constituent pieces; it is meant to be taken as a whole. Like the Law, Scripture is one unit. If it suffers violence its purpose and integrity are forfeit.