Broken RelationshipsMalachi 2:10-16

Main Idea: The permanence of God’s covenant with Israel’s fathers is threatened by Israel’s pervasive faithlessness, but renewal begins with faithfulness to the covenant of marriage.

1. Introduction: Depraved Leadership Leads to Faithless Followers.
2. Covenant Infidelity Manifested by Israel’s Faithlessness to One Another (2:10)
3. Covenant Infidelity Manifested by Israel’s Faithlessness to the Precepts of God (2:11-12)
4. Covenant Infidelity Manifested by Israel’s Faithlessness to Their Marriage Partners (2:13-14)
5. Covenant Renewal Begins with Faithfulness to the Covenant of Marriage (2:15-16).
6. Conclusion: Christ as the Faithful Bridegroom Relentlessly Pursuing His Bride, the Church

Introduction: Depraved Leadership Leads to Faithless Followers

Enemies from outside Rome’s gates did not cause it to crumble. It was entirely forces from within its walls. The enemy was the decay of religion and the degradation of the home, a result of rampant divorce. For those of us who live in the West today, this truth should raise a few alarms.

In Malachi 2:10-16 God, through Malachi, is chastising the Israelites, particularly the priests, for the faithlessness shown to their spouses. Modern Christians are encouraged through this passage to remain faithful to our first love, the triune God.

Covenant Infidelity Manifested by Israel’s Faithlessness to One Another (Malachi 2:10)

Malachi provides three ways the Israelites can renew their commitment to the Lord. First, He calls Israel to reflect on her capricious strife between tribes. He asks that the disjointed tribes recognize that they share a common Father. Some theologians, notably Calvin and Jerome, suggest that the “one Father” is Abraham. (Lange, Commentary, 16). However, that view seems to be a bit limited. More appropriately, “one Father” is most likely referring to God. Look at the second part of that verse: “Didn’t one God create us?” The word create is the key. It is the same word used in Genesis 1 when Moses wrote of God creating the heavens and the earth. God formed us and afterward chose us. It’s the same idea that He tried to communicate in chapter 1 when He said, “I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau.”

Malachi begins to assert the notion of God’s choosing and calling His people—the ultimate unifying factor between them. “The only reason you people are created as a nation, in fact the only reason you exist as a nation is because of Me,” the Lord effectively says. Every time the word create is used in the OT it refers to God’s sovereign authority.

Malachi’s message is simple: Don’t forget where you came from, and don’t forget who called you. Here’s a point to ponder: Forgetfulness will lead to faithlessness. Look at the text. “Why then do we act treacherously against one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?” God rebukes their ill-treatment of each other within the community of faith. That phrase translated “one another” could be translated “our brothers,” signifying the community of faith, the nation of Israel.

The uniform, the badge, that testifies to one’s salvation in God is unity with other believers. In the OT this community of faith was the nation of Israel. In the NT, it is the church. The badge that proves you’re a believer of the Lord Jesus Christ is your love for others, particularly for the community of faith—no matter the race, nationality, or ethnicity of them.

Jesus said we would be recognized as His disciples by our love for one another. By implication, a lost world will question whether you’re a disciple if you lack love for one another. Could someone say of a disciple of Christ, “He’s angry with everybody. She’s critical all the time. He’s prejudiced about everything.” Malachi’s point is that the children of God must be characterized by their love for one another, not hatred. Treachery among the people of God may indicate a person doesn’t belong to the community bound by God’s covenant.

Covenant Infidelity Manifested by Israel’s Faithlessness to the Precepts of God (Malachi 2:11-12)

Next, Malachi probes a little deeper into the tribe of Judah when he says they were faithless to the precepts of God (v. 11). Judah’s faithlessness is “detestable” to the Lord. If we study OT passages like Leviticus 18:29, this “detestable thing” deserved destruction and, ultimately, death. God is saying, “You have committed the unimaginable act of profaning My sanctuary.”

We don’t know exactly what the act was, but if we examine Jeremiah’s sermon in Jeremiah 7, we get a sense of how Israel, on another occasion, profaned the Lord. Jeremiah lists transgressions that may provide clues to the meaning. He exclaims, “Do you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and follow other gods that you have not known?” (Jer 7:9). The accusation is given. The people of God are on the stand and God is the prosecuting attorney. Their indictment is that they have profaned the Lord through theft, murder, adultery, and deceit. Worst of all, they have chased after false gods—the ultimate betrayal of their covenantal relationship with Him.

Israel finds herself in a compromising predicament before a holy God. They have allowed their daughters to marry foreign deities by divorcing their first love—Yahweh. “Foreign god” in Malachi 2:11 refers to any other god than the one true God of Israel.

Some believe that the offense in view is idolatry because the men worshipped foreign, pagan gods or goddesses. Idolatry is certainly an issue, but the text should be examined in the context of marriage. Whenever marriage is mentioned in similar contexts of the Bible, it is talking about the covenantal relationship between God and Israel. God is always described as the bridegroom, and Israel is always described as the bride. Here it is different: Judah is the bridegroom and the bride is a “daughter” of someone else. Therefore, Malachi is not talking about idolatry in turning to the goddess-daughters of false gods. He has in mind real marriage and real divorce here, describing how the men were divorcing their wives and marrying outside the community of faith.

Basically, the sons of God were marrying the daughters of pagans. How could they marry unbelievers when God strictly prohibited this practice in the OT? The answer could be personal gain. The people had just returned to the promised land from being exiled in Babylon for many years. One of the quickest ways to secure wealth was to marry into a prestigious family. They apparently ignored the precepts of God for personal profit and intermarried with pagan women after divorcing the wives of their youth.

God strictly forbade these actions in the OT, but not because He discriminated against ethnic groups. The issue is not racial exclusivity. It is an issue of inclusivity and protection of His covenant people from idolatry. In Deuteronomy 7:3-4 God firmly outlines this for the people:

Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, because they will turn your sons away from Me to worship other gods. Then the Lord’s anger will burn against you, and He will swiftly destroy you.

The apostle Paul probably has in mind this passage of Deuteronomy when he confronts the Corinthians with these words:

What agreement does Christ have with Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? And what agreement does God’s sanctuary have with idols? (2 Cor 6:15-16)

The problem with marrying someone who is an unbeliever isn’t merely that they belong to a different religious organization. The problem with marrying an unbeliever is the different worldview through which they view all things. They perceive the world differently than a believer does. Christians have a certain system, a lens through which they view the world. An unbeliever does not look through that same lens.

Christians have a framework based on Christ by which we love, give, and live. It shapes how we spend our time, our talents, and our investments. It molds the way we raise our kids. It shapes the way we participate in organizations. It shapes our discipline and our dedication. And to unite oneself in marriage with someone who has a contradictory worldview creates a tremendous temptation to abandon the one true God for worldly, unbiblical pursuits. This was true for Israel, and it is still true for Christians today.

Verse 12, while difficult to translate, speaks to the consequences of disobedience to the Lord. It brings to mind 1 Samuel 15, when Saul was chosen to be the king, and God, through the prophet Samuel, provided Saul a pretty straightforward plan. He said,

Now go and attack the Amalekites and completely destroy everything they have. Do not spare them. Kill men and women, children and infants, oxen and sheep, camels and donkeys. (1 Sam 15:3)

The reason for such specificity and utter annihilation is solely because God didn’t want Israel to be distracted. He didn’t want them influenced by unbelieving pagans. So Saul goes in with the help of the Lord and he emerges victorious, destroying the Amalekites and following the plan, except for a few minor details. First, he takes the spoils of the land for himself. Second, he takes the Amalekite king and allows him to remain alive. Third, he takes some of the cattle or sheep, surely thinking, “We don’t want to waste the livestock!”

Samuel the prophet confronts Saul for an explanation about his disobedience. Saul explains his reason for taking the cattle and the extra, negligible items was to offer them to the Lord. In response Samuel pierces Saul’s heart with these words:

Does the Lord take pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? Look: to obey is better than sacrifice, to pay attention is better than the fat of rams. (1 Sam 15:22)

Apparently, the priests in Malachi’s day had not learned this lesson from Israel’s history. Neglecting God’s clear commands by chasing after foreign wives resulted in their offerings being rejected. What a high price to pay for selfish gain!

Covenant Infidelity Manifested by Israel’s Faithlessness to Their Marriage Partners (Malachi 2:13-14)

The third citation against the people was in their faithlessness to the partner of their marriage. For the third time God offers a criticism against His people (vv. 11, 12, 13). To understand God’s disapproval, we must first identify whose “tears” are on the altar. The tears are of the men who have divorced their wives to marry pagan women. Now they expect the Lord to acquit them of the crime by accepting their offering.

Did you notice the emotional anguish in this verse? The men are “weeping and groaning”; however, God’s mind is made up. He essentially responds to them, “I have cut you off from My presence.” We see in this text the covenantal nature of marriage, as we see throughout the OT (e.g., Prov 2; Ezek 16). In the garden of Eden God used identical covenantal language when He stated, “A man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh” (Gen 2:24). Both participants are to leave the influence of their past and create, together, a new union under the guidance of a holy God. Jesus affirms this covenant in the NT:

But from the beginning of creation God made them male and female. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, man must not separate. (Mark 10:6-9)

Malachi connects the covenant of marriage to their covenant with God. Effectively, God says, “You men married your wives by way of a covenant, which is a depiction of your relationship with Me.”

Surprisingly, the priests respond ignorantly: “For what reason?” They’re asking why God rejects their worship. The Lord answers,

Because the Lord has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have acted treacherously against her, though she was your marriage partner and your wife by covenant.

One Puritan commentator described what’s happening in this verse:

The woman whom you have wronged was the companion of those earlier and brighter days of your life when, in the bloom of her young beauty she left her father’s house and shared in your early struggles and rejoiced in your later success, who walked arm in arm with you along the pilgrimage of your life cheering you in its trials by her gentle ministry. And now when the bloom of her youth has faded and the friends of her youth have gone, when her father and mother whom she left for you are in the grave, then you cruelly cast her off as a worn out worthless thing and insult her holiest affections by putting an idolater and a heathen in her place. (Moore, Haggai, 134).

We live in a day when divorce is not a last resort, but the first. Tom Brokaw, several years ago, spoke about the generation of men and women who lived through World War II, saying, “it was the last generation in which, broadly speaking, marriage was a commitment and divorce was not an option” (Greatest Generation, 231). But now people think separation would be easier for their situation, though it often only causes more problems. What is more terrible is that the true casualties of divorce are the children. They are the bystanders of separation and they are the ones who feel it the most.

Friends, let me challenge you: before a Christian should ever divorce, he should do everything in his power to make it work. Remember that your marriage agreement is not just with your wife, it’s with God. When you repeated, “I do,” you spoke those words in the presence of God.

Covenant Renewal Begins with Faithfulness to the Covenant of Marriage (Malachi 2:15-16)

Finally, Malachi gives a challenge, a charge. Implicitly, he said, “Follow the instructions of God. You men have been faithless to the precepts of God. You’ve been faithless to people of God. You’ve been faithless to the partner of your marriage. But now I want you to follow the instructions of God.” Look at verses 15-16:

Didn’t the one God make us with a remnant of His life-breath? And what does the One seek? A godly offspring. So watch yourselves carefully, and do not act treacherously against the wife of your youth.

“If he hates and divorces his wife,” says the Lord God of Israel, “he covers his garment with injustice,” says the Lord of Hosts. Therefore, watch yourselves carefully, and do not act treacherously.

The command to “watch yourselves” is a means of protection. It is a practical command for us to monitor the negative, unspiritual information that we receive from unbelievers. We need to monitor who is speaking into our lives about our biblical commitments, particularly the covenant we have made with our spouse.

If I have a strangely shaped mole on my leg, I won’t go to a salesman friend of mine and ask, “Hey Mike, can you come look at this thing?” He may bend down and say, “Wow, that growth is asymmetrical and discolored. Spider veins are shooting out from the sides. It looks fine to me. Just put some Neosporin on it. You’ll be fine in the morning.” Would I follow that advice? No! I probably wouldn’t seek Mike’s opinion in the first place! I would make an appointment to see a doctor to diagnose my problem. So why would you ever listen to unbelievers about a covenant you made with God? Wouldn’t you seek godly counsel from brothers and sisters in the church to speak into your relationship?

The University of Chicago supports this advice with their study of people who stayed together and people who divorced. The researchers found that couples in the midst of struggle had a significant chance of staying together when married friends encouraged them to remain together. On the other hand, couples in turmoil had a higher risk of divorce when their divorced friends expressed bitter anger toward their own ex-husbands or ex-wives (Braverman, “Healthy, Wealthy, & Wed”).

Paul says that bad company corrupts good character (1 Cor 15:33). Who makes up your closest friends? Whose advice is central in your life? If you want to know your future, take a photograph of your friends.

Verse 16 effectively states, “God hates divorce.” This is the hardest verse in Malachi to translate accurately. What we can say is that emphasis is added to what is being said, with God’s name framing the statement. In essence, God bookends this truth with His signature. He says, “You can take this to the bank. This is something I do not want to happen. Divorce is comparable to smearing lies and treachery on your clothes, which is a deplorable act. Don’t do it.” The marriage covenant is a picture of Christ, the bridegroom, and His relationship with His church, the bride (Eph 5:22-32). A divorce portrays a picture of Christ (the man) abandoning His church, which He never does, and the church (the woman) leaving Christ, something we are advised not to do.

Conclusion: Christ as the Faithful Bridegroom Relentlessly Pursuing His Bride, the Church

Edward Gibbon wrote The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in the eighteenth century. In this six-volume work he says there are five reasons why the Roman Empire fell—the great Roman Empire, the indestructible Roman Empire. Would you take a stab at some of the five? Let me give you two of them that I think are apropos to this text.

The first and foremost reason the Roman Empire fell was the rapid divorce within the community, which in turn undermined the dignity and sanctity of the home. Divorce was the number one reason. A second reason was the decay of religion—at that time, Christianity—allowing it to become ritualistic and lifeless. This is after the rise of Constantine, when Christianity moved from the little “c” catholic church, that is, the universal church, to the big “C” Catholic Church, led by the military leader Constantine. As he looked at history, Gibbon concluded that Rome did not fall because of enemies from without; rather, it imploded from within. Those in the West today should take heed.

It is easy to take some of these words and begin publicly flogging people who have been divorced. However, let the record show: divorce is not the unpardonable sin. God does not hate divorce any worse than He hates any other sin; all sin is deplorable to the Lord. So what do you do if you’ve been divorced? You repent, ask God for forgiveness, and move forward with your life because failure is not final in your life. The past is unchangeable. If God has forgiven you, forgive yourself.

Let me remind you, brother or sister who isn’t divorced—before you begin to point the finger at another person who is divorced—to look at the landscape of your own life to determine ways you have failed and places you have fallen. Who can stand in the presence of a holy God? Listen to God’s Word and, whether you’re remarried, married for the first time, or about to be married, settle it in your heart now that you will stay together to the end. “Till death do us part” is not a line you casually repeat. Make it a mantra to live by.

Finally, we must look to the One who was faithful, Jesus Christ. Israel was seduced by other gods, but Jesus Christ remained faithful to the God of the covenant, and He relentlessly pursued His bride while on earth as an example for us. Even though people were unfaithful to Him, Christ remained faithful, all the way to the cross, so that He might purchase the redemption of His people with His own blood. This is the story of the gospel, it is the standard for faithfulness, it is the confidence of our salvation, and it is the only hope we have to mend all of our broken relationships.

Reflect and Discuss

1. Recall the story of how the Lord saved you. How do you see His “creating” work in your heart and life (see Mal 2:10; Eph 2:1-10)?
2. Compare Malachi 2:10 with Jesus’ words in John 13:31-35. How are they similar? How are they different?
3. What do you think it means to profane God’s sanctuary? What are some specific ways we can offend God in this way, even without a temple?
4. What are some practical difficulties to marrying someone who doesn’t share your worldview? How might you be tempted to compromise or devalue the gospel?
5. Discuss God’s role in the covenant relationship between a man and a woman in marriage. How should that affect our approach to marriage as Christians?
6. Discuss why divorce is contrary to the biblical idea of marriage as covenant.
7. What does divorce say about the gospel of Jesus? How does this passage relate to Ephesians 5:22-32?
8. How should we respond to divorce in the culture? In the church?
9. How can we practically guard ourselves and our marriages from imploding from within?
10. What are some of God’s precepts that you tend to take lightly? What does your attitude toward these reflect about your attitude towards the Lord?