Sovereign LoveMalachi 1:2-5

Main Idea: God’s covenant faithfulness to His people is manifested through sovereign love and demonstrated by His declaration, election, and rejection.

1. Introduction: Missing the Obvious
2. God Substantiates His Love for His People through His Declaration (1:2a).
3. God Substantiates His Love for His People through His Election (1:2b).
4. God Substantiates His Love for His People through His Rejection (1:3-5).
5. Conclusion: Christ as the Pinnacle Display of God’s Sovereign Love

Introduction: Missing the Obvious

The rather checkered history of Israel in the OT testifies to how often God’s chosen people are oblivious to His obvious love for them. Israel had forgotten how God repeatedly showered His love upon them through His electing grace. In Malachi 1:2-5 God substantiates His love by protecting His people and punishing the wicked.

Although Malachi centers on only one dimension of God’s covenant with Abraham, namely Jacob and Esau, the entire story stretching back to Genesis 12 serves as the backdrop for this text. God called Abram to leave Ur and to follow Him to another land. As Abram obeyed, his descendants multiplied. His progeny, the Israelites, were later enslaved in Egypt for over 400 years until God called them out under the leadership of Moses. Eventually they were allowed to enter the land God had promised them, but the book of Deuteronomy casts an ominous shadow over this achievement, predicting covenant infidelity on the part of Israel and consequent exile.

Despite a golden age under the Davidic monarchy, the positive political and spiritual situations of God’s people quickly turned. After King Solomon died, Israel was split into two kingdoms—the northern kingdom (Israel) and the southern kingdom (Judah). Israel was the first to be taken into exile by the Assyrians in 722 BC, and Judah followed in 586 BC at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, the ruler of the Babylonian Empire. Jerusalem was destroyed, the walls were knocked down, and the temple was burned. The history of God’s elect had come full circle.

Many of God’s prophets predicted that exile was temporary; it would eventually end, allowing the people to return to the land promised by God to their forefathers. Jeremiah 29:10, for example, states, “When 70 years for Babylon are complete, I will attend to you and will confirm My promise concerning you to restore you to this place.” This return occurred in three waves. Zerubbabel led the first assembly back to the land and laid the foundations of the temple. The temple was completed during the second wave under the leadership of Ezra, the scribe. The third wave came under the leadership of Nehemiah, who led the people to rebuild the walls around Jerusalem. The last three books of the Old Testament—Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi—were all written after this return.

One might think Israel would have learned her lesson, but following this return, pervasive corruption among the priesthood had initiated a trickle-down effect among the people of God. The book of Malachi is replete with prophetic indictments. But, as is common among God’s prophets, before the bad news comes the good news. Malachi first reaffirms God’s sovereign love for His people in four ways.

God Substantiates His Love for His People through His Declaration (Malachi 1:2a)

The Hebrew word translated “love” in Malachi 1:2 is in the perfect tense, signifying a completed action with continued ramifications (cf. the translation of the GNB: “I have always loved you”). The Hebrew word for “love,” ahav, is used 32 times in the Old Testament to refer to God’s covenantal love; it is used to explain God’s love for Israel or individuals 23 of those times (Els, “?a¯hab,” 276). Ray Clendenen states,

Terms for “love” were common in ancient Near Eastern treaties as synonyms for covenant loyalty. In Mesopotamian texts divine love also motivated selection of a king (see also Neh 13:26). Likewise in the Hebrew Bible, especially in Deuteronomy, ?ahab, “love,” often is found in texts dealing with choosing and with faithfulness. (Haggai, 247)

God’s love was the reason for choosing Israel (Deut 7:7), and His good pleasure is the only reason for continuing to care about them. God substantiates His love for His people by reminding them of how He redeemed their ancestors from bondage in Egypt and themselves from captivity in Babylon. He brings to mind their exclusive relationship with Him and His steadfast love toward them. And all this was manifest before He gave Israel the law. In the OT relationship always precedes requirement. As C. J. H. Wright explains, “God did not send Moses down to Egypt with the Law already tucked under his cloak” (Eye for an Eye, 22). Instead, He miraculously delivered them from the oppression of the Egyptians, protected them from the 10 plagues, and supernaturally parted the Red Sea before giving the law. That is, God showed grace to the generation under the guidance of Moses before making covenantal demands. Likewise, God, in Malachi 1:2, reminded the Jews of His grace before reminding them of His law.

God Substantiates His Love for His People through His Election (Malachi 1:2b)

Despite God’s clear declaration of His love, the nation of Israel questioned God’s affection by inquiring, “How have You loved us?” It seemed to them that God had not kept His promise to restore the tribes and the land. The short-sightedness of the people incited God to give a history lesson. Malachi reminded Israel of the account of God’s esteeming Jacob above Esau.

The words love and hate should be understood in their covenantal sense as “chosen” and “not chosen.” Since God chose Jacob to fulfill the Abrahamic covenant, He loved him. Since God did not choose Esau, He hated him. God went against the standard rules regarding the priority of the firstborn son by electing Jacob. According to the apostle Paul, this choice took place prior to the birth of the twins:

And not only that, but also Rebekah received a promise when she became pregnant by one man, our ancestor Isaac. For though her sons had not been born yet or done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to election might stand—not from works but from the One who calls—she was told: The older will serve the younger. As it is written: I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau. (Rom 9:10-12)

God’s election, then, is not influenced by human interaction or cooperation. He chose Abraham out of all the people of the world. He chose Abraham’s son, Isaac, instead of his half-brother, Ishmael. He chose Jacob over his older brother, Esau. He chose the Israelites over all other nations. But He did not choose them based on their merit. Deuteronomy 7:7-8 states,

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 and is keeping the oath that He swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

God does not grade on a curve. If He did, Esau might have passed. Jacob, on the other hand, certainly would have failed, as he conned his father into placing the blessing on him rather than on his older brother. According to cultural traditions, Esau deserved God’s blessing. Yet God does not bestow grace on those who seem to deserve it. If one’s righteousness were the condition for God’s grace, no one would enter the kingdom. All would experience separation from Him in a Christless place called hell if grace were based on human response to God’s righteous conditions. But that is what is so amazing about grace! The point is not that God loved Jacob more than Esau, but that He desired to make a covenant with Jacob instead of Esau. Consequently, the reason why election is referred to in Malachi 1 is not to create a sense of exclusion. Instead, election is deployed by the prophet to comfort and reassure the people of God.

God’s electing love is not based on performance, position, or power. It’s based on His prerogative. The input you have in election is the same input you had in choosing your parents, the country you were born in, or the city in which you were raised. In the same way, the Jewish audience of Malachi had done nothing to deserve God’s grace and love. But they had it!

God Substantiates His Love for His People through His Rejection (Malachi 1:3-5)

God’s rejection of Edom is a response to their wickedness. There is a contrast in the text between wicked Edom and blessed Israel. Since the Edomites demonstrated pride, arrogance, and violence, God is considered righteous by the prophet in His harsh punishment of the nation. The nations will experience two closely connected penalties for their unrighteousness: (1) The land will be destroyed and left completely uninhabited by humans. (2) The land will be possessed by the demonic (i.e., cursed) (Utley, “Study Bible Commentary”). The Edomites, descendants of Esau, were destined for destruction. One commentator expresses it this way:

Esau’s descendants would be excluded as a nation from that special electing love that would belong to Israel. God’s choosing Jacob and his descendants meant that he established a permanent relationship with Israel as a whole, in which he would instruct them with truth, train them with righteousness, care for them with compassion, bless them with goodness, and discipline them with severity; regardless of how often they strayed from him, he would be faithful to them by his grace until his work in them was complete and “all Israel” (Rom 11:26, referring back to true Israel in Rom 9:6) would enjoy the righteousness, peace, and joy that come from knowing God (Jer 33; Ezek 36; Acts 13:16-41; Rom 9–11). (Clendenen, “Malachi,” 253)

Malachi’s prophecy comes to fruition when the Nabataean Arabs force the Edomites to settle in Idumea between 550 and 400 BC (Du Plessis, “Getting to Know,” 209). Tensions would continue between the people of Jacob/Israel and the people of Esau/Edom. In 37 BC Herod the Great, an Idumean, began to rule the nation of Israel as a client-ruler of the Roman Empire (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 12.8). The Romans appointed Herod over the land because they recognized the ancestral relationship between Idumea and Israel but did not understand the situation fully. The story of Jacob and Esau is played out in miniature in the interaction between Jesus and Herod. No wonder Herod, the Roman appointee, was worried when he heard of the One “born king of the Jews” (Matt 2:2). Like Jacob, Jesus was chosen by God. Herod was not!

God’s love for Israel should not be left to speculation. He pointed the people to a historical event to prove His love: the people of God had been brought back from Babylonian captivity while the land of Edom remained in perpetual ruin.

Conclusion: Christ as the Pinnacle Display of God’s Sovereign Love

Reading about the suffering and destruction of God’s people, you may ask, “How do I know God loves me?” The answer to this question now, as in Malachi’s day, is found in a historical and historic event, the cross of Jesus Christ. Romans 5:8 declares, “God proves His own love for us.” How? “In that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” The cross stands as a historical landmark to the bold declaration with which Malachi opens his prophecy: God has loved us. Jesus Christ is the pinnacle display of God’s sovereign love.

Like Israel, God’s love for us is an electing love that places the initiative with God. Scripture says that we were once wayward in sin, unable to save ourselves. We were alienated from God (Col 1:21), dead in our trespasses and sins (Eph 2:1-2), blinded by the enemy (2 Cor 4:3), morally bankrupt (Gen 8:21), and defiled in our bodies (Rom 1:24-25). Yet God saw our condition and initiated our adoption. Ephesians 1:3-6 states,

Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens. For He chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us to be adopted through Jesus Christ for Himself, according to His favor and will, to the praise of His glorious grace that He favored us with in the Beloved.

Election, then, is a biblical expression of God’s love for us in Christ. Election is meant to humble us, remove boasting, remove entitlement, remove pride, and eradicate self-reliance.

God’s love is unconditional. The nation of Israel did nothing to deserve election or salvation from slavery, and, in the same way, you did nothing to deserve His love. Even when we stray, He runs to meet us, just as the loving father did in the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15). The father of the wayward son, who represents God in the story, ran to embrace his repentant son, even though the son had asked for his inheritance early (which was tantamount to telling his father, “Hurry up and die already!”) and had squandered it! There was no way that the son could have paid his father back, nor did the father wish him to! He wanted nothing but reciprocal love from his son, and this is all God wants from us. We can do nothing good to persuade Him to love us more. Neither can we do anything wrong to make Him love us any less. No one will ever love you like God loves you (1 John 4:9, 19) and the only proper response is to love Him back.

Reflect and Discuss

1. Discuss ways it’s easy to “go through the motions” when it comes to worship.
2. Why is mundane/routine worship such a tendency for most of us?
3. Some perceive the God of the OT as strict and harsh in His punishments. What other OT passages can you recall that show God to be a God of love?
4. What life situations might lead someone to the conclusion that God doesn’t love him?
5. What evidence of God’s sovereign love and grace can you point to in your life?
6. How would you respond as a parent if your child asked, “How have you loved me?”
7. Read Genesis 25:19-26. Who were Jacob and Esau? What do we know about their relationship?
8. What does it mean to be chosen by God? Why is this significant in affirming His love for us?
9. Read Hebrews 12:3-11. How do you explain the relationship between love and discipline?
10. How does this passage in Malachi communicate hope? How can the realization that God loves you affect a hopeless situation in your life?