A Life in Exile

As we see our year come to a close, we are in the final book of the Old Testament before God’s voice to his people ends and there is nothing but silence for four hundred years. For this reason, I think it’s appropriate that our last two lessons from the Old Testament center on the sovereignty of God. As the prophecy of Malachi begins, it’s good to remember that he’s speaking to returning exiles around 433 B.C. during the time of Nehemiah.

As the people returned from seventy years of exile, they discovered a destitute land and a destroyed Temple. Yes, God had opened the way for their return, but to what? Times were hard. Was God really in all this? To this struggling people, Malachi speaks.

A pronouncement: The word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi.

“I have loved you,” says the Lord.

Yet you ask, “How have you loved us?”

“Wasn’t Esau Jacob’s brother?” This is the Lord’s declaration. “Even so, I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau. I turned his mountains into a wasteland, and gave his inheritance to the desert jackals.”

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. Your own eyes will see this, and you yourselves will say, ‘The Lord is great, even beyond the borders of Israel.’ (Malachi 1:1-5 CSB)

It’s not always in what you see with your eyes.

Standing in the midst of a war-torn land, the Lord, through his prophet, proclaims his love for them. They don’t see it. How could they? Weary from the long walk out of Babylon, they come “home” to destroyed homes, devastated crops, and a holy city that has been ransacked, desecrated, and demolished. Naturally, they reply by asking, “How have you loved us?”

The Lord replies by reminding them that, though Esau was the firstborn, the strongest, the man after his father’s heart, God loved Jacob, the younger, the deceitful, the pampered son of his mother. Even though Esau’s people of Edom were a strong nation and could, out of their own strength, rebuild their ruined land, God would not reward their wickedness—their destruction was sure.

Just like their undeserving ancestor, the descendants of Jacob had nothing going for them. They faced insurmountable odds upon return to the land of their fathers, and enemies who were determined to hinder their plans. What did they have on their side? God’s love and favor. A God who was committed to keeping his promises, whether they deserved it or not.

Man’s desire and efforts versus God’s mercy.

The Apostle Paul would pick up this same story hundreds of years later in his letter to believers in Rome. They had not had the benefit of a personal visit from the missionary to the Gentiles, so this letter is really more of a theological treatise on the Christian faith and doctrine. In the latter half of the book, Paul discusses the doctrine of election and God’s sovereignty. As he does, he quotes from the prophet Malachi to make a point.

And not only that, but Rebekah conceived children through one man, our father 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.

What should we say then? Is there injustice with God? Absolutely not! For he tells Moses, I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then, it does not depend on human will or effort but on God who shows mercy. (Romans 9:10-16)

Tracing the history of the chosen people, Paul talks of how Rebekah conceived, and before she gave birth to the twins wrestling within her, God made it clear that the younger would be served by the older because he was loved and chosen by God to carry on the promise of the covenant.

Is God unjust by showing such preference for certain peoples and individuals?

The Roman believers and all who read this book would naturally ask, as those first Israelites questioned God upon their return? “Is there injustice with God?” I’m sure his people coming out of the exile questioned his love for them and his justice because they thought they had sufficiently paid the price for their sins. Was seventy years of exile not enough? Would they have to return to such a land?

This could be a recuring question in looking at God’s actions and words throughout history, and the story of the twins seems to be the logical ground zero to an ongoing issue. “Is there injustice in God?”

“Absolutely not” is the powerful reply from Paul. How could the God of Creation be unjust? He made it clear that it was nothing neither Esau nor Jacob had done that led him to love or choose Jacob. He did it to prove that very point. It’s not about who we are or what we do that leads God to choose and use us for his purposes. He who sees beginning from the end is the only one who is capable of loving and using the lesser in the eyes of the world over the greater.

Why does he go against the grain of convention? So that he will receive the glory and not man. This is the way of God in all things.

For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—not from works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Is this not the God who spoke light into darkness? Darkness is a powerful reality in the world, and yet, the light of one small candle, lit by the Spirit of Christ, can dispel the dark.

For God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ. Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us. (2 Corinthians 4:6-7)

Jacob was such a clay jar, but as he wrestled with God, he was made into a great nation, though he never lost his limp. That’s God’s sovereignty, love, and election all wrapped up in one fallible man. That’s the mercy of our God.

Grace and Peace

If you missed the last Learning from the Past post, click HERE, or start the series from the BEGINNING.