WHEREIN HAST THOU LOVED US?

Malachi begins with God declaring His love for His people. Yet Israel’s response is a querulous ‘Wherein hast thou loved us?’. They challenge God to prove His love. The assertion of divine love did not produce praise and devotion. Instead, it revealed peevishness and doubt.

The Lord accepts the challenge. He enters a dialogue, explaining how He has loved His people. He reminds them of their ancestor Jacob and his twin, Esau. God’s love is discriminating. God had displayed holy disfavour towards Esau and his descendants. Yet Jacob and his descendants were the objects of God’s mercy.

Likewise, all that we are we owe to grace alone. All boasting is excluded. It is God who has made us to differ. We have nothing which we did not receive, 1 Cor. 4. 7. All our blessings have their source in God’s eternal love, Eph. 1. 4.

That love is unconditional. It does not rest on human merit, Rom. 9. 10-13. It was Jacob, as Jacob, in all his twistedness who was chosen. He had no greater claim on God than Esau. Indeed, Esau was the older twin. The vessels of honour are from the same lump as those of dishonour, Rom.9. 21. God’s love for Israel did not arise from anything in them, Deut. 7. 7, 8; 8. 10-15. So too we can humbly and gratefully sing, ‘Chosen not for good in me’, ROBERT MURRAY MCCHEYNE.

God’s love made a dramatic difference. He had restored Israel to their land. The Edomites had been dispossessed just as Judah had been. Edom lay a desolate waste, and so it would remain. God would dash Edom’s plans to rebuild their cities; they would know no restoration.

Petra’s ruins are a silent witness to the fulfilment of this prophecy. The destruction of Edom was due to God’s judgement on her sins of selfish unconcern and proud hatred of Israel.

Solemnly God’s name is magnified, both in wrath and in grace. What a debt of praise is owed by those who have known His mercy!