Reflections on Malachi 1:2-5

2 “ I have loved you,” says the LORD.

“ Yet you say, ‘In what way have You loved us?’
Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?”
Says the LORD.

“ Yet Jacob I have loved;
3 But Esau I have hated,
And laid waste his mountains and his heritage
For the jackals of the wilderness.”
4 Even though Edom has said,

“ We have been impoverished,
But we will return and build the desolate places,”

Thus says the LORD of hosts:

“ They may build, but I will throw down;
They shall be called the Territory of Wickedness,
And the people against whom the LORD will have indignation forever.
5 Your eyes shall see,
And you shall say,

‘ The LORD is magnified beyond the border of Israel.’
(NKJV version)

Brief summary taken from Matthew Henry's commentary (paraphrased)

Malachi draws an argument outlining God's love for Israel by contrasting the fate of Edom and Israel. The country which the Lord gave to Esau was called Edom (or Mount Seir or Idumea) and his descendants were Edomites. The Lord says here that there is eternal judgment against the Edomites and their land will be laid to waste and desolation, even as they try to rebuild their land. But in the case of Israel, even though God was displeased with His chosen people, He says that they will see and they will say that the Lord is magnified beyond the border of Israel.

My thoughts

As I was reading the verses, the first question that popped up was why God favoured Jacob and hated Esau. And if one thinks beyond these verses, then we would ask why God favoured Abraham and why God favoured the Jews. In doing so, we approach the doctrine of election.

I went online to search for answers, and I came across a sermon that Charles Spurgeon preached on Jacob and Esau on Jan 16, 1859 - http://www.biblebb.com/files/spurgeon/0239.HTM


Spurgeon covered what he termed as "terrible text" but said he "will be honest with it if he can". This is actually the first time I've come across an online sermon devoted to election and God's sovereign grace. What I like about Spurgeon is that he doesn't pull any punches regarding God's sovereignty, and that at the end of his sermon, he redirects the congregation back to the most important point - the Gospel.

Below are some extracts from his sermon

The truth is, neither you nor I have any right to want to know more about predestination than what God tells us. That is enough for us. If it were worth while for us to know more, God would have revealed more. What God has told us, we are to believe, but to the knowledge thus gained, we are too apt to add our own vague notions, and then we are sure to go wrong. It would be better, if in all controversies, men had simply stood hard and fast by "Thus saith the Lord," instead of having it said, "Thus and thus I think."

I can tell you the reason why God loved Jacob; It is sovereign grace. There was nothing in Jacob that could make God love him; there was everything about him, that might have made God hate him, as much as he did Esau, and a great deal more. But it was because God was infinitely gracious, that he loved Jacob, and because he was sovereign in his dispensation of this grace, that he chose Jacob as the object of that love.


Now, the next question is a different one: Why did God hate Esau? I am not going to mix this question up with the other, they are entirely distinct, and I intend to keep them so, one answer will not do for two questions, they must be taken separately, and then can be answered satisfactorily. Why does God hate any man? I defy anyone to give any answer but this, because that man deserves it; no reply but that can ever be true. There are some who answer, divine sovereignty; but I challenge them to look that doctrine in the face. Do you believe that God created man and arbitrarily, sovereignly—it is the same thing—created that man, with no other intention, than that of damning him? Made him, and yet, for no other reason than that of destroying him for ever? Well, if you can believe it, I pity you, that is all I can say: you deserve pity, that you should think so meanly of God, whose mercy endureth for ever. You are quite right when you say the reason why God loves a man, is because God does do so; there is no reason in the man. But do not give the same answer as to why God hates a man. If God deals with any man severely, it is because that man deserves all he gets. In hell there will not be a solitary soul that will say to God, O Lord, thou hast treated me worse than I deserve! But every lost spirit will be made to feel that he has got his deserts, that his destruction lies at his own door and not at the door of God; that God had nothing to do with his condemnation, except as the Judge condemns the criminal, but that he himself brought damnation upon his own head, as the result of his own evil works. Justice is that which damns a man; it is mercy, it is free grace, that saves; sovereignty holds the scale of love; it is justice holds the other scale. Who can put that into the hand of sovereignty? That were to libel God and to dishonour him;


May grace now be given to you to bring you to yield to this glorious command. May you now believe in him who came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. Free grace, who shall tell thy glories? who shall narrate thy achievements, or write thy victories? Thou hast carried the cunning Jacob into glory, and made him white as the angels of heaven, and thou shalt carry many a black sinner there also, and make him glorious as the glorified. May God prove this doctrine to be true in your own experience! If there still remains any difficulty upon your minds about any of these points, search the Word of God, and seek the illumination of his Spirit to teach you. But recollect after all, these are not the most important points in Scripture. That which concerns you most, is to know whether you have an interest in the blood of Christ? whether you really believe in the Lord Jesus. I have only touched upon these, because they cause a great many people a world of trouble, and I thought I might be the means of helping some of you to tread upon the neck of the dragon. May God grant that it may be so for Christ's sake.


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