MALACHI 1 (NOTES OF A READING)
[p. 561] MALACHI 1 (NOTES OF A READING)
Ques Perhaps you would tell us the general purpose of this book?
CAC It is the last testimony of Jehovah to Israel, giving the condition of the last days in hope that there would be recovery. Haggai and Zechariah, which we have looked at, would correspond in some extent with the letter to Philadelphia (Revelation 3). This would rather go with Laodicea. I thought it was to be noticed that though a dark day and Jehovah had to say sorrowful things, yet His word is to Israel.
Rem You mean not merely to Judah, but to the whole of Israel.
CAC Actually a small remnant had come back from captivity, but they are addressed as Israel, showing that in the darkest day when things are most corrupted, God does not give up His thoughts.
Rem So there is an overcomer too for Laodicea.
CAC Quite so, and the letter is written to the angel in Laodicea. God lets no one off assembly responsibility. Israel was one whole under the eye of Jehovah, just as it was at the beginning. “Remember the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel”. It is Israel, not Judah, in chapter 4: 4. So God had the assembly before Him at the beginning and at the end, and there is not a single believer on the face of the earth exempted from assembly responsibility.
Rem Having in view the light of His glory being great before the nations.
CAC That is the form the assembly has taken now, is it not? There are local assemblies “in every place”, particularly in the gentile world.
Ques What is the force of “The burden of the word of Jehovah to Israel”?
CAC It is the word used by all the prophets, and particularly in Isaiah.
Ques Is the thought that it is pressing, the prophets entering into God’s feelings in regard to things?
CAC I should think so.
Ques What do you mean by saying no one is let off assembly responsibility?
CAC Responsibility is always determined by the conditions and relations that God has established, is that not so?
God has been pleased to establish certain relations in His own sovereign love, and all saints are under responsibility to acknowledge the relations that God has established. It is the time of the assembly now, it is what God has established. If we recognise that is so and that God has nothing before Him but the assembly, we shall have nothing before us but the assembly. God does not recognise human systems. Every believer is responsible to recognise the assembly and that he is part of it.
Ques Is the prophetic word designed to bring believers into the mind of God?
CAC All that God does is intended to bring His people into His mind. He did not consult His people; He established things in His sovereign love, and by election and calling He has brought His people into those relations and responsibilities at the present time, and we are to recognise those principles and walk by them.
Ques Would it apply to each of the seven phases of the assembly in Revelation?
CAC God does not recognise anything but the assembly in its unity, or local assemblies; God gives no sanction to what man has set up. Divine teaching is needed and sometimes divine chastening to bring us to recognise what subsists,
[p. 563] but the assembly is a subsisting reality in virtue of the Spirit. The religious world is a denial of it, subsisting in human expedients, but God has not departed from His thoughts.
Ques Did any one of the assemblies become a pattern of what you speak of?
CAC Overcomers in each assembly show that it is a matter of exercise to enter into the mind of God. In the most favoured assembly we should need to be overcomers to enter into the divine relations. We have come to a time when things are being tested, and it is a question of whether we are giving satisfaction to God. No church position in itself will satisfy God. These people failed to satisfy Him. If we fail in this, it is a complete failure.
Rem At the end of the book we have, “They that feared Jehovah spoke often one to another”, etc.
CAC Yes, and we see what pains he takes to refine Levi that He may get a pure offering — an offering that will satisfy Himself. The remnant goes on and appears very distinctly in this book, but God has to deal with the general condition. It is to warn us, for we might be walking with the most spiritual persons on the earth and yet be failures. We must not relax in our diligent warfare.
Rem In 2 Timothy 2 there is the individual first; you look after yourself first, and then you look after other people. You cannot judge other people until right yourself. A vessel of honour wants to keep company with other vessels of honour.
Ques. How is that done?
CAC That means withdrawing from iniquity, fleeing youthful lusts, and following righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. It is quite simple, but it takes some working out.
It is striking that Jehovah should begin. He was speaking to a people who were obdurate and insensible, and He begins by saying, “I have loved you”. There is no more touching [p. 564] word in Scripture. You get to Laodicea the valued words, “As many as I love”. He speaks of His love, dreadful as their condition was.
Ques Is it a mark of divine love?
CAC We owe everything to God’s love, everything we have. It is sovereign love — the love of election. God set His love upon us when we were dead in trespasses and sins; it ought to appeal to us very much.
Rem Malachi was the man with the message; how would he fit in today if this book is an indication of the Laodicean position?
CAC Well, the Lord does not cease to speak to the assemblies even in that condition. The Spirit never ceases to speak to the assemblies.
Malachi means: “Messenger of Jah”. It would fit in with a man with a message. Whatever we are or have is of God’s sovereign love, it is of His calling. The apostle addresses the Corinthians on that ground. They were called, everything they had as an assembly they owed to the divine calling. If we realised God had called us in love to a certain position and service, we should be greatly interested to fill it to His satisfaction. Our approach to Him is to give Him satisfaction.
If God has established certain conditions in sovereign love, and if we realise that otherwise only certain perdition awaited us and that we owe everything to His sovereignty, it imposes a responsibility to approach God in a way that is satisfying to His love. If not, we have not realised it. The question is one of how we approach God. The tabernacle was set up and immediately the Lord God spoke out of the tabernacle as to the offerings. It is a necessity to God’s love that we approach Him in a way satisfactory to Himself.
Rem If sustained in His love it will always be a right offering.
CAC The offering represents the offerer, a serious thing. If I do not bring an acceptable offering, it is because I am not right myself. Their offerings showed this insensibility to Jehovah’s love.
Ques Why is the question put, “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?”
CAC I thought to bring out this great thought of God’s sovereignty. Esau was passed by in divine sovereignty, he despised what had divine value.
Rem I was wondering if it would indicate the special character of the love, love connected with choice — a selective love in that way — expressing in a way the special position that the saints have in God’s love. It would affect us and cause response.
CAC We have come under the sovereign love of God. We owe everything to that — our place in the body, the house, the wife — it is all a matter of the sovereign disposal of God’s love. We had nothing to do with it. “Who has saved us, and has called us with a holy calling ... according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the ages of time” (2 Timothy 1: 9). The more we enter into that, the more we should be qualified in offering. Our most intimate privilege is connected with priesthood, and is the first thing that fails — and so here. God is not pleased with what is brought to Him today in christendom. If the place of blessing in Christ were understood, the things said would not be said.
Rem It is not any mark on us, but it throws us back on our own worthlessness, so that it would be all Christ.
CAC The only Man is Christ. The man who offers a pure offering, purifies himself, so he only offers Christ. God’s thought is to have a pure oblation — for all the assemblies everywhere to present a pure offering, so that God can be pleased with the offering and with the offerers. I think our offerings are always Himself. We cannot present to God anything that we are. We want to be freed from what is blind and lame and sick. Perfection is only found in what Christ is before God.
Rem If we were acquainted with the presence of God, we should know better what is acceptable to God.
Rem Esau is a profane person and is to [p. 566] perish forever.
CAC Edom perishes altogether in judgment, he perishes absolutely. He is tested out before God hates him in the last book in the Old Testament, rightly marking that he was a subject of divine hatred. Edom is a touch that links with traditional christianity, which is without an atom of appreciation of Christ and will give up interest in Him for self-gratification.
Ques Would it be challenging God’s right?
CAC Romans 1 - Romans 8 unfolds God’s love and chapter 9 shows it all to be a matter of God’s sovereignty. It is not because we received Christ that we got blessing. We must never get away from Ephesians 2. It was when we were dead in offences and sins God quickened us. So the highest epistle is the lowest, is it not?