OBADIAH
[p. 22] OBADIAH
The book of Obadiah has a very remarkable place as prophesied after the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, and it stands in remarkable contrast to the prophet Amos. Hosea, Amos and Joel addressed themselves to Israel, and their prophecies are full of solemn warning and unsparing denunciation. The prophet Obadiah has not a single word to say about anything wrong with the people of God. This fact is no indication of their character, but it shows us the character of God.
This particular period was the darkest and most solemn moment in Israel’s history. God had cut them off, as we see at the end of Kings. If He had spoken to His people He would have had to speak to them on that line, but in speaking to Edom He can utterly ignore the people and speak of what is in His own heart. When everything has gone from His people God did not depart from one of His thoughts; and in due time He would give effect to those thoughts. This must have been the greatest comfort to those in the captivity. God does not say a word against His people; He only speaks of their distress and afflictions and calamities, and His heart is touched with the deepest feeling for their misery. God takes the opportunity of saying to Edom what He could not possibly have said to Israel.
This is exactly like the history of Balaam. While Moses says of Israel, “Ye rebelled”, Balaam says, “He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen wrong in Israel”. It is sometimes good, speaking reverently, when God is driven back upon Himself. God felt it very much that Edom should have taken advantage of His discipline to be cruel to His people. He feels their distress now, and He will carry out His thoughts in due time, one might say, in spite of Israel. Some of the most wonderful things that the Lord said about His people were said to adversaries — to Edomites. Every attack by the enemy brings out what is in God’s heart. We have to wait for 2,500 years for the end of the chapter, for His future ways with His people, yet His heart clings to them and yearns over them. Even though they were cast off, they can come behind this to the heart of God. People may go under if they do not get behind to the heart of God. If people are not at peace and happy it is their own fault, to a certain extent anyway, because He has made provision in the gospel. Job could say, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him”. There is always that sense in a true saint. God had to teach them that they were shut up to Christ. They disobeyed the law and the prophets and there was no recovery; He could only set them aside as we see in the teaching of Romans 10 and 11. It will be the same for the Gentiles.
Edom in the prophets stands very much for the hatred of what God chooses. People who have had the opportunity of blessing and have despised it are pretty sure to hate what God chooses, so the principle has to disappear absolutely from the sphere of blessing. God’s mind is favourable to all, as Esau’s blessing, I think, suggests; there was hope on God’s side, but Edom would not, for he had nothing in common with God, and if that is so we must disappear. I would not like to be in the place of those who treat the Jews cruelly today, because the Lord feels it just as much today. I pity those who are cruel to the Lord’s people, whether earthly or heavenly people.
We see at the end of the chapter that God is going to carry out all that is in His mind and bring His people into possession of all that it is in His mind to give them. The words “shall possess” occur a number of times. This for us is all that is secured in Christ. Zion is sovereign mercy; all is secured in a risen Christ. We have to leave all that we are, for God is never going to take that up again, but He has brought in Christ and what is in Him, and He brings His people into possession of it, too. The way of escape for us is to come to mount Zion. There is a way out from all the pressure and affliction on the people of God — mount Zion. We can get to what God has given us which no enemy can touch. “Ye are come to mount Zion” — it is something outside the world altogether, available to those in the world by going out of it. Our place is heavenly, and the more simple we are in accepting it the better we shall get on. Every feature of the land will be possessed; everything that God has assigned to Israel will be possessed, there will not be a barren spot. We all have Ephesians in our Bibles and are happily familiar with the fact that God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ, that He has quickened us with Christ and has raised us up together and made us sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus; it is looked at as a complete thing, but the mere light of it does not carry us very far. The great need is for us to accept that our position is a heavenly one. God’s thought is that the whole assembly goes up to Christ to the same elevation as He is, and that is to be known [p. 24] as a possession by the Spirit which is the earnest of the inheritance — a part of it and so able to make it good to us. When we get there the Edomite is left behind; he cannot possibly come there! Whether for Israel or for the assembly it all turns on God bringing in Christ and on the place into which Christ has entered. Edom with natural ability and clever intellect has gone up to a pinnacle, but the saints go up to a very much higher pinnacle! It is very encouraging to see what is in the heart of God.
The “saviours” mentioned in the last verse will literally be so strengthened and raised up that they will be able to have part with Jehovah in defiling with Edom. He will put Edom in the winepress and He will tread them, which speaks of utter destruction. “I have trodden them in mine anger, and trampled them in my fury”, Isaiah 63: 3. To put it in one word, the principle of hatred is going to disappear from God’s moral universe and the principle of love is going to take its place. “God all in all” means that the element of hatred — which always arises from selfishness — is going to be eliminated. Esau represents a principle that God will not suffer in His universe; it is to go out for God’s blessed nature to take its place, His nature is shown in His feelings for Israel’s misery. So Paul says of the past, “We were ... hateful and hating one another”, and again, “But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost”.
This prophecy will have been a great comfort, I believe, to those who were in the captivity, the knowledge that God will carry out His thoughts notwithstanding what was true then, and remained true, of their departed state. As to ourselves, we do not perhaps possess much of the heavenly, but the rapture will put every saint into possession of it eternally; all will enter into it then.