MICAH 6 - GOD'S GRACE AND FAITHFULNESS
MICAH 6 - GOD’S GRACE AND FAITHFULNESS
It is humbling and distressing to think that what God does for His people should become the occasion of His having a controversy with them. There is something very touching in the divine pleading of this chapter, because Jehovah does not take the ground that His people had behaved badly to Him, but He challenges them to testify against Him if they had any cause of complaint. “O my people, what have I done unto thee? and wherein have I wearied thee? testify against me”. It is as much as to say, ‘If you have any complaint against Me, let Me know what it is’. The matter in controversy here is whether there had been any wrong-doing on Jehovah’s part towards His people. If things are not satisfactory in our relations with God He is prepared to take this ground with us. It is extraordinary ground for God to take with His poor creatures, but in His grace He does take it. He assumes that His people would not turn away from Him unless they had some cause of complaint. He would like to know what it is!
He condescends to go over all His ways with them, from Egypt to the end of the wilderness, to remind them of what He had done for them, and that He had omitted nothing that was favourable to them. “For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of bondage”, verse 4. It would settle a thousand questions that arise if we always kept in mind that we are a redeemed people. On the ground of the death of Christ God has taken us for Himself in a wonderful way, because we must remember that there could not possibly be any flaw or defect in the result of redemption; it must be complete and according to God. The saints are on this blessed ground, “knowing that ye have been redeemed, not by corruptible things as silver or gold ... but by precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, the blood of Christ”, 1 Peter 1: 18, 19. “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins”, Colossians 1:14. “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of offences, according to the riches of his grace”, Ephesians 1:7. When there was utter ruin on our side God moved to secure His own end, to have us for Himself as a redeemed people. The full result of redemption will be that God’s elect will be found eternally in sonship with glorified bodies. But in the type before us Israel was redeemed “out of the house of bondage”. Redemption, known in its true power and effect, takes God’s people out of the world, frees them from the bondage of sin and Satan, and puts them in the acceptance of Christ risen from among the dead. God’s redeemed ones are in Christ and have the Spirit. “Christ has redeemed us out of the curse of the law, having become a curse for us ... that the blessing of Abraham might come to the nations in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith”, Galatians 3: 13, 14. The saints in Christ can be addressed in a wonderful way. For example, “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who has been made to us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and holiness, and redemption”, 1 Corinthians 1:30. “But ye have been washed, but ye [p. 46] have been sanctified, but ye have been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God”, 1 Corinthians 6: 11. “But when the kindness and love to man of our Saviour God appeared, not on the principle of works which have been done in righteousness which we had done, but according to his own mercy he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, which he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that, having been justified by his grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life”, Titus 3: 4 - 7.
Jehovah, having redeemed His people, provided leadership for them. “And I sent before thee Moses, Aaron and Miriam”. Moses as the mediator was in such nearness to God that he could bring to the people all that God was pleased to make known of Himself at that time, and he could also bring out in great detail God’s pleasure in regard to the walk and ordering of His people. The dispensation was furnished on the divine side with all that was necessary to give a true lead to the people as to their walk before God. How much more is this true today, for the fulness of grace and truth has come out in God’s beloved Son, and the mind of God is fully made known as to how He would have those to walk who have received His grace and truth! The Lord Jesus is the true Moses, and every Christian would admit that if we followed His lead we should move in accord with the mind of God.
Then Aaron represents priestly leadership, and this suggests a provision for infirmity on the side of the people. Every Israelite ought to have felt that Aaron could be sympathetic with him in his weakness, but that Aaron also represented him in the most blessed way in the presence of God, according to God’s thoughts of His people as they were known in the holy place. Aaron was a reminder to the people that they needed a priest on account of their weakness, but that God had provided a priest who could represent them before Him according to the fulness of His own thoughts, and thus apart from the infirmity which was in themselves. So that Aaron’s leadership was in relation to approach to God; and Christ is our Leader in this priestly way. He is a sympathetic Priest in regard to our actual condition in weakness here, but we are never disconnected in His heart from what we are in the full height of our calling. He is before the face of God for us in heaven itself, and
In Him we stand, a heavenly band,
Where He Himself is gone. (12:2)
[p. 47] What leadership there is in this to lead us to draw nigh to God For the nearer we get to our blessed Priest the more we realise how wonderful is our place with God. The leading is divinely perfect, though gracious movements in our hearts are needed in order that we may follow it.
Such movements are seen, typically, in Miriam. She represents what is feminine in character; that is, the subjective or responsive side of our relations with God. “And Miriam answered them, Sing to Jehovah, for he is highly exalted: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea”, Exodus 15: 21. There is a leadership of this kind; it is found in the ability which the people of God have, through grace, to take up and respond to the great actings of God for them. It is set forth in all true Christian hymns, and in every spiritual utterance of praise in the assembly. We should pay attention to all divine leading of this kind. It is an essential part of what God has provided for us.
Then, in this retrospect of Jehovah’s ways with His people, He passes on to the end of the wilderness. “My people remember now what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him, from Shittim unto Gilgal, that ye may know the righteousness of Jehovah”, verse 5. There is great teaching in the fact that Balaam answered Balak at the end of the wilderness journey, because it showed that Jehovah had the last word. We know what their history had been, but having beheld the serpent of brass, and come to the well and sung to it, they could be viewed as God’s elect, and His righteousness could be known in their blessing in spite of all that had come out in themselves. There was one who consulted to curse them, but Jehovah provided an answer by speaking of the sanctification, the justification, and the beauty of His people. And his righteousness came out in His doing so. The plural, righteousnesses, is used, as often in Hebrew, to intensify the thought. God has a righteous ground on which to identify His redeemed people with the One on whom they have believed, and with all the results of the redemption which that blessed One has accomplished. His own righteousness is made known in this. Paul teaches this; he is the only one who teaches that the righteousness of God is by faith of Jesus Christ, and that it is upon all those who believe. God’s righteousness is now a revealed and manifested thing; Romans 1: 17; Romans 3: 21. When the saints are glorified it will be seen that they have become God’s righteousness in Christ, and this on the ground that He has been made sin for them; 2 Corinthians 5: 21.
Paul’s great desire, towards the end of his course, was to gain Christ, and to be found in Him, not having his own righteousness, which would be on the principle of law, but that righteousness which is by faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God though faith; Philippians 3: 9. God’s righteousness holds the saints on the ground of redemption to be sanctified in Christ Jesus, and to be justified in Christ, and to have life in Christ Jesus. When we see that we are sanctified, and justified, and have life in God’s anointed Man, we understand that God’s righteousness is a matter of pure grace acting through redemption for His own glory.
It is evident that if this is so the thought of doing anything to improve one’s status with God drops out altogether; see verses 6 and 7. Nothing that we could bring or do could add one jot or tittle to the clearing away of our sin, or to our acceptance with God. All that God requires of us is reduced to three simple elements; “to do justly, and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with thy God”, verse 8. The whole life of piety is summed up in these three things. Nothing but the action of our own will can ever deprive us of the peace and happiness which are found by those who, under the influence of grace, move on this line. Verses 4 and 5 show what grace has done for us. It has freed us from every kind of bondage or uncertainty as to the terms on which God is with us, so that in simplicity and liberty we may do what is right, and love goodness (or mercy) and walk humbly with our God. The practical power of grace is seen in our being delivered from evil so that we have nothing to do but to go on with what is good.
“Jehovah’s voice crieth unto the city, and wisdom looketh on thy name”, verse 9. Whether God speaks in grace or in government He addresses Himself to that which is responsible before Him. Wisdom will come to light by regarding His name, and what is due to it. If His revealed grace does not affect His people, or bring forth its normal fruits, the rod of His corrective discipline will be appointed to do its work with them. His government cannot be trifled with, or escaped from. This comes out in a solemn way in the rest of the chapter.