The Ultimate Outreach

“I have always loved you,” says the LORD.   Malachi 1:2

As we come to the end of the Old Testament story, it’s worth asking, where do things stand in the relationship between God and his people after all these years of alienation? Malachi does not give us an encouraging answer.

There is a pattern running through the book of Malachi: God makes a statement, but his people will not accept what he says. It is as if an argument develops between God and his people, rather like a counseling session in which one rather petulant person is unwilling to accept the truth of anything the other person says.

The book of Malachi opens with God affirming his love for his people. This seems reasonable when you think that God brought them out of Egypt, gave them promises, and restored them from exile, but God’s people will not accept that. They fold their arms in defiance and say, “How have you loved us?” (Malachi 1:2).

God is seeking to restore the relationship with his people, so he raises the issues that have caused the relationship to break down. That is the only way in which a relationship can be restored—the issues that have caused offense must be brought to light and dealt with honestly. But God’s people are in denial about the problem.

Have you ever seen an argument in which one person digs in and will not admit any responsibility for what’s wrong? Those who have attempted to restore a broken relationship know what this is like. If you have one party who is reaching out to make peace and the other party is unresponsive and in denial about the problem, then you face an uphill struggle. That’s what is happening here.

But while we were still dead in our sins, Jesus Christ came into the world, reaching out to us from the cross with open arms and giving his life as a sacrifice for sin. By his death, he bridged the gap of alienation between man and God, and he opens the way for the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God.

For further reading, see Malachi 1