GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
MALACHI 1:6
6 “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due to me? If I am a master, where is the respect due to me?” says the LORD of Armies.
The honor due to a parent is commanded in the Fourth Commandment. There was even a promise about living a long time in the Promised Land: “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12). So now that Israel had returned to the land from their exile, where was the gratitude? Where was the thanksgiving? Where were the prayers and sacrifices and public displays of joy for their rescue? In fact, God asks, “Where is the honor due to me?”
The usual word for “fear, respect” in Hebrew is yareh (Leviticus 19:3; Haggai 2:5). Here, the Lord is at least looking for the fear that is terror, awe, the kind of fear a slave has for his master (morah, Isaiah 8:12). But God does not find even that. The Israelites were not showing honor or respect for God. That was a serious problem, one God had addressed among his people many times before. But now they weren’t even showing fear in any way. It was as if they had abandoned all thoughts about God. The exile was over. The northern kingdom was hardly even a memory anymore. Their enemies were either destroyed or far away. The temple was a stumpy little cottage compared to the memories of magnificence the old men once talked about. Didn’t their rescue mean anything? Didn’t his love mean anything? As Jesus said, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46).
God argues from the lesser to the greater: If I am father, where is the respect your should give a father? And if I am master, where is the respect you should give a master? The word for master here is a form of adonai, “lord, master.” But God uses the plural adonim. This an example of what we call a plural of majesty, when the leader of a nation (like a king or queen) says “we” instead of “I,” speaking for that nation. But with God it means even more than that. Luther uses simple words: “It indicates the mystery of the Holy Trinity and it is used for the sake of reverence, because God is Lord of all lords” (LW 18:394).
God offers so much to his people. Forgiveness, life, everlasting love, protection, help, knowledge, wisdom, and gifts without end. How many ways can he hold out his hands to mankind to offer his love and compassion? How many ways can sinful mankind close their eyes to his love?
“It is you, O priests, who despise my name. But you ask, ‘How have we despised your name?’”
At this point, God presents a series of challenges to his word. The first ones are from his priests. If the priests are not leading the people to faith and repentance, then they are despising their calling and God’s own name. God had once said to the old high priest Eli, “Those who honor me I will honor, but those who despise me will be despised” (1 Samuel 2:30). What would happen to a whole nation that despised God? God’s name is despised whenever anyone teaches contrary to God’s word, or lives contrary to God’s word.
Ministers of the gospel are not perfect. They are still sinful men who need repentance and forgiveness in their own lives. But when they behave as if they don’t need God’s forgiveness anymore, then what kind of example do they set for God’s people? And if they don’t preach Christ crucified, who will the people trust in for their forgiveness? They will turn to themselves, or other gods, and either path is the road to hell. They must be shown Jesus Christ, and turn to him for forgiveness. As our Lutheran confession states: “Absolution is the true voice of the gospel. In speaking of faith, we also include absolution since ‘faith comes from what is heart,’ as Paul says (Rom. 10:17). Hearing the gospel and hearing absolution strengthens and consoles the conscience… Therefore we must believe the voice of the one absolving no less than we would believe a voice coming from heaven” (Apology of the Augsburg Confession XII:39,40). So we pray, and we remind each other to pray, “Have mercy on me, as you always do to those who love your name” (Psalm 119:132). Without Christ there is only the everlasting future of agony and suffering without end, and a life in the meantime that slides more and more easily and steeply into that inescapable pit. But with Christ and his forgiveness, there is rescue, hope, and everlasting peace and joy in God house, and life without end.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Malachi 1:6 Where is the respect