Church, Who Are You Married To

In the reading, (v10) Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously with one another By profaning the covenant of the fathers?

11) Judah has dealt treacherously, And an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem, For Judah has profaned The Lord’s holy institution which He loves: He has married the daughter of a foreign god.

12) May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob The man who does this, being awake and aware, Yet who brings an offering to the Lord of host!

13) And this is the second thing you do: You cover the altar of the Lord with tears, With weeping and crying; So He does not regard the offering anymore, Nor receive it with goodwill from your hands.

14) Yet you say, “For what reason?” Because the Lord has been witness Between you and the wife of your youth, With whom you have dealt treacherously; Yet she is your companion And your wife by covenant.

15) But did He not make them one, Having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? He seeks godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit, And let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth.

16) “For the Lord God of Israel says That He hates divorce, For it covers one’s garment with violence,” Says the Lord of hosts. “Therefore take heed to your spirit, That you do not deal treacherously.”

17) You have wearied the Lord with your words; Yet you say, “In what way have we wearied Him?” In that you say, Everyone who does evil Is good in the sight of the Lord, And He delights in them,” Or, “Where is the God of justice?”

In a marriage relationship with someone is it possible for us to know how we will be treated after establishing it? Can you know how the other person will be towards you based on the beginning or present state? Think about it. We had no control or choice of who and how our parents or guardians would be. Regardless of who they were and what they did over us, we learned to adjust whether we agreed or not. Who they were was outside of my control. Nobody knows how a marriage relationship will develop beforehand.

What if you knew beforehand that your spouse would become critical of you sometimes , a flirt or cheater, addict to drugs, alcohol, porn, abusive, quick-tempered, not helpful or supportive of you, lazy, careless sometimes, etc.? Would you choose them as your lifetime marriage partner? If you knew all of the difficulties that you were going to experience from this person would you marry them or stay married to them? The Lord knew Israel’s character flaws from being under Egypt and surrounding nations but he chose them? Why or why not? What would your decision concerning them be based on? When you said “I do” what manner of person did you direct this declaration to? Did you say “I Do” only to who the person is in present time? What about their past and their future ways to be developed? All that we know about a person is mainly present ways, some things about their past but not their future yet. What state of heart are you in when you say “I do”?

The Lord addresses Israel’s declining love for Him through Malachi the prophet 1:1-5. This condition of indifference affects their worship, marriage/family, citizenship, business ethics, ministry. Because of the attitude of indifference, immorality and divorce is acceptable among some of the Israelites. Israel questioned the Lord’s faithfulness and love to them in Mal. 1:2. The problem with this is that Yahweh’s love was active in His mighty works to set them apart from all other uncovenanted nations up to their date in dealing with the Edomites, (Deuteronomy 4:37-40; Mal. 1:3-4). But when we observe the attitude and behavior of Israel, it is a reminder of ancestral influence in (Genesis 25:29-34;27:1-29), Esau despised his birthright and surrendered it over to Jacob for a meal and later Jacob with the influence of his mother Rebekah deceived Isaac and stole the blessing of the Lord. This scenario is messy because the Lord had to choose between two types of sinners to bless. One despised and surrendered while the other deceived and stole. The Lord chose Jacob who deceived and stole the blessing because he desired to have it and Esau disesteemed it.

Israel is showing the characteristics of Esau in worship and covenant life in a careless manner. They fail to honor and revere the Lord as their Father and Master, Mal. 1:6. Israel’s offerings to the Lord were as careless worship Mal. 1:7-8, and reflected the reasoning of their attitude Mal. 1:12-13 and lack of zeal towards worship and covenant keeping behavior. As Israel was losing interest in their relationship with the Lord they also lost interest in His covenant moral law for them. This means that the sacred covenant of marriage and fellowship of brothers and sisters is no longer revered so Malachi the prophet addressed the people in 2:10, “Have we not all one Father,” that is, relations with the Lord God who constituted, controlled, guided, and lovingly watched over them? When Malachi speaks here concerning “all” keep in mind that there are Twelve tribes of Israel. “Did not one God create us,” that is, did not the only and true God form us? In other words, “Do we not identify together with Him based on image creation and divine constitution?” If we do then, why do we violate the covenant made with our ancestors by acting deceitfully towards each other? Malachi answers why by pointing out Judah’s previous decision and act of marrying into pagan influence secretly. In 2:11, “Judah has dealt treacherously. And an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem, For Judah has profaned The Lord’s holy institution which He loves: He has married the daughter of a foreign god.”

First, Judah became faithless in their dealings, leading to deceitful practices and transactions relating to matters of being a spouse, issues of acquiring or managing property, human rights, violating covenants, in words and in conduct. Secondly, the word “profaned” from the Hebrew is (chalal) piel perfect in the active voice, indicating perfective achievement viewed as a whole result. Judah’s priests gave complete access to an idol’s influence, they polluted, defiled, made prostitution or common, the covenant, the altar and the people, who were ceremonially cleansed and separated as sacred by Yahweh. To be married (Ba’al) means “to possess, to be master, to rule, to be taken as wife.” The tribe of Judah, the Fourth son of Jacob and Leah, one of the Twelve tribes. Israel as the Lord God’s firstborn son, a covenant nation was divinely chosen to be mighty, to prevail or to rule as God to teach all uncovenanted nations the Lord God’s holy and righteous law. Jerusalem was supposed to signify “the foundation and house of peace, which is also known as the house of God.” The priests of Judah violated these covenant identities and representations by intermarriage to a female disciple and worshipper of an unknown god. This is “covenant divorce.” The leaders of Judah broke their word, and their commitment to their relationship with Yahweh and the righteousness He loves, to make an alliance with His enemy. So, Malachi warned the people of Israel that Yahweh would cause the man (anyone) and especially the priest, to be cut off from his identity with Jacob whom Yahweh has loved, for taking possession for themselves a concubine by being dedicated to a false deity while in covenant with Yahweh, Malachi 2:12. The priests knows better than this being a “teacher and student” because his role was to impart divine instruction and direction while behaving in covenant uprightness, Malachi 2:7. The priests must regard the Lord as holy, Leviticus 10:3. He is considered close and intimate with the Lord God. The heart and devotion of these priests were worse than divided and halfhearted in service to Yahweh and His chosen people. They were indifferent about Him as covenant Father and Lord. Malachi warns that Yahweh identifies these priests of Judah as them who are “alert and testifying ones” who violate and mislead Yahweh’s people. The leaders of Judah has subjected God’s nation to become as “husband” that is, making themselves masters in possession of a counterfeit god (v. 11). What does being in possession mean? Taking for oneself and one’s devotion to someone or something. Uniting oneself to be one with. To direct one’s love and commitment to one. This is the decision of intermingling the morally sacred nation to the common nation. Intermarriage (Ezra 9:2). Israel who was “created, delivered from Egypt, a theocratic nation, firstborn son, redeemed, made holy, has now changed their devotion by becoming husband to idolatrous nations. They have divorced their wives to make room for idolatrous ones. In (v. 13), is about approaching the altar of Yahweh in hypocrisy. Insincere tears, crying and weeping but, no repentance concerning sins committed is what Yahweh refuses in regard to their offering to Him. They were not the Lord’s covenant keeping priests, but counterfeit priests in heart and practice. They neglected to treat Yahweh as Holy. Why is this recognition necessary for them to have? Because Yahweh wants it to be clear to them that He knows that their offerings have “no reverence, honor, love, or loyalty to Him in it.” Here they continue in (v 14), to interrogate the Lord concerning His displeasure about their offerings to Him in asking “why, wherefore, for what reason,”? Their Creator and Father as Lord responds in the absolute sense “I testify or I bear witness against,(acting as Divine Protester) between,” denoting the Lord’s active presence makes Him the Essential Covenant Witness and Judge between us through covenant with Him. In other words, the Lord Sees and knows what we are really doing and why we are doing it. There’s no place to hide from Him. The Lord knows where our relationship is with Him, each other, and in the world. Men and women, the Lord knows how we treat Him, our spouse, our family, those who are the body of Christ, and them that we interact with outside of the body, in business, at work, in school, and in the community. In this context, He is against husbands who act faithlessly in betrayal and do so deceptively against the wives of their early years. Malachi emphatically speaks of the early wife as being the consort that these husbands were divinely knitted together with by agreement. He is the Judge Who bears prompt judgment against them among His people who practice incantations to idols, who break wedlock or apostatize, who utter false oaths, who press upon or defraud the earner of wages (hired workers), and lastly, against those who oppress and / or do injury to the bereaved spouse or child, and turn away foreigners. So to this, Malachi questions in verse 15, “But did He not make them one, Having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? He seeks godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit, And let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth.”

This interrogation is about the completed action of who and what God the Father has joined together as a purified remnant and identifying them as united in their relation to Himself. What is supposed to be recognized is that the spirit is placed in man as an entity and is made male and female, man and woman, husband and wife. When Genesis 1:27, says that God created “him” (‘eth), that is not gender but it is entity. Why is this use of the word emphasized here? Because it is derived from two other words (‘owth, in the sense of appearing, but has the meaning of “flag, beacon, monument, prodigy, sign), and (‘uwth, meaning to come, that is by implication “to assent or consent.” Why is this word so important to understand the message concerning covenant commitment and responsibility? What is supposed to be understood about “him” as entity is that before God developed him into gender, “him” was made as an entity “in His image and after His likeness.” Image means “something cut out,” and is applied to male and female. This is important because in God’s act of creating, He didn’t show favoritism of one gender over the other because that would negate the reality and value of man as an entity or any gender being made in His image. It is through image and entity that the institution of marriage between a male and a female was developed to produce godly offspring throughout this world. This is why God said to them while they were in right standing with Him “to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, (Genesis 1:28). God is not a respecter of person at all, neither should any human be in thought or practice. This is why God gives Malachi this message for Israel and Judah. God doesn’t want persons that He made to be treated as less than His image and his likeness. Divorcing a spouse without reason is the act of treating them like they are less than image of God. We are not to adore, idolize, or act as gods like those around us in world who put their trust in mankind. That is, lifting someone up other than the Lord God meaning the misuses of social media, horoscopes, Palm readers, Politicians, religious leaders, etc., to be the essential answer to something in human life, whether it relates to marriage, family, business, religion, economics, politics or government, etc. because nobody can ever be more than what they were made to be, which is image and likeness of God. In regard to this Malachi instructs them to “be on guard against an unaccountable and uncontrollably impulsive disposition in themselves.” In other words, “You are to prohibit yourself from acting deceitfully and faithlessly in (marriage relations), matters of property or right, in covenants, in word and in general conduct.” Because she is the wife that you betrothed from your earlier life. The one that you declared before God to be your spouse alone. The reason that the covenanting God through Malachi instructed this is because in (v16), he says “For the Lord God of Israel says that He hates divorce, For it covers one’s garment with violence,” Says the Lord of hosts. Therefore take heed to your spirit, That you do not deal treacherously.” To this condition of those among God’s people who behave like this Malachi discloses the divine displeasure and disgust feeling of the Lord God against the dismissing of a spouse without reason, because of adultery, fornication, homosexuality, bestiality or intermarriage, etc., Mt. 5:31-32; 19:4-8, Malachi 2:11; Ezra 9:1-2. God was not pleased with Israel and Judah because of intermarriage, that is, mixing God’s saved and chosen people with the uncovenanted people of this world in their day. I find it erroneous when we think that God wants us to support Israel in today’s political situations yet we may not know which Israel that we are trying to support, when in Romans 9:6-7, Paul’s grief concerning many Jews representing Israel while being unsaved says, “But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. For they are not all Israel who are Israel, 7) nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, “In Isaac your seed shall be called.” Political or national Israel is not necessarily God’s children that we have been supporting. Everyone who declares themselves to be a Christian may not be one. There should be fruit from the word of God that transforms them that proclaims God as their Father and Husband. God identifies covenant keeping Israel as His chosen people. Malachi says that divorce “covers one’s garment with violence.” 

The explanation is that faithlessness hides its wrongs against your wife who is closest to you and protected you. As our clothes are the closest thing to us, the same understanding about the spouse relationship should be applied to marriage as both husband and wife as each other’s garments to wear until death. Besides God, our spouse should be the closest and most intimate partner and relationship that we have in our priorities of thought and interaction. We are to deal with our spouse with a disposition of accountability and self control in regard to our reverence for the Lord God. In other words, it is necessary for husbands and wives to be married to the Lord God their Creator first and be married to each other through God in order to represent His institution in the way that He desires us to. In the same way, we are to fellowship and represent His image and likeness together as His church through Him.