Remember how this prophecy started? It started with the words of the people. Now it continues here in the third message of four, with the words, the rulings, the determinations of the “priests”. Going from that which was not true . . . (“The time has not come . . . for the house of the LORD to be rebuilt”), from that which exposed their hearts (their desire to serve themselves and not the LORD), to now that which is a true and right understanding of the law of God. His very word . . . which will also, in a wholly different way, expose that which is going on within the hearts of the people of God, the remnant!
There is a parallel here then between the first and this third message. The first results in the people hearing and, by the work of the Spirit who stirs these remnant people, their heeding the very word of God as they return to the work for which they were sent. This third message then, results, not in the active obedience of the people, but in the teaching, the reality, that it is God who blesses: not the temple, not the offerings themselves, not the priests, but God alone. He is the One who sanctifies. It is by the hand of God that anyone will be blessed. Not a result of the work of the hands, as these are all defiled, unclean, but blessings come only by and through the sovereign will of God Himself. |
