Malachi 1:2–3

Whatever the state of His people, the Lord never forgets, and never hesitates to declare, His love for them. It is in this way indeed that He brings their true condition to light. We might have expected His first word to be a warning and a rebuke for their sins. But no. God's first word should have reminded them of the length and breadth, the depth and height, of that unchanging love. That love had flowed out in His mercy and grace from the call of Abraham until now. It is the same in the New Testament letters. God always shows His heart for His saints before He gives the warnings and corrections they need… We can never be reminded too often that we do not belong to the Lord because we love Him, but because He has loved us and made us what we are.

Satisfied with themselves, they were dissatisfied with God. So when the prophet made his first statement — "I have loved you, says the LORD" — they challenge it at once. Many troubles afflicted the Jews in Palestine in those years. God allowed these troubles as a chastisement because of their state. They resented them, and saw them as harshness, the opposite of love. So they challenged the statement, in an insolent way, asking, "How have you loved us?"

If God reminds them of His love, they say, "How have you loved us?" If He rebukes them for despising His name, they say, "How have we despised it?" If He accuses them of wearying Him, they say, "How have we wearied Him?" If God charges them with robbery, they say, "How have we robbed You?"

God's love is free. In Malachi He appeals to His people on the ground of the love He had shown to Jacob, and He uses the name that recalls their father's natural character — a character stamped on his descendants too, before divine grace had made him Israel… The name shows how little the "worm Jacob" had deserved divine love. But when He has to say, in contrast, "Esau I have hated," He marks out the wickedness on their part that stirred His anger against them… The free love of divine grace has no matching free hate. God is patient toward the creatures He has made.

God did not say "I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated" before the children were born. He said it hundreds of years later, after the real character and practical ways of each had been shown in full. Before the children were born, God said only this: "the older shall serve the younger." It is more than a sad mistake to represent God as hating a man before he was born.

The Lord takes them back to the past and reminds them of the sovereign love that chose their father Jacob. He leads them on to the future and shows them that His love has purposed to make Israel the centre of blessing on the earth… In the prophet's day they claimed they could not see His love. But the Lord replies that a day is coming when they will see.

The Lord may have to speak to us in the most serious way about our moral condition. He may have to deal with us severely because of it. But behind His rebukes and His chastenings there is love. The hand that strikes is moved by a heart that loves.