Jesus, Micah, and the Mountain of the House of the Lord

It has really been a while since the last time I posted something in this blog. Way too long! But, lately I have been meditating upon Micah 4:1-5 on the establishment of the mountain of the house of the Lord, and I thought it be well to post something on just that.

Micah 4:1-5 anticipates a time when all that was wrong with the world as far as the Old Testament prophet saw it would ultimately be set to right by Yahweh. Micah was a prophet from Moresheth, a town southwest of Jerusalem, who ministered during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah (Micah 1:1a), rulers of the southern kingdom of Judah. Their reigns spanned from around the mid-eighth to early seventh centuries BC. The prophet ministered in both Jerusalem — the capital of the southern kingdom of Judah — and Samaria — the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel (Micah 1:1b).

The prophet saw much corruption in the lands of Samaria and Judah. He lamented:

Woe to those who scheme iniquity,
Who work out evil on their beds!
When morning comes, they do it,
For it is in the power of their hands.
They covet fields and then seize them,
And houses, and take them away.
They rob a man and his house,
A man and his inheritance” (Micah 2:1-2).¹

Micah condemns the corrupt leaders of Jerusalem and Samaria as those “who hate good and love evil” (Micah 3:2). The prophet, moreover, declared,

Now hear this, heads of the house of Jacob
And rulers of the house of Israel,
Who abhor justice
And twist everything that is straight,
Who build Zion with bloodshed
And Jerusalem with violent injustice.
Her leaders pronounce judgment for a bribe,
Her priests instruct for a price
And her prophets divine for money.
Yet they lean on the Lord saying,
“Is not the Lord in our midst?
Calamity will not come upon us.”
Therefore, on account of you
Zion will be plowed as a field,
Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins,
And the mountain of the temple will become high places of a forest (Micah 3:9-12).

Micah would have witnessed for sixteen years some unspeakable sort of stuff during the reign of Ahaz. Ahaz “walked in the ways of the kings of Israel; he also made molten images for the Baals. Moreover, he burned incense in the valley of Ben-hinnom and burned his sons in fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had driven out before the sons of Israel. He sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, on the hills and under every green tree” (2 Chron. 28:2-4). 

The solution to the problem was more than just getting a good and righteous king into office. Before Ahaz was he reign of Jotham who did “right in the sight of the Lord,” but downside was “the people continued acting corruptly” (2 Chron. 27:2). After Ahaz was the reign of Hezekiah, who did some incredible spiritual reforms in the land of Judah, but apparently some folks in the land were less thrilled about all the changes for what was arguably a better deal and beneficial to all. For example, Hezekiah organizes a great Passover celebration, and invites Israelites from all over to attend, but “the couriers passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, and as far as Zebulun, but they laughed them to scorn and mocked them” (2 Chron. 30:10). The point is this: having a good leader in office is a necessary condition for promoting the common good, but it is far from a sufficient condition. Sinfully corrupt people need to be revitalized with spiritual life for a better world to come.

Micah 3 ends with a prediction about the fall of Jerusalem. What Micah foresaw in the late eighth century BC came to pass with the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish exile which occurred in the late sixth century BC. Micah 4 begins a series of oracles concerning the aftermath of the judgment. The prophet anticipates better days when Yahweh would set things right. He says,

And it will come about in the last days
That the mountain of the house of the Lord
Will be established as the chief of the mountains.
It will be raised above the hills,
And the peoples will stream to it.
Many nations will come and say,
“Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord
And to the house of the God of Jacob,
That He may teach us about His ways
And that we may walk in His paths.”
For from Zion will go forth the law,
Even the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
And He will judge between many peoples
And render decisions for mighty, distant nations.
Then they will hammer their swords into plowshares
And their spears into pruning hooks;
Nation will not lift up sword against nation,
And never again will they train for war.
Each of them will sit under his vine
And under his fig tree,
With no one to make them afraid,
For the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.
Though all the peoples walk
Each in the name of his god,
As for us, we will walk
In the name of the Lord our God forever and ever (Micah 4:1-5).

Micah 4:1-5 begin a series of oracles from the prophet concerning a messianic kingdom and messiah. Bruce Waltke tells us that “the promises in [Micah 4-5] will be fulfilled in the last days (better ‘in days to come’) commencing with the restoration of the remnant from Babylon (6–7), fulfilled in the church today (Acts 2:17; Heb. 1:2), and consummated in the new heavens and earth at the end of time (2 Pet. 3:12; Rev. 21–22).”² Realization of Micah 4:1-5 can certainly point to the return from exile in the days of Ezra, Nehemiah, Zechariah and Haggai but also to the time of the first advent of Jesus Christ. One can also expect there would be ultimate realization of this prophecy at the second advent of Jesus Christ.

The Old Testament prophets looked forward to a new age, a new beginning, or a messianic age. It would be “a time of righteousness” (e.g. Isa. 11:45), “people would live in peace” (Isa. 2:2-4), the would be “the fullness of the Spirit” (Joel 2:28-30), Jeremiah’s new covenant would be realized (Jer. 31:31-34; 32:38-40), sin and sickness would be done away with (Zech. 13:1; Isa. 53:5), a the “material creation would feel the joyful effects of this new age” (e.g., Isa. 11:6-9).³

The New Testament writers were convinced that the anticipated messianic kingdom had arrived at least in part. Jesus announced “the coming kingdom was at hand” (e.g. Mark 1:14-15; Luke 17:20-21). His exorcisms, miraculous works, and acceptance of outcasts and sinners were “signs that the end had begun” (Luke 11:20; Matt. 11:2-6; Luke 14:21; 15:1-2).⁴

Christ died, rose again, and ascended to heaven. The Holy Spirit was poured out. However, the problem of sin and Satan had not been fully and finally resolved. The evil in the world still continued to go on as normal. Moreover, all people, whether sinner or saints, still lived in a sinful and fallen world with mortal bodies prone to disease, death, and decay. The Christian, nevertheless, lived with the hope that Christ would come a second time to fully and finally resolved the problem of sin and Satan (Acts 1:9-11; John 5:28-29; 1 Cor. 15:50-57; 1 Thess. 4:13-18; Rev. 20:11-15; 21:1-27).

In some way the future glorious messianic kingdom had arrived with Jesus Christ but it was not yet fully consummated. Christ death, resurrection, and ascension mark the decisive battle against sin and Satan; this is the Christian D-day, but the time when sin will be fully and finally resolved remains in the future, that is the Christian V-day. Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart explains,

The early believers…learned to be a truly eschatological people. They lived between the times—that is, between the beginning of the end and the consummation of the end. At the Lord’s Table they celebrated their eschatological existence by proclaiming “the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor. 11:26). Already they know God’s free and full forgiveness, but they had not yet been perfected (Phil. 3:10-14). Already victory over death was theirs (1 Cor. 3:22), victory over death was theirs (1 Cor. 3:22), yet they would still die (Phil. 3:20-21). Already they lived in the Spirit, yet they still lived in the world where Satan could attack (e.g., Eph. 6:10-17). Already they had been justified and faced no condemnation (Rom. 8:11), they had been justified and faced no condemnation (Rom. 8:11), yet there was still to be a future judgment (2 Cor. 5:10). They were God’s future people. They had been conditioned by the future. They knew its benefits and lived in light of its values in the present world.⁵

What is so great about Advent season is that it is a way for us to set apart time in our daily routine to remember the coming of the Savior, rejoice in the gift of salvation, and look forward to the second Advent when all things will be set to right. Christmas is that time of year when we are told about how God showed us the way through the coming of the Messiah, which allows us to be the kind of people who can show goodwill to one another, with the goodwill extending well beyond the holiday season. This sweetness of life is part of that future thing messianic kingdom that arrived ahead of schedule with Jesus.

— WGN

Notes:

1. All Scripture cited from New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), unless noted.

2. Bruce K. Waltke, “Micah,” in New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition, ed. D. A. Carson et al., 4th ed. (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994), 826–827.

3. Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003), 146.

4. Ibid., 146.

5. Ibid., 147