One Father.
"Have we not all one Father," etc..? "This section," says Keil, "does not stand in any close connection with the preceding one. It does not furnish an example of the stumbling upon the Law mentioned in Malachi 2:8; nor of the violation of the covenant of the fathers (Malachi 2:10); or of the marriage covenant (Malachi 2:14), appended to the neutralizing of the covenant of Levi on the part of the priests (Malachi 2:8 and Malachi 2:4). For there is no indication in Malachi 2:10-16 that the priests gave any impulse through their bad teaching to the breaches of the Law which are here condemned; and the violation of the covenant of the fathers and of the marriage covenant forms no more a thought by which the whole is ruled, than the violation of the covenant with Levi, in the previous section. The prophet rather passes over with Malachi 2:10 to a perfectly new subject, viz. the condemnation of marriages with heathen women." From this passage the three following truths are deducible.
I. THAT THE GREAT GOD IS NOT ONLY THE CREATOR BUT THE COMMON FATHER OF MANKIND. "Have we not all one Father? hath not one God created us?" It is clear that the one Father does not mean either Adam the progenitor of the race, or Abraham the Father of the Israelitish nation, but Jehovah himself. He is the Creator of all things, but not the Father of all things. We could not regard him as the Father of the mountains, the valleys, the rivers, the oceans, the stars, though he is the Creator of all these. All things are created by him; but he is the Father of human souls. "We are all his offspring." This relationship implies two things.
1. A resemblance in nature. Children resemble their parents in nature and attributes. All intelligent moral beings bear a resemblance to the Infinite. They are spiritual in essence, moral in sentiment, free in action; they are formed in his image.
2. The existence of parental sympathy. While a human father has the ordinary sensibilities of a man, he has the peculiar affections of a parent, a tender interest in his offspring, which he feels for no other object in the world. So God is a Father. Whilst he has an interest in all the works of his hands, he has a special interest in a human soul.
3. The obligation of filial devotion. Filial love and loyalty raise and bind the souls of children to their parents. Such is the feeling that human spirits should cherish and develop in relation to God. Man is the only creature on this round earth that has the capacity, and consequently the obligation, to feel, entertain, or develop this filial affection. He then who is the Creator of all things in the world is the Father of man; all are his creatures, but men are his children. Sublime distinction this!
II. THAT THE FACT OF THIS UNIQUE RELATIONSHIP IS A MIGHTY ARGUMENT WHY MAN SHOULD DO NO WRONG AGAINST EITHER HIS FELLOW CREATURE OR HIS GOD. "Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?" Two remarks are suggested concerning the wrong with which the Israelites are here charged.
1. It was a wrong committed against mankind. The special wrong referred to is the contraction of marriage with a heathen woman, and the putting away the Israelitish wife. This is the treachery and the "abomination" referred to. The repudiation of Jewish wives and the adoption of heathen.
2. This wrong against mankind was a wrong against God himself. "Judah hath profaned the holiness of the Lord which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god." God's law with the Jewish people was that they were to be a separate people, separate from all the other people of the earth, and they were to sustain their distinction by not intermarrying with other peoples. But now, at the period when the prophet wrote, they were doing so, and that to a great extent (see Nehemiah 13:23-29; Ezra 9:1-4). It is a universal truth that a wrong against man is a wrong against God; to sin against our fellow creatures is to sin against God himself; and this is an outrage against the relationship which we all sustain to him, not only as our common Creator, but our common Father. We are all children of the same Father, and therefore we should be fair in our dealings one With another. We should love one another, and cooperate with one another for our mutual advantage in all that is virtuous and noble. "Have we not all one Father?" Wherefore, then, should we cheat, hate, deceive, oppress, murder one another? How monstrous!
III. THAT THE PERPETRATION OF WRONG EXPOSES THE DOER TO THE MOST LAMENTABLE RESULTS. "The Lord will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and him that offereth an offering unto the Lord of hosts. And this have ye done," etc. This, perhaps, means utter extermination. "The master and the scholar," some translate, "him that watcheth and him that answereth." In "master" the special reference is to the priest who ought to have taught the people piety, but who led them into evil; in "scholar," to the people themselves, who were the pupils of the priests. The idea is that both the priests and the people will suffer on account of the wrong they were committing. Great distress had come upon them already. "This have ye done" (see Ezra 10:1-44.; Nehemiah 13:10-13) Again, this is only a shadowy picture of the evils that ever flow from wrong. "Sin brought death into our world, and all our woe." It is sin that kindles and feeds the flames retribution.
CONCLUSION. Haste the time when men shall realize the fact that they are all children of one Father, so that all wrongs against one another shall cease, and the spirit of universal brotherhood prevail!
"A happy bit hame this auld world would be,
If men when they're here could make shift to agree,
An' ilk said to his neighbour, in cottage an' ha',
'Come, gi'e me your hand—we are brethren a'.
"I ken na why ane wi' anither should fight,
When to 'glee would make a' body comie an' right;
When man meets wi' man, 'tis the best way ava,
To say, ' Gi'e me sour hand—we are brethren a'
"My coat is a coarse ane an' yours may be fine,
And I maun drink water while you maun drink wine;
But we both ha'e a leal heart, unspotted to shaw,
'Sae gi'e me your hand—we're brethren a'.'
"Ye would scorn to do fausely by woman or man;
I haud by the right, aye, as well as I can.
We are ane in our joys, our affections an a',
Come, gi'e me your hand—we are brethren a'.'"
(R. Nicol.)
―D.T.