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I was reading Micah today, and came upon this passage:
3 Look! The Lord is coming from his dwelling place;
he comes down and treads on the heights of the earth.
4 The mountains melt beneath him
and the valleys split apart,
like wax before the fire,
like water rushing down a slope.
5 All this is because of Jacob's transgression,
because of the sins of the people of Israel.
What is Jacob's transgression?
Is it not Samaria?
What is Judah's high place?
Is it not Jerusalem?
I was struck by the strange correllation: the Lord will execute judgment on the world, because of the sin of Israel. I can imagine how Israel deserves to be judged for its own sin; and the wider world certainly deserves to be judged for its own. But isn't there the implication here that if Israel had not sinned, then the Lord would not have to come to judge the world? Doesn't the world deserve judgment whatever Israel does?
Perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but it seems to me that this is saying that if Israel (or figuratively, the church) was not in sin, then God would not have to come and execute judgment in such spectacular ways. That is, when we are acting as we should, we are the hand of God in the world. We work both positively (building good things) and negatively (executing judgment on what is evil).
This isn't a particularly earthshaking revelation, I know...but somehow, this passage struck me particularly today.
Thoughts?
Russ | 
