Let us now go on to consider come crucial points in the Minor Prophets.
Amos 4:12 says, “Prepare to meet your God, O Israel.” There is no other verse in the Bible which tells us to prepare to meet God. Are you prepared to meet your God?
These books speak in different ways concerning God’s forgiveness. According to Micah 7:18 and 19, God pardons our iniquity and passes over our transgression, treading our iniquities underfoot and casting all our sins into the depths of the sea. This reveals how willing God is to forgive our iniquities.
Another crucial point, prophesied in Joel, is the outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost (2:28-32a; Acts 2:16-21). This outpouring was a great matter, for it initiated the church life.
The matter of the righteous one, or the just one, living by his faith was not initiated by Paul but was prophesied in the Minor Prophets. “The righteous one will live by his faith” (Hab. 2:4). This word was quoted by Paul in Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11, and Hebrews 10:38. To live by faith implies having life by faith. Thus, the righteous one has life and lives by his faith.
God is light (1 John 1:5). The Lord Jesus said that He is the light of the world (John 8:12). But even in the Minor Prophets it is prophesied that God would be light to us, His people, and would bring us into the light (Micah 7:8-9).
The central thought of the Minor Prophets involves many things, beginning with God’s judgment. God will judge the world (Joel 3:2a). Sinners should prepare to meet God (Amos 4:12). Christ as the eternally divine One came to the earth and was born to be human (Micah 5:2). He entered into death and resurrected from it for the extending of God’s salvation to all the nations (Jonah 1:17; 2:10; 3:2). Sinners who repent and believe in Him will be forgiven of their sins and justified by God to have the divine life that they may walk in the divine light and become the mighty ones of Christ, sent with Him by God in His second appearing (Amos 4:12; Micah 7:18-19; Hab. 2:4; Micah 7:8-9; Joel 3:11b). He will arise as the Sun of righteousness (Mal. 4:2) and come as the Angel of the covenant (Mal. 3:1b) to reign in Zion (Micah 4:7b) and shepherd Israel (Micah 5:4). Then the millennium of the restoration will be brought in (Micah 4:1-3; Hosea 14:4-8; Rev. 20:4, 6; Matt. 19:28). When we put all these points together, we have the central thought of the Minor Prophets.
The Minor Prophets are minor, but the revelation they bring in is major. The central point of the divine revelation in the Minor Prophets is the same as that in the Major Prophets.
The crucial emphasis of the revelation released by all the prophets from Isaiah to Malachi is that God wants to have an organic union with His chosen people, like the union of Adam with Eve. In the writings of the prophets, God expresses His desire to have an organic union with His chosen people, making Himself their life and making them His expression. In this way God and His chosen people become a couple, a compound person, just as Adam and Eve became a couple. Originally Adam was alone, but later Eve came out of Adam. Eve was built from Adam’s rib to match Adam, to marry Adam, and to be Adam’s counterpart (Gen. 2:21-22). Eventually, the two became one in nature and in life. This is a type of what God desires. God’s desire is to be united with His chosen people to be a universal couple, which in Revelation 22:17 is called “the Spirit and the bride.” Because this is God’s intention in His eternal economy, both the Major Prophets and the Minor Prophets speak of God as the Husband and of God’s chosen people as the wife. This thought is fully developed in the New Testament, but it was unveiled first through the prophets. It is very important that we see this in our study of the Major and Minor Prophets.
God’s intention, God’s desire, makes Christ the centrality and universality in God’s economy. In the New Testament Christ is all and in all (Col. 3:11). Christ is everyone and in everyone. Eventually, the whole church is nothing but Christ.
We have seen that part of the contents of the Minor Prophets is that God’s economy in His loving chastisement of Israel, that is, in His governmental dealing with Israel, and in His judgment of the nations issues in the manifestation of Christ as the centrality and universality of God’s economy to bring in the restoration. God’s instrument to chastise Israel has been, and still is, the nations.
World history is displaying the fulfillment of what was prophesied through the prophets. After their prophecies, given seven or eight centuries before Christ, God came in to chastise Israel by sending Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, to destroy Jerusalem. Since that time, Israel has not been recovered. Israel has been under Babylon, Medo-Persia, the Macedonian-Grecian Empire, and the Roman Empire, which continues to influence the entire world. For twenty-six centuries Israel has been suffering under a long, divine chastisement. Today God is using the Arab nations to chastise Israel.
This chastisement has been for the purpose that Christ would be manifested as everything, as the centrality and universality in God’s economy. This manifestation will bring in the age of restoration. Thus, God is moving, working, and managing the world affairs to fulfill His eternal economy, that is, to make Christ everything to mankind for the bringing in of the kingdom, the age of restoration.