In Micah’s day, both Israel and Judah, deserved God’s judgment for their oppression, idolatry, and corruption.
They lived out this wickedness right alongside the motions of offering sacrifice, and they expected that they could cancel out the bad by doing more good.
“God deals with sinners in one of two ways: deserved justice, or undeserved grace.”
God is a righteous Judge who carries out deserved judgment, he is also a merciful Savior who gives undeserved grace and full forgiveness and restoration and a sure and steadfast hope for the future to those who believe Him and turn to him in repentance.
The hope Micah presented was the promise of a Shepherd-King, a sacrificial Saviour who would gather his faithful remnant back in the land, tenderly care for them, and give His life for them to defeat their great enemy.
The result would be that people from all nations and tribes and tongues would come to worship God.
To God’s people who had suffered under a line of failed kings and oppressive foreign regimes, Micah announced coming restoration and peace.
Jesus Himself is the long-anticipated Shepherd-King who has made peace with God through “the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1.20).
He did not come to destroy but to be destroyed, laying down his life for his sheep (John 10.15).
He now rules over his people in perfect justice and abundant mercy, empowering his people, by his Spirit, to walk humbly in his just and merciful ways (1 John 2.6)— the very life Israel in Micah’s day had abandoned.
“God deals with sinners in one of two ways: deserved justice, or undeserved grace.”
All those who look to Christ in trusting faith experience the undeserved grace rather than deserved justice.
As believers in Jesus we can expect that God will “pass over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance”
Micah 7:18-20
Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity
and passing over transgression
for the remnant of his inheritance?
He does not retain his anger forever,
because he delights in steadfast love.
19 He will again have compassion on us;
he will tread our iniquities underfoot.
You will cast all our sins
into the depths of the sea.
20 You will show faithfulness to Jacob
and steadfast love to Abraham,
as you have sworn to our fathers
from the days of old.
Our transgressions have been put upon God’s Son, His imprint in a human body, God in the flesh, Jesus Christ (Romans 3.21–26). Christ will “bear the indignation of the Lord” on our behalf (Micah 7.9).
Though we may suffer and fall in our life’s battle with evil, we shall rise, as the prophet believed he himself would, due to the Lord’s vindication (Micah 7.8–9)—and, as indeed will all those who are united to Christ by faith (Romans 6.5).
This is the wonder of the gospel in Micah.
Adapted from an excellent article written by Nancy Guthrie.
James Travis 