Obadiah 1:17-21
17 "But on Mount Zion there shall be deliverance,
And there shall be holiness;
The house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.
18 The house of Jacob shall be a fire,
And the house of Joseph a flame;
But the house of Esau shall be stubble;
They shall kindle them and devour them,
And no survivor shall remain of the house of Esau,"
For the LORD has spoken.
19 The South shall possess the mountains of Esau,
And the Lowland shall possess Philistia.
They shall possess the fields of Ephraim
And the fields of Samaria.
Benjamin shall possess Gilead.
20 And the captives of this host of the children of Israel
Shall possess the land of the Canaanites
As far as Zarephath.
The captives of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad
Shall possess the cities of the South.
21 Then saviors shall come to Mount Zion
To judge the mountains of Esau,
And the kingdom shall be the LORD's.
God’s chosen people escaped final judgment by God’s grace and mercy for deliverance from sin’s punishment and towards holiness as they were created and called for. This holds true still for all who receive the gospel call for the message remains the same as it has been fully revealed in the fullness of time (Galatians 4:3-4). The LORD God promised this salvation and their righteousness, but they just had not yet quite understood that it would be His righteousness and not their own in that deliverance. The promise to “possess their possessions” meant they would have what was predetermined as promised as His children to assure them of the veracity of God’s word and goodness. They would once again burn bright with the worship of service to the LORD and shine that light to the nations from that hill (Matthew 5:14-16, Romans 11:25, 16:25-26, 2 Corinthians 4:6, 2 Peter 1:19). The kingdom on earth was promised as a shadow of the unending one to follow at the end of time after the final judgment, a down payment as it were on the true inheritance of the people of God from Israel and out of all nations through them (Genesis 22:18, Acts 3:25). The final Savior who is the long-expected Messiah has come and judged the enemies of Him and His people because the kingdom is truly the LORD’s as promised. This short book of Obadiah has a lasting message of this kingdom as promised and fulfilled in the gospel of Jesus the Christ! It is the message of the final triumph (1 Corinthians 15:26, 55-57) over sin and death of judgment through the grace of deliverance (salvation) and holiness which we find being in Christ (1 Corinthians 1:30-31) and being formed in us day by day (2 Corinthians 3:18, 2 Peter 2:24). Let us rejoice and be glad in this!
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