COV LIFE BLOG

Micah 5:2-5 The Birth of the Deliverer

Micah of Morasheth was burdened with a prophetic gift of discernment from God. Almost in spite of himself, Micah saw God at work behind the dramatic changes on the national scene as well as the international scene, all of which affected his people deeply. Micah saw judgment coming. Micah tried to call his people, the Jewish nation, back to faithful worship and sincere, loving obedience to God and his covenant relationship with them. But the people refused to listen.

He warns them that the only way they will escape judgment, experience God’s blessing, and be able to be used by God in their surroundings is to respond to what they have come to understand as true. Micah’s passion is the same in all [his] messages: He wants his people to abandon idolatry. He wants them to return, which means repent, and embrace sincere faith in the Lord.

The first verse of chapter 5 focuses our attention on impending disaster. It introduces a scene of distress that is either already upon them or imminent. This is the third in a series of invitations to look at what is going on around them. All three of those images graphically depict coming national disaster for Judah.

The spark of hope was fanned into flame by the glorious vision we saw in the beginning of chapter 4, of God’s promised Messianic King and the kingdom that was coming. Now his hope for the future blazes as God gives him some of the most specific and most important prophecies in the entire Old Testament about the coming of Messiah, Jesus Christ the King. Beginning in verse 2, Micah looks seven hundred years ahead to the birth of Jesus and describes the future rule of this Messianic King.

Verse 2 tells us that his beginnings are humanly insignificant, but the second half of verse 2 also tells us that his beginnings are divinely significant. Messiah is the eternal God. Jesus stepped out of eternity into human history, sent by his Father for a purpose: to die for the sins of the world. Jesus was God but he was also man, truly man. He was born as a human child and laid on the straw of the manger at his birth. That is the Christmas miracle of incarnation.

Verse 4 establishes Jesus as more than a King. He is in reality a Shepherd King. Finally, when we get to chapter 7 at the end of the book, Messiah will lead like a king and he will care like a shepherd. He will exercise both of those ministries in what Micah calls an inexhaustible supply of strength that will come from God. He will rule in the majesty of the name of his God. Micah sees a time when all of redeemed humanity—Jew and Gentile alike—will finally remain and be eternally secure in the care of our great shepherd.

The opening phrase in verse 5 says, “And this One will be our peace.” Today, we are promised peace through Jesus Christ. Paul writes this in Ephesians 2.

But now [right now] in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace… [He abolished sin, abolished death]… that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity. (Ephesians 2:13-16)

Doug Goins

---

Heart Preparation
Read Micah 5:2-5a. Consider God’s just judgment against sin and also his great provision for repentant sinners. How does this impact your view of God? How does this impact your life and ministry?