Obadiah 1:17-20

But upon Mount Zion shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness.

Holiness on Mount Zion

The imagery of Scripture poetry often presents instructive truths, referring to more general subjects than those on which the sacred writer might, at the particular time, be called to dwell.

I. Regard the text as respects Mount Zion. A grand Scripture type. Not only there God was worshipped, but there God Himself, as the object of worship, dwelt. Conceive of God, accepting Christ’s atonement,--Christ standing as Mediatorial King on the holy hill,--the redeemed from earth actually worshipping there--and, in spirit, all true worshippers coming to God by Christ. You have thus that state of things of which Mount Zion, with its temples, its glory, its services, its worshippers, was a type.

II. What shall be there?

1. The text says, “deliverance”; marg. reads, “They that escape.” Two aspects of the same subject. Where do they come that flee for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before them? To Christ on this Mount Zion. They escape for their lives,--come to Him, and He casts them not out. They have “deliverance” therefore. Pardon, spiritual freedom, and blessedness.

2. Then “there shall be holiness.” An undoubted truth, the penitent sinner, coming to God in truth, by faith, for pardon, is made holy, becomes a new creature. Justification and sanctification thus connected; the favour, and the image of God. Real holiness;--holiness of life, as well as of heart;--growing holiness. Nor is it anywhere else. They who will not come to Christ may sometimes have human virtue; they cannot have Divine holiness. Look at this mount. Oh, the blessedness of dwelling there. Well fortified, well supplied. God is there. You live in peace. He is preparing you for the higher blessings. There is the heavenly Zion. Only they pass to it who on earth dwelt on the spiritual Zion. (G. Cubitt.)

The Church delivered, purified, and privileged

I. The deliverance of the Church of God. Mount Zion signifies the Church, the entire mass of those who are given to the Lord Jesus Christ, and whom He has ransomed by His blood. It is remarkable that what is exhibited as the liberation of the Church is always conjoined with the destruction of some opposing power. The fact is, that the destruction of the opposing power is the means used for the liberating of the Church. Conquest in the world is triumph in the Church. Consolation is combined with liberation. Deliverance is the first and principal object which presented itself to the mind of the Lord Jesus. His death was a necessary step to His resurrection, His resurrection to His exaltation, His exaltation to the assumption of His mediatorial power. We see that Jesus Christ first fought and conquered, and then He became the liberator of the world. In the world He works liberation by instrumentality, and the great agency employed in carrying it on is the Holy Spirit. Liberation begins with Christ, but it does not end with Him; for, as He Himself obtained resurrection by the power of God, so there is another resurrection which takes place in the breast of every man who is the subject of His kingdom.

II. The grand effect which the text sets forth. “There shall be holiness.” The mount of deliverance is always the mount of holiness. Another name for holiness is spiritual health. Bring the whole to this one point, that the test of state is character; that wherever this holiness is met with, there the deliverance that has been effected on Mount Zion by the Lord Jesus is applied, and there the liberation that the Spirit of God works in the souls of His people is likewise brought to pass.

III. The privileges to which this effect leads, and for which it prepares. “Shall possess their possessions.” Canaan for the earlier saints. For us “the inheritance of the saints.” (John Campbell.)

Mount Zion and its blessings

The coming of the Lord in glorious majesty to judge the earth is the burden of the Church’s message to-day. Throughout the writings of the prophets the choicest and most consoling promises concerning the Christian Church follow close upon God’s terrible threatenings against His enemies. The main scope of Obadiah’s prophecy was to warn the Edomites of the destruction which awaited them. The true Mount Zion is the Christian Church, typified by Mount Zion in Jerusalem. The prophet in the text points us to Mount Zion as the place where we may look for deliverance. From what? From a mere local religion with its centre at Jerusalem. The Kingdom of God’s dear Son is for the whole world. From the blackness and condemnation of Sinai and the violated law. With this “deliverance” will be seen its never-failing attendant--“holiness.” It was the great design of our Divine Redeemer to produce the fruits of holiness in His Church. The kingdom of God is not only the manifestation and free offer of Christ’s pardon to penitent sinners, but it is holiness of heart and life. When the tree is made good, the fruit will be good also. (John N. Norton.)

The true Church, or the community o/ the good

I. A beneficient power.

1. It is connected with deliverance.

2. With purity.

3. With enjoyment. Possess here means, enjoy their possessions.

II. A consuming power. There is a fire in the true Church (Obadiah 1:18).

1. The characteristics this fire displays. What is the fire? The fire of truth, that burns up error; the fire of right, that burns up wickedness; the fire of love, that burns up selfishness. It is a strong fire; an extending fire; a steady fire; an unquenchable fire.

2. The materials this fire consumes. “Stubble.” What is moral depravity in all its forms, theoretical and practical, religious, social, and political? “Stubble.” Error to truth, wrong to right, malice to love, is but stubble to fire.

III. An aggressive power. The Gospel is at once the inspiration, the life, and the instrument of the true Church.

1. The elements of which the Gospel is composed. “Grace and truth,” or eternal reality and Divine benevolence. To show the aggressiveness of these principles, state three facts.

(1) The human soul is made to feel their imperial force.

(2) The human soul is bound to yearn after these elements as its highest good.

(3) The human soul is everywhere restless without these elements.

2. The proselytising spirit which the Gospel engenders. Every genuine recipient of the Gospel becomes a missionary.

3. The triumphs which the Gospel has already achieved. Such thoughts as these tend to demonstrate the essential aggressiveness of the true Church. (Homilist.)