Zephaniah 3:9-11 - Restoration

3:9

So God has assembled the nations and will pour out His wrath on them, but that is not the whole story, for He is going to purify the lips of the peoples. The peoples will call on the name of the Lord and serve Him together. In our understanding the God and His ways we so often either see Him just as a God of judgement, or as a forgiving God, with the latter being the more common these days. In the Bible we see both. There is judgement and wrath, but there is also salvation.

3:10

Just as we love to see it as judgement or mercy, we seem to love to either see Israel as special or completely out of the picture. It seems to me that any half-sensible reading of the Bible cannot fail to see Israel as being saved, and that this all fits in with God’s global plan of salvation. Romans 9-11 is the best exposition of this, but here we see it as well. Verse 9 has spoken of the global nature of God’s salvation, then we see that God restoring His people who have been scattered around the world as well.

3:11

Now Jerusalem is mentioned specifically, and we see the nature of God’s salvation. Jerusalem will not be put to shame for the wrongs she has done to God. Note the personal nature of the wrongs, they are a direct offence against the Lord. Note also the clear understanding that she is guilty of sin and has suffered because of her guilt. Now the salvation involves her not being put to shame, but also the purification of her, or sanctification if we are to put it in New Testament terms. Her arrogant boasters will be removed from her, and she would never again be presumptuous on God’s holy hill. In the church we often speak an absolute load of nonsense on God’s love. The love of God is a calling to repentance, it is the offering of Jesus on the cross as atonement for our sins, and it is the giving of the Holy Spirit whose primary task in our lives is sanctifying us, making us ever more Christlike. And that involves getting rid of the rubbish in our lives! Salvation is utterly God-centered, so often our notions of salvation are utterly man-centered.