The Power of the Judge and the High Priest (Micah 3:8-12)

In Micah's day and in all of the prophets' day, Jesus stands waiting for the day when He will come and  usher in His Father's kingdom.  As Paul puts it, 

But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship (Gal. 4:4-5).

Then He came and fulfilled the promise made to the Jewish people:   

The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins... Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. (Hebrews 10:1-4; 11-14) [emphasis mine] 

He came to fulfill the promise by God to Abraham:  "And through your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed—all because you have obeyed me." (Gen. 22:18)

The church in Corinth was an example of what the nations so desperately needed: reconciliation to God by the cleansing (once and for all) blood of Jesus:

Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11) 

I was recently reading Isaiah, whose words are contemporaneous with Micah's: 

The oppressor will come to an end,
and destruction will cease;
the aggressor will vanish from the land.
In love a throne will be established;
in faithfulness a man will sit on it—
one from the house of David—
one who in judging seeks justice
and speeds the cause of righteousness. (Is. 16:4b-5) [emphasis mine] 

Sound familiar? 

The Judge becomes the High Priest to sacrificially create the new heart necessary for human beings to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God. (Micah 6:8)

The Judge could have stayed the Judge and simply expected the people to listen and obey. But without a changed heart, eventually the people would grow weary, cynical and give up or engage in compromise...why?  It's just easier for fallen flesh. 

Or He could have come just as a High Priest, cleansing our hearts and now we just wait for Him to return.

He came as both:  He wants mercy flowing from a new heart and now goes into the world with truth and justice, fashioned and sustained by Him.

Love. Justice. Righteousness. Jesus embodies those qualities and by His blood, imparts them to us:  

But it is from Him that you have your life in Christ Jesus, Whom God made our Wisdom from God, [revealed to us a knowledge of the divine plan of salvation previously hidden, manifesting itself as] our Righteousness [thus making us upright and putting us in right standing with God], and our Consecration [making us pure and holy], and our Redemption [providing our ransom from eternal penalty for sin]. (1 Cor. 1:30)

It is in Jesus and upon Him alone that we have the basis for true change: "In fact, no one can lay any other foundation than the one that has been laid, which is Jesus Christ." (1 Cor. 3:11)

Micah cannot look the other way when justice is perverted and paraded as truth.  He cannot look the other way when those who know better cast restraint away to keep their power and status as leaders.  He cannot look the other way when people are complacent at what is going on, and retreat into a kind of moral inertia:  

But as for me, I am filled with power,
with the Spirit of the Lord,
and with justice and might,
to declare to Jacob his transgression,
to Israel his sin. (3:8) 

Truth hurts. But truth sets us free.  

Hear this, you leaders of Jacob,
you rulers of Israel,
who despise justice
and distort all that is right;
who build Zion with bloodshed,
and Jerusalem with wickedness.

Her leaders judge for a bribe,
her priests teach for a price,
and her prophets tell fortunes for money.
Yet they look for the Lord’s support and say,
“Is not the Lord among us?
No disaster will come upon us.” (3:9-11) 

Those who lead must do so as God leads: in righteousness and in truth. If not, the results are catastrophic: 

Therefore because of you,
Zion will be plowed like a field,
Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble,
the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets. (3:12) 

Jerusalem was soon devastated.  

Should we expect anything less? No, we are not Israel, but God's demands for His justice and righteousness to be implemented through changed hearts still stands. Do we say, "Hey, we are a Christian nation!  God will not let anything bad happen to us."

Really?