“Thus saith the Lord.” This is in the vision or the prophetic sense of Obadiah, the man of God, and this is his prophecy, but the words are the words of God. This prophecy is concerning Edom, who is Esau. We learned in Genesis of Esau’s place in God’s great plan – Esau is the twin brother of Jacob, and just as Jacob depicted the spiritual man so Esau depicted the man after the flesh. Jacob showed us the spiritual nature, Esau showed us the nature of flesh. Esau was the hunter, the man who served his belly, the man who despised his God-given birthright, the man of vengeance, the man who caused grief to his father and mother. Esau represented the carnal nature, the hunter, the strong one. Jacob by contrast is smooth, wily, his mother’s boy, the supplanter. Though they were twins, Esau came first, for the flesh comes before the spiritual. Thus it is in our own lives – the fleshly precedes the spiritual nature, and though the two dwell together, yet they are never compatible, for our flesh is stronger than our spiritual nature, and the spiritual must always be on the look-out for the flesh turning against it. We are to walk after the Spirit, not after the flesh. We are to find our strength in God, not in the arm of flesh. God is the God of Jacob, for Jacob has He loved, Esau has He hated. No flesh can stand before God. Esau does not inherit – and the blessing is the blessing of Jacob alone.
Why then is Esau referred to as Edom? Edom means red or bloody. Mankind is hated for its color. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to die an atoning death, but the blood that stained the hands of man was the blood of Christ, the blood of God’s dear Son, His only Son, His well-beloved. Esau is Edom. Esau is stained with the precious blood of Christ. Esau is hated. No flesh shall stand in the presence of God. It requires new birth, a new creation to inherit the new heaven and the new earth. We cannot go to heaven with our hands stained by the blood of the Lamb. We need to be born again that the spiritual might inherit the blessing. Esau is not loved – scripture makes that clear, only Jacob is loved. Esau is hated. However great we may be, however strong we may be, however acceptable by man’s standard, however righteous, however good, however wise, yet we are only able to come before God if we are found to be in Christ, we are accepted in the Beloved only. We cannot work our way to heaven, we cannot enter the kingdom by natural ability, we cannot stand before God in flesh, but we must be born again, we must stand in Christ as clothed with His righteousness. Why? Because the man of flesh has become Edom, he has stained his hands with the blood of the Lamb, and if we read the prophecy of Obadiah we will be assured of this one thing, that man in his natural state however great cannot stand in the presence of a holy God.
