Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Malachi 4:1
For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
Mal 4:1 . the day ] i.e. “the day” predicted in the preceding verse, with which this verse coheres closely. The commencing of a new chapter here in A.V. (and LXX., after Vulg., though not in our present Hebrew Bibles) is unfortunate. The R.V. rightly prints from Mal 3:13 to Mal 4:3 inclusive in a continuous paragraph.
that shall burn as an oven ] Rather, it burneth as a furnace, R.V. Comp. , , for the day shall declare it, because it (the day) is revealed in fire, 1Co 3:13.
all the proud all that do wickedly ] The judgment passed on them by the scoffers (Mal 3:15) shall be signally reversed.
root nor branch ] A sudden change of figure from the straw or “stubble” to the tree which succumbs to the raging fire, till neither root nor branch remains.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For, behold, the day cometh, which shall burn as an oven – He had declared the great severance of the God-fearing and the God-blaspheming, those who served and those who did not serve God; the righteous and the wicked; now he declares the way and time of the severance, the Day of Judgment. Daniel had described the fire of that day, Dan 7:9-10, The throne (of the Ancient of days) was a fiery flame; his wheels a burning fire: a fiery stream issued and came forth from Him: the judgment was set and the books were opened. Fire is ever spoken of, as accompanying the judgment Psa 50:3. Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence, a fire shall devour before Him Isa 66:15-16. Behold the Lord will come with fire: for by fire and by the sword will the Lord plead with all flesh: 1Co 3:13 every mans work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire: and the fire shall try every mans work, of what sort it is. Peter tells us that fire will be of this burning world; 2Pe 3:7-10. the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
The oven, or furnace, pictures the intensity of the heat, which is white from its intensity, and darts forth, fiercely, shooting up like a living creature, and destroying life, as the flame of the fire of Nebuchadnezzars Dan 3:22 burning fiery furnace slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. The whole world shall be one burning furnace.
And all the proud and all that do wickedly – All those, whom those complainers pronounced blessed, Mal 3:15, yea and all who should thereafter be like them (he insists on the universality of the judgment), every doer of wickedness, up to that day and those who should then be, shall be stubble. The proud and mighty, who in this life were strong as iron and brass, so that no one dared resist them, but they dared to fight with God, these, in the Day of Judgment, shall be most powerless, as stubble cannot resist the fire, in an ever-living death.
That shall leave them neither root nor branch – i. e. they shall have no hope of shooting up again to life; that life, I mean, which is worthy of love, and in glory with God, in holiness and bliss. For when the root has not been wholly cut away, nor the shoot torn up as from the depth, some hope is retained, that it may again shoot up. For, as it is written Job 10:4 :7, There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sproul again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. But if it be wholly torn up from below and from its very roots, and its shoots be fiercely cut away, all hope, that it can again shoot up to life, will perish also. So, he saith, will all hope of the lovers of sin perish. For so the divine Isaiah clearly announces Isa 66:24, their worm shall not die and their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring to all flesh.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Mal 4:1
All that do wickedly shall be stubble.
The destruction of the wicked
It is matter of alarm and profound regret that this awful doctrine is so seldom preached in these days, at least with plainness and fidelity. Why is it? Surely not because the doctrine is not expressly and fully taught in the Scriptures; not because it was not taught by Christ Himself during His ministry; nor because it has not always held a prominent place in the creeds of Christendom; nor yet because it is contrary to reason and the constitution of the moral universe. There is no hope for the finally impenitent. Application–
1. Since the everlasting punishment of the finally impenitent is clearly taught by Divine revelation, we are bound to accept it, reverently, submissively, and without criticism, however severe and terrible the aspect it wears toward the wicked.
2. Being an essential doctrine of the Scriptures, we are imperatively called upon to give it its due place and importance in the ministrations of the pulpit, The pulpit that dares to ignore it, or presumes to be more liberal and merciful than God in handling it, incurs a tremendous responsibility.
3. Christians are bound to have respect to it in all their prayers, and living, and intercourse with those who are unreconciled to God.
4. In view of a doom so certain, and so supremely dreadful to every unforgiven sinner, how earnestly should every man work out his salvation with fear and trembling! (J. M. Sherwood, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER IV
God’s awful judgments on the wicked, 1.
Great blessedness of the righteous, 2, 3.
The prophet then, with a solemnity becoming the last of the
prophets, closes the Sacred Canon with enjoining the strict
observance of the law till the forerunner already promised
should appear, in the spirit of Elijah, to introduce the
Messiah, and begin a new and everlasting dispensation, 4-6.
NOTES ON CHAP. IV
Verse 1. Behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven] The destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans.
And all the proud] This is in reference to Mal 3:15 of the preceding chapter.
The day that cometh shall burn them up] Either by famine, by sword, or by captivity. All those rebels shall be destroyed.
It shall leave them neither root nor branch.] A proverbial expression for total destruction. Neither man nor child shall escape.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The words immediately foregoing (which, as we have the chapters divided, did end the third chapter) foretold a day to come then, though it is now long since past, in which such judgments should be executed upon the Jewish nation, as should make the stoutest contemners of God to see and acknowledge his different respects and providences toward the good and toward the evil. Now in this verse (which continueth the discourse) he accounteth how it should be.
Behold; mark well what now the Lord doth foretell
The day, before mentioned, the day of visitation and discerning of men, cometh; though it be at some four hundred years distance from you, yet it is coming, and will overtake you, and overwhelm you too about that time; nay, you shall have some tastes of bitter cups before, some less and shorter troubles, the presage and assurance of that dreadful day I now speak of, saith our prophet.
That shall burn as an oven: the refiners fire, Mal 3:2, is now represented to us as a fire burning more dreadfully, which really was more dreadful in the fulfilling than here it is in the prediction; when Jerusalem and the temple were on fire, and none could quench it; when the fire raged every where, but burnt most fiercely where the arched roofs did make it, as in ovens or furnaces, to double itself, and infold flames with flames, and with dreadful roarings increased its terrors. This day may well be an emblem of the day of judgment, and this place may be accommodated thereto, but it principally speaks of the times of vengeance on Jerusalem in its final desolation.
All the proud; such as are described Mal 1:13; 3:13-15. All that do wickedly: this is another part of the character of these persons, and explicatory of the former passage; proud men, such as the text mentions, will be wicked workers.
Shall be stubble; dried and cast into the oven, consumed as soon as cast in.
The day that cometh; of which already, Mal 3:17, and in this verse.
Shall burn them up; totally and speedily consume them.
Saith the Lord of hosts; added to confirm the certainty of the thing; the Lord of hosts hath said it shall be, and he can do what he saith he will.
It shall leave them neither root nor branch; in allusion to the utter extirpation of trees for the fire, whose branches lopped off, the body cleft, and the roots stocked up, and all cast into the fire; so that nothing remains but the ashes, into which all is turned: and this was fully accomplished upon the irreligious Jews, when the Romans burnt their city and temple, and destroyed the people.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. the day cometh . . . burn(Mal 3:2; 2Pe 3:7).Primarily is meant the judgment coming on Jerusalem; but as this willnot exhaust the meaning, without supposing what is inadmissible inScriptureexaggerationthe final and full accomplishment, ofwhich the former was the earnest, is the day of general judgment.This principle of interpretation is not double, but successivefulfilment. The language is abrupt, “Behold, the day cometh!It burns like a furnace.” The abruptness imparts terriblereality to the picture, as if it suddenly burst on the prophet’sview.
all the proudinopposition to the cavil above (Mal3:15), “now we call the proud (haughty despisers ofGod) happy.”
stubble (Oba 1:18;Mat 3:12). As Canaan, theinheritance of the Israelites, was prepared for their possession bypurging out the heathen, so judgment on the apostates shall usher inthe entrance of the saints upon the Lord’s inheritance, of whichCanaan is the typenot heaven, but earth to its utmost bounds (Ps2:8) purged of all things that offend (Mt13:41), which are to be “gathered out of His kingdom,“the scene of the judgment being that also of the kingdom. The presentdispensation is a spiritual kingdom, parenthetical between the Jews’literal kingdom and its antitype, the coming literal kingdom of theLord Jesus.
neither root norbranchproverbial for utter destruction (Am2:9).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For, behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven,…. Not the day of judgment, as Kimchi and other interpreters, both Jewish and Christian, think; but the day of Christ’s coming in his kingdom and power, to take vengeance on the Jewish nation, which burned like an oven, both figuratively and literally; when the wrath of God, which is compared to fire, came upon that people to the uttermost; and when their city and temple were burnt about their ears, and they were surrounded with fire, as if they had been in a burning oven: and this being so terrible, as can hardly be conceived and expressed, the word “behold” is prefixed to it, not only to excite attention, but horror and terror at so dreadful a calamity; which though future, when the prophet wrote, was certain:
and all the proud; yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble; the proud Pharisees, that boasted of their own righteousness, trusted in themselves, and despised others; all workers of iniquity, in private or in public; all rejecters of Christ, contemners of his Gospel and ordinances, and persecutors of his people; as well as such who were guilty of the most flagitious crimes, as sedition, robbery, murder, c. of which there were notorious instances during the siege of Jerusalem these were all like stubble before devouring fire, weak and easily destroyed:
and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts: which is repeated, to show the certainty of it, and to apply it to the persons before described:
that it shall leave them neither root nor branch: which signifies an entire and complete destruction; the city and temple so utterly destroyed, that not one stone shall be left on another; both magistrates and subjects shall perish, priests and people, so that there shall be no form of government, civil nor ecclesiastical; tribes and families lost, they and their posterity: and so the Targum,
“which shall not leave them son and nephew:”
and, indeed, the numbers cut off were so many, and the destruction so general, that it may be wondered at that any remained: it is a proverbial expression, setting forth the greatness of the calamity; see Mt 3:10.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
This admonition to the ungodly is explained in Mal 4:1. by a picture of the separation which will be effected by the day of judgment. Mal 4:1. “For behold the day cometh burning like a furnace, and all the proud and every doer of wickedness become stubble, and the coming day will burn them, saith Jehovah of hosts, so that it will not leave them root or branch. Mal 4:2. But to you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise and healing in its wings, and ye will go out and skip like stalled calves, Mal 4:3. And will tread down the ungodly, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I create, saith Jehovah of hosts.” The day of judgment will be to the ungodly like a burning furnace. “A fire burns more fiercely in a furnace than in the open air” (Hengstenberg). The ungodly will then resemble the stubble which the fire consumes (cf. Isa 5:24; Zep 1:18; Oba 1:18, etc.). and point back to Mal 3:15. Those who are called blessed by the murmuring nation will be consumed by the fire, as stubble is burned up, and indeed all who do wickedness, and therefore the murmurers themselves. before is a conjunction, quod; and the subject is not Jehovah, but the coming day. The figure “root and branch” is borrowed from a tree – the tree is the ungodly mass of the people (cf. Amo 2:9) – and denotes total destruction, so that nothing will be left of them. To the righteous, on the other hand, the sun of righteousness will arise. Ts e daqah is an epexegetical genitive of apposition. By the sun of righteousness the fathers, from Justin downwards, and nearly all the earlier commentators understand Christ, who is supposed to be described as the rising sun, like Jehovah in Psa 84:12 and Isa 60:19; and this view is founded upon a truth, viz., that the coming of Christ brings justice and salvation. But in the verse before us the context does not sustain the personal view, but simply the idea that righteousness itself is regarded as a sun. Ts e daqah , again, is not justification or the forgiveness of sins, as Luther and others suppose, for there will be no forgiving of sins on the day of judgment, but God will then give to every man reward or punishment according to his works. Ts e daqah is here, what it frequently is in Isaiah (e.g., Isa 45:8; Isa 46:13; Isa 51:5, etc.), righteousness in its consequences and effects, the sum and substance of salvation. Malachi uses ts e daqah , righteousness, instead of , salvation, with an allusion to the fact, that the ungodly complained of the absence of the judgment and righteousness of God, that is to say, the righteousness which not only punishes the ungodly, but also rewards the good with happiness and salvation. The sun of righteousness has , healing, in its wings. The wings of the sun are the rays by which it is surrounded, and not a figure denoting swiftness. As the rays of the sun spread light and warmth over the earth for the growth and maturity of the plants and living creatures, so will the sun of righteousness bring the healing of all hurts and wounds which the power of darkness has inflicted upon the righteous. Then will they go forth, sc. from the holes and caves, into which they had withdrawn during the night of suffering and where they had kept themselves concealed, and skip like stalled calves (cf. 1Sa 28:24), which are driven from the stall to the pasture. On push , see at Hab 1:8. And not only will those who fear God be liberated from all oppression, but they will also acquire power over the ungodly. They will tread down the wicked, who will then have become ashes, and lie like ashes upon the ground, having been completely destroyed by the fire of the judgment (cf. Isa 26:5-6).
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Evangelical Predictions. | B. C. 400. |
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. 2 But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. 3 And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts.
The great and terrible day of the Lord is here prophesied of. This, like the pillar of cloud and fire, shall have a dark side turned towards the Egyptians that fight against God, and a bright side towards the faithful Israelites that follow him: The day cometh, that is, the Lord cometh, the day of the Lord; and it has reference both to the first and to the second coming of Jesus Christ; the day of both was fixed, and should answer the character here given of it.
I. In both Christ is a consuming fire to those that rebel against him. The day of his coming shall burn as an oven; it shall be a day of wrath, of fiery indignation. This was foretold concerning the Messiah, Ps. xxi. 9, Thy hand shall find out all thy enemies, and shall make them as a fiery oven in the time of thy anger. It will be a day of terror and destruction like the burning of a city, or rather of a wood, the trees whereof are withered and dried, for to that the allusion seems to be, as Isa 10:17; Isa 10:18, The light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame, and it shall consume the glory of his forest and of his fruitful field. Now observe here, 1. Who shall be fuel to this fire–all the proud in heart, whose words have been stout against God, and their necks stiff and unapt to yield to the yoke of his commandments (all those that in the pride of their countenances will not seek after God, nor submit to the grace and government of Jesus Christ–all that proudly say they will not have Christ to reign over them), and all those that do wickedly in their affections and conversations, that wilfully persist in sin, in contempt of and contradiction to the law of God; they are such as do wickedly against the covenant, as another prophet had lately expressed it, Dan. xi. 32. God, that has perfect knowledge of every one’s character, knows who are the proud, and of every one’s actions, knows who they are that do wickedly; and they shall be as stubble to this fire; they shall be consumed by it, easily consumed, utterly consumed, and it is wholly owing to themselves that they shall be so, for they make themselves stubble, that is, combustible matter, to this fire. If they were not stubble, it would not burn them; for the fire will be to every man according as he and his works are found; if they be wood, hay, and stubble, they will be consumed; but if they be gold, silver, and precious stones, they will abide the fire and be purified by it, 1 Cor. iii. 13-15. Those that by their unbelief oppose Christ thereby set themselves as briers and thorns before a devouring fire,Isa 27:4; Isa 27:5. 2. What shall be the force and what the fruit of this fire: The day that cometh shall burn them up, shall both terrify and ruin them, and shall leave them neither root nor branch, neither son nor nephew (so the Chaldee paraphrase): neither they nor their posterity shall be spared; they shall be wholly extirpated and cut off. Who knows the power of God’s anger? The proud and those that do wickedly will not fear it, but they shall be made to feel it. Where are those now that called the proud happy, when thus they are made completely miserable, when there remains no branch of their happiness to be enjoyed for the present, nor any root of it out of which it might again spring up? Now this was fulfilled, (1.) When Christ, in his doctrine, spoke terror and condemnation to the proud Pharisees and the other Jews that did wickedly, when he sent that fire on the earth which burnt up the chaff of the traditions of the elders and the corrupt glosses they had put upon the law of God. (2.) When Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, and the nation of the Jews, as a nation, quite blotted out from under heaven, and neither root nor branch left them. This seems to be principally intended here; our Saviour says that those should be the days of vengeance, when all the things that were written to that purport should be fulfilled, Luke xxi. 22. Then the unbelieving Jews were as stubble to the devouring fire of God’s judgments, which gathered together to them as the eagles to the carcase. (3.) It is certainly applicable, and is to be applied, to the day of judgment, to the particular judgment at death (some of the Jewish doctors refer it the punishment that seizes on the souls of the wicked immediately after they go out of the body), but especially to the general judgment, at the end of time, when Christ shall be revealed in flaming fire, to execute judgment on the proud, and all that do wickedly. The whole world shall then burn as an oven, and all the children of this world, that set their hearts upon it and choose their portion in it, shall take their ruin with it, and the fire then kindled shall never be quenched.
II. In both Christ is a rejoicing light to those who serve him faithfully, to those who fear his name and give him the glory due to it (v. 2), who stand in awe of that name of his which the wicked profane and trample upon. Here are mercy and comfort kept in store for all those who fear the Lord and think on his name. Observe,
1. Whence this mercy and comfort shall flow to them: To you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise, with healing in his wings. The day that comes, as it will be a stormy day to the wicked, a day in which God will rain upon them fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest, as he did on Sodom (Ps. xi. 6), a day of clouds and thick darkness (Amo 5:18; Amo 5:20), so it will be a fair and bright day to those who fear God, and reviving as the rising sun is to the earth; and particular notice is taken of the rising of the sun upon Zoar when that was mercifully distinguished from the cities of the plain, which the fire consumed; see Gen. xix. 23. So to those that fear God is comfort spoken. When the hearts of others fail for fear let them lift up their heads for joy, for their redemption draws nigh, Luke xxi. 28. But by the Sun of righteousness here we are certainly to understand Jesus Christ, who would undertake to secure the believing remnant, in the day of the general destruction of the Jews, from falling with the rest, and to comfort them in that day of distress and perplexity with his consolations; he directed those that were in Judea to flee to the mountains (Matt. xxiv. 16), and they did so, and were all safe and easy in Pella. But it is to be applied more generally, (1.) To the coming of Christ in the flesh to seek and save those that were lost; then the Sun of righteousness arose upon this dark world. Christ is the light of the world, the true light, the great light that makes day and rules the day (John viii. 12), as the sun. He is the light of men (John i. 4), is to men’s souls as the sun is to the visible world, which without the sun would be a dungeon; so would mankind be darkness itself without the light of the glory of God shining in the face of Christ. Christ is the Sun that has light in himself, and is the fountain of light (Ps. xix. 4-6); he is the Sun of righteousness, for he is himself a righteous Saviour. Righteousness is both the light and the heat of this Sun; the word of his righteousness is so; it guides, instructs, and quickens; so is the everlasting righteousness he has brought in. He is made of God to us righteousness; he is the Lord our righteousness, and therefore is fitly called the Sun of righteousness. Through him we are justified and sanctified, and so are brought to see light. This Sun of righteousness, in the fulness of time, arose upon the world, and with him light came into the world (John iii. 19), a great light, Matt. iv. 16. In him the day-spring from on high visited us, to give light to those that sit in darkness,Luk 1:78; Luk 1:79. Righteousness sometimes signifies mercy or benignity, and it was in Christ that the tender mercy of our God visited us. (2.) It is applicable to the graces and comforts of the Holy Spirit, brought into the souls of men. Grotius understands it of Christ’s giving the Spirit to those that are his, to shine in their hearts, and to be a comforter to them, a sun and a shield. Those that are possessed and governed by a holy fear of God and a dread of his majesty shall have his love also shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghost; and then the sun may be said to arise there, and to bring both a delightful day and a fruitful spring along with it. (3.) Christ’s second coming will be a glorious and welcome sun-rising to all that fear his name; it will be that morning of the resurrection in which the upright shall have dominion, Ps. xlix. 14. That day which to the wicked will burn as an oven will to the righteous be bright as the morning; and it is what they wait for, more than those that wait for the morning.
2. What this mercy and comfort shall bring to them: He shall arise with healing under his wings, or in his rays or beams, which are as the wings of the sun. Christ came, as the sun, to bring not only light to a dark world, but health to a diseased distempered world. The Jews (says Dr. Pocock) have a proverbial saying, As the sun riseth, infirmities decrease; the flowers which drooped and languished all night revive in the morning. Christ came into the world to be the great physician, yea, and the great medicine too, both the balm in Gilead and the physician there. When he was upon earth, he went about as the sun in his circuit, doing this good; he healed all manner of sicknesses and diseases among the people; he healed by wholesale, as the sun does. He shall arise with healing in his skirts; so some read it, and they apply it to the story of the woman’s touching the hem of his garment, and being thereby made whole, and his finding that virtue went out of him, Mark v. 28-30. But his healing bodily diseases was a specimen of his great design in coming into the world to heal the diseases of men’s souls, and to put them into a good state of health, that they may serve and enjoy both God and themselves.
3. What good effect it shall have upon them. (1.) It shall make them vigorous in themselves: “You shall go forth, as those that are healed go abroad and return to their business.” The souls shall go forth out of their bodies at death, and the bodies out of their graves at the resurrection, as prisoners out of their dungeons, and both to see the light and be set at liberty. “You shall go forth as plants out of the earth, when in the spring the sun returns.” Some make it to mean the going forth of the Christians from Jerusalem, and the escape they thereby made from its destruction. And thus the souls on whom the Sun of righteousness arises go forth out of the world, go forth out of Babylon, as those that are made free indeed. “You shall likewise grow up; being restored to health and liberty, you shall increase in knowledge, and grace, and spiritual strength.” The souls on which the Sun of righteousness arises are growing up towards the perfect man; those that by the grace of God are made wise and good are by the same grace made wiser and better; and their path, like that of the rising sun, shines more and more to the perfect day, Prov. iv. 18. Their growth is compared to that of the calves of the stall, which is a quick, strong, and useful growth. “You shall grow up, not as the flower of the field, which is slender, and weak, and of little use, and withers soon after it has grown up, but as the calves of the stall,” that, as one of the rabbin expounds it, grow great in flesh and fatness, with which both God’s altars and men’s tables are replenished; so the growth of the saints, on whom the Sun of righteousness arises, honours both God and man. Some read it, instead of You shall grow up, You shall move yourselves, or leap for joy, shall be as frolicsome as calves of the stall, when they are let loose in the open field; it denotes the joy of the saints, who rejoice in Christ Jesus; they shall even leap for joy; they are always caused to triumph.
(2.) It shall make them victorious over their enemies (v. 3): You shall tread down the wicked. Time was when the wicked trod them down, said to their souls, Bow down, that we may go over; but the day will come when they shall tread down the wicked. The wicked, being made Christ’s footstool, are made theirs also (Ps. cx. 1), and come and worship before the feet of the church, Rev. iii. 9. The elder shall serve the younger. When believers by faith overcome the world, when they suppress their own corrupt appetites and passions, when the God of peace bruises Satan under their feet, then they tread down the wicked. When it came to the turn of the Christians to triumph over the Jews that had insulted over them, then this promise was fulfilled: They shall be ashes under the soles of your feet; they shall not only be trodden down, but trodden to dirt. When the day that comes shall have burnt them up, they shall trample upon them as ashes. When the righteous shall rise to everlasting life, the wicked shall rise to everlasting contempt; and, though they shall not triumph over them, they shall triumph in that God whose justice is glorified in their destruction. The saints in glory are said to have power given them over the nations, to rule them with a rod of iron,Rev 2:26; Rev 2:27. This you shall do, in the day that I shall do this. Note, The saints’ triumphs are all owing to God’s victories; it is not they that do this, but God that does it for them, that says, Come set your feet on the necks of these kings. Some read it, “In the day that I make, or shall make, the great day that I shall make remarkable, of which you will say with joy, This is the day which the Lord has made.” The day of the destruction of Jerusalem is called the great and notable day of the Lord (Acts ii. 20), and our Saviour in foretelling that destruction made use of such expressions as, like these, might be applied likewise to the end of the world and the last judgment; for it was such a terrible revelation of the wrath of God from heaven, and caused such a scene of horror upon this earth, that it might fitly serve for a type of that glorious transaction which will be an outlet to the days of time and an inlet to the days of eternity. By the accomplishment of these prophecies in the ruin of the Jewish nation, we should have our faith confirmed in the assurances Christ has given us concerning the dissolution of all things. Surely I come quickly; so says Christ, the Lord of hosts, to whom all power in heaven and earth is committed.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
MALACHI – CHAPTER 4
THE DAY OF THE LORD
Verse 1:
A Day Of Retribution
Verse 1 announces and affirms that there shall come a day of judgment vengeance against all who have lived and died in wickedness against God, 2Pe 3:7; Mat 24:29-31; Isa 2:10-22; Rev 19:11-21; All that take pride in their wickedness shall be burned, as stubble in an oven, or brought to ashes. See also Oba 1:18; Mat 3:12; Mat 13:41; Amo 2:9. They shall have thereafter neither root nor branches of strength in the millennial era, in eternity, Psa 9:17; Heb 9:27-28; Mat 6:30; Mat 25:31-45.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
He confirms the previous verse, for he denounces ruin on all the reprobate and the despisers of God; and he also confirms what I have mentioned, — that he sets this threatening in opposition to the slanders which they commonly uttered against God, as though he had ceased to discharge his office as a Judge. Though indeed he speaks in the third person, yet he is not deficient in force when he says,
Behold, come shall the day, which shed consume all the ungodly, as a hernia oven the stubble. The comparison is very common which the Prophet uses, when he says, that the ungodly shall be like stubble: I trill not therefore quote passages which must be well known, and they are so many that there is no need to adduce here either two or three of them. The vengeance of God is also often compared to fire and to a flame; and we know how fierce and how dreadful an element is fire, when it lays hold on wood or some other dry material. Hence according to the common usage of Scripture, the Prophet says, that the day of the Lord would be like an oven, and that the ungodly would be like stubble. The demonstrative particle, Behold, shows certainty, Behold, I come. The present time is put here for the future, a common thing in Hebrew. But the Prophet called the attention of the Jews as it were to what was present, that his prophecy might not appear doubtful, and that they might understand that God’s vengeance was not far distant, but already suspended over their heads.
There is however a question as to the day which he points out. The greater part think that the Prophet speaks of the last coming of Christ, which seems not to me probably. It is indeed true that these and similar expressions, which everywhere occur in Scripture, have not their full accomplishment in this world; but God so suspends his judgements, as yet never to withhold from giving evidences of them that the godly may have some props to their faith: for if God gave no specimen or proof of his providence, it would immediately occur to our minds, that there is to be no judgement; but he sets before us some examples, that we may learn that he will some time be the judge of the world. It seems then to me more probable, that the Prophet speaks here of the renovation of the Church: for the wrath of God was then at length more kindled against the Jews, when they had alienated themselves from Christ; for their last hope and their last remedy in their evils was the aid of the Redeemer, and it was for the rejection of his favor that the Jews had to feel the dreadful punishment of their ingratitude. No sin could have been more atrocious than to have rejected the offered favor, in which their happiness and that of the whole world consisted. When the Prophet then says, that the day would come, be refers I think to the first coming of Christ; for the Jews made a confident boast of the coming of a Redeemer, and he gives them this answer — that the day of the Lord would come, such as they did not imagine, but a day which would wholly consume them, according to a quotation we have made from another Prophet,
“
What will be the day of the Lord to you? that day will not be light, but darkness, a thick darkness and not brightness.” (Amo 5:18.)
The day of the Lord will be an unhappy event to you, as though one escaped from the jaws of a lion, and fell at home on a serpent. So in this place he says that the day would come, which would consume them like an oven.
He says that all the proud and the workers of iniquity would be like stubble. He repeats their words, but somewhat ironically; for when they had said before that the proud were happy, they regarded themselves as being far from being such characters. Isaiah also in like manner condemned hypocrites, because they exposed to contempt their own brethren; for the worshippers of God were at that time in great reproach among the Jews; yea, hypocrites disdainfully treated the godly and the upright, as though they were the dregs and filth of the people. So also they said, “Behold, we are constrained, not without great sorrow, to look on the happiness of the ungodly; for the proud and the despisers of God enjoy prosperity, they live in pleasures.” The Prophet now answers them ironically and says, “Ye shall see the difference which ye so much wish; for God will consume the proud and the ungodly.” He says this of them; but it is, as I have stated, as though he had said, “When your mask is taken away, Ye shall see where impiety is, that it is even in you; and therefore ye shall suffer the punishment which you have deserved.” This is the return which he had before mentioned: for though the ungodly do not seriously and sincerely return to God, yet they are forced, willing or unwilling, to acknowledge their impiety when God constrains them. Hence after they had been constrained to examine their own life, God visited them with the punishment they most justly deserved, though judgement had been invoked by themselves.
He now adds, And it will leave neither root nor branch. He means here that their ruin would be complete, as though he had said, that no residue of them would be found. As he had made them like stubble, so he mentions root and stalk; for branch is improper here, as he speaks of stubble, and branches belong to trees. The meaning, however, is not obscure, which is — that such would be the consumption that nothing would remain. This, indeed, properly belongs to the last judgement; but, as I have said, this is no reason why God should not set before our eyes some evidences of that vengeance which awaits the ungodly, by which our faith may be more and more confirmed daily. (271)
With regard to God’s name, which is mentioned twice, he reminds us that God does not execute his judgements in an even or a continued course, but that he has a fixed time, now for forbearance, then for vengeance, as it seems good to him. Whenever then the day of the Lord is mentioned in Scripture, let us know that God is bound by no laws, that he should hasten his work according to our hasty wishes; but the specific time is in his own power, and at his own will. On this subject I lightly touch only, because I have explained it more fully elsewhere. It follows —
(271) Exceedingly forcible are the words of this verse —
For behold the day! It comes burning like a furnace; And all the proud, and every worker of iniquity, shall be stubble; And burn them up shall the day that is coming, Saith Jehovah of hosts, So that not left to them shall be a root or a branch.
Very many MS., have “workers” instead of “worker;” but it is of no consequence, as the singular is often used poetically for the plural. “Root” and “branch” is no doubt a proverbial phrase, including every thing. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
MALACHIOR A MINOR PROPHETS MESSAGE TO MODERN BELIEVERS
Mal 1:1 to Mal 4:6.
IN discussing the Book of Malachi, I do not propose to give special time to the two subjects which students of this Book have made the occasion of much dispute, namely, the authorship, and the time of its origin. Suffice it to say that the so-called advanced critics, with a few notable exceptions, believe that no such person as Malachi lived, that the volume is anonymous, and the name came from the words, Behold, I will send My messenger where mal-akhi was the term chosen at a later time for the title. While the more conservative students, with a few exceptions, believe that Malachi was not only the name of a Prophet, but also of that Prophet who gave the world this Book. And these latter fix the dates for his work as between 436 and 347 B. C. In passing, permit me to remark that I believe that Malachi was a man, the last of the Minor Prophets, Gods messenger indeed to Israel, and also to us; and that this volume was his message.
While it does not make mention of him, there are in the Book internal evidences that his ministry practically coincided with Nehemiahs administration. Dr. Angus, in his Bible Handbook calls attention to what a good student of this Prophet would see, namely, that the second Temple was now built, and the services of the altar, with the sacrifices and offerings were established. And the very evils which Nehemiah, in the thirteenth chapter of his volume, so vigorously condemns, Malachi excoriates. The definite purpose of the volume seems to be the correction of Israel who had lapsed into a practical infidelity, and whose continued forms and ceremonies were in flagrant violation alike of the letter and the spirit of Gods Law, and therefore an offense unto Him! This apostasy had so far proceeded that even the priests of the Temple were putrid, and the people polluted and polluting.
Gods Prophet would have sung his song in a minor key, but for the single circumstance that prophets are also seers; and, distant as was the day of the Lord from where Malachi stood, a vision of the same was yet vouchsafed him, and he finishes with a forthsetting of its beauty, and victory for its banners.
Now shall we search the Book and see what Malachi had to say, and how much of this minor Prophets message is applicable to moderns.
The volume opens with a discussion of
THE INFIDELITY OF ISRAEL
The burden of the Word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.
I have loved you, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, Wherein hast Thou loved us? (Mal 1:1-2).
That infidelity then expresses itself in the first instance by questioning Gods love. Yet ye say, Wherein hast Thou loved us? The remaining text to verse five included Gods answer and argument in proof of His demonstrated affection for them. He had made a distinction between Jacob and Esau and all His favors had gone to the former the father of this people; yea, to this people themselves, for were they not Israeli sons and daughters Israelites? It is bad enough when the unregenerate are infidel and in their folly say, There is no God. It is vastly worse when those who have once had a true knowledge of God turn away from the same. Hear Paul speak of the fate of such It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the Heavenly Gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good Word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame. I do not profess to understand the full meaning of these words of the Apostle, but I have found that when a man who has once counted himself a child of the King, becomes a scoffer, it is easier to win a thousand sinners to the Saviour than to convert him from the error of his way. There is something so unnatural in his infidelity; something so strange in his skepticism that neither reason nor revelation seem to reach his heart.
Have you not noticed that the greatest ingratitude is sometimes shown by those who have received the most signal favors? There is a man who was bankrupt and you went and stood at his side and gave him your sympathy, and freely offered your silver and gold; joined with him in his struggle and never left off until he was lifted up and prosperity came instead of poverty, and singing instead of sighing. And yet he soon forgot the favor and if one so much as makes mention of it he meets that mention with these questionsWherein did you ever love me? What did you ever do for me? What kindness did you ever show me? Such is the ingratitude born of the spirit of infidelity! And such is Israels state of mind when Malachi Gods messengerflashes the searchlight of newborn Scripture into her unbelieving bosom. But what man ever laid his fellow under such obligation as God has put every living soul? And yet they say, Wherein hast Thou loved us?
Again, that infidelity was evidenced in the transgression of Gods Law. He had said concerning the offerings,
All the firstling males that come of thy herd and of thy flock thou shalt sanctify unto the Lord thy God: thou shalt do no work with the firstling of thy bullock, nor shear the firstling of thy sheep.
Thou shalt eat it before the Lord thy God year by year in the place which the Lord shall choose, thou and thy household.
And if there be any blemish therein, as if it be lame, or blind, or have any ill blemish, thou shalt not sacrifice it unto the Lord thy God (Deu 15:19-21).
But, despising that plain statement and the Name of Him who made it, He says,
Ye offer polluted bread upon Mine altar: and ye say, Wherein have we polluted Thee?
And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person?
Again, God had His Law concerning marriage. They were not to take a wife from strangers, nor to put one away save they had found some uncleanness in her. But here they have divorced the wives of their youth, against whom they had dealt treacherouslythe companions of covenant, whom God had made to be one with them; and taken unto themselves wives from the mixed nations round about, that they might gratify at once the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
When Israel was carried captive to Babylon some of the weakest and least favored of her fold were left in the land. Cut off from their fellows in the faith, widely scattered among the heathen, they soon accepted the adage of doing as the Romans about them, and amalgamated with the nations. They possessed much land, were well regarded socially, and really seemed a superior class to that Israel which was now recovered from the long captivity. And so Gods people saw an opportunity in such alliances to wealth and political influence, and defended the step by reminding themselves that these Samaritans were, after all, their forty-second cousins. The consequence was easy divorce, domestic disorder, and Divine offense.
It is perfectly apparent also from the text that the priests of the time had sanctioned and participated in these sins, and had attempted to supplant the spirit of service with mongrel ceremonies. It is little wonder that Malachi exposes this transgression! It is a true picture of ancient Israel; it is a clean-cut portrait of the modern church. We sometimes read from Genesis the words, The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose, to imagine that that speech is centuries old. And so it is,the old is often new. It is just what is being done todaythe sons of God are forming alliances with the daughters of men. The children of the church, while wearing the Name of Christ, are being unequally yoked together with unbelievers. And the mongrel society,in the church and out,silence every prophet who would dare speak against this agreeable and profitable arrangement. But let it be remembered that if the last John the Baptist was beheaded, the Book of God would remain, and every professed Christian man, and every professed Christian woman consorting with the world, or sending their children to do the same, must either leave it unstudied, or open it to read the condemnation of their conduct.
And yet again,the infidelity of Israel is expressed in that
They are withholding Gods offering. We learn in chapter one, verses seven and eight, that they brought the lame and sick instead of the firstlings of the flock, healthy and without blemish. We learn by referring to verses twelve to fourteen of this same chapter, that they even defended the practice by saying, The table of the Lord is polluted; and the fruit thereof, even His meat, is contemptible (Mal 1:12). And so the torn, and the lame, will suffice, while they kept back the male of the flock and offered in sacrifice a corrupt thing.
Beloved, here Gods minor Prophet presents again a message of which the so-called church of Christ stands in sore need. We may profess whatever faith we will, but we will never believe in our own profession, nor convince the world of our serious convictions while we treat the treasury of the Lord with neglect or contempt. The crucible for a good profession of faith is the contribution box. The man who is hunting for a church where no offering will be made, no sacrifice expected, or where, instead of giving the most, he may give the least to God, is hunting for an institution from which Gods Spirit has long since departed, and is himself controlled by an idea that crucifies Christ, who Being rich, yet for our sakes became poor, and sets up in His stead an image to covetousness.
Such was the infidelity of Israel! To question Gods love; to transgress Gods Law; to keep back Gods offering! The infidelity of this hour will repeat these processes! And its existence makes Malachis prophecy a reminder to the Church of our century.
Passing on in our study I call your attention to another fact, namely,
JUDGMENT IN NATURAL EFFECTS
It is painfully and yet extremely interesting to follow these lines of infidelity in Israel to see what fruits they bring forth. The Apostle Paul might have been thinking of the Minor Prophets message when he said, Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. You will see that the judgments made against Israel were according to natural law in the spiritual world.
His love was given to others. Seeing that they would not serve Him He said,
I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of Hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand.
For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same My Name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto My Name, and a pure offering: for My Name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of Hosts (Mal 1:10-11).
Beloved, is God to be blamed?
A few years since the newspapers narrated the history of a woman to whom one of our noblest presidents proffered his hand in marriage while they were yet young. She rejected it. He grieved over the refusal, and went his way to woo and win another. When the time came that this second choice shared with him the first place in the land, and his first love found herself without property or position, no one thought to complain against the great man.
I have sometimes wondered if the Jews of the world, scattered and persecuted as they are, were not patient in their sufferings because they knew that they were without a cause of complaint, having rejected God, whose first choice they were, to see the Gentiles come into the Fathers fellowship and enjoy the Divine favor of centuries.
Let us not be blind to parallelisms. History is repeating in substance the very suggestion of the above quoted text. The great denominations of the past have fallen from their favored heights; and humble, despised folk have been exalted above them.
There was a day when Romanism looked with contempt upon Luthers movement. The great hierarchy with its head beside the Tiber was confident that it was the chosen of the Lord. But its very conduct was so much akin to that of this Israel to whom Malachi delivers his message that God could not remain their Friend, but turned rather to Luther and his humble followers, and made His Name great among them.
There was a time when the established Church of England scorned the pretentions of John Wesley and the ragged crowd who walked in his wake.
But the infidelity of the Establishment contrasted the fidelity of the Wesleyans, and Ichabod was written for the Church of England, and the words, Arise, shine; for thy Light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee expressed at once Gods command and commendation of the plain Methodist brethren.
Beloved, do you know the biggest fear that finds a place in my heart today? It is that these denominations of ours that number now over millions, should be puffed up with pride and become Laodicean indeed,lukewarm in love, insane in selfesteem, saying, We are rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing! Lost, except they repent and invite into their lives and labors Him who stands at the door and knocks, saying, If any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.
It is not a strange circumstance that the Christian Alliance movement, originating but a little more than fifteen years ago, should have enjoyed such a growth and proven itself such a world-missionary power. Gods love and Gods great power are alike the heritage of them that humble themselves before Him, and undertake for Him.
He expressed contempt for their ceremonies.
But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the Law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the Lord of Hosts.
Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept My ways, but have been partial in the Law (Mal 2:8-9).
Few things are more offensive to God, the Father, than ceremonies when they have no spirit of service in them. Before Malachis day the Lord had said by Isaiahs lips concerning this custom, This people draw near Me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour Me, but have removed their heart far from Me, and their fear toward Me is taught by the precept of men (Isa 29:13).
And Ezekiel had also declared And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as My people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they shew much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness (Eze 33:31).
One of the most difficult things in the Christian life is to keep form from displacing affection; and ceremony from killing the spirit. It is so much easier to bend the knee than to bow the heart, and to say prayers than to pray; to sing songs than to make a joyful noise unto the Lord; and to look pious while the offering passes than to part with our substance. Did I say it was much easier? No! It only seems to be! It is much harder! The man whose religion troubles him most is the one whose true spirit amounts to the least. It is better to have none than not enough. The out and out unbelievers of Christs time never incited His criticism as did the pious pretenders.
In Dr. Piersons volume on Gordons dream, How Christ Came to Church he tells the story of an aged and venerable clergyman whose son had gone over to the extreme of Roman ritualism. The boy importuned the father to come and preach in his chapel of ease. He finally yielded, but startled the congregation by choosing as his text, Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is a lunatick.
And then he proceeded to show the utter insanity of the modern methods which had robbed us of simplicity and given place to elaborate ceremonials. We may question the propriety of the fathers procedure, and yet, we cannot rid ourselves of the Saviours declaration concerning the ceremonials of His time, In vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
And yet again,
This judgment expresses itself in the failure of the fruits of earth. Mark you here, God is following natural law again. They withheld from Him, and shortly they had nothing to give. There is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty (Pro 11:24).
Will a man rob God? Yes, and without knowing it rob himself at the same time by severing himself from the source of all good. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed Thee? He answers,
In tithes and offerings.
Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed Me, even this whole nation.
Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in Mine House, and prove Me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of Heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of Hosts (Mal 3:8-11).
Beloved, I often wonder how much of our poverty is self-imposed? I often question whether the Church of Jesus Christ has not shorn herself by covetousness? And often have I wondered whether many of the deserts of earth would not long since have rejoiced and blossomed as the rose in fair fruitfulness, had men cheerfully contributed to every call of Him who is the Giver of every good and perfect gift.
David M. Torrey says, Having found God my Saviour, I thought I would try Him in temporal things, as I was out of business. The first day He allowed me to make 85. Then Mr. Torrey continues by telling how he went on tithing and God went on blessing, until thousands of dollars were poured into his lap.
The history of Wm. Colgate reads like a romance. His gifts were munificent, sacrificial; but Gods gifts to him were greater still, illustrating the words of Jesus, Give, and it shall be given unto you.
In the study of this Book I am profoundly impressed by a single verse in it, and believe it to contain a suggestion worthy definite notice, namely,
THE AFFECTION OF THE FAITHFUL
To me there are two beautiful touches in this Book of Malachi, aside from the bright prospect shown in the last chapter. One is the picture of an ideal priest, Mal 2:7,The priests lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the Law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts. The other is the verse referred to, and compasses the fellowship of the saints, Mal 3:16-17,Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His Name. And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.
It is a blessed fact that the Lord is never without true followers. No matter how many speak against Him there are those to speak for Him. When Elijah, in his dejection, supposed himself to be left alone of all Gods followers, he was corrected by the assertion of the Divine One, Yet I have left Me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him. And you will find that when the time of the antichrist comes, and that enemy of our God rules in all the world, there will be knees that will not bow to him; hands and foreheads that will refuse his mark. In the day of Malachi, miserable as was the situation of Israel, there were some saints, and they spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it.
They must have received strength by exchange of sympathy. Did you ever try to picture what it surely meant to the early disciples of Jesus at the time when they were enduring cruel mockings and scourgings, bonds and imprisonments; when they were sawn asunder, tempted and slain; when they wandered about in sheepskins and were destitute, afflicted and tormented, living in deserts and in caves of the earth? What strength they got from speaking often one to another; from exchange of sympathy! It is difficult to serve God alone. The very desolation of it incites despair. But to meet with kindred spirits and listen to their story of suffering or recitations of victory, and to know that they have learned the fellowship of Christs suffering! Ah, who is not made strong by that exchange?
If you have a friend worth loving
Love him,yes, and let him know
That you love him, ere lifes evening
Tinge his brow with sunset glow.
Why should good words neer be said
Of a friend till he is dead?
If you see the hot tears falling,
Falling from a brothers eyes,
Share themand thus by the sharing
Own your kinship with the skies.
Why should any one be glad
When a brothers heart is sad?
Courage also would come out of this conference of believers. Do you not suppose that is why Jesus commissioned His disciples to go out two by two? Have you not had hours when your heart sank within you; when you felt baffled, defeated; when you said, I am undone! when the coming of some Christian friend, and the converse that followed, filled you with fresh spirit, and caused you to stand forth again, saying, I can, and, God helping me, I will? Where one can chase a thousand, two can put ten thousand to flight.
Here again in this verse,
The communion of the saints called the Lord into the company.
And the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a hook of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His Name.
And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels (Mal 3:16-17).
We have long been accustomed to the thought that when the knees of two were bowed together in prayer God was there to hearken to the petition and to grant the request according to His promise.
Have we also forgotten His pledge that where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst of them? Did it ever occur to you to ask why Jesus appeared to the two on the way to Eramaus? It was because of the subject which engaged them in conversation. And I do not believe that His saints ever assemble anywhere and talk of high and holy things, but there sitting in the midst of them, is the Saviour Himself, taking note of all that is said and standing ready, when we have finished our conversation, to reveal Himself as He did to the two in the way, and teach us truths that no mortal tongue could ever tell. I know not what the fellowship of the saints may have meant to others but to me it has been strength, and courage, and holy communion, and Divine instruction!
But to finish the study of this Book, let me call attention to the fourth lesson.
THE FUTURE OF FIRE AND FAVOR
For, behold, the day cometh, that shall bum as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall bum them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
But unto you that fear My Name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.
And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of Hosts.
Remember ye the Law of Moses My servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.
Behold, I will send you Elijah the Prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:
And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse (Mal 4:1-6).
Fire is Gods symbol of separation. That is taught not alone in this passage where all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: torn up root and branch, and trodden like ashes under the feet of Gods children, but many other Scriptures suggest the same thought. In Daniel it was fire that slew those men that took up Shadrack, Meshach, and Abed-nego to cast them into the burning fiery furnace; but Gods servants it preserved instead, and they walked in it without hurt, attended by the Son of God Himself.
There is an interesting passage in Isa 33:13-15, illustrating this,
Hear, ye that are far off, what I have done; and, ye that are near, acknowledge My might.
The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?
He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil.
And this illustration is not unnatural, it is the action of fire. When gold goes into fire it comes out refined, having lost nothing of its real value. When dross goes in it comes out a cinder. The very sun in the heavens is growth to the living trees, but destruction to the dead ones. When Jesus wanted to conclude His discourse of the end of the age, and declare the fate of infidel and faithful alike, He said to the latter, Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, but to the former, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.
But I will not dwell upon this imagery, with the Scripture extent of which you are familiar. It is a solemn warning against sin. And I hasten from the awful suggestion to remind you that,
Favor is Gods purpose and promise to them that fear Him.
But unto you that fear My Name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.
And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall he ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of Hosts (Mal 4:2-3).
It is the Old Testament history; it is the New Testament teaching. When fire consumed Sodom, Lot was saved out of it only because he feared the Lord. When fallen Jericho was touched with a thousand flames, Rahab, the harlot, and hers, were preserved alive for the very same reason,she feared the Lord. As the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward them that fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. The fear of the Lord is not only the beginning of wisdom but the secret of Gods favor forevermore.
But the crowning blessing belongs here with the coming of the Son. It is when He arises with healing in His wings that we are to grow up as calves of the stall; that we are to tread down the wicked until they shall be as ashes under the soles of our feet. And before the day of the Lord He shall send Elijah, the Tishbite, And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
Beloved, it is beautiful to me to see how though the Scripture conception of the end of the age is characterized by the supremacy of the antichrist, for a short time, that darkness will soon pass, as the hours of the night swiftly receive them, and, though with the rising of the Son of God,who is the Prophets Sun of Righteousness,the day of the Lord is on, and what a day it will be!
It has seemed to me that Joseph Parkers idea that this Scripture is a figure which signifies the inexpressible vigor of life, is justified by the whole text, Grow up as calves of the stall. Parker interprets by saying, Ye shall be sportive, ye shall realize the idea of youthfulness; you shall be vivacious, you shall not be old, cold, dead things; ye shall be as calves of the stall, full of life, leaping because of the very redundance of vitality. There is a hint here of spiritual enthusiasm. This is not an animal vivacity, it is a spiritual impulse and ambition; it is the new and deeper magnetism, it is the effect of being in touch with God.
But when one comes to believe, even this familiar language seems limited. Whose imagination can ascend with Prophet and Apostle to the heights of glory depicted for the day of the Lord, or sound the depths of its joy? All that one can do is to rejoice with the Prophet, and sing with the poet, the prayer:
Thou, glorious Sun of Righteousness,
On this day risen to set no more,
Shine on me now to heal, to bless,
With brighter beams than eer before.
Shine on, shine on, eternal Sun!
Pour richer floods of life and light,
Till that bright Sabbath be begun,
That glorious day which knows no night.
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
THE DAY OF THE LORD
Mal 4:1-6.
THIS 5th day of March, 1933, has been for the First Baptist Church of Minneapolis, Minnesota, a notable day. By the services planned to keep us twelve consecutive hours, 9:30 A.M. to 9:30 P.M., we have celebrated together the eightieth anniversary of the founding of this Church, and the thirty-sixth anniversary of my pastorate.
It is a singular, as well as significant, circumstance that the day should also be characterized by a completion of the study of the whole Bible. Eleven years ago, we began with Genesis, the first chapter, purposing to go through the entire Book in expository and soul-winning work. By undertaking parallel studies, running the Old and New Testament side by side, we completed the New Testament something like a year ago, and the twenty volumes compassing that endeavor, have already been brought from the Union Gospel Press, Cleveland, Ohio.
Tonight we finish the twenty volumes given to the Old Testament study, and while some months must elapse before they are all through the press, it is an occasion of thanksgiving that God has permitted me to complete this study with you, and has made it possible for so many of you to remain my fellow-students through the entire time.
It is little less significant that we conclude this series of studies with tonights theme, the one Divine event to which all creation moves is the same event for which all revelation was given, namely, The Coming of The Lord.
It is a significant thing that both the Old and New Testaments end with the presentation of that Blessed Hope. In the Old Testament we conclude time with the fourth chapter of Malachi, the last chapter of the Books that make it up. In the New Testament our revelation is still more complete, and while time ends with the twentieth chapter of Revelation, eternity is depicted in the twenty-first and twenty-second chapters of the same. The result is that the Old Testament studies end with the mingled feelings of faith and fear, while the New Testament concludes with Heavenly Hallelujahs! The contrast is between time, as it is depicted in the first, and eternity, as it is presented in the second. Jesus said, In the world ye shall have tribulation, but He also added, But be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
In the study of tonight, however, as it relates to time, is a presentation of the Tribulation, the Translation, and the Adjudication.
THE TRIBULATION
For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch (Mal 4:1).
The future holds its fiery furnace.
Behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven. Malachi is making no novel declaration. Tribulation is an Old Testament term, and it has been employed by Prophets preceding this one. But it is also a New Testament term. The Master Himself finally gives it its full meaning. In Matthews Gospel, Jesus is speaking of this same period, and of it He says,
For then shalt be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be (Mat 24:21).
These are days of siren songs. The very men who are set for warning have become pipers of peace. The Word of the Lord at the lips of Ezekiel has been forgotten, or if remembered, is being despised.
So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman * *
When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand (Eze 33:7-8).
It is a singular circumstance and yet in perfect accord with prophecy that at the very time when even the souls, that are blinded by sin, sense approaching judgment, the professed Prophets of God should be saying, Peace! Peace! Let the last of Gods true Old Testament Prophets answer them,
For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
The faithless will become the fuel of that fire.
All the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble.
William M. Rae, in an article published in the Spokesman a year ago now, said sanely and truthfully, The atmosphere is charged with an ominous, nerve-racking and universally distressing element of uncertainty, with rumblings of a rapidly approaching storm. Sober, thinking men tremble at what may break upon the world in the very near future! Was this always the case? No; less than a quarter of a century ago the world enjoyed a measure of prosperity and peace which at the present moment is unknown. Every part of the civilized world is affected by present conditions, and governments are tottering; social upheavals threaten our entire civilization. The economic structure of finance faces universal collapse; the worlds industries are paralyzed. National and racial hate, accentuated by greed, threaten to overthrow all government. Lawlessness and crime are rampant everywhere and flout defiance in the face of our judicial courts, rendering them helpless. Why all this? Because the age is drawing to a close according to the Prophetic Word.
The way of transgressors is hard.
Eternity will pass no judgments that were not paralleled and prophesied by the experience of time.
Forty years ago when I was pastor in Indiana, one of the most wealthy, one of the most notable, and one of the most reputable men in the state yielded to the lust for gold and robbed the bank of which he was president. When convicted in the federal court he was past seventy years of age, and when asked what he had to say, his answer was, Please sentence me in the private chambers. I dont believe I could live through the humiliation of a public sentence, and at my time of life I know that I will never leave the prison walls. For after seventy odd years of respect and honor I shall end existence as an imprisoned criminal, and yet that man admitted that his sentence was just.
He that being often reproved and hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly he destroyed, and that without remedy (Pro 29:1).
There are plenty of people who are willing to accept that philosophy as it applies to the individual, but who will not believe, on the testimony of Divine revelation, that a kindred fate awaits the multitudes that hate holiness and resent God. However, according to this text
Their destruction is to be complete.
And the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
It is a horrible doctrine, say some. It certainly is! But as a popular author says, What else can God do with the wicked? His proffered mercy they have refused, His offers of grace they have rejected, His atonement for sin they have scorned.
When the fisherman brings his net to shore and finds it filled with good fish and bad, what else can he do with the bad fish but throw them away? When the farmer reaps his grain and finds the bundles containing wheat and tares, and separates out the tares from the wheat, what else can he do with the tares except to burn them? Let Jesus interpret His own parable.
The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the Kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;
The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.
As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.
The Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His Kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;
And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth (Mat 13:38-42).
There can be no question that we are now feeling the beginning of Gods judgment against sin.
Carrie Chapman Catt, famous peace advocate, says:
Consider for a moment the results of the great war:
Cost in Men
Dead 10,873,000
Wounded 20,000,000
War Orphans 9,000, 000
War Widows 5,000,000
Refugees 10,000, 000
Debts weighing each nation down to the verge of bankruptcy produce a problem never before known. It will require, says Philip Snowden, chancellor of the British exchequer, seventy-six million days of labor each day, by British workmen for the next sixty years, to produce the means to pay America alone.
The United States, being more fortunately placed than most nations, lent to European nations at different times and in different forms to meet expenses of the war $10,338,000,000.00.
The war was followed by a universal depression in business, an enormous amount of unemployment, the prevalence of diseases spread by means of the war, unspeakable crime, unrest, and many other forms of human misery.
TRANSLATION
It is seldom in Scripture that a Prophet goes from the darkest picture to the brightest presentation of truth in a single bound; but Malachi dares that dramatic leap, passing from the statement that the wicked shall be burned up, neither root nor branch of them left, to the good news that unto those that fear Gods Name shall the Son of Righteousness arise with healing in, His wings.
It is an abrupt turning from the vision of the tribulation to the joy of the translation. And in the sentence he says three things: The Saints Shall See in Jesus a Saviour: In His Shadow They Shall Find Safety: and Through Him Enjoy an Eternal Victory.
The saints shall see in Jesus a Saviour.
Unto you that fear My Name shall the Son of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings.
In the New Testament we are told of certain Greeks that they came to the disciples of Christ one day and said, We would see Jesus! That desire may have been the promptings of curiosity; but the promise of seeing Jesus involves felicity to all believers. They are to see Him as their Healer, they are to see Him as Provider, they are to see Him as Conqueror, and they are to share with Him in all.
It is a great thing to see Jesus at any time. The sight of His face commonly means salvation. A writer in one of our religious papers tells how some theological students came home from the Pacific Garden Mission one night full of joy over a large number of conversions they had witnessed. Drunkards and other social outcasts had sought and found the Lord. The writer says, Next day I met Harry Monroe, then superintendent of the mission, and said to him, Harry, the boys tell me you had a great time at the mission last night. Yes, he answered, It pleased the Holy Spirit to illumine the face of Jesus and sinners just saw Him and were saved. It was a unique way of stating the truth. To see Jesus is to be saved.
But there is yet a higher meaning in the promise of this text, for this looks not alone to salvation from sin but to salvation from that tribulation that is to come upon the earth; the salvation accomplished by the translation.
The poet said:
Lo! He comes, with clouds descending,
Once for favored sinners slain;
Thousand thousand saints attending
Swell the triumph of His train:
Hallelujah!
God appears on earth to reign.
Every eye shall now behold Him,
Robed in dreadful majesty!
Those who set at naught and sold Him,
Pierced, and nailed Him to the Tree,
Deeply wailing,
Shall the true Messiah see.
Now the Saviour, long expected
See, in solemn pomp appear;
All His saints, by man rejected,
Now shall meet Him in the air;
Hallelujah!
See the day of God appear.
In His presence and power the saints shall enjoy safety. Some years ago when Philip Mauro was in complete command of his faculties and was producing profitable books, he referred to the end time and said, concerning the tribulation, This consummation will not occur until the Church, the Body of Christ shall have been caught away from the earth to meet the Lord in the air in fulfillment of 1Th 4:15-17.
Without entering, at this point, into any elaborate discussion of the question that we have somewhat fully presented elsewhere, let me say again that while I believe the Church of God will be caught up out of the tribulation, I believe also that it will see its terrible and bloody beginning. If it is not to be so, I cannot understand what Jesus meant when He said, For the elects sake that period should be cut short.
To be sure, there are those who say the elect are the Jews, or at the most, Judah and Israel; but let us not forget that there are sufficient passages in Scripture referring to the trials of believers to lead a large number of students to say that the Church will go through the tribulation; and while certain of us hold that according to 1Th 4:17; Isa 26:19; Luk 17:31-37, the Church will be caught up out of the tribulation, Isaiahs words are peculiarly appropriate here:
Come, My people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.
For, behold, the Lord cometh out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain (Isa 26:20-21).
Still further, we find that when this persecution breaks the glorious woman is taken into the wilderness where God hath prepared a place for her, there to nourish her for a thousand two hundred and threescore days (Rev 12:6).
It seems a fair necessity, therefore, that if we witness the beginning of this tribulation, we will not endure its middle, and will not be present at its end, save as Heavenly witnesses of an earthly judgment. But our text gives us promise beyond safety, even
The promise of victory itself.
Ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of Hosts (Mal 4:3).
There are people who fear to have the end of this age come lest with its termination there be an end to all opportunities for salvation. There are Bible teachers who say that in the Millennium the Spirit of God will have been removed from the world and no souls can be saved.
Their arguments have not convinced us. We read that in that dayand evidently the millennium is referred tomany people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, * * and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths.
We read also, The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.
We learn also from sacred Scriptures that in that day every knee shall bow to Him and every tongue shall confess to His glory. And, while we know from the testimony of Sacred Writ that certain of these professions will be spurious and the deceiving subjects will gather to the banner of Satan when after the thousand years, he is released for a little time, yet doubtless, many of them will have found Him in whom is hope for time and eternity.
When Peter at Pentecost, referred to the great and notable day of the Lord and to the very time of tribulation when the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood he said: It shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the Name of the Lord shall be saved.
And yet, while there is security and felicity for the believer, the whole text does not close without referring to
THE ADJUDICATION
Remember ye the Law of Moses My servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments,
Behold, I will send you Elijah the Prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:
And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse (Mal 4:4-6).
The Law of the Lord is the basis of Judgment.
Statutes and judgments stand as premises and conclusions. There are many people in these days who are trying to impress us with the idea that there is no judgment.
It is only a little while ago that Prof. Paul Haupt of the Johns Hopkins University, speaking before the American Philosophical Society, affirmed that there is no Biblical foundation for the idea of the day of final judgment. His exact words, as reported, were these:The Book of Zechariah which Jews as well as Christians give as authority for the description of the last judgment refers merely to a municipal plan for municipal improvements laid out by the Maccabees. The language has been misinterpreted.
Isnt it interesting! Of all the follies of which mens minds are capable, certain titled professors take the prize!
Uniformly the men who do not believe in judgment neither believe in law, and especially do they hold in contempt the Laws of Moses which are none other than Gods Laws; Laws that cannot be disregarded and judgment escaped. In this connection I think of Martin Luthers hymn:
Great God, what do I see and hear!
The end of things created!
The Judge of all men doth appear,
On clouds of glory seated:
The trumpet sounds; the graves restore
The dead which they contained before;
Prepare, my soul, to meet Him.
The dead in Christ shall first arise
At the last trumpets sounding,
Caught up to meet Him in the skies,
With joy their Lord surrounding:
No gloomy fears their souls dismay,
His presence sheds eternal day
On those prepared to meet Him.
But sinners, filled with guilty fears,
Behold His wrath prevailing;
For they shall rise, and find their tears
And sighs are unavailing:
The day of grace is past and gone;
Trembling they stand before the throne,
All unprepared to meet Him.
Great God, what do I see and hear!
The end of things created!
The Judge of all men doth appear,
On clouds of glory seated:
Low at His Cross I view the day
When heaven and earth shall pass away,
And thus prepare to meet Him.
However,
As we approach the judgment day we are promised warning.
Behold, I will send you Elijah the Prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord (Mal 4:5).
In connection with the first coming of Christ John the Baptist was the Elijah,the forerunner, and John bare witness of Him, and like the Prophet Esaias pleaded, Make straight the way of the Lord.
The Prophets office still retains its remnant. There are many ministers of the Gospel who are faithfully declaring the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord; but their combined voices do not seem to be adequate to stay the on-rushing crowd, or even to compel the most flagrant sinners to pause and reflect upon their approaching doom.
God may, therefore, raise up another whose voice will be as much more effective than those now heard as was the voice of John as compared with the scribes and Pharisees of his time. In fact, it seems clear that as the antichrist will have his prophet to prepare the way for his coming, so Christ will send another voice into the wilderness to warn men with an eloquence that can scarcely be disregarded.
The fullness of this prophecy was scarcely found in the appearance of John the Baptist, for the day to which this text refers is not the day of His first appearance, but of His second,the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
But blessed be God, in the end grace shall prevail.
And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse (Mal 4:6).
And in the time of the Tribulation, and later, during the days of the Millennium, those who believe will be saved, for as dear John Newton wrote:
Day of judgment, day of wonders,
Hark! the trumpets awful sound,
Louder than a thousand thunders,
Shakes the vast creation round:
How the summons
Will the sinners heart confound!
See the Judge, our nature wearing,
Clothed in majesty Divine;
You who long for His Appearing
Then shall say, This God is mine:
Gracious Saviour,
Own me in that day for Thine.
At His call the dead awaken,
Rise to life from earth and sea;
All the powers of nature, shaken
By His looks, prepare to flee:
Careless sinner,
What will then become of thee?
But to those who have confessed,
Loved, and served the Lord below,
He will say, Come near, ye blessed;
See the Kingdom I bestow:
You forever
Shall my love and glory know.
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
CRITICAL NOTES.] The ungodly admonished for the day] of judgment. Results to the wicked awful. Burn] as an oven] or furnace (cf. Mat. 6:30). A fire burns more fiercely in a furnace than in the open air [Hengs.]. The proud] called happy (ch. Mal. 3:15), and all the wicked] like stubble] fit for fire: destroyed root and branch, i.e. utterly. 2]. To the righteous, the day an advent of justice and salvation. Sun] The Messiah set forth as most glorious and beneficent. What the sun is to the natural, he is to the moral world; the source of light, life, and beauty. Wings] i.e. beams, on account of the velocity and expansion with which they spread over the earth (cf. Psa. 139:9) [Henderson]. Go forth] as from the prison of darkness and misery. Grow up] Lit. leap in joy and freedom, like calves let loose from the stall. The simile is designed to convey the ideas of freedom from outward restraint and the enjoyment of self-conscious liberty [Henderson].
Mal. 4:3. Tread] The wicked, who were said to prosper, will be overcome: destroyed by the fire of judgment, they will lie like ashes on the ground. The condition of the godly reversed then.
HOMILETICS
THE APPROACH OF THE JUDGMENT DAY.Mal. 4:1-5
The prophet confirms the preceding truth, awakens sinners in their slumber, and encourages saints in their faith by the prospect of a day of judgment: to punish some, reward others, and vindicate the ways of God.
I. A day of retribution to the wicked. To the ungodly the day cometh that shall burn as an oven. Those who are called blessed will then be cursed, and like stubble consumed by the fire.
1. Utter destruction. It shall leave them neither root nor branch. There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again; but if torn up by the roots there is no hope, no chance of life. So there will be no escape nor mitigation of punishment.
2. Universal destruction. All the proud and all that do wickedly will be unable to resist when God reveals his justice. That day will test every mans character and condition. Wood and hay will be consumed, gold and silver will abide and be purified. Every mans work shall be made manifest; for the day shall declare it (lay it open) because it shall be revealed by fire (judgment); and the fire shall try (prove) every mans work of what sort it is (1Co. 3:13).
II. A day of salvation to the godly. The day will be as an oven to the wicked, but a source of joy, a sun to the righteous. Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise. The sceptical complained that judgment did not fall upon the ungodly, and that justice was not given to the godly. But health, light, and everlasting salvation are promised.
1. The light of life. Darkness and disease shall be scattered away; warmth and gladness shall shine in Divine effulgence Thy sun shall no more go down, for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light.
2. The joy of freedom. Ye shall go forth from darkness and captivity; become free and active, frisky and playful as calves of the stall. This freshness of first love is only a foretaste of the joy unspeakable, and full of glory.
3. The conquest of foes. Not mere freedom from oppression, but complete triumph over enemies. The wicked often prosper and trample upon the godly; but a reversal shall come to both classes. He that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
III. A day of warning to all. For, behold, the day cometh, and lest any, even sinners, should be surprised, the trumpet-blast warns every one.
1. By teachers commissioned from God. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet. Ministers and messengers announce the coming King, are sent to prepare the way, and call upon proud scoffers and wicked priests to heed the word.
2. By the written word of God. Prophecy and preaching may be temporary and uncertain, but the law of God is never suspended. The Scriptures warn and invite, encourage and threaten. If men forget the living voice, they must remember the written law.
3. By the corrective providences of God. Compassionate judgments come before the final judgmentprovidences which correct and do not destroy. God seeks to separate and purify men now, before the final separation and settlement, to bring the disobedient to the wisdom of the just. Heed the warning now, lest you be smitten with a curse hereafter.
THE SUN OF RIGHTROUSNESS.Mal. 4:2
There can be no doubt with respect to the application. Our Lord is elsewhere called Light, which in Hebrew poetry is used of the sun, as the source of light. What the sun is to the natural world, that the Messiah is to the moral. The invaluable spiritual blessings which he dispenses are all comprehended under the two heads here specifiedrighteousness and moral health (cf. Isa. 57:19). Both of these are indispensably requisite to the happiness of our guilty and depraved race, and from no other quarter can they be obtained than from him who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption [Henderson]. In this image we have many truths suggested.
1. Christ is the source of light. Whatever be the radiance of other lights, they borrow from him. The moon in her beauty and the stars in their brilliance only shed reflected lustre upon the world. Amid ignorance, error, and sin, he is the light of truth, holiness, and God, in person, doctrine, and work. I am the light of the world.
II. Christ is the source of life. With healing in his wings. Sin brought death into the world. Christ quickens the dead in trespasses and sins. As the sun in spring rouses dormant energies of nature, and clothes trees and fields with beauty, so Christ is the essential principle and primal source of spiritual life. In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
III. Christ is the source of beauty. To the sun we owe the bright colours which delight our eyes, and the golden beams which gladden our hearts. He tints the sky, paints the flowers, and adorns all nature. Beauty is the fringe of the garment of God. Christ blesses the soul and beautifies the life with purity and praise. His grace removes moral deformity, and prepares for eternal perfection.
IV. Christ is the source of joy. When the sun bursts through the clouds, and pours floods of light over the earth, the birds begin to sing, and children shout for joy. It smiles upon the cottage of the poor, cheers and brings new life to the fainting heart. Joy in Christ may be overcast, but will break out again with greater sweetness and splendour. And as the morning light he shall arisea sun (2Sa. 23:4).
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Mal. 4:1. The oven, the fuel, the intensity of the heat. The throne (of the Ancient of days) was a fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him.
Mal. 4:2. Sun of righteousness.
1. As asserting and vindicating the righteousness of God, called in question by blasphemers.
2. As bestowing upon his people a double righteousness (imputed and imparted), as the sun doth light (Joh. 1:16). It is further said that he shall arise, that is, he shall appear and show himself on earth, who now lieth hid, as it were, in heaven, as the material sun doth under the horizon.
1. He was manifest in the flesh, out of the bosom of the Father, out of the types of the law.
2. In the whole course of his life he enlightened and warmed the dark and dry hearts of men, and filled them with fruits of righteousness (Joh. 15:5).
3. He is still in continual motion for the good of the Church, as the sun in heaven for the good of the world. Under a cloud in his passion, he broke forth again in his resurrection. From heaven he daily darts forth his beams of righteousness, and showers down all spiritual blessings in heavenly privileges (Eph. 1:3). Lastly, at the great day he will show himself in a special manner a Sun of righteousness; clearing all obscurities, bringing to light the hidden things of darkness, causing his peoples most holy faith, that now lies hid in great part, to be found to praise, honour, and glory, cheering up their spirits after manifold tribulations, and healing all their spiritual maladies [Trapp].
Healing in his wings.
1. Moral sickness of men.
2. Christ the great Physician.
3. Faith the method of cure. Trust, rest under his wings, for shelter and salvation.
Go forth and grow up as calves. The figure sets forth
1. Slavery.
2. Freedom.
3. Activity.
4. Growth.
5. Joy. Grow up; more probably bound, as the animal which has been confined exults in its regained freedom, itself full of life and exuberance of delight [Pusey]. They were before in darkness and disease, both of which confine. But the Sun of righteousness arises, health is restored, they become free and active. They go forth and grow up as calves of the stall. No creatures, perhaps, increase so rapidly and observedly as these, when, as here, they are well attended and fed, for the very purpose of fattening [Jay].
Mal. 4:3. The great reversal. The wicked overcome, trampled upon as ashes. Victory visible and complete to the saints (Mic. 4:12-13; Joe. 3:14; Rom. 16:20).
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 4
Mal. 4:1. Proud. Heaven often regulates effects by their causes, and pays the wicked what they have deserved [Corneille].
Mal. 4:2. Sun. The self-same sun that shines upon his court hides not his visage from our cottage, but looks on both alike [Shakespeare].
O sun! of this great world both eye and soul [Milton].
Mal. 4:4. Law. Prize the word of God by the worth of it, that you may not come to prize it by the want of it [Dyer]. There never was found, in any age of the world, either religion or law that did so highly exalt the public good as the Bible [Bacon]. Remember. Memory, like books which remain a long time shut up in the dust, needs to be opened from time to time; it is necessary, so to speak, to open its leaves, that it may be ready in time of need [Seneca].
Mal. 4:5. Elijah. Since the days that John began to preach, since he began to call the world to repentance, there has been a rush into the kingdom of God. Men, roused from their spiritual slumbers, startled by a sense of their own sin and ruin, have earnestly applied for pardon and salvation. The echo of the words he proclaimed on the Jordan still lingers and rings in the souls of men, and the result is a pressing every day into the empire of redemptive truth [Dr. Thomas].
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
IF THE PEOPLE WILL RETURN IN DEVOTION TO GOD HE
WILL YET BLESS THEM . . . Mal. 3:7-12
RV . . . From the days of your fathers ye have turned aside from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith Jehovah of hosts. But ye say, Wherein shall we return? Will a man rob God? yet ye rob me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with the curse; for ye rob me, even this whole nation. Bring ye the whole tithe into the store-house, that there may be food in my house, and prove me now herewith, saith Jehovah of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast its fruit before the time in the field, saith Jehovah of hosts. And all nations shall call you happy; for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith Jehovah of hosts.
LXX . . . but ye, the sons of Jacob, have not refrained from the iniquities of your fathers: ye have perverted my statutes, and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, saith the Lord Almighty. But ye said, Wherein shall we return? Will a man insult God? for ye insult me. But ye say, Wherein have we insulted thee? In that the tithes and first-fruits are with you still. And ye do surely look off from me, and ye insult me. The year is completed, and ye have brought all the produce into the store-houses; but there shall be the plunder thereof in its house: return now on this behalf, saith the Lord Almighty, see if I will not open to you the torrents of heaven, and pour out my blessings upon you, until ye are satisfied. And I will appoint food for you, and I will not destroy the fruit of your land; and your vine in the field shall not fail, saith the Lord Almighty. And all nations shall call you blessed; for ye shall be a desirable land, saith the Lord Almighty.
COMMENTS
FROM THE DAYS OF YOUR FATHERS . . . Mal. 3:7
When Stephen stood before the council and accused them with, Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears . . . as your fathers did, so do ye, (Act. 7:51) he was in good company. Malachi here levels the same charge against his readers.
Just as their ancestors had turned aside from Gods ordinances to worship Baal, these were turning aside in making a mockery of the same ordinances. The withholding of tithes, the offering of blemished animals, the indulging in sorcery and adultery and false swearing while showing unconcern for human need by oppressing wage-earners, widows, orphans and non-Jews indicated theirs was a religion of form rather than sincerity. The prophet sees no advantage in this over the false religion which had brought on the Babylonian captivity.
There is an eternal principle presented here which the modern church member cannot afford to ignore. The observance of outward form and the passive abstention from false religion are a sham if done as these did them. The cheapening of the ordinances of God as they did in offering unacceptable sacrifices, or as is often done in present day churches by penny-wise and niggardly church budgets are no more advantageous than false doctrine. The lack of any real concern for the poor, the abandoned, the downtrodden, that is frequently hidden under an annual Christmas basket, does not deceive Him Who knows the hearts of His people.
The entreaty of God to such people to return to Him is frequently met today as in Malachis time (v. 7) with a blank faced and feigned innocence expressed in wherein shall we return?
(Mal. 3:8-13) Malachis answer to this sham is will a man rob God? When their response was again an assumed innocence expressed in, wherein have we robbed thee, the prophet goes directly to the heart of the matter . . . in tithes and offerings.
That they could answer in such false righteousness after what the prophet has written in the preceding chapters about their unholy sacrifices, is amazing. It is no more so than the assumed correctness of the New Testament Christian today whose sacrifices of himself is an hour or two on Sunday and whose giving of tithes and offerings consists of less than he spends for soft drinks and tobacco.
Ye are cursed with a curse because ye rob me declares Malachi (Mal. 3:9). Our own consciences may accept a cut-rate allegiance to God, but He will not. The country parson who said, Salvation is free but it aint cheap, spoke the truth!
There is a significant distinction drawn here between tithes and offerings. The law defined the first tithe as a tenth of all that was left after the first fruits were paid. This tenth went directly to the Levites for their support. (Lev. 27:30-33) A tenth was to be paid in turn to the priests. (Num. 18:26-28)
A second tithe was to be paid for the entertainment of the Levites and their own families at the temple. (Deu. 12:18)
A third tithe was to be paid every third year for the welfare of the poor, etc. (Deu. 14:28) It has been estimated that the total tithes amounted annually to approximately 27% of ones gross income.
The offerings were in addition to the tithes. These consisted of not less than 1/60 of ones corn, wine, and oil (Deu. 18:4, Neh. 13:10-12).
So the Israelite under the Old Covenant gave in three categories. (1) He sacrificed the first fruits of his fields and flocks (2) he tithed three times, first of all remaining after the sacrifices, second for the entertainment (expenses) of the Levites and thirdly for the sake of supporting the poor, and (3) he then gave an offering of at least 1/60 of all his grain, wine and oil.
It was common, during the lean years, such as those which prevailed at the time of this writing, to neglect the tithes and offerings. Malachi, as we have seen, accuses his readers of also bringing much less than the first fruits for sacrifice.
Jehovahs challenge (Mal. 3:10) is to bring all the tithes (he whole tithe) into the storehouse and see if times do not change. Jesus would say, seek ye first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. (cp. Mat. 6:19-34)
Here is the eternal principle of giving which continues from covenant to covenant. The support of the Lords work must come first in the economic lives of His covenant people. He who gives only what he can afford has not given at all!
This passage, especially verses nine and ten, are frequently used to prove that one who does not give ten per cent of his income to the church is robbing God. Conversely, on the basis of these same verses, promises are frequently extended that God will open the windows of Heaven to those who practice store-house tithing.
Before one makes such accusations or promises from these verses it would be wise to keep in mind several pertinent points concerning Mosaic tithing; (1) The tithes spoken of here had to do with the tithes of the fruit of the land, not wages per se. (2) These words are directed specifically to Judah because of the neglect of the ordinances of the law. (3) No money was involved. The tithe was a portion of the produce of an agrarian society. (4) The promise to open the windows of heaven has to do with rain which would end a drought and cause the land to again become productive when the people met the requirements of giving.
The principle taught, which must be learned by Christians, is stated by Jesus, not as a command to count one dollar of every ten into the offering, but to put the kingdom of God before the material necessities of life. (cf. Mat. 6:33) When this principle is applied to the giving of money, ten per cent seems a frightfully immature and inadequate amount, especially when those who had witness borne to them through their faith. (even though they) received not the promise . . . (Heb. 11:39) were required to give 27% of all they produced on the land.
(Mal. 3:11-12) Upon their return to faithfulness in tithes and offerings, God promised to remove the blight from the land. Whatever was organically wrong with the crops would be corrected. They had robbed God (Mal. 3:8) from the very first (Mal. 3:7). They were now cursed (Mal. 3:9) with drought (Mal. 3:10). The curse brought about by their dishonesty had taken two forms, drought and locusts (Mal. 3:11). Their repentance would be the occasion of unmeasured blessing, blessing so great they would be the envy of surrounding nations. (Mal. 3:12)
Gods provisions are always more than adequate to those who are honest in their dealings with Him.
WHEN THE DAY COMES, TRUE WORSHIPPERS WILL BE SPARED . . . Mal. 3:13 to Mal. 4:3
RV . . . Your words have been stout against me, saith Jehovah. Yet ye say, What have we spoken against thee? Ye have said, It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it that we have kept his charge, and that we have walked mournfully before Jehovah of hosts? and now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are built up; yea, they tempt God, and escape. Then they that feared Jehovah spake one with another; and Jehovah hearkened, and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before him, for them that feared Jehovah, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith Jehovah of hosts, even mine own possession, in the day that I make; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. Then shall ye return and discern between the righteous and the wicked between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not. For, behold, the day cometh, it burneth as a furnace; and all the proud, and all that work wickedness shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith Jehovah of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear my name shall the sun or righteousness arise with healing in its wings; and ye shall go forth, and gambol as calves of the stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I make, saith Jehovah of hosts.
LXX . . . Ye have spoken grievous words against me, saith the Lord. Yet he said, Wherein have we spoken against thee? Ye said, He that serves God labours in vain: and what have we gained in that we have kept his ordinances, and in that we have walked as suppliants before the face of the Lord Almighty? And now we pronounce strangers blessed; and all they who act unlawfully are built up; and they have resisted God, and yet have been delivered. Thus spoke they that feared the Lord, every one to his neighbour; and the Lord gave heed, and hearkened, and he wrote a book of remembrance before him for them that feared the Lord and reverenced his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord Almighty, in the day which I appoint for a peculiar possession; and I will make choice of them, as a man makes choice of his son that serves him. Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, and between him that serves God, and him that serves him not. For, behold, a day comes burning as an oven, and it shall consume them; and all the aliens, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that is coming shall set them on fire, saith the Lord Almighty, and there shall not be left of them root or branch. But to you that fear my name shall the Sun, of righteousness arise, and healing shall be in his wings: and ye shall go forth, and bound as young calves let loose from bonds. And ye shall trample the wicked; for they shall be ashes underneath your feet in the day which I appoint, saith the Lord Almighty.
COMMENTS
(Mal. 3:13-15) Malachi continues to list Jehovahs grievances against the people. They needed to return and they feigned unawareness of any such need (Mal. 3:7). They robbed God, yet pretended not to be aware of the robbing (Mal. 3:8). They have spoken against God, and again pretended innocence (Mal. 3:13 cp. Mal. 2:17)
The prophet continues to speak frankly, as he answers this latest question, Ye have said, It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it that we keep his charge?
Such complaining is not uncommon among those who cannot understand the spiritual nature of Gods covenant. Those who see the covenant as a mercenary bargain, attend to outward observance in the hope of receiving material blessings. When such are not forthcoming, because they are at most incidental to Gods purpose in His people, such worshippers are always disappointed and prone to despair.
God has never promised wealth to the faithful or poverty to the unjust. We manifest a gross ignorance of His nature and His love when we judge the worth of service to Him on such basis.
The evidence of this misunderstanding on the part of Malachis readers is seen in the last part of verses fourteen and fifteen. They equate their sacrifice of blemished animals and the withholding of tithes and offerings out of concern for material necessities with keeping His charge. They equate pietly with walking mournfully. They mistake pride for real happiness and complain that the wicked are better off than the rest. They accuse God, very subtly, of injustice because the wicked tempt God and escape.
(Mal. 3:16-18) Rather than continuing to rebuke their lack of perception, Malachi turns to words of comfort. He assures them the faithful will not be forgotten. They will be spared who are Godfearers, and ultimately made to understand the real difference between the righteous and the wicked.
A book of remembrance is being written he assures them, in which the names of the faithful were being recorded (cp. Esther 6). In the day when Jehovah acts, they will be spared His judgment and beyond this, they will be revealed as Jehovahs peculiar treasure. (cp. Joh. 3:18, 1Pe. 2:9)
Even in dark times there are those few who fear Him and so speak, i.e. converse with one another about Him,
THEY THAT FEARED JEHOVAH . . . Mal. 3:16
Malachi foresees the repentance of some, though not all the people. They would speak with one another, No doubt their speaking would concern the need for repentance, for genuine worship. As always, the fear of Jehovah would prove the beginning of wisdom for Jehovah would hear and remember.
THEY SHALL BE MINE . . . Mal. 3:17-18
Malachis covenant consciousness is evident here. It is those who fear Jehovah and think on His name who are His people. No reference is made to religious ritual or racial origin.
Peter voiced this same conviction. Following the thrice repeated vision which convinced him to go to a non-Jewish home with the gospel, and the resultant demonstration of Gods overwhelming approval of his action in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, Peter exclaimed, of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness, is acceptable to Him. (Act. 10:34-35) Paul confirms this same truth in Rom. 2:13, For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.
Malachi would have his readers understand this truth. In the days of Jehovah His people will be those who really serve.
BEHOLD, THE DAY COMETH . . . Mal. 4:1
The association of fire with the final judgement is a theme which runs throughout much of the Scriptures. Daniel describes it vividly. (Dan. 7:9-10) The Psalmist sang of it. (Psa. 1:3) Peter affirms it at some length. (2Pe. 3:7-10)
Malachi promises that those who feel this final fire will be without hope of springing again to life. They will be without branch or root. (See Amo. 2:9))
(Mal. 4:2) The prophet does not, however, limit his vision of the coming day to that of doom. In contrast, he presents the effects of its coming on Gods people. On those who fear His name the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its (His) wings.
Here is one of the most picturesque descriptions of the Messiah to be found in the Old Testament. To dissect it is to destroy it. Suffice it to say, that as the sun is the light and source of life to all the earth, so the Christ is the light and giver of life to the true worshipper.
In the warmth of this sun of righteousness, Gods people shall be as carefree as calves playing in the sunlight.
(Mal. 4:3) When this day comes, and the wicked are punished by fire while Gods people are freed from all care, the question of Mal. 3:15 will finally be answered.
Jesus rehearsal of the fate of the rich man and Lazarus is a fine illustration of this truth. (cf. Luk. 16:19 -ff) The unrighteous rich who lord it over the righteous poor will, in that day, find their situations completely reversed . . . eternally and completely.
In our present day, when churches have become pre-occupied with alleviating the temporal needs of men, regardless of their spiritual condition, and when making a profit in business has become, to some, immoral regardless of the good that may be done with such wealth, the idea that the iniquities of this life will be rectified in the next is passe to some. In the presence of this spiritual blindness, Gods people dare not lose sight of our obligation to be concerned for mens temporal needs in Jesus name. (cf. Mat. 25:31-46, 1Jn. 3:16-18) But this concern can, by no form of loge, negate the coming day of judgement
Nor can such concern negate the fact that the injustices of wicked men who prey upon the righteous and deprive the weak obviously go unpunished here and now. Honesty, in business, is not always the best policy for those whose chief purpose is personal gain.
Just as surely as this is so, so does the justice of God demand a day of reckoning. For those who come to Christ, the day of reckoning was held on Calvary (Rom. 3:25-26). For those who do not fear God, the time of reckoning is yet to come and it will.
CONCLUSION . . . Mal. 4:4-6
Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, even statutes and ordinances. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of Jehovah come. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers; lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
LXX . . . And, behold, I will send to you Elias the Thesbite, before the great and glorious day of the Lord comes; who shall turn again the heart of the father to the son, and the heart of a man to his neighbour, lest I come and smite the earth grievously. Remember the law of my servant Moses, accordingly as I charged him with it in Choreb for all Israel, even the commandments and ordinances.
COMMENTS
The Old Testament Scriptures close with a prophetic plea to Gods people to remember the law of Moses. It would be some four hundred years before Jehovah would speak again. In the interim, if they are to survive as His people, the law must be remembered.
Special attention is called to the statutes, that is those portions of the law dealing with religious ceremony. These ceremonies, as we have seen, were designed to keep visually and tangibly before the people an object lesson of the coming Lamb of God. If they were to fall into disuse before He came, Calvary would indeed be hard to comprehend.
Fortunately, they did not fall into disuse. During the Maccabean period and shortly thereafter (c. 160 B.C.), the party known as the Pharisees came into being for the express purpose of maintaining the literal outward observances of the statutes governing the Mosaic ceremonies in worship. Regrettably the Pharisees became obsessed with the letter to the neglect of the spirit of these observances, but they did. quite significantly, preserve the form.
In calling for remembrance of the law, Malachi does so in such a way as to provide the people one last term of its covenant meaning. The burden of the last Old Testament writer was delivered to a stiffnecked and rebellious people. They prided themselves on being Jehovahs people, but he bluntly declared, I have no pleasure in you, saith Jehovah of hosts. (Mal. 1:10) They thought they could play fast and loose with God, but Malachi reminded them of the greatness of Him with Whom they had to do. (Mal. 1:14) In their faithlessness, Malachi reminds them of the covenant, and told them flatly they were breaking it. (Mal. 2:1-9) He despaired of the nation as a whole and of the race as a race. He foresaw the coming of a terrible day in which this proud and wicked people would be utterly consumed.
But the remnant would survive, made up of those who individually feared Jehovah (Mal. 4:2) and thought upon His name. That is, those who had come to understand the true character of the eternal God and His purpose for all men. (Mal. 3:16) These faithful would be spared only because they had fulfilled Gods covenant conditions (cf. Exo. 19:5-6) laid down on Mount Horeb (Sinai). Those who were so spared would be Gods true Israel; all the rest were doomed.
Before the terrible day of the Lord, Elijah would come to once more call the remnant. His purpose would be the reconciliation of those present at his coming with the covenant faith of their fathers. Elijah, perhaps more than any other prophet of the pre-exilic period, had pled for a return to the pure worship of Jehovah as implemented in the law. The second Elijah would have the same purpose. Unless this be done, there would be not even a remnant in that day and the whole earth, which Jehovah had striven to redeem, would stand under a curse. The word curse (Hebrew cherem) means literally a ban.
Just as those Gentiles who had not the law and were ignorant of the covenant were without God and without hope in the world (cf. Eph. 2:12), so, if the remnant were not finally called in preparation for the day of the Lord, the whole world would stand permanently alienated, banned forever from the presence of God.
The Old Testament is continuous with the New. The Bible is, in this sense, a single book. The coming of Christ did not constitute an abrupt break, but a fulfillment. The method and purpose of Jesus is a continuation and fulfillment of the method and purpose revealed in the call of Abraham. The new factor is the personal presence of the Messiah.
Malachis promise of Elijahs coming is fulfilled in the ministry of John the Baptist. Jesus began where Malachi left off and consciously continued the work of the prophets. His ministry is understood only in light of Gods plan to redeem all the world through a people prepared as the instrument of divine worldwide purpose. (cp. Luk. 24:44-47 and Eph. 1:23)
Chapter XLVQuestions
The Coming Day of the Lord
1.
What were the two arguments of the wicked priests?
2.
What was Gods answer to the questions, Where is the God of justice?
3.
The New Testament applies Mal. 3:1 to _________________.
4.
Relate the rabbinic interpretation of this verse to Jesus temptations.
5.
What is meant by Malachis description of the Messiah as fullers soap and refiners fire?
6.
When Messiah came He would testify against the ___________, ___________, ___________, and against __________.
7.
Comment on those who turn aside the sojourner.
8.
Discuss the proposition that, because God does not immediately smite the wicked, He is no longer a God of justice.
9.
Note the similarity of Mal. 3:7-12 to Stephens defense (Acts 7).
10.
What is the eternal principle presented in these passages?
11.
How were Malachis readers robbing God?
12.
What is the distinction between tithes and offerings?
13.
What were the first, second and third tithes required by the Law?
14.
The offering consisted of not less than ___________ of ones corn, wine and oil.
15.
The Israelites were commanded to give in three categories: ___________, ___________ and ___________.
16.
How does Jesus express the thought of Mal. 3:10?
17.
Is this passage a valid proof text for modern store house tithing?
18.
List four pertinent points concerning Mosaic tithing.
19.
When the principles of stewardship presented by Malachi is applied to modern giving, ten per cent seems._____________________.
20.
What is meant by the promise of Malachi that God would open the windows of heaven?
21.
Gods provisions are always adequate to those who ________________.
22.
Not only have Malachis readers robbed God, they have ______________________.
23.
God has never promised ___________________ to the faithful nor ___________ to the unjust.
24.
The people equated the sacrifice of blemished animals and with holding of tithes and offerings with ___________________.
25.
A book of ________________ is being written.
26.
To whom does they shall be mine (Mal. 3:17-18) refer?
27.
Discuss Mal. 3:17-18 in comparison to Act. 10:34-35.
28.
Trace the association of fire with judgement.
29.
The sun of righteousness shall ____________________.
30.
The wicked are to be punished by fire while Gods people are freed from _____________________.
31.
Does the unequal distribution of wealth negate the necessity of righteousness?
32.
The justice of God demands a ______________________.
33.
The Old Testament closes with a plea to Gods people to ___________________.
34.
Why was it essential that the formal observance of the sacrificial system be preserved?
35.
The proud and wicked would be consumed but the ___________________ would survive.
36.
Who is the second Elijah?
37.
How is the New Testament continuous with the Old?
38.
What is the new factor in the New Testament not present in the Old?
39.
The coming of Christ did not constitute an abrupt break but a __________________.
40.
Approximately how much time lapsed between Malachi and Jesus?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
IV.
(1) The day already foretold in Mal. 3:2 shall be as a fire burning fiercely as a furnace, and the wickednot only the heathen, but the murmurers themselves, so far from being accounted happy (Mal. 3:15)shall be as stubble. (Comp. Isa. 5:24; Zep. 1:18; Oba. 1:18, &c.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Mal 4:1-3 are closely connected with Mal 3:18. These verses describe the judgment to be executed upon the wicked (1), and the blessing to be poured upon the good (2, 3).
For Connects Mal 4:1 with Mal 3:18, they will discern, because the events described here will take place.
The day The day of Jehovah alluded to in Mal 3:2; Mal 3:17 (see on Joe 1:15).
Burn as an oven R.V., “furnace.” The terror of the day is likened to a fire raging in an oven or furnace that devours everything.
Stubble Dry stubble cast into the fire is easily consumed (see on Amo 7:4-6); so evil doers are easily consumed in the day of judgment ( compare Isa 5:24; Zep 1:18).
All that do wickedly Now they may flourish (Mal 3:15), but their doom is already decreed.
Neither root nor branch The destruction will be complete (see on Mal 2:12; Amo 2:9).
2, 3. How different will be the fate of the righteous!
Fear my name See on Mal 3:16, and references there. At present the God-fearing persons may seem to be forgotten by Jehovah, but he remembers their names, and in due time he will send relief and salvation.
The Sun of righteousness “Just as in the material world the shadows and distortions and illusions of night vanish before the light of the rising sun, which shows all things as they really are, so in the moral world the Sun of righteousness shall put to flight the difficulties and perplexities, the inequalities and anomalies, which have been the trial of the faithful and the weapon of the scoffer” (compareIsa 60:1). The promise of the rising of the Sun of righteousness is not a direct foreshadowing of the coming of Jesus; it refers rather to the manifestation of the divine righteousness in the day of reckoning (Mal 3:1), which will result in the justification of himself and in the salvation of the righteous.
Healing From all hurts and pains that now afflict them.
In his wings That is, the rays emanating from the sun. As light and warmth are scattered in every direction through these rays, so the healing influences of the Sun of righteousness will be felt everywhere.
Go forth, grow up as calves When they are touched by the life-giving power of the divine righteousness “they shall be like calves, which are forced to stand through the winter in narrow stalls, but in early spring, when the sun comes forth from the wintry cloud veil, are again driven into the open, and therefore leap and skip with unrestrained joy.” For grow up R.V. reads “gambol,” which is preferable (compare Isa 35:6; Hab 1:8).
Then they will be exalted, while the wicked, now proud and prosperous (Mal 3:15), will be trampled under foot.
Ye shall tread down ashes The wicked, devoured by the fire of judgment, are reduced, as it were, to ashes, and like ashes they lie helpless upon the ground, while the pious, leaping for joy, pass over them. Of course, these statements are not to be understood literally; they present simply a picture of the great contrast between the destiny of the righteous and that of the wicked.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
A NEW DEFENSE OF JEHOVAH’S JUSTICE, Mal 3:13 to Mal 4:3.
These verses are parallel in thought to Mal 2:17 to Mal 3:12. They also are addressed to a class of doubters (Mal 2:17) whose confidence in Jehovah is shaken by the apparent inequalities of life; the good suffer while the wicked prosper (13-15). They are informed that their complaint is unwarranted, that Jehovah’s eye is over all, and, though at present the lot of the pious may seem hard, Jehovah keeps a record of those who are faithful, and when he appears in his temple (Mal 3:1) he will make a distinction between the righteous and the wicked (16-18). The wicked will be destroyed root and branch (Mal 4:1), while the righteous will be exalted forever (2, 3). In this wise, the prophet argues, Jehovah will prove himself a God of judgment and of justice.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
YHWH’s Final Charge Against His People, That They Have Spoken Against Him ( Mal 3:13 to Mal 4:3 ).
In this section YHWH finalises His list of complaints by distinguishing between the majority who have spoken against Him, and the minority Who have constantly spoken lovingly of Him, whose names are written in His Book of Remembrance, and He contrasts what the end will be of both groups.
Mal 3:13-14
‘Your words have been stout against me,
Says YHWH,
Yet you say,
What have we said to one another against you?
You have said,
It is vain to serve God,
And what profit is it that we have kept his charge,
And that we have walked mournfully before YHWH of hosts?’
YHWH now accuses Israel of speaking strongly against Him. Their response is to ask, how they have so spoken against Him. YHWH’s reply is that it is because they have said that it is vain to serve God and to keep His charge and to humiliate themselves before Him, because He simply does not respond. Note their emphasis on what they have done. They have slaved for Him, they have kept his stern charge, they have even dressed in black and made a great show of mourning over their sins. And they ask themselves what they have gained by their actions. The reply that they themselves provide is ‘nothing’, and that is because after all their arduous effort they cannot see that they have gained any benefit at all. To them their religion had been hard work, and they had expected to get a reward for it. Now they are wondering whether it is all worth while, whether to give it up and find a more convenient religion. Other gods did not make these high demands. They had reached a low ebb.
What a contrast these people were with those who ‘feared YHWH’ and spoke lovingly of Him among themselves. And they did this, not because of what they had gained from Him or hoped to gain from Him, but because they loved Him and worshipped Him as Who He was. They honoured Him and His Name. Herein lies the difference between true worshippers, and those who only worship Him for what they can get out of Him.
Mal 3:15
‘And now we call the proud happy,
Yes, those who work wickedness are built up,
Yes, they challenge God, and escape.
We have already seen in Mal 2:17 that there were many who were grumbling that God only seemed to do good to those who did what was evil. The grumble now continues as they declare that it was the proud and arrogant who were happy, it was those who worked wickedness who were built up, it was those who tested God out who escaped from problems and difficulties. And it did not seem right or fair to them. Those being described probably included some members of the community and also some of those among whom they lived, who had been settled there before they arrived. But their words remind us of the Psalmist in Psalms 73. He also was puzzled as to why the wicked flourished. But the difference in his case was that he went on to discover the answer when he ‘considered their end’, and he then went on to praise God.
But these people did not see beyond their criticisms. They stopped short at criticising and blaming God, and were deciding whether after all it was worth following Him when He was not fitting into their conceptions about what He ought to do. To them serving God was a kind of bargain. They did right by Him, and He did right by them. And it was His side of it that appeared to be failing. But, of course, as we have seen they only thought that they were doing right by Him because of their stereotyped ideas. As Malachi has brought out, they were in fact not doing right by Him at all.
Mal 3:16
Then those who feared YHWH spoke one with another,
And YHWH listened, and heard,
And a book of remembrance was written before him,
For those who feared YHWH,
And that thought on his name.’
But the true believers, those who really did ‘fear YHWH’, talked with one another about Him in glowing terms, and YHWH listened and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who feared YHWH and called on His Name. Of course they did not realise that what they were saying was being recorded. They did it because they loved Him. But it is an indication to us of how God hears how we pray and how we talk with each other, and it reminds us of the joy we bring to Him when we do it aright.
Many cities in those days kept a book of those who had done great deeds on behalf of the city, and many kings had spies who kept a record of people’s conversations. Some also had ‘books of days’ in which daily events were recorded. This book was a combination of both in the best of senses.
The idea that God keeps a record of the conversations of His people brings new light to the words of Jesus, ‘him who confesses me before men, him will I confess before My Father in heaven’.
Mal 3:17
‘And they will be mine,
Says YHWH of hosts,
In the day that I make,
They will be a special treasure (my own possession),
And I will spare them,
As a man spares his own son who serves him.’
And because these believers had their thoughts filled with God and His goodness He affirms that they will be His ‘in the Day that He makes’ (compare Mal 4:3), the Day that He has prepared for His final judgments. They will be His own ‘special possession’. This was the term used of a king’s private treasures, as against what was put in the public treasury. It was also the term used of Israel when God was making His promises to them before the Sinai covenant (Exo 19:5) and setting them apart as His holy nation. Here then were the true Israel within Israel of whom Paul spoke (Rom 9:6), the true nation. And they will be YHWH’s own treasured possession.
And He will see them as His only son (compare Exo 4:22). And He assures them that He will behave towards them as a man behaves towards his only son, even when he has been caught in some fault. He will ‘spare’ them. He knows that they are not without fault, and He may chasten them. But He will not count it against them in that Day because they have served Him from their hearts.
‘In the day that I make.’ Compare Mal 4:3 where the same expression is used of the day when the unrighteous will be trodden underfoot as ashes. This is the Day of YHWH, the Day when ‘the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father’ (Mat 13:43) and the Day in which ‘all who cause men to stumble and all who do iniquity, will be cast into the furnace of fire’ (Mat 13:42).
Mal 3:18
‘Then will you return and discern,
Between the righteous and the wicked,
Between him who serves God,
And him who serves him not.’
Malachi takes over the ideas being expressed and sums up the situation. Then in that Day (the Day when He makes His judgments and makes these believers His own special possession) He will return and will judge between the righteous and the wicked, and between him who serves God and him who does not. We have these ideas filled out in the parables of Jesus, both those in Matthew 13, and those which regularly speak of the activities of servants who are waiting for their Master or their Lord. The idea is of that great Day when all are called to account.
‘The righteous and the wicked.’ The righteous are those who are responsive to God and who love His word. They live in accordance with His covenant and seek to please Him in all that they do. They are yielded to His service in their daily lives. They are walking in the narrow way that leads to life. The wicked would not necessarily be seen as wicked by men. But they are those who do not treat too seriously God and His commandments. They do not want to be bound too strictly by the covenant. They have no desire to walk in His ways, except outwardly. Their aim is to please themselves. They want little to do with God, apart from when He can be useful to them. Then they wonder why He does not answer them. They walk in the wide way that is trodden by the majority. They live lives free of all restrictions, or alternately live them in order to put God in their debt, and their way leads to destruction.
Mal 4:1
‘ For, behold, the day comes,
It burns as a furnace,
And all the proud,
And all who work wickedness,
Will be stubble,
And the day which comes will burn them up,
Says YHWH of hosts,
That it shall leave them neither root nor branch.’
But the Day is coming. And when it comes it will burn like a furnace, and this time not a refining furnace, but a destructive one. And all the proud and arrogant (compare Mal 3:15) and all who work wickedness (compare Mal 2:17) will be as the stubble which is destined to be burned once the fields are harvested. The Day that is coming will burn them up and consume them. The fires of God will burn and the stubble will be totally consumed. And the proud and those who disobey His word will be left with nothing, neither root nor branch. The whole will have been burned up. This is the guarantee of YHWH of hosts.
We can compare here the words of Jesus, ‘this is how it will beat the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the unrighteous from the righteous, and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’ (Mat 13:49-50).
Here is the answer to all the grumblers. This is what will happen to the arrogant and the proud, and to all who set themselves against God, whether openly or simply by apathy. But the point being made is that they need to take heed lest they form a part of it. God’s love for them is revealed in that He is yet giving them an opportunity to come out from their folly and become true believers (Mal 1:2-5). God’s sternness in that if they do not repent thane they will face the fires of judgment.
Mal 4:2
But to you who fear my name,
Will the sun of righteousness arise with healing in its wings,
And you will go forth,
And gambol as calves of the stall.
But in what contrast are those who ‘fear His Name’. On them will the sun of righteousness arise with healing in its wings. God’s righteousness will shine down on them like the rays of the noonday sun, and they will be fully restored. And they will be so full of spiritual life that they will, as it were, go out and gambol in the fields like calves newly released from their stalls.
This idea of the righteousness of God effective and powerful in the lives of men and women comes largely from Isaiah, where the righteousness of God parallels the idea of His salvation and deliverance, and speaks of an active righteousness that works in men’s lives, covering them with His righteousness and producing righteousness within them. Consider as a parallel Isa 45:8, ‘Drop down, O you heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness. Let the earth open, that they may bring forth salvation, and let her cause righteousness to spring up together; I the Lord have created it.’ See also Isa 46:13; Isa 51:5; Isa 56:1; Isa 59:17; Isa 61:10.
And in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ the sun of righteousness walked the earth and we saw the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2Co 4:6). As He Himself declared, ‘I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in me should not dwell in darkness.’ Light had come into the world, but men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil (Joh 3:19), and that is why many did not come, and do not come today.
Mal 4:3
‘And you will tread down the wicked,
For they will be ashes under the soles of your feet,
In the day that I make,
Says YHWH of hosts.’
In that Day of God’s making, the righteous will triumph and the sinful and disobedient will be trodden underfoot like ashes, because they are as stubble burned to ashes in the fields. The thought is not one of vindictiveness. The point is that the righteous will walk the fields in which the stubble has been burned in preparation for the future good times. It is a picture of the future blessing of the righteous when the wicked are no more. Then the poor and the lowly who have followed Christ will, as it were, walk in fruitful fields, while the proud and the disobedient will simply be the dust.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Mal 4:3 Comments – Note these insightful words from Mary K. Baxter regarding Mal 4:3:
“When the Lord gave me a revelation of hell, I could see with my spiritual eyes that all around my home the Word of God was written in the sky. Around and outside of my home was a great assemblage of angels. Some were sitting, talking among themselves. Another group had a very authoritative look and seemed to be watching. The angels in the third group around the house were standing wingtip to wingtip with their backs toward my home. This last group was composed of the largest angels who all looked like warriors! Each had a large sword at his side. If even a dark shadow tried to creep toward my home, they would pull out their swords and defend my family. Remember, ‘the sword of the Spiritis the word of God’ (Eph 6:17). The Word would come out blazing and go into the enemy. The enemy would be cremated and turned into ashes. The Scripture came to me, ‘The wickedshall be ashes under the soles of your feet’ (Mal 4:3). Seeing the Word of God in action continually amazed me.” [11]
[11] Mary K. Baxter, A Divine Revelation of Heaven (New Kensington, Pennsylvania: Whitaker House, 1998), 177.
Mal 4:5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD:
Mal 4:5
Mal 4:6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
Mal 4:6
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Sun of Righteousness and His Forerunner.
v. 1. For, behold, the day cometh, v. 2. But unto you that fear My name, v. 3. And ye shall tread down the wicked, v. 4. Remember ye the Law of Moses, My servant, which I commanded unto him In Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments, v. 5. Behold, I will send you Elijah, the prophet, v. 6. and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Mal 4:1-3
4. The final separation of the evil and the good at the day of judgment.
Mal 4:1
Burn as an oven (a furnace). Fire is often spoken of in connection with the day of judgment and the advent of the Judge. It is a symbol of the holiness of God, which consumes all impurity, and also represents the punishment inflicted on the ungodly (Psa 1:1-6 :8; Isa 10:17; Isa 66:15, Isa 66:16; Dan 7:9, Dan 7:10; Joe 2:30; 1Co 3:13; 2Pe 3:7, etc.). The LXX. adds, “and it shall burn them.” Stubble (see note on Oba 1:18); or, perhaps, chaff, as Mat 3:11, Mat 3:12. Root nor branch The ungodly are regarded as a tree which is given up to be burned so that nothing of it is left. The same metaphor is used by John the Baptist (Mat 3:10; comp. Amo 2:9). The Hebrew text includes this chapter in Mat 3:1-17.
Mal 4:2
The Sun of Righteousness. The sun which is righteousness, in whose wings, that is, rays, are healing and salvation. This Divine righteousness shall beam upon them that fear the Name of God, flooding them with joy and light, healing all wounds, tee moving all miseries, making them incalculably blessed. The Fathers generally apply the title of “Sun of Righteousness” to Christ, who is the Source of all justification and enlightenment and happiness, and who is called (Jer 23:6), “The Lord our Righteousness.” Grow up; rather, gambol; ; salietis (Vulgate). “Ye shall leap!” comp. Jeremiah h 11). The word is used of a horse galloping (Habbakuk Jer 1:8). The happiness of the righteous is illustrated by a homely image drawn from pastoral pursuits. They had been, as it were, hidden in the time of affliction and temptation; they shall go forth boldly now, free and exulting, like calves driven from the stall to pasture (comp. Psa 114:4, Psa 114:6; So Psa 2:8, 17).
Mal 4:3
Ye shall tread down the wicked (comp. Mic 4:13). They who were once oppressed and overborne by the powers of wickedness shall now rise superior to all hindrances, and themselves tread down the wicked as the ashes under their feet, to which the fire of judgment shall reduce them. In the day that I shall do this; rather, as in Mal 3:17, in the day which I am preparing.
Mal 4:4-6
5. Concluding admonition to remember the Law, lest they should be liable to the curse. In order to avert this, the Lord, before his coming, would send Elijah to promote a change of heart in the nation.
Mal 4:4
If the people would meet the judgment with confidence and secure for themselves the promised blessings, they must remember and obey the Law of Moses. Thus the last of the prophets set his seal to the Pentateuch, on obedience to which depended, as of old (see Lev 26:1-46.; Deu 28:1-68.), so now, the most abundant blessings. My servant. Moses was only the agent and interpreter of God. The origin and authority of the Law were Divine. Horeb. The mention of the mountain would remind the people of the awful wonders that accompanied the promulgation of the Law (Exo 19:16, etc.; Deu 4:10-15) For all Israel Not merely for the people who heard the Law given, but for the nation unto all time. Nor could they be true Israelites unless they observed the terms of the covenant then made. With the (even) statutes and judgments. These terms, which explain the word “Law,” include all the enactments, legal, moral, ceremonial. Malachi might well remind the people of their duty, and thus support Nehemiah in his struggle to win them to obedience (see Neh 9:38; Neh 10:29). The LXX. places this verse at the end of the chapter, probably because the original conclusion (verse 6) was thought too harsh to be left as the close of the Old Testament. The Jews had a feeling that books in the Bible should end with the name Jehovah. In the case of Isaiah and Ecclesiastes, they repeated, after the last verse, the last but one.
Mal 4:5
Elijah the prophet. This is not the same personage as the “messenger” in Mal 3:1; for the latter comes before the first advent of the Lord, the former appears before the day of judgment; one comes to prepare the way of the Lord, and is followed immediately by Messiah’s coming to his temple; the other is sent to convert the chosen people, lest the land be smitten with a curse. There seems to be no valid reason for not holding the literal sense of the words, and seeing in them a promise that Elijah the prophet, who was taken alive from the earth, shall at the last day coma again to carry out God’s wise purposes. That this was the view adopted by the Jews in all ages we see by the version of the LXX; who have here, “Elijah the Tishbite;” by the allusion in Ecclesiasticus 48:10; and by the question of our Lard’s disciples in Mat 17:10, “Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come.” Christ himself confirms this opinion by answering, “Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things.” lie cannot be referring here to John the Baptist, because he uses the future tense; and when he goes on to say that “Elias is come already,” he is referring to what was past, and he himself explains that he means John, who was announced to come in the spirit and power of Elias (Luk 1:17), but of whom it could not be said that he “restored all things.” The same opinion is found in the Revelation (Rev 11:3, Rev 11:6), where one of the witnesses is very commonly supposed to be Elijah. It is argued by Keil, Reinke, and others, that, as the promise of King David in such passages as Jer 30:9; Eze 34:23; Eze 37:24; Hos 3:5, etc; cannot imply the resurrection of David and his return to earth, so we cannot think of an actual reappearance of Elijah himself, but only of the coming of some prophet with his spirit and power. But, as Knabenbauer points out, for the attribution of the name David to Messiah, long and careful preparation had been made; e.g. by his being called “the rod of Jesse,” the occupant of David’s throne, etc.; and all who heard the expression would at once understand the symbolical application, especially as David was known to have died and been buried. But when they found Malachi speaking of the reappearance of “Elijah the prophet,“ who, as they were well aware, had never died, of whose connection with the coming Messenger they had never heard, they could not avoid the conclusion to which they came, viz. that before the great day of judgment Elias should again visit the earth in person. This prophecy concerns the very last days, and intimates that before the final consummation, when iniquity shall abound, God will send this great and faithful preacher of repentance, whose mission shall have such effects that the purpose of God for the salvation of Israel shall be accomplished. We may therefore assume that in the gospel the appellation “Elias” stands both for John and for Elijah himself; for the messenger who prepared the way for Christ’s first advent, and for the prophet who was to convert the Israelites before the judgment day; for him who came in spirit and power, and him who shall come in bodily presence. The great and dreadful day. The day of final judgment. No other crisis could be named in such terms (see Joe 2:31, whence the words are taken).
Mal 4:6
He shall turn, etc.; i.e; taking the preposition, rendered “to,” in the sense of “with,” he shall convert one and all, fathers and children, young and old, unto the Lord. Or, in agreement with the versions, he shall bring back the Jews then living to the faith of their ancestors, who rejoiced to see the day of Christ (Joh 8:56); and then the patriarchs, who for their unbelief had disowned them, shall recognize them as true Israelites, true children of Abraham. Others explainHe shall unite the Jews who are our fathers in the faith to us Christians who are their children (see Luk 1:17, where the angel Gabriel quotes part of the passage, and applies it to John the Baptist). The heart. Here not the seat of the intellectual powers, but of love and confidence, which lead to union and concord. Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse; or, smite the land with the ban. This is an allusion to the ban threatened in the Law, which involved extermination (see Le 27:29; Deu 13:16, Deu 13:17; Deu 20:16, Deu 20:17). So Elijah shall come and preach repentance, as the Baptist did at Christ’s first coming; and unless the Jews listen to him and turn to Christ, they shall be destroyed, shall share in that eternal anathema which shall fall on the ungodly at the day of judgment.
HOMILETICS
Mal 4:2
The Sun of Righteousness.
In Mal 4:1 and Mal 4:2 we are once more presented with the twofold aspect of a Divine fact. (See homilies on Mal 3:2 and Mal 3:6.) “Dies irae, dies ilia.“ But “that day” need not be a “day of wrath.” It may be memorable, admirable, as the day of full salvation. As the first coming of Christ was for the “rising again” of some, “that they which see not might see” (Joh 9:39), so at his second coming, though “revealed from heaven in flaming fire,” he shall be “admired in all them that believe;” for he shall bring “rest” and full redemption to them (2Th 1:6-10). The great and terrible day of the Lord will have both a bright and a dark side, like the cloud that came between the Egyptians and the Israelites. To “the proud and all that do wickedly” it will be a day of utter destruction. It will “burn like an oven,” fire burning more fiercely in a furnace than in the open air. The wicked, having made themselves like “the dry tree,” “ready for the burning,” will be consumed root and branch, with no hope of renewed life such as might survive the stroke of the feller’s axe (Job 14:7-9). These threats are applicable to all times of judgment, when “the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and upon all the cedars of Lebanon,” etc. (Isa 2:12-17). We may see fulfilments of them in successive epochs of judgment, from the troublous times that followed the days of Malachi down to the destruction of Jerusalem and the judgment of the great day. Similar figures of destruction by fire justify this extended application (Psa 21:9, Psa 21:10; Isa 5:24; Isa 10:17, Isa 10:18; Nah 1:5; Zep 1:18; Mat 3:12; 2Pe 3:7-10). But such times need be no terror to the faithful servants of God, for “unto you that fear my Name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings. As we do not confine the prediction of the day of the Lord to any one day, so we do not limit the promise of “the Sun of Righteousness” to any one person. Whenever a signal manifestation of God’s righteousness is displayed on behalf of his servants, it is like the rising of the sun on a dark, cold, and unhealthy land. But the manifestation of the righteousness of God in the Person and work of Christ so far excels all other manifestations that we may limit our further application of the words to our Lord Jesus Christ, “that in all things he may have the pre-eminence.” What the sun is to the material world, the Messiah is to the moral world. The following blessings are suggested by the figure.
1. Light after darkness. Such is Christ to all men (Joh 1:4, Joh 1:9), especially to his own countrymen (Luk 1:78, Luk 1:79; Mat 4:12), but in a deeper sense to all that followed him (Joh 8:12). He brought the light of truth (Isa 9:2), for he was himself” the Truth.” Where he rises, like the dawn, upon the benighted and bewildered traveller, he guides into the way of peace and of salvation. The light of truth shows us “the paths of righteousness” (Psa 143:8, Psa 143:10).
2. Warmth after cold (Psa 19:6). Christ not only gives light, but life. His presence causes that spiritual warmth which is a life giving power. He is “a quickening Spirit” (Joh 5:21, Joh 5:25; Joh 6:47, etc.). There is a spiritual as well as a solar chemistry. The beams of the Sun of Righteousness both enlighten, warm, and quicken (1Co 1:30).
3. Health after sickness. The figure of “wings” may allude to the rays of the sun, or perhaps to the breeze which in many hot regions, especially in the zones of the trade winds, begins to blow over the land early in the morning, bringing freshness and health with it. The Jews had a proverbial saying, “As the sun riseth, infirmities decrease.” Christ, when in our midst, scattered around him blessings of healing, both physical and spiritual. At Jericho he brought sight to blind Bartimaeus and life to dead Zacchaeus. So is it wherever he rises, like the light of life, on the souls of men (Psa 147:3; Isa 57:19; Eze 47:12; 1Jn 5:11, 1Jn 5:12). The terms “righteousness” and “healing,” being very comprehensive, remind us of the blessings brought by Christ at both his first and second comings. At the first advent he diffused the rays of righteousness, whereby he both justifies and sanctifies those who turn to him, just as the sun imparts light, life, and joy to all who turn towards it. At the second, he will own the righteousness which he gave, and will exhibit it, cleared of all the misjudgments of the world, before men and angels. By his first advent he gave spiritual healing, justification, and all its allied blessings, summed up in the royal gift of “eternal life.” At his second he will bring full salvation, when, as one has said, there shall be “understanding without error, memory without forgetfulness, thought without distraction, love without simulation, sensation without offence, satisfying without satiety, universal health without sickness” (Isa 55:1-13 :20, 21; Rev 21:23; Rev 22:1-5).
Mal 4:4-6
The sufficiency of God’s successive revelations.
The introduction of the appeal in Mal 4:4 between the predictions and promises of Mal 4:2, Mal 4:3 and Mal 4:5, Mal 4:6 has at first sight an appearance of abruptness. The promise of Mal 4:5 lay in the indefinite, and as we know the distant, future. Malachi proved to be the last of the prophets of the old covenant. In the long interval between Malachi and John the Baptist there were times when Israel looked and longed for a new prophet to arise (1 Macc. 9:27; 14:41). though sometimes this was only for the purpose of settling very unimportant questions (e.g. 1 Macc. 4:41-46). But all the while they had in their hands a revelation from God that was amply sufficient for their present guidance, and the right use of which would prepare them for further blessings and preserve them from wrath to come. We are thus reminded of the truth of the sufficiency of God‘s revelations for those to whom they are granted. We may apply this truth
I. TO GOD‘S UNWRITTEN REVELATIONS. The declarations of God’s truth and of his will to Adam and the patriarchs were less definite than when “the Law came in beside” (Rom 5:14, Rom 5:20). But though in one sense “exceeding broad” as compared with the multifarious laws of Moses, they were sufficient to produce a conviction of sin (e.g. Gen 4:7; Gen 42:21, Gen 42:22, etc.), and therefore of the need of forgiveness, and to enable men to walk with God (Gen 5:24; Gen 6:9). So is it with the heathen (Rom 1:20; Rom 2:14, Rom 2:15). The revelations through the worlds of matter and of mind are sufficient as a rule of life, though not as a means of full salvation (comp. Act 10:35, “acceptable” () and Act 4:12).
II. TO THE LAW OF MOSES. This answered all needful questions as to the character and the will of God. Moses, the first writer in the Bible, and his Law are honourably mentioned by the last writer, this fact supplying one out of many testimonies to the unity of the Bible. Similar witness to the value and the sufficiency of the Law of Moses “for the time then present” is borne by Christ. The prophets came not to supersede but to expound the Law, to bring out the fulness of its morality, and to apply its fundamental teachings to the changing scenes of national life (Isa 8:20; Jer 34:12-14, etc.). Moses and the prophets “received not the promise” (Heb 11:32, Heb 11:39), yet Christ could say, “Salvation is of the Jews” (Joh 4:22).
III. TO THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION. Upon us “the ends of the ages are come” (1Co 10:12). Yet there is an eternity beyond. We cannot believe that God has spoken his last word to the sons of men. Now we know in part. There are treasures of wisdom and knowledge still hidden in Christ. At times we long to have fuller access to them. We should be thankful if some infallible living teacher could expound to us “the book,” or guide us in the path of duty. But we find ourselves between two great epochs, the first advent and the second. We live in what a distinguished writer has called one of the great “pauses” of the world. “Miracles have ceased. Prophecy has ceased. The Son of God is ascended. Apostles are no longer hare to apply infallible judgment to each new circumstance as it arises, as St. Paul did to the state of the Corinthian Church.” The written Word must be our appeal, and the Divine Spirit, leading each believer into the truth, must be our Interpreter. He may show us fresh truths in the old familiar Word, just as Christians after the destruction of Jerusalem saw further and fuller meaning in our Lord’s predictions of his second coming. But the revelations of doctrine and duty in that written Word are all we now need, and all we have a right to expect. If there are future revelations, they are among “the secret things” that “belong unto the Lord our God;” it is “those things that are revealed“ which “belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words” of God’s Law (Deu 29:29). Then we may expect to “see greater things than these” (Mat 13:12). As the Old Testament closes with promises of larger blessings (Act 4:5, Act 4:6), so does the New Testament (Rev 21:1-7, Rev 21:9-27; Rev 22:1-5). We know that a glorious future awaits the sons of God (1Jn 3:1, 1Jn 3:2). Yet in the midst of the most glowing promises occur awful threats. Here we read of “the great and dreadful day of the Lord” and “the curse.” In the New Testament we find, embedded in its final chapters, such words as Rev 21:8; Rev 22:11, Rev 22:15, Rev 22:18, Rev 22:19 (like traces of a past volcanic eruption and warnings of a future one amidst the flowers and foliage of some sun lit mountain). These warnings emphatically bid us “remember the Law,” take heed to that gospel of Christ which comes to us with all the authority of a law (Act 17:30; 1Jn 3:23), and is all that we need for salvation. The Jews, who would be wiser than the prophet, insert the fifth verse again, and read it a second time, because Malachi ends so awfully. But the Creator of men’s hearts knew best how to reach the hearts he had created. In a somewhat similar way some Christians would not end God’s present revelation where he ends it. In Christ’s description of “the last day” which is revealed to us, they would, as it were, after Mat 25:46, read again Mat 25:34, and apply it to all. They would interpolate their own speculations of what God may do among the revelations of what God would have us to do. Instead of pursuing such a perilous path, we bid men “remember.” We point them back to the only and unchangeable Saviour and the unalterable gospel (Joh 3:18, Joh 3:36; Gal 1:8, Gal 1:9), which is all that we need for salvation, and “whereunto we do well that we take heed,: etc. (2Pe 1:19).
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK
Mal 4:1
The Divine fire.
“The day cometh that shall bum as an oven.” Fire is one of the most familiar figures of the Divine working. It is one of the forces which man most dreads when it gets beyond control. And it is the force on which man most relies for the purifying of the good and the destruction of the evil. The fire of the oven is fire at its intensest. A hole is dug in the ground, a fire of stubble is kindled in it; by this time a large stone is heated, and on the stone the bread can be baked. Malachi has already dealt with the refining power of the fire of God. That which is good is freed and cleansed and improved by means of it. The prophet does not see the whole of the features of the day of God; only those which are directly related to the condition and needs of the people in his day. Every prophet is one-sided; and we must learn from all if we would apprehend the whole of truth, even concerning the Divine fire. Malachi had to adapt his teachings to some who were sincere but mistaken. To them the Divine fire is disciplinary. “He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver.” But he had also to adapt his teachings to some who were wilfully and persistently wrong. To them the Divine fire is, In some sense, destructive consuming. “The proud shall be stubble, and the day that cometh shall burn them up.” There are two things characteristic of the Divine fire, which are suggested by the double figure of refining and consuming.
I. THE OPERATION OF THE DIVINE FIRE DEPENDS ON WHAT IT OPERATES ON. This is one of the most marked peculiarities of common fire. It scatters water; it melts wax; it destroys wood; it hardens clay; it purifies metal. It makes silver valuable; it makes dross worthless. And so with the Divine fire. The apostle dwells on its testing power (1Co 3:13); but here its actual moral effect on differing characters is indicated. Take classes of character in Malachi’s time, and show the different effects which Divine dealings had upon them. Take types of character now, and show how Divine dealings soften or harden.
II. THE DIVINE FIRE IS DESTRUCTIVE OF THE FORMS OF THINGS, NOT OF THINGS. Science now explains that common fire destroys nothing; it only Changes the forms and relations of things. When the state of the wicked is irremediable by any existing moral forces, then their form and relation must be changed. As in the time of the Flood, humanity had to be put in new conditions. God’s fire destructions always begin a new regime.R.T.
Mal 4:2
The healing sunrise.
“The Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings.” “As the rising sun diffuses light and heat, so that all that is healthy in nature revives and lifts up its head, while plants that have no depth of root are scorched up and wither away, so the advent of the reign of righteousness, which will reward the good and the wicked, each according to his deserts, will dissipate all darkness of doubt, and heal all the wounds which the apparent injustice of the conduct of affairs has inflicted on the hearts of the righteous” (W.H. Lowe). The figure of “healing in his wings” may be illustrated by the fact that, off Smyrna, every morning about sunrise a fresh gale of air blows from the sea across the land, which from its wholesomeness and utility in clearing the infected air is always called “the doctor.”
I. THE WORLD UNDER THE DARKNESS OF REIGNING EVIL. Represented by those dark, depressing, unhealthy days when there is no light in the sky, and the damp mists lie low. Then the plants droop, the flowers do not care to open, and the leaves hang. The song birds are silent, and the hours drag on wearily. To the good the darkness of prevailing evil sentiment, evil opinion, evil practice, is necessarily afflictive. These things make an unnourishing atmosphere and bad circumstances. When the darkness of evil prevails in
(1) the intellectual world, or
(2) the moral world, or
(3) the social world, then there will surely be abounding error, moral mischiefs, spiritual depression, and vital disease.
As Malachi saw the people in his day, they were in the gloom of triumphant self-will, and there was no sunlight of God in their sky. That sunshine was his hope for the future.
II. THE WORLD IN THE LIGHT OF REIGNING RIGHTEOUSNESS. And that time he saw dawning when Messiah should appear. The birth of the Babe of Bethlehem was the strong sunrise of righteousness. Picture the dawning of the sun in full, clear strength after weeks of dulness, damp, and disease. How the sunbeams dry up the mists, warm the chilled earth, waken the music of the birds, make the flowers smile, and gladden man’s heart. “Notice these flowers all around us, how they turn smiling to the sun’s ardent gaze, bend forward in seeming reverence, throw open their pretty cups, and cast around their sweetest perfume. So, when the Sun of Righteousness shines, all moral goodness joyously responds. Evil slinks away into the shadows. When that Sun shines on through the eternal day, man’s answering goodness may flourish abundantly.”R.T.
Mal 4:3
The secret of triumph over wickedness.
The figure of “treading ashes” is suggested by the previous figure of “burning.” When the wicked are burned up in the fire of God, all their power to injure the good will be gone. They will but be as ashes of the oven, ashes spread abroad, ashes made a path to walk over. The tone of the prophet is not one of glorying over the fate of the wicked, but of rejoicing in the removal of the hindrance which the wicked ever put in the way of God’s faithful servants.
I. THE ILL ESTATE OF THE GOOD WHEN THE WICKED, OR GODLESS TRIUMPH. This may be illustrated in every sphere.
1. The National. Illustrate from the times of Jeremiah, when a godless party held power in the state, and tried to force an Egyptian alliance. Or from the times of Malachi, when formalist and careless Levites were corrupting the religious sentiments of the people. Or from the state of the Jewish nation in the time of our Lord, when the fountains of religious and secular authority were corrupt, and the crucifixion of ideal virtue was a possibility. Show in what an evil case good people, who feared the Lord, were placed at such times. See the sufferings of Jeremiah and of our Divine Lord. So there are national times now when evil sentiment prevails, and the servants of God have to “keep silence,” because it is an “evil time.”
2. The intellectual. The deistic age of our grandfathers was an evil time for devout believers. This critical age of ours is a time of sore strain for those who would preserve the simplicity of faith. The same truth may be illustrated in the smaller spheres of family, or school, or business. Whenever self-indulgence, bad sentiments, or evil characters have power, those who would live godly, sober, and righteous lives are sorely put to it. Though for them this need be but culturing discipline, the treading on the camomile plant that makes it yield freely its fragrance.
II. THE ILL ESTATE OF THE WICKED WHEN THE GOOD, OR GOD FEARING, TRIUMPH. This can be treated without any unworthy glorying over the disabilities of others. The point may be illustrated in every sphere, national, political, social, intellectual, or in the smaller spheres of the family, the school, the business, the Church. The point to dwell on is the distress of the wicked, not from personal suffering, hut from their inability to do mischief. We may rejoice that the wicked are made helpless by the triumph of goodness.R.T.
Mal 4:4
Loyalty to God’s revealed will.
It was characteristic of the restored exiles that they endeavoured exactly to reproduce the old Mosaic system; but there was a grave danger involved in their effort. They could not precisely reproduce everything. There must be some adjustment to the very different social and religious sentiments and relations. But those who claimed the authority to make the adjustments would be almost sure to carry their authority too far, and claim to alter and amend the very laws and rules. Under the guise of translation, adaptation, and amplification, the new law of the rabbis became established; and the mischief that it had become in the time of our Lord is evident in its actually overlaying the revealed Law of God, and making the Jehovah religion a burden beyond bearing. Malachi seems to foresee the mischievous growth of an evil which had already begun in his time, and in this closing passage of his work solemnly calls the people back to the unquestionable and unrivalled authority of the Horeb revelation given to Moses. It is the great recall that has been again and again found necessary in the course of the ages. It is the recall needed today. “To the Law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isa 8:20).
I. THE SIGN OF GOODNESS IN GOD‘S PEOPLE. Practical interest in God’s revealed Word. The old Jew had none of the difficulties which modem infidelity and modern criticism have put in our fathers’ way and in ours. Our fathers were troubled by being assured that a book revelation was impossible. They might have confidently, yet meekly replied, “But here it is.” We are troubled by being told that the Bible is not at all what we think it to be, and is not trustworthy. We may quietly reply, “Whatever it is, it is ‘a lamp to our feet and a light unto our path.'” Treatment of the Word is the best test of the godly life.
II. GOD‘S REVEALED WORD SHOULD BE KEPT IN MIND, It is designed to replenish our life at its fountains of thought, knowledge, and feeling. Therefore the prophet says, “Remember ye the Law of Moses.” Keep it in mind; freshen the memory continually.
III. GOD‘S REVEALED WORD IS BEST KEPT IN MIND BY KEEPING IT IN THE LIFE. “If any will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine.” Practical obedience is
(1) the best teacher; and
(2) our best and constant revealer of the need of teaching.R.T.
Mal 4:5
The mission of the second Elijah.
There is no reason for doubting that John the Baptist is referred to. Our Lord’s allusions to John as fulfilling this prophecy should suffice to settle the question. There need be no difficulty in admitting John to be the second Elijah, if we apprehend the figurative and poetical character of the prophetical Scriptures. One who would do for his age a similar work to that which was done by Elijah for his age would, in Scripture, be called an Elijah. There is no occasion whatever for imagining that any miraculous reappearance of Elijah was in the mind of Malachi, or a part of his prophetic message. The Jews overpressed a literal interpretation, and to this day they earnestly pray for the coming of Elias, which, they assume, will immediately precede the appearance of Messiah. Dean Stanley says, “Elijah was the prophet for whose return in later years his countrymen have looked with most eager hope It was a fixed belief of the Jews that he had appeared again and again, as an Arabian merchant, to wise and good rabbis, at their prayers or on their journeys. A seat is still placed for him to superintend the circumcision of the Jewish children. Passover after Passover the Jews of our own day place the paschal cup on the table, and set the door wide open, believing that that is the moment when Elijah will reappear. When goods are found, and no owner comes; when difficulties arise, and no solution appears, the answer is, ‘ Put them by till Elijah comes.'”
Twice in her season of decay,
The fallen Church hath felt Elijah’s eye,
Dart from the wild its piercing ray,…
The herald star,
Whose torch afar
Shadows and boding night birds fly.”
(Keble.)
Matthew Henry, in a few skilful sentences, suggests the likenesses and the contrasts of the two Elijahs. “Elijah was a man of great austerity and mortification, zealous for God, bold in reproving sin, and active to reduce an apostate people to God and their duty. John the Baptist was animated by the same spirit and power, and preached repentance and reformation, as Elias had done; and all held him for a prophet, as they did Elijah in his day, and that his baptism was from heaven, and not of men.” Rabbi Eliezer closes a curious chapter on repentance with these words: “And Israel will not make great repentance till Elijahhis memory for blessing!come.” For fair comparison of the two Elijahs, it is necessary to make careful comparison of the times to which they were sent, noticing the essential sameness underneath the manifest differences. Rabbinism had really driven the spiritual religion of Jehovah from the land in John’s days, just as the Astarte form of Baalism had driven the Jehovah worship from Israel in the days of Elijah. The two men may be compared in relation to
I. THEIR PERSONS. In each case there was an arresting personal appearance, and an unusual power of personal impression. In each case we have a man markedly different from surrounding men. This is noticeable in the dress, but more in the men themselves. And their mission largely lay in their personnel. Men minister for God in what they are in figure, countenance, and impression.
II. THEIR HABITS. Both were wilderness men, whose very food was a reproach of prevailing luxury. Their indifference to personal pleasure declared their absorption in their work for God.
III. THEIR MISSIONS. Both were sent to be forerunners of a coming God, in grace, to his people. Both were sent to call the people to repentance. Turningturning the people to God, was the work of both. Both had to make the same abrupt demand.
IV. THEIR SPIRIT. Both were absolutely loyal to Jehovah. Both were perfectly fearless of all consequences in doing their work. Both were stern in their tone, and saw the sterner side of truth. Both were humanly weak in times of unexpected strain.
V. THEIR INCOMPLETENESS. That characterizes the work of all who have preparing work to do. Neither Elijah nor John could count up results. To both life work might seem a failure. To Elijah, in a mood of depression, it did. But no life is incomplete that is but a piece of a whole, if, as a piece, it is complete. That is a comforting truth for the two Elijahs, and for us who now may have but pieces of work given us to do.R.T.
Mal 4:5, Mal 4:6
The day of Divine manifestation.
The margin of the Revised Version gives the rendering with, as preferable to to, in the clause, “And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children,” etc. Then the reference is to the work and influence of the second Elijah on all classes of society, on the hearts of both fathers and children. Keil, however, suggests a more difficult, yet more likely, explanation of the verse, “The fathers are rather the ancestors of the Israelitish nation, the patriarchs, and generally the pious forefathers …. The sons, or children, are the degenerate descendants of Malachi’s own time and the succeeding ages.” The Messiah is designed to be the bond of union for them all. What arrests attention in these closing verses of the Old Testament canon is that the stern side of Messiah’s mission gains exclusive prominence. That sterner side specially interested the judgment prophets of Israel’s degenerate days. And it was more particularly suitable for Malachi, because the very form of evil that was to hinder Messiah was beginning in his day. Malachi saw rabbinism taking root.
I. THE DREADFULNESS OF MESSIAH‘S DAY FOR THE JEWISH NATION. All days of God, all Divine manifestations, are necessarily two sided. They are dealings with moral beings, and their results must depend on the response of the moral beings. Every day of God must be a “‘savour of life unto life, or of death unto death.’ What the coming of Christ was to Simeon and Anna, to the disciples, and to the Church of all the ages, we are constantly dwelling on. That is the bright and sunny side of Messiah’s mission. But we may askWhat was Messiah’s coming to the officials of the Mosaic religion, and for the Jewish nation that rejected him, under the leading of those officials? It was their last opportunity, their final testing. It proved them to be beyond moral recovery. It removed the last check, and their woe came. Their house was left unto them desolate.”
II. THE DREADFULNESS OF CHRIST‘S DAY FOR THE SELF–WILLED IN EVERY AGE. For Christ’s test of the Jewish nation did but illustrate the test that he is, wherever and whenever he comes. Men reject him still at a peril which they seldom recognize. There is the stern side to a preached gospel. Christ proclaimed as Saviour makes forevery man a new and overwhelming condition for the testing of the judgment day.R.T.
HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS
Mal 4:1-3
The day of the world’s retribution.
“For, behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven,” etc. A graphic representation of these verses is given by Stanley: “The day spoken of was to be like the glorious but terrible uprising of the Eastern sun, which should wither to the roots the insolence and the injustice of mankind; but as its rays extended, like the wings of the Egyptian sun, God should, by its healing and invigorating influences, call forth the good from their obscurity, prancing and bounding like the young cattle in the burst of spring, and treading down under their feet the dust and ashes to which the same bright sun had burnt up the tangled thicket of iniquitous dealing.” These words lead us to consider the day of the world’s retribution.
I. IT WILL BE A TERRIBLE DAY TO THE WICKED. “Behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.” Primarily this may refer to the destruction of Jerusalem, which was indeed a time of judgment, but it points on through the whole period of retribution. Mark two things.
1. How this retributive period regards the wicked. They are “stubble;” without life, beauty, or value; utterly worthless. They may be wealthy, learned, influential; yet they are nothing but “stubble,” destitute even of one grain of moral wheat.
2. How this retributive period will destroy the wicked.
(1) Painfully; by fire. They shall writhe in the scorching flames of moral remorse and awful forebodings.
(2) Completely. “Shall leave them neither root nor branch.” To destroy them root and branch may not mean the extinction of their existence, hut the extinction of all that makes existence tolerable or worth having. This day of retributiun is really going on now, but it is only in dawn; the full noon is In the centuries to come.
II. IT WILL BE A GLORIOUS PERIOD TO THE RIGHTEOUS. “But unto you that fear my Name shall the Bun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.” This language may be regarded as indicating the blessedness of the world to a good man.
1. It is a world of solar brightness. “The Sun of Righteousness” arises on the horizon of his soul. There are souls that are lighted by sparks of their own kindling, and by the gaseous blaze springing from the bogs of inner depravity. All such lights, whether in the forms of philosophic theories or religious creeds, are dim, partial, transitory. The soul of a good man is lighted by the sun. The sun:
(1) Throws his beams over the whole heavens.
(2) Reveals all objects in their true aspects and proportions.
(3) Quickens all into life and beauty.
(4) Is the centre, holding the whole system in order.
The soul of the good man is lighted by something more than the brightest lights of human genius; something more, in fact, than moon and stars; lighted by the Sun himself, the Source of all light and warmth and life. Christ is the Light of the good.
2. It is a world of Divine rectitude. “Sun of Righteousness.” “The kingdom of God is within you.” Eternal right is enthroned. God’s will is the supreme law. The meat and drink of godly souls are to do the will of their Father who is in heaven. Such a soul is right:
(1) In relation to itself. All its powers, passions, and impulses are lightly adjusted.
(2) In relation to the universe. It renders to others what it would have that others should render unto it.
(3) In relation to God. The best Being it loves the most; the greatest Being it reverences the most; the kindest Being it thanks the most.
3. It is a world of remedial influence. “With healing in his wings.” The sun’s beams are in Scripture called his wings (Psa 139:9). The soul through sin is diseased, its eyes are dim, its ears are heavy, its limbs are feeble, its blood is poisoned. The godly is under remedial influences. The beams of the “Sun of Righteousness” work off the disease, repair the constitution, and enable it to run without being weary, and to walk without being faint. There is a proverb among the Jews that “as the sun riseth, infirmities decrease.” The flowers which droop and languish all night revive in the morning. The late Mr. Robinson, of Cambridge, called upon a friend just as he had received a letter from his son, who was surgeon on a vessel then lying off Smyrna. The son mentioned in his letter that every morning about sunrise a fresh gale of air blew from the sea across the land, and from its wholesomeness and utility in cleansing the infected air the wind was called “the doctor.” Christ is the Physician of souls.
4. It is a world of buoyant energy. “Ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.” See the calf which from its birth has been shut up in the stall, let forth for the first time into the green fields of May, how full of buoyant energy! it leaps, and frolics, and frisks. This is the figure employed here to represent the gladsomeness with which the godly soul employs its faculties under the genial beams of the “Sun of Righteousness.”D.T.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Mal 4:1. Behold, the day cometh This is a continuation of the discourse in the preceding chapter; and would be more properly joined to it, than made the beginning of a new chapter.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
SECTION VI
The Coming of a Day of Judgment which will vindicate the Ways of God, and reward the Righteous and punish the Wicked. Elijah the Prophet
Mal 3:13 to Mal 4:6
13Your words have been stout [bold] against me, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee? 14Ye have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully [gloomily] before [because of Jehovah] the Lord of Hosts? 15And now16 we call the proud happy; yea they that work wickedness are set up; yea,17 they that tempt God are even delivered. 16Then they that feared the Lord spake often18 [ nothing corresponding to often in Hebrew] one to another; and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance19 was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. 17And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels20 [or possession]; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. 18Then shall ye return21 [again], and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.
Footnotes:
[16]Mal 3:15., a particle of inference, chaps. 1:9, 2:1. (Ewald, 353.)
[17]Mal 3:15.The second marks a climax. Nordh. 1096.
[18]Mal 3:16.Spake often. The same word is used in Mal 3:13, and translated, spoken. The word often is not in the Hebrew.
[19]Mal 3:16.Remembrance (), found in Exo 28:29; Num 10:10.
[20]Mal 3:17., jewels (Exo 19:5; Deu 7:6; Deu 26:18).
[21]Mal 3:18.Return, , is used here as in 1:4, as an adverb, again (Gen 14:2).
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
Mal 4:1-6
1For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all [ plural in LXX., Targum, and eighty MSS.] that do wickedly shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. 2But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun [ fem. as in Gen 15:17; Jer 15:9; Nah 3:17] of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up1 [leap for joy] as calves of the stall. 3And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under, the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of Hosts. 4Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, Which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with [strike out: with] the [as] statutes and judgments [precepts]. 5Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet2 before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: 6And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to [, to or together with] the children [sons], and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Mal 3:13. Your words have been bold against me. Jehovah through the Prophet, now shows the people that their murmuring against Him and his service as unprofitable is unjust. Hengstenberg and Reinke suppose that there is a dialogue between the Prophet and the people, that they reply to the Prophets words, and contradict them. Jehovah has said, Prove me now herewith? They reply, The wicked prove God, and are delivered. The Prophet says: They shall call you happy. They answer: And now we call the wicked happy. The Prophet says: Ye have not observed mine ordinances. The people reply: We have observed them. But as this view is too ingenious, and the Niphal is used, They spake one to another, they conversed about God, and as it is analogous to 2:17, Ye have wearied me with your words, we must reject it.
Your words are stout, that is, bold, presumptuous, impudent. We have the substance of them, that it was profitless to serve God, since He was not a righteous God, and that therefore they are to be called happy who sought to secure their earthly well-being, without regard to God. Such hard speeches of ungodly sinners against God never pass the lips of a pious Asaph or Job, not even in the times of sorest trial, and in hours of the deepest darkness. They, though uttering despairing feeling, never draw such conclusions, nor go so far as to renounce God. Some have found the atheism of these sinners in the phrase serve God, instead of serve Jehovah.
Mal 3:14. We have kept his ordinance. We have observed all the prescribed rites. Walked mournfully, to go about in sackcloth, to neglect their appearance in token of fasting, and for the sake of Jehovah. They lay stress upon fasting, whether prescribed or voluntary, which was regarded as more meritorious. They attributed worth to the opus operatum of fasting, a disposition attacked by Isaiah in Isaiah 58., which increased after the Captivity, until it culminated in the fasting twice in the week of the Pharisees. They felt that they had claims upon God, and complained that He did not reward them for it.
Mal 3:15. And now we call the proud happy. In consequence of the supposed uselessness of their piety, and the adversity in which Jehovah suffered them to remain, they, unlike Asaph, offend against the generation of Gods children by speaking thus, and begin to call the haughty sinners happy, as those who have chosen the best part. We must again regard the proud here as in Mal 2:17, as godless sinners in Israel. They must be the same with the proud in Mal 4:1, which Hengstenberg admits refers to sinners in Zion, though here he refers it to the heathen. The heathen are spoken of as the objects of the divine punishment, only when they have harmed Gods people, and never where the sins of his people are rebuked. The people now give the reason why they considered the haughty sinners happy. They appeal to the matter of fact, that, though the wicked have put God to the test by their sins, calling down the vengeance of heaven, yet they have been unpunished, and their condition is therefore to be envied. The two clauses correspond to each other, and are placed in a reciprocal relation to each other by the double yea ().
Mal 3:16. Then they that feared the Lord spake one to another. The prophet now in a narrative form gives the speeches of the godly in contrast with the hard speeches of the ungodly. There were a faithful few who feared God with a holy fear, and who valued his name, who, notwithstanding all appearances to the contrary, believed that verily there a God judging the earth. The language of the ungodly was the occasion of their speaking together, not, often, as in our version. It was then () they testified their faith in God. We need not adopt the view of Maurer and Hitzig, that vav. conv. is to be translated that, and begins the quotation of their very words, for this is contrary to usage. We have not the substance of their conversation. Jerome imagines that it was a defense of Gods dealings, which is doubtless correct. They sighed and cried for the abominations of the times (Eze 9:4). Horror took hold of them because of the wicked who forsook Gods law, and they exhorted one another daily not to lose their faith in God, as holy and righteous. Their conduct and words pleased God, and to show the certainty of their reward He is represented as recording their names and good deeds in a book of remembrance, lest He should forget to reward them. Some have found an allusion to the custom of ancient kings keeping books, in which all the most important events of their reigns were recorded, as in Est 6:1-2, but it rests upon a much older and Scriptural idea, that the names and actions of the righteous are written in a book before God (Psa 56:9; Dan 7:10). The Pirke Avoth, a collection of the sayings of the Rabbis, quotes this passage, and the comment of Rabbi Chanina ben Teradjon: Where two sit together, and there are no words of the law spoken between them, there is the seat of the scorner of whom it is said, He sitteth not in the seat of the scorner; but where two sit together, and words of the law are spoken between them, there dwells the Shekinah among them, as it is written, Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another.
Mal 3:17. And they shall be mine, etc. We find the additional promise, They shall be to me a peculiar treasure, not jewels, specifically, as in our version. The accents make (possession), the object of make, but most of the recent commentators, following the LXX., the Targum, and Jerome, regard it as the predicate of, They shall be to me. They shall be my possession in the day with I make, or appoint. In favor of this, we find the same words in Exo 19:5, to which- this verse doubtless refers. Ye shall be to me a peculiar possession out of all nations, and also in Deu 7:6 : The Lord, thy God, hath chosen thee to be to Him a people of possession. Further, in Mal 3:3, we find the same phrase as here, the day I make, or appoint. In the New Testament, this language is borrowed from the LXX. to represent the relation of believers to God, as in 1Pe 2:9; Eph 1:14; 2Th 2:14; Tit 2:14, where we find a peculiar people, where the same word, , is used, as in the Septuagint translation of this passage.
I will spare themmanifest tender compassion to them, as a man spareth not his son merely, but his son, who serveth him, who is filial and obedient. As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him (Psa 103:13).
Mal 3:18. Then shall ye again discern between. The subject of the verb must be the wicked murmurers, and not, as Henderson thinks, the righteous. The wicked had arraigned Gods Justice, now they shall be forced to acknowledge it in their own punishment. The word in Hebrew is sometimes used as an adverb. It is so regarded here by Khler, Keil, Gesenius, Henderson, and others. Hengstenberg and Keil find in Mal 3:18 a reference to Exo 11:7, where it is said: The Lord put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel. Khler understands by it, that the wicked would now stand in a different relation to the question than they did before, that they would, in the future, in consequence of Jehovahs judgments, recognize that difference. Calvin understands it, if a different state of things. We are not to put too much emphasis upon it, nor need we refer it to any special case. The preposition between, seems to be used here as a noun, though not strictly such, in the sense of difference. The time will come, when ye will see the between in relation to the righteous and the wicked, as in Isa 65:13-14 : Behold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry. My servants shall sing for joy of heart, but ye shall howl for vexation of spirit.
Mal 4:1. For, behold, the day cometh. In Hebrew, there are but three chapters in Malachi, the third chapter containing twenty-four verses, instead of eighteen, as in our version. Most of the modern Versions begin unnecessarily here a new chapter. The prophet now describes the results of that appointed day, first to the wicked (Malachi 3:19), and then to the righteous, in Malachi 3:20, 24.
Behold, the day cometh! We find similar language in Zep 1:15 : That day is a day of wrath, Dies lr, Dies Illa, and in Joe 2:31, where we find the great and terrible day of the Lord. Some have referred the day here spoken of to the destruction of Jerusalem, others to the last great day. While it is to receive its fulfillment in the last day, yet it is capable of more than one fulfillment. It is fulfilled in every coming to judgment. As Wordsworth says: All Gods judgments are hours, marked on the dial-plate, and struck by the alarum of that great day. The destruction of Jerusalem was but the fiery and blood-red dawn of that day of days. To the ungodly it will be like a furnace, where the five burns most fiercely, and which scorches and consumes everything which comes near it. They that do wickedly will then be as the dry chaff, which is utterly consumed. Isaiah uses the same figure; Isa 5:21; and Obadiah, Oba 1:18; Zec 12:6; Mat 3:12; Luk 3:17.
That it shall leave, etc. The here is not a relative pronoun, as Maurer and Reinke sup pose, but a conjunction; so Keil, Khler, and Ewald, so that neither root, nor branch, a proverb, to express utter destruction; not one shall escape.
John the Baptist made this verse the text of his exhortations when he spoke of the axe laid to the root of the tree, and the chaff burnt with unquenchable fire.
Mal 4:2. But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise. Jehovah now turns, and directly addresses the righteous, and promises them that the Sun of Righteousness will rise upon them. There has been much difference of opinion as to whether the Sun of Righteousness was to be understood personally of Christ, or whether it is only a genitive of appositionthe sun, which is righteousness, or, righteousness, as a sun. The Fathers, Eusebius, Cyril, Theodoret, the early Protestant commentators, and a majority of modern ones, refer it to Christ, while the Jewish commentators, and Hengstenberg, Keil, Reinke, Khler, refer it to the consummation of salvation, in which Jehovahs righteousness reveals itself to the godly. Hengstenberg admits that the interpretation which refers it to Christ is well founded, though he does not find in it a distinct allusion to the person of Christ. Keil, while interpreting it, that righteousness, that is, salvation, is regarded as a sun, yet concedes that the personal view is founded upon a truth, that the coming of Christ brings righteousness. Henderson remarks: There can be no doubt with respect to the application, and refers to the passage where Christ is called the light of men, the light of the world, a great light (Isa 9:1), a light to the Gentiles (Isa 49:6), the true light, the day-spring from on high. Moore remarks: We cannot think that the prophet here meant to predict Christ personally, or, indeed, to look at the ground of this righteousness at all. We think it safer, from the parallel passages, from exegetical tradition, and from the internal evidence, commending itself to every believing heart, and which has found expression in hymns, and in the recorded religious history of multitudes, to understand this sublime figure not of an abstract righteousness, but of a personal Christ.
Healing in its wings. The beams of this sun are compared to the outstretched wings of a bird, to which they bear some resemblance. The figure is not to be carried out so far as to refer to the swiftness of a bird, or to the protection of her young by the mother bird, but is to be confined simply to healingHealing or salvation comes to the God-fearing through the wings, or beams of this sun, shining fully upon them. As when the sun returns to the earth in spring time, all nature rejoices in its light and warmth, so the righteous shall be awaked to a new life by the beams of this sun.
And ye shall go forth, and leap as calves. The righteous shall go forth from darkness, and their joy is compared, in a simple and childlike manner, to that of calves, let loose from the stall to go to pasture, who frisk and leap for joy.
Mal 4:3. They shall be ashes. The wicked, who have troubled them, shall be as little regarded by them as the ashes trodden under foot of men.
Mal 4:4. Remember ye the law of Moses. Now follows an exhortation as to the way in which the coming judgment is to be averted. We have here the conclusion of the whole book, and the appropriate sealing up of the Old Testament. There is in it an intimation, that no further communications are to be made. As they had gone away from Gods law, now they must give all diligence to observe and obey it. The Septuagint, it is difficult to see for what reason, has transposed this verse, and placed it at the end of the book, where it is out of place, as it serves as the introduction to the promise of John the Baptist, and the reformation to be wrought by him. Hengstenberg and Reinke suppose the reason of the transposition is to be found in the great importance of the precept, but the more probable reason is, that it was done, as in other cases, to avoid top harsh a sound in the last verse.
Which I commanded him, not whom I commanded, as Ewald, Reinke, and Bunsen. Jehovah calls attention to the divine authority and origin of the law. Moses was but the servant of Jehovah.
Statutes and Judgments. These words are found in the same combination in Deu 4:8, and may be construed as an exegetical definition, belonging to which, or with Khler, as the predicate, which are statutes and judgments.
Mal 4:5. Behold I will send Elijah the prophet. We have here a repetition of the promise in Mal 3:1 in a more specific form. Behold, I will send Elijah, not the Tishbite, as the Septuagint has it, but Elijah the prophet. But why is John the Baptist here called Elijah? The angel before his birth said unto his father, Zacharias, And he shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah. There were many points of resemblance between Elijah and John. Both prophesied in a time of great unbelief and apostasy from the law; both sought to bring back the people to the piety of their fathers; both prophesied before great and terrible judgments. The historical circumstances in which they lived were remarkably parallel. Ahab reappears in Herod, Jezebel in Herodias The words of Mar 6:20, where he speaks of Herod, fearing John, and did many things, apply without any alteration to Ahab. Their very appearance, the fashion of their dress, and their mode of life, were identical. Bengel says of John: Even the dress and food of John were in accordance with his teaching and office. The minister of repentance led the same life as penitents themselves should lead. His mode of life was a sermon de facto on mortification. We may thus clearly see why John should be called in prophecy, which, for the most part, suppresses names, and which throws a thin veil of obscurity over its subjects, Elijah, just as Jesus himself was called David, because he was the son and successor of David (Hos 3:5; Eze 34:23; Eze 37:24; Jer 30:9). The interpretation of this prophecy, that Elijah was to reappear before the coming of the Messiah, has been universally held by the Jews, and the obstinacy with which they have clung to this opinion, received by tradition from their fathers, has been a great hindrance to their receiving Jesus as the Christ. In this interpretation, they have been countenanced by most of the Fathers, as Chrysostom, Origen, Cyril, Theodoret, Theophylact, Jerome, Tertullian, Augustine, who held to two Elijahs of prophecy, the one, John the Baptist, and the other, Elijah in person, who was to reappear, to convert the Jews, and prepare the way for the second coming of the Lord. The Romish commentators, in consequence of this consent of the Fathers, have held it a heresy, or next to a heresy, to reject this interpretation. Some few modern Protestant commentators, as Hitzig, Maurer, Ewald, Olshausen, Alford, Stier, and Ryle, have adopted the same view. Alford says: John the Baptist only partially fulfilled the great prophecy, which announced the real Elias (the words of Malachi will hardly bear any other than a personal meaning) who is to forerun the second and greater coming.
We have two most important declarations of our Lords on the Elijah of Malachi. Speaking of John the Baptist, he said: This is he of whom it is written, Behold, I will send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. And if ye will receive it, This is Elias, who was to come. Here our Lord declares that John fulfilled both prophecies in Malachi, and that he was his forerunner. And further, that so obstinate were their foregone conclusions, that e did not expect they would believe it.
In Mat 17:10, His disciples asked Him, saying, Why then say the Scribes, that Elias must first come? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things, but I say unto you, that Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Then understood his disciples, that He spake unto them of John the Baptist. We would remark, that this conversation was soon after the Transfiguration of our Lord, when Elijah appeared. Sharing the common Jewish opinion, and supposing his residence with our Saviour would be a permanent one, they were perplexed at his disappearance. Their question led our Lord to speak of the prophecy of Malachi, and to place Himself at the time of its utterance, when the coming of Elijah as John was yet future. Hence He uses the future in speaking of Johns agency. Alford infers from the use of the future, that Elijah is yet to reappear, but it can be easily explained in the way which has been done.
Again, the denial of John (Joh 1:21) has been made use of by the few Protestant commentators who have held the view of another Elijah. John did not deny to the deputation from the Sanhedrim, that he was the Elijah of Malachi. This he affirms, when he says, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord; but that he was Elijah in their sense, Alford finds in, If ye will receive it, a confirmation of his views, but this expression strengthens the exclusive reference to John the Baptist, that it was so plain, that nothing but the most inveterate prejudice prevented their acknowledging it.
Before the coming of the great and dreadful day. This expression, the great and terrible day, is found in Joe 2:31. The day (Mal 3:17; Mal 4:1-5) throughout has the same meaning. It refers especially to the destruction of Jerusalem. When the Lord Jesus came, it was not only to give eternal life to those who received Him, but for judgment upon those who rejected Him. His coming was necessarily followed by the condemnation of the unbelieving. The Gospel is always a savor of life unto life, or of death unto death. But these words have more than one fulfillment. The last and perfect one will be in the last day.
Mal 4:6. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children. Some commentators, among whom are Ewald, Maurer, and Henderson, understand this of a restoration of family harmony, but it is better to understand it of a reconciliation between the ungodly, estranged from the piety of their ancestors and their pious forefathers, produced by repentance. Thus the bond of union, which had been broken, will be restored. That such is the meaning is proved by Luk 1:16-17, where the disobedient to the wisdom, or disposition, of the just, is substituted, as containing the same sense.
Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. By the earth here is meant, the land of Israel. The word, , curse, means anything devoted to the Lord, and is sometimes used in a good sense, as in Lev 27:28. More generally, however, in a bad sense, as in Zec 14:11, where it is translated, utter destruction, the ban of extermination.
The close of the Old Testament in Malachi is unspeakably solemn. On its last leaf we find the blessing and the curse, life and death, set before us. As its first page tells us of the sin and curse of our first parents, so its last speaks of the law given by Moses, of sin, and the curse following, mingled with promises of the grace which was to come by Jesus Christ. So on the last page of the New Testament, we read of plagues written in this book, but its last words are gracious words: Surely I come quickly ! Amen. Even so. Come, Lord Jesus ! The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all! Amen.3
DOCTRINAL AND PRACTICAL
Wordsworth: The concluding sentence of Malachi is a solemn warning to these latter days. The Holy Spirit knows what is best for us. He warns us of future punishment, in order that we may escape it, and that we may inherit everlasting glory. Knowing the terror of the Lord, he would persuade men. And the character of these latter days, when the Evil One is endeavoring to lure men into his own grasp, and to make them his victims forever, by dissolving Gods attributes into one universal fullness of undiscriminating love; and by endeavoring to persuade them that his justice and holiness are mere ideal theories and visionary phantoms, and that there is no judgment to come, and that the terrors of hell are but a dream, in defiance of the clear words of Him who is the Truth (Mar 9:44; Mat 25:46), shows that there is divine foresight in this warning by Malachi. Let it not be forgotten that the Apostle of love, St. John, ends his Epistle with a warning against idolatry, and that at the close of the Apocalypse, there is a solemn declaration against all who tamper with any words of that book, which speaks in the clearest terms concerning judgment, I heaven, hell, and eternity. May we have grace so to profit by this solemn warning, that we may escape the malediction of those on the left hand at the great day, and inherit the blessing which will be pronounced to those on the right hand by the almighty and everlasting Judge! Now unto the King Eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen!
Keil: After Malachi, no prophet arose in Israel, until the time was fulfilled, when the Elijah predicted by him appeared in John the Baptist, and immediately afterwards the Lord came to his temple, that is to say, the incarnate Son of God to his own possession, to make all who receive Him children of God. Upon the Mount of Transfiguration, there appeared both Moses, the founder of the Law, and mediator of the Old Covenant, and Elijah the prophet, as the restorer of the law in Israel, who earnestly prayed, Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou hast turned their heart back again! to talk with Jesus of his decease, for a practical testimony to us all, that Jesus Christ, who laid down his life for us, to bear our sin, and redeem us from the curse of the law, was the beloved Son of the Father, whom we are to hear, that by believing in his name we may become children of God, and heirs of everlasting life.
M. Henry on Mal 3:14 : Walked mournfully. They insisted much upon it, that they had walked mournfully before God, whereas God had required them to serve Him with gladness and to walk cheerfully before Him. They by their own superstitions made the service of God a task and drudgery to themselves, and then complained of it as a hard service. The yoke of Christ is easy; it is the yoke of Antichrist that is heavy. They complained that they had got nothing by their religion; they denied a future state, and then said: It is vain to serve God, which has indeed some color in it, for if in this life only we had hope in Christ, we were of all men most miserable.
Note.Those do a great deal of wrong to Gods honor, who say that religion is either an unprofitable or an unpleasant tiling; for the matter is not so; wisdoms ways are pleasantness, and wisdoms gains are better than that of fine gold.
M. Henry on Malachi 4:16. They spake often, etc. Even in that corrupt and degenerate age, there were some that retained their integrity and zeal for God. In every age, there has been a remnant that feared the Lord, though sometimes but a little remnant. They thought upon his name; they seriously considered, and frequently meditated upon the discoveries God had made of Himself, and their meditation of Him was sweet. They consulted the honor of God, and aimed at that as their ultimate end in all they did. They spake often one to another concerning the God they feared, and that name of his, which they thought so much of; for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth will speak; and a good man out of the good treasure of his heart will bring forth good things. They that feared the Lord kept together as those that were company for each other; they spake kindly and endearingly one to another, for the preserving and promoting mutual love, that that might not wax cold when iniquity did thus abound. They spake edifyingly to one another, for the increase of faith and holiness; they spake one to another in the language of Canaan; when profaneness was to come to so great a height as to trample upon all that is sacred, then they spake often one to another. The worse others are, the better we should be; when vice is daring, let not virtue be sneaking. They were industrious to arm themselves and one another against the contagion by mutual instructions and encouragements, and to strengthen one another s hands. As evil communications corrupt good minds and manners, so good communications confirm them.
Moore: When the wicked are talking against God, the righteous should talk for Him. Religious conversation is necessary, all the more, for the very reasons that often chill and repress it. When a fire burns low, the coals that are alive should be brought near together, that they may be blown into a flame. So when all is cold and dead, living Christians should draw near and seek the breathings, of the Spirit, and kindle each other by mutual utterance. The words thus and then spoken shall be heard and recorded in heaven.
Doddridge has versified Malachi 4:16, 17:
The Lord on mortal worms looks down
From his celestial throne;
And when the wicked swarm around,
He well discerns his own.
The chronicles of heaven shall keep
Their words in transcript fair;
In the Redeemers book of life,
Their names recorded are.
Wordsworth: Malachi, as successor to Zechariah, discharged a peculiar office. Zechariah is one of the most sublime and impassioned among the goodly fellowship of the Prophets. The light of the sunset of prophecy is as brilliant and glorious as its noonday splendors. The prophecy of Zechariah is an impetuous torrent, sweeping along in a violent stream, dashing over rugged rocks, and hurling itself down in headlong cataracts, and carrying everything with it in its foaming flood. In Malachi, it tempers its vehemence in the clear haven of a translucent pool; there it rested in peace for four hundred years, till it flowed forth again in the Gospel.
M. Henry, on Malachi 4. Mal 4:4 : Observe the honorable mention that is made of Moses, the first writer of the Old Testament, in Malachi, the last writer. God calls him Moses, my servant, for the righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance. See how the penmen of Scripture, though they lived at a great distance of time from each other (it was twelve hundred years from Moses to Malachi) concurred in the same thing, all actuated and guided by one and the same spirit.
Pressel: We meet sometimes in the Old Testament with passages, like flowers among the rocks, which anticipate the New Testament. Of this kind are the few passages in which God is regarded not as Lord but as Father (Deu 32:6; 2Sa 7:14; Psa 89:27; Psa 103:13; Isa 63:16; Jer 31:20; Hos 1:10; Mal 3:17). God appears in them indeed more as the Father of the whole nation, than in a personal relation to individuals. The joyfulness of the sonship of individuals does not attain prominence, and it was not the prevailing consciousness of the whole people; but these few traces of the fatherhood of God disclose the continuity of both Testaments. The relation, which was not possible for the Old Testament Church, the New Covenant has granted us through Jesus Christ, and what the New has thus granted, the Old had already foreshadowed.
Though the prophecy of Malachi, of the coming of the Messiah, of the judgment accompanying it, and of the sending of the forerunner, contains nothing at all which would lead us to suppose that the first coming would find its fulfillment in a second at the end of days, before which time there should happen his rejection by his people, his redeeming work on Golgotha, and the whole history of the spread of his Gospel even to the ends of the earth, yet nothing can be concluded from this against the truth, that this last prophecy of the Old Testament had begun to be fulfilled in the appearance of Jesus of Nazareth; for the occasion and design of this last prophecy had nothing to do with the subsequent events; for God reveals to his faithful people at every stage, and under all relations, only just so much as they need. The Old Testament has sufficiently disclosed the most glorious glimpses into the Messianic future, as special Psalms, Isaiah, Daniel, Zechariah, and other books testify, but here the object is only to enforce on the light-minded and scoffing contemporaries of the prophet the ineffaceable difference between the godly and ungodly, and the certainty of the day in which that difference would be revealed to all eyes. It was for this object, that what God communicated to them through his prophets of the coming of the Lord, and the sending of his Forerunner, was exactly what they needed.
Mal 3:16-17. Then they that feared the Lord. What is the frivolity and scorn of the world, when compared with the refuge of the pious in the word of God, in the communion of those like-minded, in prayer, and in a blessed hereafter!
The Lord knoweth them that are his! This Holy Scripture everywhere testifies. Does also the Spirit of God testify it to our spirits?
The names of those who are registered in our church books are not all found in Gods book of remembrance. As it was a great privilege to be numbered among the people of Israel, so it is one now to be numbered in our church books as a Christian; but as then there was a difference between those whose names were in Gods book, and those who were not, so it is still now.
In thy fair book of life and grace,
O may I find my name,
Recorded in some humble place,
Beneath my Lord, the Lamb.
This is the highest distinction to which man can attain: all others are but a shadow, when compared with it. It is a distinction most undeserved, and yet promised to the sincere and pious. It excludes all merit, and yet it is a reward of true piety.
Mal 4:1. For behold the day comes!
That day of wrath ! that dreadful day !
When heaven and earth shall pass away,
What power shall be the sinners stay?
How shall he meet that dreadful day !
Mal 4:2 What will the day of the Lord bring to the righteous, according to the promise of the Old Testament? The Sun of righteous ness; salvation under his wings; the joy of freedom; the triumph over the common enemies of the Lord and his people.
Mal 4:4-5 Moses and Elijah must even now go before the Lord: How far have they come to us? Or, Conversion is the turning point, where the Old Covenant ends, and the New begins: the heart begins, and the life must end.
Mal 4:6. He shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children. How has the Word of God laid upon us the duty of our conversion, and that of our families! Grant me the heavenly joy, that after many a struggle, I may with rapture say, Dearest Father! Here am I, and those whom thou hast given me! No one of them is lost! all are prepared for thy kingdom! That this may be our experience, we must strive by persevering prayer, and it will, when realized, be a matter of heavenly joy. Finally: The last word of the Old Testament is the threatening of the curse; of the New, the prayer, Even so come, Lord Jesus! What should we wish our last word to be?
Chrysostom on, Behold the day cometh! Let us then imagine that that day has come, and let each one examine his reflections, and let him suppose that the Judge is already present, and that all things are revealed and published; for we must not only stand there, but also be made manifest. Would you not blush? would you not be beside yourselves? For if now, when the occasion is not yet present, but is merely supposed, and represented to the imagination, we are overwhelmed by our reflections, what shall we do, when that day has come,when the whole world is present,when angels and archangels, when crowded myriads, and the hurrying to and fro of all have come; and we are caught up in the clouds, and the gathering together full of terror has come; when trumpet after trumpet shall sound exceeding loud,when all these have come For even if there were no hell, what a punishment to be thrust out in the midst of such splendor, and to depart dishonored! For if even now, when a king and his retinue make a triumphal entry, the poor, reflecting on their poverty, receive not so much pleasure from the spectacle, as mortification, that they are not admitted to the presence of the king, nor share his favor, what will it be then! Or, do you consider it a light punishment not to be numbered in that company, not to be counted worthy of that unspeakable glory, to be thrust out from that joyful assembly, and from those unutterable blessings? when too, there shall be darkness, and gnashing of teeth, and everlasting chains, and the worm that never dies, and the fire that is never quenched, and tribulation and anguish, and tongues parched like the rich mans; when we shall beg for mercy, but no one shall hear; when we shall groan and howl because of our torments, and no one shall heed; and look round everywhere, and nowhere shall there be any to comfort us, what shall we say to those in such a condition, what can be more wretched than their souls! what more pitiable! For if we enter a prison, and see the squalid prisoners, some bound and famishing, others shut up in darkness, we weep aloud, we shudder, and avoid imprisonment there, when we are dragged away by force into the very torments of hell, what shall become of us! For these chains are not of iron, but of fire, never to be quenched; nor are our jailers men, whom it is often possible to persuade, but angels, whom we dare not look upon, because they are exceedingly enraged, that we have insulted their Lord. We do not see there, as here, some bringing money, some food others comforting words so that prisoners obtain some mitigation. Everything there is beyond the reach of alleviation. Even if Noah, or Job, or Daniel, should see their own families suffering punishment. they would not dare to relieve them. For natural sympathy is there extinguished. For while it is the case, that righteous parents have wicked children, and righteous children wicked parents, that the pleasure may there be unalloyed, and that those who enjoy the blessings may not lose their fruition from sympathy, even this natural affection, I say, is extinguished, and they share in their Lords indignation against their own offspring. For if common men, when they see their children wicked, disinherit them, and cut them off from the family, much more shall the righteous them. Therefore, let no one hope for good things, who has done no good work, though he may have ten thousand righteous ancestors, for every one shall receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done. And here I think I will make use of this fear to attack the adulterers, and not them only, but all those who do any wrong thing whatever. Let us ourselves hear therefore these things; if you have the fire of lust, oppose to it that fire, and being extinguished, it will quickly go out. If you are about to utter anything uncharitable, reflect on the gnashing of teeth, and your fear will be a bridle to you; if you wish to steal, hear the Judge commanding and saying, Bind him hand and foot and cast him into outer darkness, and you will in this way cast out your lust; if you are a drunkard, and spend your time in debauchery, hear the rich man saying, Send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my parched tongue, and not obtaining his request, and you will get rid of this passion. If you love luxury, consider the tribulation and anguish there, and you will desire it no more; if you are harsh and cruel, remember those virgins who, because their lamps had gone out, were shut out of the bridal chamber, and you will soon become kind-hearted. Are you slothful? Think of him who hid the talent, and you will become more ardent than fire. Does covetousness of your neighbors property consume you? Think of the worm that never dies, and yon will easily get rid of this disease, and will reform all other sins, for He has commanded nothing burdensome or grievous. Why them do his commandments seem grievous to us? From our slothfulness. For as when we are zealous, even those things which seem intolerable will be light and easy, so when we are slothful, the things which are tolerable will appear to us grievous. In view of all this, let us not regard those who live luxuriously, but remember their end; let us not regard the extortioners, but remember their end,here cares and fears and anguish of soul, and there everlasting chains; let us not regard the lovers of glory, but remember what it begets,here slavery and hypocrisy, and there intolerable loss, and perpetual burning. For if we would thus reason with ourselves, and continually oppose these and the like things to our wicked lusts, we should speedily cast out the love of the present, and kindle the love of the future. Let us now therefore kindle it, and burn with it. For if the meditation on these things, imperfect as it may be, gives such pleasure, think how much delight a perfect realization will be. Happy, thrice happy, yea, infinitely happy are those who enjoy such blessings, as wretched, thrice wretched are those who suffer their opposite! That we may not be of the latter class, but of the former, let us choose virtue, for in this way we shall obtain these future blessings. God grant that we may all obtain them, through the grace and love of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost together be glory, power, and honor now and always, and for ever and ever. Amen!
Footnotes:
[1]Mal 4:2.Grow up. , frisk. 70.: (Hab 1:8).
[2]Mal 4:5.LXX.: . The Masora directs that this verse should be repeated after the last verse, so thet the book may not end with a curse.
[3]Aben Ezra, at the close of his Commentary on the Minor Prophets says: May God soon fulfill the prophecy of Elijah, and hasten his coming! Rather may we pray that the veil may be taken from the hearts of the Jews, so that they may believe that this prophecy has been fulfilled, that Elias has already come, and that they may with us unite in the prayer, which every believing and loving soul continually prays: Come, Lord Jesus! Come quickly!
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
DISCOURSE: 1276
THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS ARISING
Mal 4:1-2. Behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear my name, shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.
THE thought of many is, that God will do neither good nor evil, and that it is therefore unnecessary and vain to make him an object either of our hope or fear. This was the state of mind in which the greater part of the Jews were in the time of Malachi: and God sent his prophet to warn them, that a time was coming when they should clearly discern between the righteous and the wicked by the awful judgments he would inflict on the one, and the unspeakable benefits he would confer on the other [Note: Zep 1:12.].
In the words before us are contained,
I.
A warning to the wicked
The following context leads us immediately to the times of the Messiah; and to them we must look for the accomplishment of this tremendous threatening
[Temporal judgments are often predicted in similar language. The enemies of the Jews [Note: Isa 10:16-18.], and the Jews themselves [Note: Zep 1:14-18.], yea, and all the enemies of God [Note: Psa 21:8-9.], are menaced in this manner. But never were they fulfilled so fearfully as in the destruction of Jerusalem. Thither almost all the whole Jewish nation were assembled; and, being shut up in the city, as in an oven, they were made astonishing monuments of Gods fiery indignation.]
But doubtless this warning refers also to the day of judgment
[In that day the Judge himself will come in flames of fire [Note: 2Th 1:7-9.]: and the earth, the theatre on which so much wickedness has teen acted, shall be burnt up [Note: 2Pe 3:10-12.]: and the objects of Gods displeasure shall be cast into the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone [Note: Rev 21:8.].
It is asked, Who they are that shall then suffer the vengeance of eternal fire? We answer, The proud contemners of Gods law, and they who go about to establish their own righteousness instead of submitting to the righteousness of God; and they who think religion vain and unprofitable [Note: Mal 3:13-14.]; yea, moreover, all who commit any kind of wickedness knowingly, deliberately, and habitually, all, I say, without exception, shall be as stubble to the consuming fire [Note: Rom 1:18. The four distinct characters here enumerated, should be separately and distinctly addressed, and in very pointed terms, as very especially warned by God himself.]
And shall we not take warning, when we know that the day is coming, and that every hour brings it nearer and nearer? O let it not overtake us as a thief! Our forbearing to reflect upon it cannot delay its approach, or mitigate its terrors. Be persuaded to prepare for it, that, instead of dreading, you may welcome, its arrival.]
We turn with pleasure from this awful subject to contemplate the latter part of the text, wherein we have,
II.
A promise to the righteous
Whatever distant reference there may be in these words to the deliverance of the Christians from Jerusalem, when, according to our Lords instructions, they took advantage of the retreat of the Roman army, to flee out of it to Pella, we must certainly look for the accomplishment of the promise principally in the spiritual blessings conveyed by the Messiah.
The Christian character is briefly delineated in contrast with Gods enemies
[The fear of God is often represented as comprising the whole of religion: and indeed, wherever that obtains, pride will be humbled, wickedness banished, and every holy affection cultivated to the utmost [Note: These also, with some distinctness of delineation, should here, in very encouraging terms, be called upon to consider themselves as especially addressed by God.] Let those who have reason to think themselves under its genuine influence, listen with gratitude to the promise, which God himself addresses to them.]
To those who answer to this character, shall Christ be a source of the richest blessings
[Christ is the Sun of the spiritual world, and the one fountain of light and life to all that believe in him. He is also the Sun of Righteousness, not only as being pure and spotless in himself, but as being the Author of all righteousness, whether of that which is imputed to us for justification, or that which is imparted to us by sanctification. And how delightful was the sight of him to those who beheld him rising on this benighted world, to those, into whose hearts he shined with his refreshing beams! On them he shone, not with burning rays, that dry up and wither the earth and all its fruits, but with genial warmth, healing the desolations of winter, and causing every herb to spring forth into life and vigour. How did the first Christians go forth out of a dead and carnal state, and grow up with astonishing rapidity and strength as the calves of the stall! Thus also, in this day, does the light of his countenance convey healing to our souls. A sight of him removes both the guilt we have contracted, and the pollutions whereby we have been defiled; thus healing at once the deadly wounds of sin, and restoring health and beauty to those who have been debased by more than leprous deformity. Who would not wish to bask in his beams, and to experience the full effects of his renovating power?]
Improvement
1.
How different even in this life are the states of Gods friends, and of his enemies!
[The proud are called happy [Note: Mal 3:15.]: but are they so? the heart-searching God declares that they have no solid peace. Nor is it possible that they can look forward to the day of judgment without much disquietude of mind. Their joys, such as they are, are like the crackling of thorns under a pot, of short duration, and succeeded by smoke and darkness, by spleen and melancholy But, is this the state of Gods people? Let the text declare, and let the experience of all the saints attest The more they enjoy of the light of this Sun of Righteousness, the more they anticipate the blessedness of heaven.]
2.
How different will be the states of Gods friends and enemies in the eternal world!
[The day of judgment is called the day of wrath, and, the day of the perdition of ungodly men [Note: Rom 2:5. 2Pe 3:7.]. Alas! alas! whither shall the objects of Gods vengeance flee? How shall they dwell with everlasting burnings? Who can conceive the anguish with which they will weep and wail and gnash their teeth? View, on the contrary, the godly healed of every malady, grown to the full measure of the stature of Christ, and enjoying continually the meridian glories of the Sun of Righteousness. Who can conceive the happiness of such a state? But though we know not yet what we shall be, so far as respects the degrees of our happiness or misery, we know that the distance between the righteous and the wicked will be immeasurably great. Would to God that, in the contemplation of it, we might all fear the Lord, and walk in his fear to the latest period of our lives!]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
CONTENTS
The Prophet in closing up his predictions to the Church, delivers a solemn message to the ungodly, and a gracious promise to the righteous. He declares the coming of Elijah before the last day of the Lord’s coming.
Mal 4:1
I cannot think with many, that this day spoken of, is the day of Christ’s first coming in the flesh. Neither do I conceive, that all the event’s which took place in Jerusalem, after our Lord’s return to glory, can be said to have had their fulfillment of this prophecy. I am much more inclined to refer this day, that is said to burn as an oven, to the same day the Apostles speak of. See 2Pe 3:7-12 ; Rev 20:11 to the end. Rev 21:8 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
The End of the Christian Year
Mal 4:1
The end of a Christian year and the approach of another bring, like all endings and new beginnings in our frail and brief life, solemn thoughts. The Church in her services encourages them, and impresses them upon us.
I. The Day of Change and Ending. Life, if you think of it, is so made that it seems stable, settled, permanent, and yet it is liable always to interruption and shock. It moves incessantly towards some day of change and ending. Both things are true both, no doubt, are meant for us by. God. Without the appearance call it the illusion if you will of quiet and of security, we could not live our lives heartily or do our work effectively. To that appearance we owe all our happiness. If life be but a stage, it has a look of home. You could not act a drama as you moved along down a road. God knows the real value of the moment and the day, and knows that it is perhaps through the feeling of their being safely our own that we are able either to enjoy or to use them, or that they can do their true work of probation for us. But if that is true, it is also true that He means us to take to heart the certainty of change. If we get settled in security, we deceive ourselves. Blind and self-satisfied, we grow careless and rash. ‘In my prosperity I said, I shall never be removed.’ ‘Tomorrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.’ And so to the man in the Gospel, who has wrapped himself round with security of his possessions, saying, ‘I will pull down my bams and build greater,’ comes the word, ‘Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee, then whose shall these things be?’ Therefore, for our good, life is always full of signs and warnings of change. Sometimes they come suddenly, sometimes gradually. The death at our side by the quick stroke of accident or after a few days’ illness, the break-up of a home, a bereavement which darkens our sky, a physician’s word, or look, which gives the verdict of incurable and mortal disease, these are the common examples of sudden catastrophe which make our best security insecure.
II. The Appeal to the Conscience. It is not only that the change will come, whether gradually or in an instant, but that when it comes, it will wind up a time of opportunity; a chapter will be closed, accounts will be cast up, and judgment will be passed. The day, when it comes, will test our value and the use that we have made of the days that are gone. The conscience of man, like the words of the Prophet, forebodes the day, which may be a day of hope, but must be a day of judgment We may look for it, like Haggai, as a day which will bring some triumph of the right, some better state than this in which we live, with all its trials, sufferings, and sin some glory and some peace; but, being the poor, sinful creatures that we are, we must think of it as a day when, under the searchlight of God, all that is in use is seen for what it really is; all the evil that is hidden by our respectability is revealed; all the faults that we will not own, even to ourselves to be faults, are exposed in their true character a day when we shall see ourselves as we might have been, and as we are, and shall be mightily ashamed.
III. And behind Conscience there is God. ‘Who may abide the day of His coming? and who shall stand when He appeareth?’ for He shall bring every secret thing into judgment, whether it be good or whether it be evil. Well for us if the judgment be ‘Well done’. There is time to purge away the dross and to give us the opportunity to do better, but can we reckon that it will be always so? or will the fire find in us only what it must consume? Will there be a last day after the different days of warning and of trial, a last day winding up our opportunity after the many warnings that have gone before?
Mal 4
I. We are studying the very last words in the Old Testament. The prophecies of Malachi. The oracle is about to cease. Malachi is about to resign the pen. What are his last words? There shall no Prophet arise after him until John come, and John the Baptist was not coming for four hundred years. What is to be done in the meantime? Does God provide for the interstices of history? Here is the word verse 4: ‘Remember ye the law of Moses My servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel with the statutes and judgments’. For four hundred years the people were to remember the law of Moses. So the Jewish Church was not left without oracles during the four centuries of so-called silence. If the law of Moses had prevailed it would have given life, if lovingly accepted and obeyed. All truth gives life, all truth brings life. But is it the law of Moses? that is only part of the description. The full description is ‘The law of Moses My servant’. There is the supremacy of God, ‘which I commanded unto him’; there is the foundation of law. God commands, Moses communicates. All that men can do is to act instrumentally. The fountain, the origin of law, we find in God.
II. Is there, then, no touch of prophecy? Is there no widening horizon before that view of the Church? Is it simply the law, the law iron, dogmatic, positive, unchangeable? Is there no sky above this poor earth, of law? God never made earth without making sky. So in this instance we find the sky, the horizon, the far away hint and promise; Behold, I will send you Elijah the Prophet, not Elijah the Tishbite. What shall this Elijah do when he comes? ‘He shall work out the great reconciliation, and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children.’ This is not a family reference. The Prophet is not speaking, or God is not speaking through the Prophet, merely of the father of a family and the children of a family. He is speaking of fathers in the sense of leaders, teachers of the world and children. The populations and the flocks of the earth. And this Prophet, when he comes, will be known by his desire to promote, and his power to promote reconciliation. God’s Prophets always bring music, harmony, rest. If any man bring aught else except in an official and temporary sense, he is no Prophet of God.
J. Parker, British Weekly Pulpit, vol. III. p. 196.
The Illuminating Power of Righteousness
Mal 4:2
I. There is nothing which illuminates this world like the vision of righteousness, and therefore there is nothing which heals doubt like that vision. The reason is that only in the vision of righteousness do I learn my superiority to nature. Every other vision dwarfs me. The glory of the natural sun makes me pale. The vastness of the mighty firmament makes me humble. The flash of the lightning makes me tremble. The height of the mountains makes me shrink. The depth of the ocean makes me feel shallow. The sight of disease and death makes me identify myself with the flower that fades and the bird that dies. But when I see a righteous man I see something at variance with natural law. Professor Huxley himself tells me so. The law of nature, the law of evolution, is the survival of the strongest. But the law of righteousness is the refusal of the strongest to survive at the expense of the weakest. It is the insistence of the strong to share the life of the weak to appropriate their burdens, to wear their infirmities. It is a law which never could have been made by physical nature, which in this sense is supernatural. My vision of a righteous man is fitted to heal all my scepticism. It tells me that human life is something unique, something revolutionary, something above the common clay. It tells me that the human soul can do what even the stars cannot do, make a new law which will override the old. It tells me that, with all its seeming insignificance, the little stream in the heart of a man has outweighed the wonder of the whole ocean has turned the downward into an upward current and led the way to a higher plane.
II. The righteous man is no longer a cipher. He was born a cipher like the leaves and the grass. But he has reversed the order of science. He has made a new law the death of the strong for the weak. He has arrested the first course of Nature. He has said: ‘You shall no longer live for self-preservation, but for the preservation of others’. He has made the winds his missionaries, the mines almoners, the seas his road to brotherhood, the stream his flag of union, the electricity his voice of fellowship, the light a framer of his neighbour’s image, the heat a warmer of his neighbour’s hearth, the herb a soother of his neighbour’s pain. The sacrificial man is the man that has conquered nature. The vision of righteousness heals my despair.
G. Matheson, Messages of Hope, p. 157.
References. IV. 2. C. Bosanquet, Tender Grass for the Lambs, p. 113. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii. No. 1020; ibid. vol. xxv. No. 1463.
The Cessation of Prophecy
Mal 4:4-5
These are almost the last words of the Old Testament; they come in their place not by accident, but because it is really the last word of the prophecy uttered before the Gospel was declared. Of Malachi himself we know nothing but his name; when he lived we can only guess. After him there arose not any like him. Malachi died and no other took his place. No man arose who came to Israel and said, ‘Thus saith the Lord’. They were not left ignorant of the will of God, but they had to learn it, not from a living voice speaking among them, but from the books already written. They were indeed to learn something more some day, but not yet It was enough for the present if they would keep what they had. ‘Remember ye the law of Moses My servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments:’ if they remembered that, all would be well. And they did remember it The Jews henceforth would stick to their law and to the name of their God, whom before they had always been so ready to forsake. They were persecuted by the heathen that ruled over them, as Daniel foretold: ‘They shall fall by the sword, and by flames, by captivity, and by spoil many days;’ but in one way they did not fall they would not fall down and worship the images which the kings of the Gentiles set up: their fall was only ‘to try them, and to purge them, and to make them white, even to the times of the end’. Yet all this time they had no Prophet among them. Four hundred years at least went by and no Prophet came. Yet the People did not cease to look for one: they remembered the law of Moses the servant of the Lord, how he had said: ‘A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto thee out of thy brethren, like unto me’; that promise had not been fulfilled yet, and they knew was to be. And there was another Prophet also to come, of whom the latest of the old Prophets speaks: ‘Behold, I will send you Elijah the Prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord’. The four hundred years did pass, and Elijah came; not indeed as the Jews seem to have expected, Elijah himself; descending from heaven, whither he had been carried up alive by the chariot of fire: but one in the spirit and power of Elijah, turning the children of Israel to the Lord their God. And then only a few months passed and the other Prophet came; a Prophet like, not only to Elijah, but to Moses; yea greater than Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, for He knew the Lord even as the Lord knew him. And so the gift of prophecy was restored, while by the very restoration all the old prophecies began to be fulfilled. This found its great perfection and fulfilment in the Person of the Lord Jesus; who was, even in His human nature, filled by God with the Spirit, and called to the work of a Prophet to make God known to men.
W. H. Simcox, The Cessation of Prophecy, p. 1.
Reference. IV. 4, 5. F. J. A. Hort, Village Sermons (2nd Series), p. 28.
The Gift of Prophecy the Supreme Need of Our Age
Mal 4:5-6
Whatever spiritual gifts may have been necessary or profitable to the Church in other times, I am sure that the gift of prophecy is the most necessary and profitable now. ‘Christ sent me not to baptize,’ says the Apostle others with lower gifts could do that ‘but to preach the Gospel,’ and he adds, ‘I preached it, not with the enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power’. Men felt the power and acknowledged the teaching; their listening to him was the Apostle’s higher credential.
I. Man may well pray for a portion of this power, and for grace to use it in the noblest cause. It is not eloquence, it is not popularity, it is not the power of attracting the crowd. It is a spiritual power which can bow the hearts of a multitude as of one man, swaying them with a charm of strange, mysterious potency; a power which we feel though we cannot describe it. This age is prepared to receive, not the priest but the prophet, not the man who claims to stand between souls and God, but the man who can teach them the truth, and help them in their blindness and waywardness and ignorance, to discover the way of peace and righteousness for men do feel their ignorance and are thankful for light, and are not indisposed to truth. It is marvellous to me and yet most encouraging to see how few of what the world calls ‘gifts’ are needed to fill a church and to work wonders in the lives and conduct of a people. A preacher acquires the truest eloquence by daily contact with his flock. Like the Chief Shepherd whom he is trying to follow, ‘he knows his sheep and is known of them’. Not only do they know his voice but his life also.
II. The Prophet must be in earnest or men will not receive him as a Prophet; must himself believe his message or he will carry no conviction to his hearers. Is it not because we are so cold and rigid that your hearts are so seldom reached; that we preach and you are not edified; that great opportunities are given and missed; that even in the best cases ears often are tickled rather than lives improved? And yet we have a message, able to stir the most phlegmatic feelings, and to arouse the dullest conscience, if only we know how to deliver it. If our hearts have found the secret, we can speak of present peace and joy in believing; of the kingdom of God standing in righteousness; of the nearness of a Father to us in our dangers, difficulties, and troubles; of the no harm that shall happen to us if we are followers of that which is good; of the love of Christ and the comfort of the Holy Ghost; of the sweetness that can be got from the life that now is if only we go the right way to seek it; of the strength that comes of faith, and the satisfaction that rewards obedience. There are those who can speak of these things with a strange and moving power, and their arguments will rise high above the clouds of doubt and speculation till they seem to bring me almost face to face with God. Such men are in truth the Lord’s Prophets. They are sure and trustworthy guides, for they are leading men to God, through Christ, by the way of holiness.
J. Fraser, University Sermons, p. 225.
Reference. IV. 5, 6. J. Fraser, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxi. p. 401.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
Closing Prophecies
Mal 4
This is a prophecy; a prophecy of a day, a burning day; a prophecy of a coming Sun, called “the Sun of righteousness”; a prophecy of victory over the wicked; a prophecy of a prophet. Men cannot help prophesying. Prophecy is true; the thing prophesied may be false. For want of distinguishing between these two things, so simple that a child might comprehend them, the whole Christian Church is thrown into confusion, and a hostile world is fighting ignorant and futile battles. If we can establish this distinction we ought to bring about a totally new conception of the kingdom of God upon the earth. We must approach this subject in its highest aspect by beginning where we can amid the most infantile illustrations of the principle.
Walking is right; but you may be walking in the wrong direction. What is the good therefore of finding fault with walking? Why not confine your remonstrance or expostulation to the mere matter of destiny? You cannot alter the fact that man was made to walk. Speaking is right; speaking is of God: but you may be speaking the wrong thing, you may be speaking profanely, you may be speaking falsely. But why should there be any battle about speaking? Why not confine your attention to its misuse or abuse? It is easy to pass from these initial illustrations to higher ground. On that higher ground the argument is just as vivid and just as strong. Thinking is right, thinking is inevitable; but the thought may be all wrong. And yet men have confounded the thought and the thinking, as if they were one and the same thing, and hence we have battles of words, and great noises of contradiction, simply because we do not confine attention to the point that is right and the point that is wrong. You would not forbid speaking; you would rather cultivate the act and the art of utterance. When you deal with speaking you deal with something you have nothing to do with; what you have to do with is the use to which you put your speaking power: the one is God’s gift, the other is men’s use of that gift. On the latter fight as many battles as you please, but do not imagine that you can alter the infinite law of the divine decree and purpose in the creation of man. You cannot hinder speaking, you have no power in that direction; your power begins with the things that are spoken. Watch that point, be most critical and careful there; but for the sake of high reason do not interfere with the ordinance of heaven, which has made man a speaking creature.
Thus we come nearer to the purely and distinctively religious ground. We come, for example, first of all to faith. Faith cannot be destroyed by anything that man can say. Faith is one thing; creed is another. Faith is to creed as is walking to the point walked towards, or speaking in relation to the thing that is spoken. You may fight the creed, but you cannot touch faith; it does not come within the sphere of words: there is nothing you can lay hold of. You may as well fight life itself; faith is life’s life. Your instruments, how long and keen soever, cannot get at that ghostly, divinely-human power. Men must believe. The world would fall to pieces without faith. At the same time, you may be believing the wrong thing; you may be putting your faith into false incarnations. There battle as much as you please you are called to fight; insist upon holy, ineffable, divine faith embodying itself in the purest expression. Here it is that men can never destroy religion. The forms change, blessed be God, but the essential principle abides. Life always takes upon itself new expressions and new embodiments; but the life itself is everlasting, unchangeable, the very gift of God, and the very crown of humanity. Yet men suppose that when a creed is being attacked faith is being assaulted. Such men can never be taught to see the distinction between faith the inward element, the spiritual principle, the highest characteristic of man and the creed into which that faith is translated for the time being. The creed is not of equal value with the faith. Why do we not therefore confine our attention to essentials?
What applies to faith applies to prayer. You cannot help praying. It is altogether useless to ask whether prayer is ever answered; whether it is answered or not, you cannot give over; because you cannot give over, the presumption is that prayer is answered. Here we come upon a law, a decree, an ordinance, a holy church in the wilderness of life; here is something that we must do perforce. The prayer uttered may be all wrong, it may be unwise, it may be positively ignorant, it may indeed encroach upon the province of real wickedness, it may be selfish, thoughtless, narrow, shallow; that has nothing to do with the question; prayer is not the thing prayed for; it is a spirit, holding converse with faith and thought, and is not to be brought into the court of human criticism. When we say in broad terms that you cannot give over praying, the answer is not to be found in individual instances in which men have avowedly renounced all that belongs to prayer. First of all, they have not renounced it, they cannot renounce it; men may kill the body, but after that they have no more that they can do: the soul cries and prays in hell. You can kill the body, you can thrust your bodkin into the throat, and stop the prayer in the shape of words, but the soul will pray across the ever-separating gulf. How puerile is the talk therefore about prayer as to whether it is answered; the question is, Is some form of it answered, is some practical expression of it regarded benignantly and complacently in heaven? That is not the prayer; the prayer is behind that, independent of that; living, breathing, and crying out to the Infinite without words. If you take words from criticism, criticism has nothing to do; it is a grammarian, a philologist, a mere word-monger; if you do not speak to it you baffle it, you drive it to its wits’ ends. The question therefore does not arise in the first instance, What do you think, what do you believe, what do you pray? The earlier question relates to the fact of belief and thought and prayer, and the whole mystery of our being, which is not to be rendered in speech. Where are all the battles fought? Outside; no assault can be made upon faith; therefore rest, O thou disquieted soul. If all the creeds in Christendom were burned tomorrow, faith would abide, for no fire can kindle upon that sublime and inexpressible force. By faith the world is saved: we are saved by faith. Faith is the gift of God; without faith it is impossible to please him. Yet so little, so mean, is man, that when he gets hold of a written creed he thinks he has got hold of Christian faith.
He thinks, moreover, that when he has made critical havoc of the written creed he has shaken the foundations of the Church. Where are those foundations? They are in God. When you have convicted your little child of a mistake in syntax, have you overturned the faculty, the power, and the right of speech? When you have detected your little boy going down the wrong road, do you say, This comes of walking; here is a palpable instance of the unphilosophicalness and the unreasonableness of walking? Yet when we find men proposing certain dogmas which we do not like, and writing other creeds with which we are not content, we say, Here is an evident and indisputable proof of the simple vanity and inutility of what is called religion. So foolish are men and ignorant! They are before God as creatures destitute of reason. We may have been supporting the wrong Church all our days; but the Church cannot be destroyed; the foundation of the Lord standeth sure; we can never get rid of the true Church. Amid all our misunderstandings and conflicts, our oppositions and exasperation, the Church abides, because the Church is divine and invisible as God. When men realise that thought, there will come over their spirit a great quietness, a holy enjoyable calm; when that thought rules, the Sabbath day dawns on human souls. Yet men think that when they have assailed the Church of Rome or the Church of England in any of its communions and departments, they have really brought a tremendous fusillade against the very bastions of heaven. Why, if all our Roman, and Greek, and Anglican, and Nonconformist Churches, as mere structures, were swept off the face of the earth tomorrow, the Church of God abides in all its integrity, in all its music and usefulness. Why do you confound the coat with the man? Why do you confound the body with the soul? Why do you confound the lame and infirm speech with the soul that wants to tell you something and cannot, because the vessel of your speech cannot hold the wine of its conception?
So we come to this matter of prophecy. All the prophets were right all prophets are right; yet prophecies may be wrong in innumerable instances. But we have agreed that walking to the wrong place is no argument against walking; saying the wrong thing is no argument against speaking, and therefore we ought to agree that because a prediction is false within the narrow scope of its literalness therefore the spirit of prophecy is not destroyed, or may not be touched in its divine integrity, Our contention is that every word spoken by the biblical prophets was right. They were right not only in their election and inspiration, but they were right in the things which they uttered. They were moral prophecies, they were judgments of God. The word of the Lord thus abideth for ever. Men of false mind may have twisted and perverted and discoloured it, and may have utterly misapplied it, and may have lived feloniously upon it; yet that does not touch the Word itself. The life is greater than its incarnations. Men have abused their lives, but they cannot touch their life. Life is a larger term than lives, as faith is a larger term than creed. We know the true prophecy when we hear it. When this weird prophet comes amongst us and says, “For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly shall be stubble,” we say, That man is right. We know it; the ages could not do without precisely such a voice. We must not turn music away when it approaches us and seeks our hospitality. The earth waits for this burning day; the stubble is increasing, the wicked are growing prouder day by day; whilst we look upon the confusions and difficulties we hear a voice saying, “Behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven,” and we say, Hail, thou expected morning! Come, and with infinite conflagration burn all evil.
We cannot understand how utterly, how ineffably sublime these predictions are until we get into a certain spiritual mood, until we feel the wickedness of wickedness, and see all evil in some degree as God sees it. Blessed be God for fire; it is disinfecting, it is illuminating, it is destructive. God has a great fire, and he is going to bring it that it may burn up all the lies of hypocrisy, all the insincerity and selfishness of the world, cleansing it, heaven’s great fire: a glorious prophecy! The soul says on hearing that this day is coming, Amen! Come quickly! Yet we must not dictate to God as to the pace of his movements. He does not measure by our chronometers any part of his economy or advance. A thousand years are with the Lord as one day, one day is as a thousand years, a phrase by which he shows us that he takes no note of time after our scale and pattern. He is always coming quickly; he always comes suddenly: so does all life; so does all death; so does all joy. The Lord cannot come other than suddenly to his temple. When he brings life it is in a moment. No matter how long the preparation for death, when it comes it comes suddenly. We say, It was very sudden at the last. Ay, that is God’s way. And when our joy comes it always comes with the last drop. The vessel is almost brimful, now it is quite brimful, now the last drop falls, and the cup overflows, and we say at the last, it came with such a surprise, it came so suddenly, we could hardly believe the gladness. The advent of God cannot but be sudden. Do not therefore fear that God has forgotten the promise of this day. If we could see things as they really are from his point of view, we should know that the day had already come. All wickedness is being burned down. The wicked man has a terrible time of it to-day. Do not believe him when he laughs; his life is a lie; his last stroke of merriment is his last forgery. He cannot be happy or God cannot; I must leave it between them. Appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, never give up the faith that all wickedness is in hell, and never was out of it. All wickedness is hell. We do not know it at the moment; there may be just one little speck of time in which wickedness presents another phase, but before you can measure the magnitude of that speck it has faded from the disc, and hell has set in, hell’s winter of fire: a contradiction in terms, a parodox in words; an awful reality in consciousness.
Thus we attempt to seize a proper conception of essentials. Thus we illustrate essentials by incidentals, such as talking, walking; thus we come to see that prayer is a necessity, faith is a necessity, thought is a necessity, life is a necessity; and all the hurlyburly of the world’s hostility is directed against the outposts only. Bring in the prey you have taken from God, and let us count it, appraise it, hang it up, and label it. What have you taken from God? Nothing. You have taken a great deal from ignorance and from conceit and from intellectual vanity; you have made tremendous raids upon ground which man has bounded off for his own occupation and enjoyment; there criticism has wrought miracles of destruction: but what remains? God, thought, faith, prayer, love. Why, then, the enemy has taken nothing? That is all he ever could take; there is nothing else to lay his hands upon. And when the enemy comes in with tremendous force to take from us this creed and that standard and the other form of Church government, and makes great havoc of a critical kind, and we turn and say, “Lord Jesus, thy Church is having an awful experience,” he says, with the eternal smile of love, “Fear not them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.” “Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me.” Lord, increase our faith!
Closing Prophecies (Continued)
Mal 4
Here are two effects of fire. In the first instance here is the effect of destruction. When the burning day comes it shall leave the wicked “neither root nor branch.” That may be called the negative action of fire. No man who is wicked can fight Omnipotence, and win. Why do the heathen rage? Why do the people imagine a vain thing? Why do men kick against the pricks? Why does the ox back upon the goad, and torment itself with keener agony? No man can fight Almightiness, and conquer. When the Lord’s day of burning shall come, that great oven-day spoken of by the prophet, all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble. Who can fight fire with straw? Who will set up a wooden fence against a volcano? When all the burning is done how will the day’s history total? Thus: “It shall leave them neither root nor branch”; nothing to be seen above ground, nothing to be found underground; the triumph of retribution is complete. It is well that men should thus be able to forecast their fate. The candle of the wicked shall be put out; the memory of the wicked shall rot. The ungodly are not like the righteous; they are like the chaff which the wind driveth away, as if in mocking and derisive sport. There need be no waiting for the judgment-day to know our destiny: this is the day of judgment. The Lord’s right hand is evident, and the Lord’s left hand is vividly displayed; and men can rank themselves. Conscience shall be judge, and personal history shall be found personal evidence. For the wicked there is nothing but a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation. “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.” These are terrible words; but the surgeon is a terrible man, who takes out his instrument that he may cut the diseased flesh or remove the diseased joint. But is he only terrible? On the contrary, his terribleness is an aspect of his beneficence. If your house is standing upon a bog, it is better that you should know it in time. Do not declare that the messenger is terrible and severe. He is not; he is wise, he is considerate, he is merciful; he has come to state the facts, that you may know what to do. Why should you be the victim of your own diseased sentimentality, saying, Do not tell us about ruin and burning days, but tell us about sunshine and flowers? Rather say to all God’s angels and ministers of grace, Men of God, tell us the truth! A call for the truth will elicit the truth.
But there is another action of light or fire, there is the action of healing:
“But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings” ( Mal 4:2 ).
A terrible Sun! Dead trees have a hard time of it when the sun shines; they do not understand one another; there is no point of co-operative contact. The tree that is dead is out of the solar system; it does not come into the current of its ministries: it stands in the soil, but is not rooted in the centre. All day the sun fights it, mocks it, blisters it, takes out of it drop by drop any lingering juice that may be in its veins, until the process of desiccation is complete. It is otherwise with the living tree. The sun kisses it into larger life; blesses it with reproductive and generous warmth; tells it messages from heaven; speaks to it of the larger trees on the other side of the river; tells the most blossoming and blooming and fruitful tree upon earth that it is only a dim emblem, a poor shadowy type, of God’s real trees; and promises all living, true, and good things that they shall be lifted up into the ideals which now they imperfectly typify. Nor do the trees complain; they say, If we are only types, we can do God’s work in that fashion; if we trees are to be carried on to a higher realisation, so be it, God’s will be done. We are thankful for what we can do, now and the future we leave with him. What is this “Sun of righteousness”? Not a man; the grammar is against that view. In Hebrew the word for “Sun” is feminine: Shall the Woman of righteousness, the She of beauty, arise with healing in her wings? The universe would be empty without the woman. Eden did not begin to grow until the woman came; and if she killed it, it was only because she first made it alive. We do not understand these allusions to gender. Is God Father and Mother? Is there a feminine element in God? When he made man he made him man and woman, and he made him after his own likeness. Who knows the meaning of these things? No man. Yet they are full of meaning to the soul meaning which will not give itself up to words, but will hover above the soul, flutter near it, throw fragrances upon it, sing to it, startle it in the nighttime with visions of light. We must not part with these unseen presences and ministries. There is a cant that says we cannot go into the unseen world; we know nothing about the world unseen. It is the merest drivel to say so; it is also opposed to the simple facts of the case. We are all living in the unseen world; we are eternally living within ourselves when we suppose that we are only living within a sphere or circle that is visible. We are invisible to ourselves, we are invisible to one another; we only know one another by revelation. Behind the word lies the meaning; behind the meaning lies the motive; behind the motive lies eternity. And so there be fools that tell our young souls not to trouble about the unseen! Have you seen thought, spirit, life, motive? Have you seen the Self of yourselves? It is even so with these deeper spiritual interpretations. This woman-Sun is a fact.
Look at the effects of divine healing. They are stated by the prophet: “Ye shall go forth.” There shall be activity. This is the characteristic of divine religion; it will not let men stay at home, it develops the spirit of travel and locomotion. Where the divine religion has taken hold it says, When will the ship be sailing? When will the train be going? When will the coach be ready, that we may ride through the wilderness? Why not sit down here? We cannot. Why not? To “go forth” is the watchword of our faith. Missionaries cannot always give an account of themselves. We have already, in this People’s Bible, come upon men who have said, “Let me go,” and Pharaoh has said, Why, have I not been good to thee? Yes. Hast thou not had an abundance to eat? Yes. Hast thou not been as one of my own? Yes. Then why go? I do not know why, but I must go. That is the pressure of destiny. Pharaoh did not understand how a well-fed beast could wish to leave his pastures and his stalls; but the Lord, as we have seen, had spoken to the man, and filled him with the spirit of restlessness. Christianity is restless in that sense; it will not give itself any recreation or cessation from labour until the very last man has been saved from the shipwreck. Not only shall ye go forth, but ye shall “grow up as calves of the stall,” a figure which signifies, Ye shall be sportive, ye shall realise the idea of youthfulness; you shall be vivacious, you shall not be old, cold, dead things, ye shall be as calves of the stall, full of life, leaping because of the very redundance of vitality. There is a hint here of spiritual enthusiasm. This is not an animal vivacity, it is a spiritual impulse and ambition; it is the new and deeper magnetism, it is the effect of being in touch with God. Where there is no enthusiasm there is no true realisation of the sunlight; we have seen that it is the sun that keeps us in obedience. The sun tells us what to do. The sun will tell you whether it is holiday-time or not. You cannot go out willingly to take your holiday in the rain; if for arbitrary reasons and appointments you are obliged to go, you go with discontent and complaining; but when the sun comes and fills the whole firmament with his glory, we say at once, Let us go. The sun tells you what coat to wear, what food to eat; the sun is master.
But there may be activity, that is to say, going forth, and there may be a sense of sportiveness and joy intimated by the words “grow up as calves of the stall.” But what then? After that there will be conquest:
“And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts” ( Mal 4:3 ).
Christianity goes forth to conquer. Christianity never fails; any failures are temporary and apparent and superficial. If Christianity could fail, arithmetic could fail; all truth could fail; geometry could fail; and we all know that geometry always wins within its own sphere. Geometry makes the builder take his plumbline with him; Geometry says, You must build according to me, or you cannot build at all; your little edifice will topple over if you do not build according to the sun, the moon, and the stars. All these essential things are settled for you. As for your so-called architecture, well, you can be Gothic, or Doric, or Grecian, or Italian, or Composite, or what you please; Geometry does not interfere with your architecture: but you must build according to Euclid, the gospel according to Euclid, or you cannot build at all. In proportion as anything is true, it must eventually succeed. There will always be found fools who will venture some other policy: there have been men who have ventured to build crooked walls, and the walls have fallen down upon them.
Now the oracle is about to cease; Malachi is about to resign the pen. What are his last words? There shall no prophet arise after him until John the Baptist come, and John the Baptist shall not come for four hundred years. What is to be in the meantime? Does God provide for the interstices of history? Has God taken note of gap and vacancy and hiatus in the wondrous evolution of history? Hear the word:
“Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments” ( Mal 4:4 ).
With that Bible you must be content for four centuries. Keep in mind the law. In the Jewish synagogue a great distinction is drawn between the law and the prophets; in the Jewish synagogue there are two lessons in public worship, the one lesson is read from the law, and that lesson must be read by the highest functionary in the synagogue; the second lesson is from the prophets, and any boy may read it, any mean man or casual student may read the prophets; only the very highest officer of the synagogue may read the law. We do not believe in these distinctions; we believe that the utterances of God are one, that whatever he speaks is truth, is music, is poetry, is life. We are, however, dealing with men who did make certain distinctions, and we must respect them. For four hundred years the people were to remember the law of Moses. When Jesus Christ was asked what a man should do to inherit eternal life, he said, “What is written in the law?” That was a startling answer. He did not say, It hath been said of old time, but I say unto you, when it came to a matter of life and death. God has never left matters of life and death to be settled by arbitrary dogmas and statements, and by variable theories; when it has come to a face-to-face interview with God, when it has come to a question of life or death, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” we are referred to the very first chapters of the Bible. All great questions were answered in eternity; only little riddles, present problems may be discussed in variable terms. The lawyer answered, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.” Certainly, said Christ; that will never change: do that, and thou shalt live. So the Jewish Church was not left without witnesses through the four centuries of so-called silence. The law of Moses then prevailed. It would have given life if lovingly accepted and obeyed. All truth gives life; all truth brings light. But is it “the law of Moses”? That is only part of the description; the full description is, “the law of Moses my servant” there is the supremacy of God; “which I commanded unto him” there is the fountain of law. God commands, Moses interprets, Moses communicates; but all that man can do is to act instrumentally; the fountain and the origin of law we find in God.
Is there then no touch of prophecy, is there no widening of the horizon before the view of the Church? Is it simply the law, the law, the law, iron, dogmatic, positive, unchangeable? Is there no sky above this poor earth of law? God never made earth without making sky. So in this instance we find the sky, the horizon, the far-away hint and promise: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet” hot Elijah the Tishbite. We cannot distinguish always between the local and the universal. If the Lord had promised Elijah the Tishbite, then we might have expected one certain, definite, limited, local personality; we should have fixed our attention upon the word Tishbite, and unless a man had come with that locality attached to his name, we should have refused the man, though his eyes burned liked suns, and his voice was eloquent with thunder. We are great in technicalities, we are nisi prius men; we know all about precedents, and cases that have been in the court, and localities, and technicalities, and particularities: but we are nothing when it comes to great sky-action. The man who was to come was to be the prophet; the local, the parochial, the limited forgotten, and the prophetic, the inspired was to be predominant, illuminating the sky for the day of his sovereignty.
What shall this Elijah do when he comes? He shall work out a great reconciliation:
“And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers” ( Mal 4:6 ).
This is not a family reference; the prophet is not speaking, or God is not speaking through the prophet, merely of the father of a family and the children of a family; he is speaking of fathers in the sense of leaders, teachers of the world; and children, the populations and the flocks of the earth: and this prophet when he comes will be known by his desire to promote and his power to promote reconciliations. God’s prophets always bring music, harmony, rest. If any man bring aught else, except in an initial and temporary sense, he is no prophet sent by God. “Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse” with a ban: lest I so strike it that a great wale shall burn across its forehead. Would the Jew end the reading here? No; the Jew could never read a chapter and end it with such a word as “curse.” He would go back to the preceding verse, and conclude with the words, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet.” The Jew always concluded his biblical reading with a sweet verse, a tender benediction. Thus the Lord allows us to make beauteous images and beauteous issues out of his Word.
To close the Old Testament is a solemn act As commentator for the people upon the Old Testament, I now close the record. It is a wonderful story. We have gone through it from the first page to the last; yet we have not begun it. Herein is the inspiration of the Bible, that we end the book but not the revelation. Were we now to turn back to the opening of Genesis we should find the flowers waiting for us as if we had never gathered one, and all the trees of the Lord’s right-hand planting, blooming, blossoming, bearing fruit, and in those trees we should find choirs of singing birds uttering music from heaven. I pray you be familiar with your Bibles. If you will only read your Bibles no man can ever take them from you.
Prayer
Almighty God, thou hast made our life strangely wonderful; yet in it thou hast set pleasure above pain, light above darkness, thou hast made the summer longer than the winter. Thou givest joy where thou givest life; all young things laugh and play and gambol and sport themselves in the growing morning. May it be so with our souls; may no old age ever set in upon our hearts; in our spirit, thought, purpose, love, may we be young for ever; may we grow towards youth and not towards old age. We thank thee for this religion of cheerfulness, vivacity, music, and sense of triumph; this is the gift of God, this is the flash of immortality. The Lord reveal his purpose towards us more and more, little by little, that we may see the way of life, and walk in it with obedience and delight; not only with resignation and contentment, but with acquiescence and sense of being with God every moment. Thou knowest what our purposes are; if they are good, healthy, sound, useful, thou wilt bring them into happy fruition; if they are otherwise, crush them as the brood of the night, and may we never be able to find them again. May our lives be beautiful with truthfulness, and useful because we walk in the steps of him who went about doing good. May this be our one business, then we shall have no tediousness, no wearisomeness in life; our life shall pass like a sacred song. Be round about our homes; may there be flowers climbing up around the doorway, and around every window, honeysuckle and woodbine and roses, and flowers of all hues and fragrances; and may we know that our house is the house of God, because of the love that is there and the fulness of summer light. If any man would trouble his home, trouble him in return; vex his soul, send darkness upon his eyes, and drive away his malign purposes, and teach him that he who would spoil a home would wreck heaven itself if he could. Look upon our fatherless and motherless ones; be with all who are in trouble of heart and dare not say so; be with those who are dreading tomorrow morning’s post because the letter may bring blackness and ruin; be with all who are anxious to pray, and yet cannot or dare not open their lips in intercession; soften hard hearts. Send a spirit of love into all our bosoms; and do this because we gather at the Cross, the Cross of Christ, because we assemble on lovely, mournful Calvary. O Saviour of the world, make us glad this day! Amen.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
A Gallery of Pictures
Malachi 1-4
We have some pictures in the prophecy that are very vivid, and some of them very humiliating. For example, we have a picture of the utterest selfishness in Mal 1:10 :
“Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for nought? neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nought.”
Yet they sang how good a thing it was to be but a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord. Men do not come to this kind of selfishness all at once. For some degrees of wickedness we must patiently and skilfully graduate. We do not attain the highest quality of iniquity at a bound; we cannot, speaking generally, extemporise the supremest kind of devilishness. We begin carefully, we proceed slowly, we take pains with the details of our action, and not until we have become inured to certain practices and usages do we take the final step that lands us in the very refinement and subtlety of evildoing. Nothing is so soon lost as spiritual apprehension, the power of taking hold upon the invisible, the eternal, the spiritual. There is so much against it We unhappily have eyes that can only see what we describe as the material, and in our folly we describe it as the real. That is the very lowest kind of philosophy. There is a metaphysic that denies the existence of everything we see; I would rather belong to that school of negation than to the school which affirms that there is nothing but what we can see with the eyes of the body. We are always tempted away from the higher lines. Who would shut his eyes and talk to nothing, and call it prayer? Who would have so many of his own aspirations dropping back upon his heart like dead birds, and still believe in an answering, benignant, loving God? Who would refuse the great bribe? There it is, visibly, tangibly, immediately; you can lay your hand upon it, and secure it, and if there is any need by-and-by to pray yourselves back again from the felony, and still retain its produce, then see the man of God and take his ghostly counsel. The distinction of Christianity is its spirituality. Christianity lives amongst the spirits. “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth.” When we make Christianity a mere argument or a mere philosophy, we lose its whole genius and meaning. Christianity comes to kill the visible by putting it into its right perspective, and investing it with its right value, which is nothing beyond a mere convenience. Christianity comes to lift up the soul to God, and to fix the heart upon things unseen and eternal. Christianity comes to make a man blind to everything but God, and therefore to see everything aright because to see it in its relation to God. How far are we to blame for degrading Christianity from its proper level, and making it stand amongst so-called other religions to take its chance with the general mob? We can be attacked with some success, not to say with desperate savageness, if we fight the battle on wrong lines; but not when we stand upon Christ’s lines, of direct living fellowship with God, doing everything for Christ’s sake, glorifying God in our body, which is so-called matter, our soul, which plays a part in the psychical philosophies, and our spirit, the touch that makes us one with God. If we pray ourselves into higher prayers, ever-ascending until speech must be displaced by music, then we are upon a way where we shall find no lion, neither shall any ravenous beast go up thereon, it shall not be found there. And as for dying, we shall not die “he was not, for God took him,” shall be the rhythmic ending of a noble, beautiful, spiritual life. Losing this spiritual apprehension, what do we come to? to men-service; we come to be men-pleasers, time-servers, investors, hirelings. When the true spirituality reigns in us we shall have no fear of man, we shall see the richest patron of all going out of the sanctuary, not because he is wounded in the back, but because he is wounded in the heart by the Spirit of God, on account of his unrighteousness, unfaithfulness, vanity, and worldliness; the Church will be the richer for his absence. Never let the spirituality of the Church go down, for then you open the door to every kind of invader; you make devastating encroachment possible; but laying hold of God, you shall be safe even from the insidious assaults and invasions of selfishness.
We have also a picture of the true priest:
“The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity. For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts” ( Mal 2:6-7 ).
What was said of Levi should be said of every man in the varied ministry of the Church; he ought to be as beautiful as this. Yet not only beautiful, but massive, strong, pure, dominating; not asking permission to live and to preach, but granting permission to millionaires to chink their gold. It is quite true that here we have an ideal picture. It satisfies the imagination to have a word like “ideal” in its vocabulary. But may we not so use the word “ideal” as to find in it a temptation to a continual lowering of the spiritual stature, and a continual cooling of the spiritual temperature? Certainly these words are ideal; this is God making another Adam, this time out of marble, breathing into him the breath of life, and making him majestic and noble: this is God’s conception of the true priest. Yet we call it ideal, and then go away to our commonplace. The minister of Christ cannot rise to perfection. If any man were to assume himself to be perfect he would justly discredit himself by that very assumption. What is it that is required of the true priest, preacher, minister, or pastor? It is required of him first that he be found faithful to his light, to his immediate inspiration; he is not to live for tomorrow, he is to live for this present day, with all its clamour and all its importunate necessity. But should not a man study consistency? Yes No. Is it possible for an answer to be both in the affirmative and in the negative? Certainly. Wherein is to be the consistency of the preacher? In his spiritual sincerity. There he must never fail. As to his words and views, do we not live in an atmosphere? Are we not environed? Do not ten thousand ministries continually play upon every line and fibre of our nature? There may be inconsistency in words, phrases, terms, and statements, and yet there may be consistency of the finest quality and fibre in the moral purpose, the spiritual intent, the unchangeable loyalty to the Cross of God the Son. A preacher’s perfectness should be found in the continuance of his aspiration, and the continuance of all practical endeavour to overtake his own prayers. Do not mock a man because his life is not equal to his prayer; when a man has no higher prayer to offer than he can live he may pass on into some other world in the Father’s universe. Meanwhile, no man can pray sincerely, profoundly, continually, and want to be like Christ without growing, not always upwards; there is a growth in refinement, in susceptibility, in moral tenderness, in sympathy of the soul for others, as well as a growth in knowledge, and stature in intellectual majesty. It is well to have an ideal before us. One of two things must happen in the case of the priest. “… Did turn many away from iniquity.” That is a beautiful work for you, my preaching brother, to have done. You may never have been heard of beyond your own sphere, and yet within that sphere you may have been working miracles which have astounded the angels. You have kept or turned many away from iniquity. I have a brother who had great influence over one of his leading men, and that brother, though his name was never heard of beyond his own circle of ministerial exertion, laid himself out to save that man. That man’s temptation was drink. The minister followed him, turned swiftly upon him at the public-house door, and said, No, not here! It was not much of a sermon to preach from a public point of view, but the poor tempted soul quailed under the interdict, and went home. Why, to have been the means of giving him one night’s release from the devil was to have done a work worthy of the Cross! You cannot tell what your negative work amounts to how many you have kept from going wrong, doing wrong, or speaking unwisely, untruly, or impurely; you do not know what your example has done. Be cheered, be encouraged; you do not always live in the miracle of Pentecost; sometimes you live in the quietness that can only do a negative work, but blessed be God, when he comes to judge our work there will be nothing negative about it He who has turned away a man from iniquity shall be accounted as one who has turned a soul to righteousness; he is a great judge, and he gives great heavens to those who serve him.
There is another line of thought
“Ye have caused many to stumble” ( Mal 2:8 ).
How acute, how penetrating, how ruthless is the criticism of God! Here again we may not have been wanton in our irreligion, we may not have been irreligious at all in the ordinary sense of the term, but for lack of zeal, for lack of honesty, for lack of character, we may have caused the citizens of Gath to mock, and the daughters of Philistia to sneer at the Lord. “Caused many to stumble”: how could they help it? They looked to the priests, pastors, guides, and teachers of the community for example, and they saw nothing but warning. They said, The speech of these men will be pure, gentle, courteous, gracious; they will especially speak of one another in terms of appreciation and brotherly regard. Hark! Why, this is talk we might have heard at the tavern; this is criticism we might have heard at hell’s gate; this is censoriousness that would shame an infidel. What if they have gone away to mock the God whose name his own professors had forgotten? “Caused many to stumble” by little-mindedness, by narrowness of soul, by lack of sympathy, by idolatry instead of worship, by pointing at a church-roof and calling it God’s own sky. Here we should daily pray that we give offence to no man needlessly; here we should do many things that the Gospel be not hindered; here we may work miracles in the name and power of the Cross.
Another picture is that of a terrible judgment:
“And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts” ( Mal 3:5 ).
O God, send some man to testify against us, and we can contradict him; send the oldest and purest of thy prophets to charge us, and we can recriminate, and remind him of his human nature, and tell him to take care of himself lest he fall, rather than waste his criticism upon us who have fallen. Send Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel; send all the minstrels of Israel, let them mass themselves into a cloud of witnesses, and we can laugh them to scorn, and tell them not to mock our fallibility by an assumption of infallibility of their own; but thou wilt not do this, thou dost come thyself. Who can answer thunder? Who can reason with lightning? Who can avert the oncoming of eternity? “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” He will be not only a witness, but a “swift witness”; he will break upon us suddenly, he will come upon us from unexpected points; where we say, All is safe here, there shall the fire leap up, and there through a hedge, where we thought to make a resting-place, shall a serpent break through to bite us. “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” “Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe.” Yea, I call mine a man’s hand, but to thee it is the hand of a little child; take hold of it, for the way is slippery, the crags are here and there very sharp, and the steep is infinite, and the enemy is already breathing upon my neck. O God, save me, or I perish! In that modesty we have strength; in that reliance upon God we have a pavilion that the thunder cannot shake, that the lightning cannot penetrate. I would hide me in the house of my Saviour’s heart.
Then we have a picture of a perfect restoration:
“And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts. And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts” ( Mal 3:11-12 ).
One nation cannot be good without another nation feeling it. When England is noble the whole world is aware of the transformation; when America has responded to the appeal of righteousness the whole globe feels as if a Sabbath were dawning upon the shores of time; when any nation does a noble deed it is as if all the world had prayed. Let us remember the might, the immeasurable might, of spiritual influence. Convert England, and you convert the world; convert London, and you convert England, speaking after the manner of men. Leave God to look after the results which you call material. Is there a devourer? God will rebuke him for our sakes. Does the vine cast her fruit before her time? Angels shall keep that fruit on the stem until it be purple with hospitality, yea, with the very love of God’s heart; and as for the fields, their hedges will become fruit trees, and all the fences shall bloom and blossom because the Lord’s blessing has fallen upon the earth. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” God will take care of the vine if we take care of the altar.
Then, lastly, we have a picture of a sun-lighted world:
“But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings” ( Mal 4:2 ).
The last verse of the Old Testament is terrible; it reads” “And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to the fathers” that is good, but the last words “lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” The Rabbi would never end with that; the Rabbi said, “No, I will go back and read the last verse but one.” The Rabbi could not end with a curse. There are several books in the Bible that end with doleful words: “God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” The Rabbi could not defile the synagogue with making “evil” the climacteric word, so he read the verse before. Isaiah ends: “And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.” And the Rabbi said, We cannot end with that, we must end with the verse before. And the Lamentation, “But thou hast utterly rejected us: thou art very wroth against us.” And the Rabbi said, Read the verse before that; we cannot end with storm and darkness, and tempests of imprecation. Oh let us close with some word of comfort! So must it ever be with the true messenger of God. He will have to deliver his tremendous message; but blessed be the Cross of Christ, every sermon may end with music and light and joy. There is no text in the Bible that lies half a mile from Calvary. I do not care what the text is, there is a road from it right into Golgotha. Malachi has for his last word curse; but we may have for our last word blessing, we may have for our closing word peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.” “Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God for he will abundantly pardon.” If we added to that we should be attempting to paint the lily and gild refined gold. There is but one word that can be added to it, and that is not our own: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
XXXII
THE BOOK OF MALACHI (CONTINUED) PART II
Mal 2:10-4:6
We continue in this chapter the exposition of the prophecy of Malachi. In the first chapter we examined three of the prophet’s sermons directed against the people; the first one corrected their false and skeptical ideas regarding the love of God toward the nation, the second one attacked their attitude toward his majesty, or holiness, in the matter of their offering blemished sacrifices, and the third one was directed against the priests because of their external delinquencies, their perversion of the truth that they were given to teach, and their general wickedness.
The next evil which the prophet charged against them was the cruel evil of divorce (Mal 2:10-16 ). This evil of divorce arose, as we have already seen, from the growing custom on the part of some of the people who wished to belong to the high and rich families, of marrying into families of mixed and foreign bloods. In order to do this they were compelled to put away the wives that they had already. This charge gives the prophet’s view regarding that evil.
The key words in this section are “dealing treacherously.” He is addressing the people now, for they, as well as the priests, have indulged in this cruel and wicked custom. In this case he begins with a broad and fundamental principle of a common fatherhood. “Have we not all one father? hath not God created us?” He has in mind Israel as a descendant of Abraham the father of the Jewish nation, and God the common creator of all. “Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother?” In other words, why do the Israelites sustain such a relation to one another? Why do they “deal treacherously one with another”? For in speaking of brothers here he included men and women, for it was the wrong against the women that he spoke of specifically. In doing this he says that they profane the covenant of their fathers, for a covenant was made between God and Israel at Sinai asserting this one thing, that all the people of Israel were God’s and there should be no dealing treacherously one with another. In dealing thus, they were breaking the fundamental law of the covenant between God and Israel.
In Mal 2:11-12 he specifies the charges; he says that Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel, and in Jerusalem. Then he explains what that is: “For Judah hath profaned the holiness of Jehovah which he loveth and hath married the daughter of a foreign god.” To marry the daughter of a foreign god meant to an Oriental, to marry a woman who belonged to another race and to another religious cult; in marrying into that other nation or religious cult, he was practically marrying a daughter of the foreign god, for every nation conceived itself as the offspring of its own particular god. They were thus marrying the daughter of the foreign deity.
As the result of this evil (Mal 2:12 ), “Jehovah will cut off, to a man,” that is, every man without an exception, “that doeth this, him that waketh and him that answereth,” a proverbial expression, to include everyone. That was partly fulfilled in the time of Nehemiah. The divorce court was then set up, and nearly all the men that had married foreign wives were compelled to put them away, and those who would not, were excommunicated, and thus cut off from the congregation and life of Israel. In Mal 2:13 he says, “And this again,” or literally, “this a second time ye do.” And, in order to make it very vivid, he draws a picture of the divorced wives, weeping and wailing because of the wrongs that have been done to them. He says (Mal 2:13 ), “Ye cover the altar of Jehovah with tears, with weeping, and with sighing, insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, neither receiveth it with good will at your hand.” The weeping wives and punctilious offerings and sacrifices would not to together.
And now to show the carelessness and grossness of the people, he represents them as saying, “Wherefore? Why is it that he hath not received them with good will?” as if they were innocent. Then the prophet answers, “Because Jehovah hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth.” In marriage vows Jehovah was witness between the two. These vows were taken for life, and now they had dealt treacherously. The prophet recognized the wife as still the wife and companion, although thus divorced.
Mal 2:15 represents some difficulties. There are many translations of it. The translation given here is, “And did he not make one, although he had a residue of the Spirit? And wherefore one? He sought a godly seed.” Now the margin of the American Revised gives a different translation: “And no one hath done so who had a residue of the Spirit. Or what? Is there one that seeketh a godly seed?” which is almost unintelligible. The general meaning seems to be this: Did not God, when he first made man, make one man and one woman, although he had the residue of the spirit of life and might have made a thousand women for one man, if he had chosen to do so. He had all the power, yet he made one man and one woman. And why one? Because he sought a godly seed; because he sought a pure offspring. Therefore he made one man for one woman and one woman for one man, in order that the best results might thereby come.
It enunciates a great and fundamental principle, which is the same as that enunciated by our Lord Jesus Christ himself. When the Pharisees came and asked him the question about divorce, he said, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put away your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.” God made one man and one woman and put them together in Eden. That is also Paul’s teaching, that God intended that one man and one woman enter into a union for life.
Now an admonition arises out of that. “Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. For I hate putting away.” The prophet closes with this admonition: “Therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously.”
In Mal 2:17 he brings his charge without enunciating his general fundamental principles: “Ye have wearied Jehovah with your words.” They returned the question to him. “Wherein have we wearied him?” And the prophet gives his answer, “In that ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of Jehovah, and he delighteth in them.” Or, “Where is the God of justice?” It is a very dangerous kind of skepticism; they are saying, “Jehovah delights in the wicked more than in the righteous. He is blessing the unrighteous more than the righteous. His pleasure is with the man who is of the world. Where is the God of justice?” The application is that God is not just in the administration of the affairs of this world; it is not according to the principles of righteousness. Many a man, in adversity, has asked the question, “Where is the God of justice?”
In Mal 3:1-6 , the prophet gives his answer to that question, and it is complete: “Men may think that the evil doer is God’s delight, and that God is not a God of justice, but the time will come, when they will see that he is a God of justice, for, “Behold, I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me.” Justice is coming, God is going to manifest himself, he is going to discriminate between the righteous and the wicked. He will come in a day of judgment; he will send a messenger before him, who shall prepare the way, that he may carry on his work of judgment and of righteousness in the world, and not only will the messenger come to prepare his way, but when he has prepared the way before him, then “the Lord, whom ye seek, will suddenly come to his temple.”
As in the days of Amos, they sought the day of Jehovah, now in the days of Malachi they look for the day of Jehovah. Then he raises the question, “Who can abide the day of his coming? . . . for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s Soap; and he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi,” their priests and leaders, and when he has done that, they shall offer unto Jehovah offerings in righteousness. Then when the priests are made pure and are refined, there will be a revival of religion in Israel. Then will the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant to Jehovah.
The fulfilment of this we are told by Jesus, occurred when John the Baptist came preparing the way for him. He himself was the Lord; he was the messenger of the covenant; he came to refine and purify the people. His first public act was to cleanse the Temple, drive out the sellers of oxen and sheep, and the money changers, and every word he said, every sermon he preached, every truth he taught, every act he did, tended to refine and purify the world, and all his life was as a winnowing fan separating the chaff from the wheat, dividing mankind into two great classes.
“Ye are cursed with a curse; for ye rob me, even this whole nation.” Here is a reference to the law of tithes, or the custom of giving one tenth, which appears first in the Bible in the days of Abraham, long before it was given by Moses on Mount Sinai. Really it is coincident with the religious practice and customs of the human race. It appeared in religious observances from the very beginning, long before Moses honored it by embodying it in the law received on Mount Sinai. As the law of the sabbath is a fundamental requirement in the physical and moral constitution of mankind, so the law of tithes is also a fundamental requirement of religion.
Now we come to a great text: “Bring ye the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord.” People who are giving their tenth prove God, and those who faithfully give the tenth find that God blesses them for doing so. Spurgeon used that same text and applied it to the sinner: Prove me now, come and test my gospel and salvation. Find out for yourself if what I say is true. Prove me and see if I will not bring abundant blessings to you, if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. “Windows of heaven” is an Oriental expression for great blessings from heaven, which of course refers to the source of all blessings.
Then he goes on to say, “I will rebuke the devourer,” the locusts that had been eating up their crops, “for your sakes,’ that is, “I will bring to pass certain things in the administration of physical elements of this world, and will so take care of the order of nature that the devourers shall not destroy the fruits of your vineyards; neither shall your vine cast forth its fruit before the time. Then all nations shall call you happy, for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith Jehovah of hosts,” and that has been literally fulfilled many a time as God’s people have met the conditions herein prescribed.
Mal 3:13-4:3 . In Mal 3:13 we have set forth another dangerous phase of their skepticism. The charge is this: “Your words have been stout against me, saith Jehovah.” Again the people say, “Wherein have we spoken against thee? What have we said? Ye have said it is vain to serve God. What profit is it that we have kept his charge and walked mournfully before Jehovah of hosts? What good is it to serve God? It doesn’t pay; there is no profit in it.” That is a different phase of the problem from what we find in the book of Job. Satan said, “Job is a good man because he finds that it pays to be good.” Then God brought Job through that suffering and trouble, in order to prove that a man might serve him for his own sake and not for the profit of this life. Now, because these people received no profit, they therefore said, “It is no use; if God is not going to make us rich, we will not serve him; we don’t make any money by it.” That is the modern commercial idea which underlies this skepticism.
And now they begin to say some rather strange things, depicting the anomalies that are to be found in the religious life: “Now we call the proud happy.” When they saw these proud and yet happy people, they said, “The happy ones are they that work wickedness; they that do unrighteousness, they are the ones that eacape.” Many people now envy the rich and think that the wicked are the ones that are being built up; that the people that tempt God escape, whereas they are loaded down with troubles and difficulties. It is the old problem discussed in the book of Job and in Psa 73 . In answer to this complaint, the prophet says, “There is going to be a separation between you and the others when the time comes for the great judgment.” When that day comes, they that fear Jehovah, that speak one with another are heard: “And Jehovah hearkened, and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before him, for them that feared Jehovah, and thought upon his name.”
The picture is taken perhaps, from a custom observed by the Persian Empire with great scrupulousness. Whenever a man did a deed or conferred a favor upon the empire worthy of remembrance, the Persian emperor always had that fact recorded in a book kept for that purpose. Mordecai, when he saved the life of the king, had his name and deed written in the book, officially recorded) and afterward he received his reward. Every man who did something worthy of reward had his name recorded in that book. The Persian dominion was over Israel at that time, and this custom was seized upon by the prophet Malachi, and made use of by way of an illustration. Jehovah is going to have a book of remembrance, and in that is recorded the names of all those that remember him and speak to one another. The time is coming when he is going to reward them.
This thought we find wrought out more in detail in the book of Revelation, where the Book of Life is mentioned more than once. (See author’s sermon on “The Library of Heaven”). “And they shall be mine in that day,” when this judgment comes, when the separation takes place, they shall be “mine own possession,” my peculiar possession, my own dear ones not my jewels), “in the day that I do this thing; when I bring this judgment and create this separation. I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.” They will be spared as a man spares his own beloved boy. When that time comes they shall also have moral discernment and shall be able to discern distinctly between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.
Now we have one of the finest descriptions of the judgment day, of the coming of Jehovah in Mal 4:1-3 : “For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be a stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith Jehovah of hosts, and shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear his name, ye righteous ones, you true Israelites, you that speak often one with another, you that are yet faithful, for you shall see the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings.” As the great sun suddenly springs up above the Plains of Moab, spread his rays of light over all the country, and flashes them over Judah and Jerusalem, giving life and light, so the Sun of Righteousness, the messenger of the covenant shall come and shall send his rays of divine righteousness which shall burn up the wicked and bring its blessings to his own. “Ye shall go forth, and gambol as calves of the stall,” i.e., be happy and prosperous and blessed. “And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I do this thing, saith Jehovah of hosts.” This passage is paralleled in Mat 3:11-12 .
In Mal 4:4-6 we have God’s last great effort to have the people do right and to save them; he promises to send his greatest and best prophet in order that he might, if possible, bring all back to himself. In the meantime, “Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb.” Keep my statutes and ordinances, observe those carefully and I will send Elijah the prophet before that great and terrible day of Jehovah, and Elijah shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers. If that is not done, I will come and smite the earth with a curse. How was it fulfilled? We know that Elijah came, not the real Elijah, the former prophet, the most powerful personality of all the prophets, but John the Baptist with the spirit and power of Elijah, the most powerful personality of all those centuries, except Jesus Christ. We know the story of how he came, how he preached and how there was a great turning of hearts and when Jesus came a great separation, refining and purifying process was begun and now goes on through the centuries, and Jesus Christ will finally separate the evil from the good forever.
QUESTIONS
1. What charges against the people in Mal 2:10-16 , how introduced, and what the judgments denounced?
2. What was his charge in Mal 2:17 , what was their reply, and what was the point of their question?
3. What was the annunciation of Mal 3:1 and what was the fulfilment?
4. What was the process of the Messiah’s administration as described in Mal 3:2-6 and what attribute of God is here declared to be the basis of his mercy to Israel?
5. What appeal to the nation in Mal 3:7 , what charge following this appeal and what great lessons of God’s providence in this passage?
6. What was the charge in Mal 3:13 and how does the prophet here show their skepticism?
7. What optimistic note in Mal 3:16 and what picture here presented?
8. What is the “Book of Remembrance” here spoken of and what other references to such books in the Scriptures?
9. What was the blessed relation between God and his people pictured in Mal 3:17 and what was the result?
10. What day is here spoken of and what great revelation shall be made on that day?
11. What was the picture presented in Mal 4:1-3 and what is the correspondent New Testament teaching?
12. What of the beauty and force of “Sun of Righteousness,” etc., what is meant by treading down the wicked?
13. In closing this book what reminder is given and what special fitness of it here?
14. What promise in this connection and what is the New Testament proof of its fulfilment?
15. What was to be the great work of this Elijah and what was the significance of it?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Mal 4:1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
Ver. 1. For, behold, the day cometh ] This chapter should not be divided from the former; for here God’s different dealing with the righteous and the wicked, proposed in the former verse, is further amplified by various effects of Christ’s coming in the flesh. And if any ask, saith an interpreter, how this was verified of that his first coming? we answer, It was an initial or incipient stage, and by way of preparation, then; and shall be consummate in the day of the last judgment. This day comprehendeth all that time that is called by the apostle, “the ends of the world,” 1Co 10:11 , and “the world to come,” Heb 2:5 ; all the administrations of Christ’s kingdom, from his incarnation to the end of all things, which also is at hand, and, as it were, under view already. “Behold, the day,” that notable day, so long looked for by the Jews, who boasted of a Redeemer, and promised themselves all possible comforts then: Tunc enim Deus nos dignabitur clarissima visione, saith Jachiades on Dan 12:4 , tunc intelligemus res ipsas prout sunt: Then shall we have a most clear vision of things as they are, &c. Lo, that day cometh; not such a day as you imagined, but like that in Amos, “A day of darkness, and not light: even very dark, and no brightness in it,” Amo 5:20 . A day that shall burn like an oven; Nebuchadnezzar’s oven, seven times more heated than it was wont, Dan 3:19 . This day is come, the end is come, it watcheth for thee; behold, it is come, Eze 7:6 . It was fulfilled in part upon this people at the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and their miserable exile ever since for their unbelief. Howbeit, all these are but the beginning of sorrows; their present sorrows but a typical hell, “the pile whereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of fire, doth kindle it,” Isa 30:33 . It is said to be “prepared for the devil and his angels,” Mat 25:41 , as if the all-powerful wisdom did deliberate, and, as it were, sit down and devise most tormenting temper, for that most formidable fire. The fire of the last day shall surely be very terrible, when all the world shall be on ablaze with fire, and wicked men shall give account with flames about their ears, with the elements melting and falling like scalding lead or burning bell metal on their heads. But all this will be but a shadow or spark of that fire of hell, the smoke whereof ascendeth for ever and ever, Rev 19:3 . Some have held the fire of hell to be no true material; and corporeal fire but metaphorical, of a type known to God. qualem novit Deus. The most conspire in the contrary tenet; because bodies are to be punished by it. How spirits are also thus tormented, as the rich glutton’s, Luk 16:24 , Austin sits down and admires the mystery; he tells us that for vehemence of heat it exceeds our fire, as far as ours doth fire that is painted on a wall (De Civ. Dei, lib. 21, c. 10). I would we had not cause to complain that preaching of hell is but as the painting of fire; which men can look on and handle without harm or fear. Surely he that observes the impiety of this age may say to us, as Cato did to Caesar, Credo, quae de inferis dicuntur, falsa existimas, I believe you think hell to be a very fable, Esse aliquos manes nec pueri credunt, nisi qui nondum aere lavantur (Juven.).
And all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, &c.
The day that cometh shall burn them up
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Malachi
‘STOUT WORDS,’ AND THEIR CONFUTATION
Mal 3:13 – Mal 3:18
This passage falls into three parts,-the ‘stout words’ against God which the Prophet sets himself to confute Mal 3:13 – Mal 3:15; the prophecy of the day which will show their falsehood Mal 3:16 – Mal 4:3; and the closing exhortation and prediction Mal 4:4 – Mal 4:6.
I. The returning exiles had not had the prosperity which they had hoped.
So many of them, even of those who had served God, began to let doubts darken their trust, and to listen to the whispers of their own hearts, reinforced by the mutterings of others, and to ask: ‘What is the use of religion? Does it make any difference to a man’s condition?’ Here had they been keeping God’s charge, and going in black garments ‘before the Lord,’ in token of penitence, and no good had come to them, while arrogant neglect of His commandments did not seem to hinder happiness, and ‘they that work wickedness are built up.’ Sinful lives appeared to have a firm foundation, and to rise high and palace-like, while righteous ones were like huts. Goodness seemed to spell ruin.
What was wrong in these ‘stout words’? It was wrong to attach such worth to external acts of devotion, as if these were deserving of reward. It was wrong to suspend the duty of worship on the prosperity resulting from it, and to seek ‘profit’ from ‘keeping his charge.’ Such religion was shallow and selfish, and had the evils of the later Pharisaism in germ in it. It was wrong to yield to the doubts which the apparently unequal distribution of worldly prosperity stirred in their hearts. But the doubts themselves were almost certain to press on Old Testament believers, as well as on Old Testament scoffers, especially under the circumstances of Malachi’s time. The fuller light of Christianity has eased their pressure, but not removed it, and we have all had to face them, both when our own hearts have ached with sorrow and when pondering on the perplexities of this confused world. We look around, and, like the psalmist, see ‘the prosperity of the wicked,’ and, like him, have to confess that our ‘steps had wellnigh slipped’ at the sight. The old, old question is ever starting up. ‘Doth God know?’ The mystery of suffering and the mystery of its distribution, the apparent utter want of connection between righteousness and well-being, are still formidable difficulties in the way of believing in a loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful God, and are stock arguments of the unbeliever and perplexities of humble faith. Never to have felt the force of the difficulty is not so much the sign of steadfast faith as of scant reflection. To yield to it, and still more, to let it drive us to cast religion aside, is not merely folly, but sin. So thinks Malachi.
II. To the stout words of the doubters is opposed the conversation of the godly.
‘ Then they that feared the Lord spake one with another,’ nourishing their faith by believing speech with like-minded. The more the truths by which we believe are contradicted, the more should we commune with fellow-believers. Attempts to rob us should make us hold our treasure the faster. Bold avowal of the faith is especially called for when many potent voices deny it. And, whoever does not hear, God hears. Faithful words may seem lost, but they and every faithful act are written in His remembrance and will be recompensed one day. If our names and acts are written there, we may well be content to accept scanty measures of earthly good, and not be ‘envious of the foolish’ in their prosperity.
Malachi’s answer to the doubters leaves all other considerations which might remove the difficulty unmentioned, and fixes on the one, the prophecy of a future which will show that it is not all the same whether a man is good or bad. It was said of an English statesman that he called a new world into existence to redress the balance of the old, and that is what the Prophet does. Christianity has taught us many other ways of meeting the doubters’ difficulty, but the sheet anchor of faith in that storm is the unconquerable assurance that a day comes when the righteousness of providence will be vindicated, and the eternal difference between good and evil manifested in the fates of men. The Prophet is declaring what will be a fact one day, but he does not know when. Probably he never asked himself whether ‘the day of the Lord’ was near or far off, to dawn on earth or to lie beyond mortal life. But this he knew-that God was righteous, and that sometime and somewhere character would settle destiny, and even outwardly it would be good to be good. He first declares this conviction in general terms, and then passes on to a magnificent and terrible picture of that great day.
The promise, which lay at the foundation of Israel’s national existence, included the recognition of it as ‘a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people,’ and Malachi looks forward to that day as the epoch when God will show by His acts how precious the righteous are in His sight. Not the whole Israel, but the righteous among them, are the heirs of the old promise. It is an anticipation of the teaching that ‘they are not all Israel which are of Israel,’ And it bids us look for the fulfilment of every promise of God’s to that great day of the Lord which lies still before us all, when the gulf between the righteous and the wicked shall be solemnly visible, wide, and profound. There have been many ‘days which I make’ in the world’s history, and in a measure each of them has re-established the apparently tottering truth that there is a God who judgeth in the earth, but the day of days is yet to come.
No grander vision of judgment exists than Malachi’s picture of ‘the day,’ lurid, on the one hand, with the fierce flame, before which the wicked are as stubble that crackles for a moment and then is grey ashes, or as a tree in a forest fire, which stands for a little while, a pillar of flame, and then falls with a crash, shaking the woods; and on the otherhand, radiant with the early beams of healing sunshine, in whose sweet morning light the cattle, let out from their pent-up stalls, gambol in glee. But let us not forget while we admire the noble poetry of its form that this is God’s oracle, nor that we have each to settle for ourselves whether that day shall be for us a furnace to destroy or a sun to cheer and enlighten.
We can only note in a sentence the recurrence in Mal 4:1 of the phrases ‘the proud’ and they ‘that work wickedness,’ from Mal 3:15 The end of those whom the world called happy, and who seemed stable and elevated, is to be as stubble before the fire. We must also point out that ‘the sun of righteousness’ means the sun which is righteousness, and is not a designation of the Messiah. Nor can we dwell on the picture of the righteous treading down the wicked, which seems to prolong the previous metaphor of the leaping young cattle. Then shall ‘the upright have dominion over them in the morning.’
III. The final exhortation and promise point backwards and forwards, summing up duty in obedience to the law, and fixing hope on a future reappearance of the leader of the prophets.
Moses and Elijah are the two giant figures which dominate the history of Israel. Law and prophecy are the two forms in which God spoke to the fathers. The former is of perpetual obligation, the latter will flash up again in power on the threshold of the day. Jesus has interpreted this closing word for us. John came ‘in the spirit and power of Elijah,’ and the purpose of his coming was to ‘turn the hearts of the fathers to the children’ Luk 1:16 – Luk 1:17; that is, to bring back the devout dispositions of the patriarchs to the existing generations, and so to bring the ‘hearts of the children to their fathers,’ as united with them in devout obedience. If John’s mission had succeeded, the ‘curse’ which smote Israel would have been stayed. God has done all that He can do to keep us from being consumed by the fire of that day. The Incarnation, Life, and Death of Jesus Christ made a day of the Lord which has the twofold character of that in Malachi’s vision, for He is a ‘saviour of life unto life’ or ‘of death unto death,’ and must be one or other to us. But another day of the Lord is still to come, and for each of us it will come burning as a furnace or bright as sunrise. Then the universe shall ‘discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mal 4:1-3
1For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. 2But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall. 3You will tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which I am preparing, says the LORD of hosts.
Mal 4:1 The Septuagint and the Vulgate begin a new chapter here, but the Masoretic Text continues chapter 3 through the end of chapter 4.
the day is coming The term the day (BDB 398) becomes a technical term for the coming of YHWH. The Israelites thought it would be a day of blessing, but the prophets (esp. Amos and Joel) clearly prophesied a day of judgment beginning with the people of God. One can see from this verse how the Jews of Jesus’ day expected the Messiah to come as one bringing judgment. Even John the Baptist misunderstood the nature of Jesus’ first coming (cf. Mat 11:2 ff ).
burning like a furnace Fire is often a symbol of God and His purifying activities (cf. Mal 3:2-3; Psa 21:9; Psa 50:3; Isa 10:17; Isa 66:15-16; Daniel 7; Daniel 9-10; Joe 2:30; Nah 1:5-6; 1Co 3:13; 2Pe 3:7). See SPECIAL TOPIC: FIRE .
will be chaff This refers to (1) refuse from harvest time or (2) burning of the field in preparation for planting (cf. Mat 3:12-14).
so that it will leave them neither root or branch This is a metaphor of complete destruction (cf. Amo 2:9; Isa 11:1; Mat 3:14).
Mal 4:2 the sun of righteousness The KJV and NKJV capitalize the term Sun, but this is exegetically impossible because it is a FEMININE NOUN in this context (it is usually MASCULINE). It is, however, a unique reference to the Messiah (a similar metaphor is in Isa 60:1-3; Isa 60:19-20. Also note Mat 17:2; Rev 22:5).
Although a Messianic understanding is traditional (even in the rabbis, cf. b.sanh. 118a; b. ‘Eruv. 43b), in context it seems to be a metaphor inaugurating the new age of restoration (cf. Isa 30:23-26; Isa 60:10). This metaphor is striking and unique, which makes it difficult to interpret. What would Malachi have understood by this phrase? The symbol of the Zoroastrian high-good god was a winged sun disk. Possibly the prophet is borrowing the well known symbol of Persian religion to describe YHWH’s new day of righteousness (i.e., Psa 84:11).
with healing in its wings This metaphor is possibly used of (1) the relationship between healing and light or (2) a Persian symbol for deity used in Zoroastrianism. Healing was a sign of the New Age (cf. Isa 29:18; Isa 35:5-6; Isa 42:7; Isa 42:16; Isa 42:18; Mat 11:5; Mat 12:22-25; Mat 15:30-31; Mat 21:14).
The healing referred to here is more of a spiritual restoration. Israel is sick in covenant rebellion (cf. Isa 1:5-6; Psa 103:3). Forgiveness will result in health, peace, and joy. The new day was really what the old day should have been, was meant to be (cf. Deuteronomy 28).
skip about like calves from the stall This seems to be a metaphor of joy, freedom, and health (cf. Isa 35:6).
Mal 4:3 And you will tread down the wicked This is a metaphor from the wine press, which is used for the righteous finally overcoming. Some see it as a reference to Jos 10:24 and, therefore, to military victory. Notice God’s victory is not immediate, but eschatological.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
behold. Figure of speech Asterisrmos. App-6.
all that do. Hebrew = every one who doeth. But some eighty codices, with four early printed editions, Targum, Aramaean, Septuagint, Syriac, and Vulgate, read “all who work. “
wickedly = lawlessness. Hebrew rasha’. App-44.
saith = hath said.
the LORD of hosts. See note on Mal 1:4.
leave. A Homonym. See notes on Gen 39:6. Exo 23:5.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 4
So the Lord has promised to spare us from what, and when? The Lord will spare us when His day of judgment comes. Chapter 4, verse Mal 4:1 :
For, behold, the day comes, that shall burn as an oven; and all of the proud, yes, and all that do wickedly, shall be the stubble: and the day that cometh shall come shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch ( Mal 4:1 ).
The great day of God’s judgment that is coming, but those who fear the Lord, those who think upon His name, those who talk of the Lord, they will be His, His jewels, written in His book of remembrance, spared from the day of judgment that is coming to destroy the wicked.
Now wickedness is contrasted with the lack of the fear of the Lord, or is associated with a lack of the fear of the Lord, and is contrasted with those that fear the Lord. So in verse Mal 4:2 :
But unto you that fear my name [or reverence my name] shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and you shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall ( Mal 4:2 ).
So the glorious promise of the coming of Jesus Christ: the Sun of righteousness with healing in His wings to establish God’s glorious kingdom upon the earth.
And you will tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts. Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all of Israel, with statutes and judgments. And behold, I will send Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse ( Mal 4:3-6 ).
So the promise of the coming again of Elijah before the great and noble day of the Lord. That causes me to be convinced that in Revelation, chapter 11, as God sends His two witnesses to witness for a period of time here upon the earth while the antichrist is in power, that one of the two witnesses will indeed be Elijah. “Behold I will send Elijah.”
Now John the Baptist was not Elijah. They came out and said, “Are you Elijah?” “Nope.” “Who are you?” “I’m the voice of one in the wilderness crying, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.'” But Jesus said of John the Baptist, “Of all of the women born of men, there’s not been a greater prophet arise than John. And yet, he who was least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. And this, if you’re able to take it, is Elijah, of whom the scripture spake” ( Mat 11:11 , Mat 11:14 ). A partial fulfillment when Zechariah’s father was accosted by Gabriel the angel and told that his wife Elizabeth in her old age was to have a son. He said, “And he shall go forth in the spirit and in the power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the children unto their fathers” ( Luk 1:17 ). Coming in the spirit and the power of Elijah, a type of the actual coming of Elijah before the second coming of the Lord.
Now it is my own personal deep conviction that somewhere on the earth today Elijah is alive. I think we’re that close to the coming of the Lord. Of course, who and where he might be, I don’t know. But I do, I am personally convinced that he’s alive somewhere in the world today. I’ve had some people come and tell me that they were Elijah. I directed them back to Metro. But I do believe that he is alive somewhere today, along with the other witness.
I think that God is winding things up, and I think that we’re just on the border of seeing the culmination of things. Things are happening in Israel. Israel is still prepared to invade Lebanon. They are waiting patiently for a provocation from the PLO that they can use as an excuse. They are presently, have mobilized 40,000 troops on the Lebanese border, the army reserve is on an alert, standby basis right now. They’re just waiting for the provocation of the PLO to move on into Lebanon. The Syrians have dug in in Lebanon expecting their attack, and it, no doubt, will be a very fierce battle. I believe that it will bring Russia’s involvement into the Middle East, and of course, that could surely bring to pass the fulfillment of Eze 38:1-23; Eze 39:1-29.
So we’re living in exciting days. A lot of attention is on the Falklands, but that’s not where it’s gonna happen. The real excitement will take place over in the area of Israel. That’s where you need to keep watching.
Shall we stand.
May the Lord bless and keep you in the love of Jesus Christ. May you feed this week upon the Word. May the Lord just open up your hearts to the understanding of His truth, and cause you to grow in grace and in knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. May He give you just a beautiful, blessed week, walking in fellowship with Him. In Jesus’ name. “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Mal 4:1-2. For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you
Here is the difference: But unto you
Mal 4:2. That fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise-
Not like a scorching and burning oven as the sun of the heavens is in the East, but he shall arise
Mal 4:2. With healing in his wing; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.
All is right with those who are right with God.
Mal 4:3-6. And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts.
Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their father, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. The Old Testament ends with the mutterings of a curse, but the New Testament begins with a message of blessing concerning the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. What a mercy to come from under the old covenant unto the new!
This exposition consisted of readings from Mal 3:4.
Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible
Mal 4:1-6
BEHOLD, THE DAY COMETH . . . Mal 4:1
The association of fire with the final judgement is a theme which runs throughout much of the Scriptures. Daniel describes it vividly. (Dan 7:9-10) The Psalmist sang of it. (Psa 1:3) Peter affirms it at some length. (2Pe 3:7-10) Malachi promises that those who feel this final fire will be without hope of springing again to life. They will be without branch or root. (See Amo 2:9))
Mal 4:1. The preposition for is used to connect the present passage with the one immediately preceding it in chapter 3: 18, The strictness of the Gospel in its requirements as to the Citizens of the new kingdom is the subject. (See Act 17:30 and 1Pe 4:17-18.) We also recal1 the many instances where Christ showed the contrast between the old and the new, He would refer to certain liberties that bad been tolerated in “old time” and then say “but I say unto you,” etc. This strictness of the new law is figuratively referred to as an oven for burning refuse. Leave them neither root nor branch refers to the complete condemnation and rejection of the ways of sin that was to be manifested by Christians.
(Mal 4:2) The prophet does not, however, limit his vision of the coming day to that of doom. In contrast, he presents the effects of its coming on Gods people. On those who fear His name the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its (His) wings.
Here is one of the most picturesque descriptions of the Messiah to be found in the Old Testament. To dissect it is to destroy it. Suffice it to say, that as the sun is the light and source of life to all the earth, so the Christ is the light and giver of life to the true worshipper.
In the warmth of this sun of righteousness, Gods people shall be as carefree as calves playing in the sunlight.
(Mal 4:3) When this day comes, and the wicked are punished by fire while Gods people are freed from all care, the question of Mal 3:15 will finally be answered.
Jesus rehearsal of the fate of the rich man and Lazarus is a fine illustration of this truth. (cf. Luk 16:19 -ff) The unrighteous rich who lord it over the righteous poor will, in that day, find their situations completely reversed . . . eternally and completely.
In our present day, when churches have become pre-occupied with alleviating the temporal needs of men, regardless of their spiritual condition, and when making a profit in business has become, to some, immoral regardless of the good that may be done with such wealth, the idea that the iniquities of this life will be rectified in the next is passe to some. In the presence of this spiritual blindness, Gods people dare not lose sight of our obligation to be concerned for mens temporal needs in Jesus name. (cf. Mat 25:31-46, 1Jn 3:16-18) But this concern can, by no form of loge, negate the coming day of judgement
Nor can such concern negate the fact that the injustices of wicked men who prey upon the righteous and deprive the weak obviously go unpunished here and now. Honesty, in business, is not always the best policy for those whose chief purpose is personal gain.
Just as surely as this is so, so does the justice of God demand a day of reckoning. For those who come to Christ, the day of reckoning was held on Calvary (Rom 3:25-26). For those who do not fear God, the time of reckoning is yet to come and it will.
CONCLUSION . . . Mal 4:4-6
The Old Testament Scriptures close with a prophetic plea to Gods people to remember the law of Moses. It would be some four hundred years before Jehovah would speak again. In the interim, if they are to survive as His people, the law must be remembered.
Special attention is called to the statutes, that is those portions of the law dealing with religious ceremony. These ceremonies, as we have seen, were designed to keep visually and tangibly before the people an object lesson of the coming Lamb of God. If they were to fall into disuse before He came, Calvary would indeed be hard to comprehend.
Fortunately, they did not fall into disuse. During the Maccabean period and shortly thereafter (c. 160 B.C.), the party known as the Pharisees came into being for the express purpose of maintaining the literal outward observances of the statutes governing the Mosaic ceremonies in worship. Regrettably the Pharisees became obsessed with the letter to the neglect of the spirit of these observances, but they did. quite significantly, preserve the form.
In calling for remembrance of the law, Malachi does so in such a way as to provide the people one last term of its covenant meaning. The burden of the last Old Testament writer was delivered to a stiffnecked and rebellious people. They prided themselves on being Jehovahs people, but he bluntly declared, I have no pleasure in you, saith Jehovah of hosts. (Mal 1:10) They thought they could play fast and loose with God, but Malachi reminded them of the greatness of Him with Whom they had to do. (Mal 1:14) In their faithlessness, Malachi reminds them of the covenant, and told them flatly they were breaking it. (Mal 2:1-9) He despaired of the nation as a whole and of the race as a race. He foresaw the coming of a terrible day in which this proud and wicked people would be utterly consumed.
But the remnant would survive, made up of those who individually feared Jehovah (Mal 4:2) and thought upon His name. That is, those who had come to understand the true character of the eternal God and His purpose for all men. (Mal 3:16) These faithful would be spared only because they had fulfilled Gods covenant conditions (cf. Exo 19:5-6) laid down on Mount Horeb (Sinai). Those who were so spared would be Gods true Israel; all the rest were doomed.
Before the terrible day of the Lord, Elijah would come to once more call the remnant. His purpose would be the reconciliation of those present at his coming with the covenant faith of their fathers. Elijah, perhaps more than any other prophet of the pre-exilic period, had pled for a return to the pure worship of Jehovah as implemented in the law. The second Elijah would have the same purpose. Unless this be done, there would be not even a remnant in that day and the whole earth, which Jehovah had striven to redeem, would stand under a curse. The word curse (Hebrew cherem) means literally a ban.
Just as those Gentiles who had not the law and were ignorant of the covenant were without God and without hope in the world (cf. Eph 2:12), so, if the remnant were not finally called in preparation for the day of the Lord, the whole world would stand permanently alienated, banned forever from the presence of God.
The Old Testament is continuous with the New. The Bible is, in this sense, a single book. The coming of Christ did not constitute an abrupt break, but a fulfillment. The method and purpose of Jesus is a continuation and fulfillment of the method and purpose revealed in the call of Abraham. The new factor is the personal presence of the Messiah.
Malachis promise of Elijahs coming is fulfilled in the ministry of John the Baptist. Jesus began where Malachi left off and consciously continued the work of the prophets. His ministry is understood only in light of Gods plan to redeem all the world through a people prepared as the instrument of divine worldwide purpose. (cp. Luk 24:44-47 and Eph 1:23)
Questions On The Book of Malachi
The Coming Day of the Lord
1. What were the two arguments of the wicked priests?
2. What was Gods answer to the questions, Where is the God of justice?
3. The New Testament applies Mal 3:1 to _________________.
4. Relate the rabbinic interpretation of this verse to Jesus temptations.
5. What is meant by Malachis description of the Messiah as fullers soap and refiners fire?
6. When Messiah came He would testify against the ___________, ___________, ___________, and against __________.
7. Comment on those who turn aside the sojourner.
8. Discuss the proposition that, because God does not immediately smite the wicked, He is no longer a God of justice.
9. Note the similarity of Mal 3:7-12 to Stephens defense (Acts 7).
10. What is the eternal principle presented in these passages?
11. How were Malachis readers robbing God?
12. What is the distinction between tithes and offerings?
13. What werethe first, second and third tithes required by the Law?
14. The offering consisted of not less than ___________ of ones corn, wine and oil.
15. The Israelites were commanded to give in three categories: ___________, ___________ and ___________.
16. How does Jesus express the thought of Mal 3:10?
17. Is this passage a valid proof text for modern store house tithing?
18. List four pertinent points concerning Mosaic tithing.
19. When the principles of stewardship presented by Malachi is applied to modern giving, ten per cent seems._____________________.
20. What is meant by the promise of Malachi that God would open the windows of heaven?
21. Gods provisions are always adequate to those who ________________.
22. Not only have Malachis readers robbed God, they have ______________________.
23. God has never promised ___________________ to the faithful nor ___________ to the unjust.
24. The people equated the sacrifice of blemished animals and with holding of tithes and offerings with ___________________.
25. A book of ________________ is being written.
26. To whom does they shall be mine (Mal 3:17-18) refer?
27. Discuss Mal 3:17-18 in comparison to Act 10:34-35.
28. Trace the association of fire with judgement.
29. The sun of righteousness shall ____________________.
30. The wicked are to be punished by fire while Gods people are freed from _____________________.
31. Does the unequal distribution of wealth negate the necessity of righteousness?
32. The justice of God demands a ______________________.
33. The Old Testament closes with a plea to Gods people to ___________________.
34. Why was it essential that the formal observance of the sacrificial system be preserved?
35. The proud and wicked would be consumed but the ___________________ would survive.
36. Who is the second Elijah?
37. How is the New Testament continuous with the Old?
38. What is the new factor in the New Testament not present in the Old?
39. The coming of Christ did not constitute an abrupt break but a __________________.
40. Approximately how much time lapsed between Malachi and Jesus?
Questions On Malachi Chapter Four
1. Describe the day that was coming. (Mal 4:1)
2. What would happen to those who feared (reverenced) God when that day arrived? (Mal 4:2)
3. What would the righteous do on that day? (Mal 4:3)
4. What was Judah to remember? (Mal 4:4)
5. Who would come before the day of the Lord? (Mal 4:5)
6. What would he do? (Mal 4:6)
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
All this leads to his great declaration concerning the coming day. This day he described in its twofold effect. Toward the wicked it would be a day of burning and of destruction. Toward the righteous it would be a day of healing and of salvation.
The closing words of the prophet called on the people to remember the law of Moses, promised that a herald would come before the day of the Lord, and ended with a solemn suggestion of judgment.
So the word ends. Malachi’s voice ceases. He had described the people’s condition and told them of God’s infinite love; and he makes this final announcement, that God is not abandoning them nor the world, that the day is coming when the Sun will rise. He declares to them the different results produced on two conditions of life, and then with pathos in every tone of his voice he utters the divine words, “I will send you Elijah before that day, to turn your heart to the fathers, and the heart of the fathers to the children, lest God smite the earth with a curse.”
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Wickedness and Pride Shall Find Judgment
Mal 3:13-18; Mal 4:1-6
The day cometh! either in the fall of Jerusalem or in some terrible catastrophe yet future. Whenever it comes may we be reckoned as Gods peculiar treasure, preserved as a woman preserves her jewels in the day of calamity, Mal 3:17. Sorrow and disaster are perpetually befalling the proud, or those that do wickedly; while on those who fear Gods name the dawn of the sun of righteousness is forever breaking and growing to the perfect day. In the beams of the sun there are not only light and color, but rays which bear health and vitality to the world and to men; so in Jesus there is power to salvation. Notice how the Old Testament ends with the word curse, while the Christs proclamation opens with Blessed.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Chapter 4
The Sun-Rising
The break between these two chapters seems unfortunate, and helps to divert the mind from what has just been presented. The fact is that verse 1 of chapter 4 is but a continuation of what has gone before. The Lord is going to discern between the righteous and the wicked. When? In the coming day that shall burn as an oven, the day of the Lord toward which all prophecy points as to the time when all the wrongs of the ages are to be put right. For, be it remembered, the day is not a brief period of twenty-four hours, but a day that will embrace the entire Millennium, concluding with the passing away of the earth and the heavens, thus introducing the day of eternity, or the day of God, as set forth in Peters second letter (3:10-12). The present season is called mans day, for it is the time (of undefined duration) when man is doing his own will (1Co 4:3; marginal reading, day, in place of judgment). For the heavenly saints, the day of Christ will immediately follow, when, caught up to meet their Lord in the air, they shall be manifested before His judgment-seat (Php 1:6, 10). The day of the Lord then begins for Israel and the nations, embracing the judgments to be visited on the earth and the reign of righteousness, closing when the kingdom is delivered up to the Father, and God (Father, Son, and Spirit) will be all in all throughout the never-ending day of God, the eternal state.
It is then, of the day when the Lord Jesus returns in manifested glory to visit judgment on all who have refused the everlasting gospel, that the opening verse treats. That day will burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that Cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. Thus will men be made to know the wrath of the Lamb, when He shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who know not God.
But in that day of thick darkness and gloominess, for a preserved remnant light shall break forth in overwhelming glory. Unto you that fear My name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts (vers. 2, 3). This is very different from the hope of the Church. We wait for the shining-forth of the Morning Star, not the rising of the Sun of Righteousness, which latter is distinctively Israels hope. The Morning Star is the herald of the dawn, and rises ere the Sun is yet visible. So will the Lord Jesus descend from heaven with a shout, and translate the heavenly saints to the Fathers house prior to the time of Jacobs trouble, the great tribulation, which takes place upon the earth in a brief interval between the coming of Christ for the Church and His appearing with His holy ones in glorious majesty, for the relief of the remnant of Judah, and Israel, in the day of their sore trial as a result of their rejection of the Lord when He came before in grace. This is the shining-forth of the Sun of Righteousness, whose beams will bring healing for His own, but will consume the wicked with their intensity. It will not be the Church, but Israel, who will then tread down the evil-doers as ashes beneath their feet, in accordance with the universal testimony of the prophets.
It should be plain to all thoughtful students of the word of God that this passage completely nullifies the theory of a converted world at the coming of Christ. Where, then, would be the wicked who are to be trodden down? The fact is that Scripture knows nothing of this favorite system of modern divines. There will be no Millennium till Christ appears, for He must first act in power for the destruction of all who have refused to own His claims, thus purging the scene for the establishment of His kingdom.
Much has been made of these three opening verses by annihilationists of every school. They suppose the prophet to refer to the final day of judgment, and the ultimate destruction of the lost in the lake of fire. Their argument is that as the wicked will then be burnt up root and branch, and be ashes under the feet of the righteous, they will have ceased entirely to exist, and thus will have been effectually blotted out of Gods universe.
The mistake is made by failing to observe that it is temporal judgment which is here foretold, of which that which fell upon Sodom and Gomorrah was a sample. Fire from heaven will consume the bodies of the wicked on the earth before the millennial kingdom is set up, and thus become ashes under the feet of the righteous. But there is no hint here as to what will become of the soul and spirit. We learn elsewhere in Scripture of judgment after death, though the body be burned to ashes. Our Lord tells us that it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for certain of the cities in which His mighty works had been performed but He Himself had been rejected.
Nearly forty centuries have elapsed since the wicked dwellers in the cities of the plain were burned up root and branch. Had Abraham or Lot walked over the sites of those destroyed places a few days after the fire fell from heaven, the wicked would have been ashes under the soles of their feet. But were they then annihilated? Far from it. They have yet to stand before the Great White Throne for judgment where they will be dealt with in accordance with the light they had, and which they refused.
The same may be said of the proud, and all that do wickedly, spoken of here by Malachi. Destroyed utterly as to their bodies and place on earth, they yet exist in the world of spirits, and will prove that it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment. For, as our Lord Jesus said, God is not a God of the dead, but of the living; for all live unto Him (Luk 20:38). Let not the reader, if unsaved, be lulled to sleep by the devils gospel of final extinction. Abiding wrath and eternal judgment are terrible realities from which the precious blood of Christ alone can deliver.
In Gen 1:16 the sun is first introduced, the type of the Lord Jesus from whom His Church gets all her light, even as the moon reflects the glory of the sun. Ere Malachi closes the Old Testament canon, he reverts to that first type, and presents the same glorious person as the Sun of Righteousness.
In view of all the expostulation that has gone before, the last three verses take on a most solemn character. Judah is exhorted to remember the law of Moses, which God had commanded for all Israel, but which they had violated from the first, and were now filling up the cup of their iniquities. To call them back to Himself, He would send them Elijah the prophet, ere the coming of that great and dreadful day of the Lord which we have been contemplating. We know from Mat 17:10-13, and Mar 9:11-13, that, for faith, John the Baptist was that Elijah; but the nation received him not as such; therefore the ministry here referred to is yet future. As Moses and Elijah are coupled together in these verses (the lawgiver and the restorer), so we see the signs of each wrought by the two witnesses of Revelation 11, which would seem to make plain the character of the ministry to be raised up as a testimony in Jerusalem at the time of the end.
Elijah is to turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to the fathers, thus bringing all the remnant into subjection to the revealed will of God, that He may not come and smite the earth with a curse.
And so with this solemn word, curse, the Old Testament abruptly comes to a close. The law had been violated in every particular. On the ground of the legal covenant the people had no hope whatever. Wrath like a dark cloud was lowering over their heads. The awful curse of that broken law was all they had earned after long ages of trial. But a Redeemer had been promised; and where there was faith, in any who felt the seriousness of their condition, they looked on to the coming of the Seed of the woman who was to bruise the serpents head, and Himself be made a curse, that all who put their trust in Him might be redeemed from the doom they had so long and fully deserved. To Him give all the prophets witness, that through His name whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins (Act 10:43). Through Him alone can guilty men, who own their lost estate and trust His grace, be delivered from the curse.
Postscript
After many months of intermittent labor, I have been, through grace, enabled to complete this volume; and I send it forth with the earnest prayer that God may use it-imperfect in many respects as I know it to be-to the glory of His great name and the blessing of many of His people.
Everywhere we have found the same great facts emphasized. Man in his best estate is altogether vanity; but grace abounds over all our sin and failure.
If at times the notes seem pessimistic, and unduly burdened with a sense of the failure of the testimony committed to man, it is not intentional, but rather an evidence of human frailty and imperfection. For the prophets, rightly read, lead to optimism of the brightest hue, occupying the soul with evil only that it may be judged in oneself, but pointing on to the glad morning without clouds when He for whom we wait shall come down like rain upon the mown grass, and His displayed kingdom shall be like clear shining after the storm has passed.
Evil is but transitory, and has sway only for a moment. The good shall abide forever, when the last remains of sin will be banished to the lake of fire, and there shall be new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of Him in peace, without spot, and blameless Therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness. But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now and forever. Amen (2Pe 3:14, 17, 18).
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
Mal 4:2
There are three reasons why Christ has received this name, “The Sun of Righteousness.”
I. He gives Light. He lived in the world and was the Sun of the world. The great and wise of every land-poets, philosophers, inventors, teachers-may be compared to the stars, but He alone is the Sun. Why? Because He brought knowledge to us infinitely greater and more precious than all other knowledge besides. He made God manifest to men. He revealed the means of saving the soul from death. He discovered to men a new world-the better land above the stars.
II. He gives Life. He is the life of the soul. Sin is its death. Sin is like the frost which withers and desolates the land. But Christ is like the summer sun that drives the cold away, and restores life and beauty to the dead earth. He releases our souls from the mortal hold of sin, and bids them live.
III. He gives Joy. Darkness has always been the symbol of sorrow, and sunshine of joy. Christ is the Sun of the soul, because He fills it with joy. There is no joy in the world like that which Christ gives. How does Christ give joy? It is by giving love and by giving salvation. Not only does He shine on those who love Him in this world, but He stands in the zenith of the better world and floods it for evermore with joy.
J. Stalker, The New Song, p. 105.
References: Mal 4:2.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii., No. 1020; vol. xxv., No. 1463; Ibid., My Sermon Notes: Ecclesiastes to Malachi, p. 390; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xi., p. 217; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 88; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. v., p. 360.
Mal 4:4-5
Notice:-
I. Some points of resemblance between Moses and Elijah in their respective histories. (1) Moses and Elijah were both witnesses for God in a wicked age. They were confessors in their generation. (2) They were both summoned to a mountain, and there conversed with God. (3) Both of these prophets were endued with power to sustain an extraordinary fast of forty days; herein prefiguring the fast of our Blessed Lord in the wilderness. (4) Their miracles of power resembled one another. (5) In the manner of their departure from the world, there were points of resemblance. They were both forewarned of their departure; they were found of God in the midst of their work, and heard His call and went on their way till they were taken by Him; and after their translation their bodies could nowhere be found.
II. Why did Moses and Elijah appear on the mountain beside the Lord? The obvious answer will be, that the Law and the Prophets, as represented respectively by them, might witness to the Gospel. The law, in itself so good, may become a dead letter; and if it be revived by the Prophets, it cannot convey life. Our nature needs a living Saviour, ever living, ever present; not a Law to obey, nor a Prophet to hear, but a living person to fear, to love, to worship, in whom, it may lose itself, and crown itself with His own glory.
III. But to conclude with a few remarks on the practical influence of this scene upon ourselves. Perhaps the thought of heaven is the point of highest light in our hearts; but after all is it more than a point? The details of this life are almost infinite. How small in proportion is the space filled up by the thought of the life to come! Look at Moses on the mount. His life on earth was long and varied. And his apparition with Christ in glory, how short it was, how briefly told, a point of high light indeed, but only a point. And yet as every heart will own, that moment with his Lord in glory, comprised all his life. So will it be with you. Your life on earth seems long, and all its cares and interests a great matter. Nevertheless, you are really nothing, but what you are in God; in a sense far more profound than most of us feel, when we lightly use the words, “In Him we live and move and have our being.”
C. W. Furse, Sermons Preached at Richmond, p. 189; see also Anglican Pulpit Today, p. 72; C. Kingsley, Sermons for the Times, p. 1.
References: Mal 4:5.-G. Moberly, Brightstone Sermons, p. 244. Mal 4:5, Mal 4:6.-J. Fraser, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxi., p. 401.
Mal 4:6
(Rev 22:21)
It is, of course, only an accident that these words close the Old and the New Testaments. In the Hebrew Bible Malachi’s prophecies do not stand at the end; but he was the last of the Old Testament prophets, and after him, there were “four centuries of silence.” I venture, then, to look at these significant closing words of the two Testaments as conveying the spirit of each, and suggesting some thoughts about the contrast and the harmony and the order that subsist between them.
I. Notice, the apparent contrast and the real harmony and unity of these two texts. In the first text we have distinctly gathered up the spirit of millenniums of Divine revelation, all of which declare this one thing-that, as certainly as there is a God, every transgression and disobedience receives, and must receive, its just recompense of reward. And then turn to the other, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.” What has become of the thunder? All melted into dewy rain of love and pity and compassion. The Apostolic benediction is the declaration of the Divine purpose, and the inmost heart and loftiest meaning of all the words which, from the beginning, God hath spoken is that His condescending, pardoning, self-bestowing mercy, may fall upon all hearts, and gladden every soul. So there seems to emerge, and there is, a very real significant contrast. But beneath the contrast there is a real harmony, for nowhere are there more tender utterances and sweeter revelations of a Divine mercy than in that ancient Law with its attendant prophets. And nowhere, through all the thunderings and lightnings of Sinai, are there such solemn words of retribution as dropped from the lips of the Incarnate Love.
II. Notice the relation of the grace to the punishment. (1) Is it not love which proclaims judgment? Are not the words of my first text, if you take them all, merciful, however they wear a surface of threatening? “Lest I come.” He speaks that He may not come, and declares the issue of sin in order that that issue may never need to be experienced by us that listen to Him. (2) The grace is manifested in bearing punishment and in bearing it away by bearing it.
III. Notice the alternative which these texts open for us. You must have either the destruction or the grace. And, more wonderful still, the same coming of the same Lord will be-to one man the destruction, and to another the manifestion and reception of His perfect grace.
A. Maclaren, Christian Commonwealth, Nov. 25th, 1886.
Reference: Mal 4:6.-W. G. Horder, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 243.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
SERMON #18. BEHOLD, THE DAY COMETH!
Text:Mal 4:1-6
Subject:The Day of the Lord
Date:Sunday Evening February 7, 2010
Introduction:
We come tonight to the last chapter of the Old Testament. The prophet of God, it appears, stands before us upon the very tiptoe of faith and expectation, looking for the Lord Jesus to appear for the salvation of his elect.
Malachi has assured the Lords people that the Lord God has A Book of Remembrance in which he has recorded the names of all who fear him, speak often to one another of him and think often upon his name (Mal 3:16).
These, Gods chosen sons and daughters, his elect shall be his in that day when the Lord Jesus comes to make up his jewels. And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels. In the Day of Redemption In the Day of Grace in Regeneration and Conversion In the Day of Death In the Day of the Resurrection And I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him (Mal 3:17).
Then, in Mal 3:18, the prophet assures us that there is a day coming in which all men, both the righteous and the wicked shall know and clearly discern the everlasting distinction of grace by which the Triune God separates the human race. Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.
Now, let me show you how God the Holy Spirit inspired his servant Malachi to describe that day. You will see my subject in the opening words of Malachi chapter 4. BEHOLD, THE DAY COMETH!
Let me begin by directing your attention to the opening word of our text, For. That little word is very important. It tells us that there should be no division or separation of this verse from the last three verses of the previous chapter. The day Malachi is describing in chapter 4 and the day he has been describing in the previous chapters is the same day. It is The Day of the Lord, The Last Day. The day the prophet is describing is not a literal twenty-four hour day, but a specific time frame.
We often speak like this, with regard to previous days, referring to specific eras of history. We often refer to
Washingtons Day
Lincolns Day
Luthers Day
Calvins Day, etc.
No one ever imagines that we are talking about a literal twenty-four hour day. Luthers Day was the whole era of Luthers life and work. So, too, the Day of the Lord refers to the whole of this Gospel Day, which began with our Saviors first coming and shall end in the great consummation of all things at the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
As we look at these six verses together, by which the Lord God closes the Old Testament Scriptures, it will be apparent to you that the Day the prophet here describes speaks of both the second coming of our Lord Jesus at the end of time and his coming in grace.
Proposition: Looking forward to the end of days, the Lord God declares by his servant Malachi, Behold, the Day Cometh when I will make up my jewels and spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him, the day when I will distinctly separate the wheat from the chaff and the sheep from the goats.
TERRIBLE BURNING
First, in Mal 3:1, the prophet tells us about the climatic end of this great day, the end of time, commonly referred to as the Day of Judgment; and tells us that it shall be a day of terrible burning.
(Mal 4:1) For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
The Day of Judgment is said to be a day that shall burn as an oven (2Pe 3:7-12. Rev 20:11-15; Rev 21:8).
(2Pe 3:7-12) But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. 8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. 11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, 12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
(Rev 20:11-15) And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. 12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. 13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. 14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. 15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
(Rev 21:7-8) He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my Song of Solomon 8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
In that great and terrible day everyone shall be judged according to his own works, and shall be justly rewarded accordingly. Is that what we read in Rev 20:13 and throughout the Word of God? They were judged every man according to their works!
The reprobate and unbelieving shall be judged according to their own personal works, which are all wickedness.
The believer, Gods elect shall be judged according to their own personal works, too, the works we have performed in Christ our Substitute, Surety and Representative, which are all righteousness and perfect holiness.
BLESSED SUNRISE
Now, look at Mal 3:2-3. Heres the second thing the Lord God tells us by his prophet. Before the end comes, before the Sun of Righteousness sets to rise no more, the Day of the Lord, this Day of Grace shall be for many a blessed Sunrise.
(Mal 4:2-3) But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. (3) And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts.
What a blessed prophecy this is of our dear Savior, the Lord Jesus! Christ Jesus our Lord is the Sun of Righteousness. He is the sole fountain of light, and life, and heat. He is the life giving, life sustaining, life reviving Light of the World. In how many ways, and by what a vast variety of means, the Lord Jesus appears as the Sun of Righteousness to his people, I cannot imagine, let alone declare. He is all this, and infinitely more, from the first moment of conversion, through all the intermediate stages of grace, until grace is consummated in glory. So that, as Hawker wrote, they all go forth under his blessed influence, and advance in the divine life with strength, and an assurance of firmness, as calves of the stall fattened and fed with constant attendance.
Peter speaks of this rising of the Sun of Righteousness in 2Pe 1:19, a a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts. And what is the day-dawn, and day-star, arising in the hearts of Gods elect, but Christ Jesus the Lord, the dayspring from on high, visiting us? Is not the Lord Jesus the bright and morning star, the light and the life of men? Of course he is. He is the Sun of righteousness arising with healing in his wings! And when he arises on our dark, benighted souls, he arises as the day-dawn, and the day-star, as the Sun of Righteousness with healing in his wings!
All was darkness in the creation of God, until Christ arose. His coming was as the breaking forth of the morning, the Sunrise of Grace, sure herald of a bright and blessed day.
He was the day-dawn, and the day-star, in the light of redemption, before the world was formed. In the council of peace, as mans light and salvation, he arose, at the call of the triune God, in the beginning, before ever the earth was made.
In due time, Christ arose in the earth and throughout all the days of his eventful life and ministry upon earth, the Lord Jesus was a light to lighten the gentiles and the glory of his people Israel.
And, today, our blessed Savior still arises as the Sun of Righteousness, the day-dawn, and day-star of all the promises, with healing power and virtue beneath his omnipotent wings of grace!
Until we see Christ in the promises of God they are nothing. It is he who makes them all yea and amen. He is the day-dawn, and day-star of all ages. His word, his providence, his grace, his ordinances; all are dark, until The Sun of Righteousness arises to give us light. Blessed Sunrise! When he shines in upon them, all is clear and bright!
When he withdraws his light, nothing can be seen, nothing can be read, nothing can be understood.
And what is this blessed Sunrise the Lord promised by Malachi, if not that which takes place in the hearts of chosen, redeemed sinners, converting them from darkness to light, and from the power of sin and Satan to the living God? The Sunrise is the Lord Jesus shining by his Holy Spirit in our hearts, bringing us to the knowledge, love and enjoyment of himself.
O my soul, what a blessed Sunrise, what a blessed day that was! It is a day forever to be remembered, when God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, shined in upon my heart. On that day of grace the Lord Jesus, the Sun of Righteousness, arose in my soul to give me the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ! O glorious Light and Life of my soul, ever continue the sweet influences of your grace, morning by morning and evening by evening, until, after many dark dispensations, and wintry days of my blindness, ignorance, and senselessness, in which will renew me, in the precious discoveries of your love, I am carried through all the twilight of this poor dying state of things below. Then I shall awake to the full enjoyment of your fulness in glory, to see you, my blessed Savior, in one full open day, and to be made like you in the kingdom of light, and life, and happiness, forever and ever. Then shall I be satisfied, when I awake with thy likeness! (Psa 17:15)
Look at Mal 3:3 and rejoice in the blessed conquest that is ours in and with the Lord Jesus, who has made us more than conquerors with himself! And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts. Who are the wicked that we shall tread down as worthless and harmless and despicable as ashes beneath our feet? (Relate this to both conversion and the end of time.)
Satan (Rom 16:20)!
The Wicked of this World!
Babylon, the Great Whore!
Our Own Sins and Sinful Natures!
THE LAW REMEMBERED
(Mal 4:4) Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.
When the Sun of Righteousness arises in the soul of a man, he arises to make ransomed sinners free from the oppressive yoke of the law. It is written, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth (Romans 104). So why does the Lord here tell us to remember the law? The law was a ministration of death? Why does the Lord God tell us who live by his grace to remember the law?
1.The law was our school master, to bring us to Christ (Gal 3:24; Rom 7:7-13). The sinner upon whom the Sun of Righteousness has arisen, has been slain by the law.
(Gal 3:24) Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
(Rom 7:7-13) What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. 8 But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. 9 For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. 10 And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. 11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. 12 Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. 13 Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.
2.We remember the law, with joy, because Christ has fulfilled the law for us, we have fulfilled the law in him; and the law of God, fully satisfied, demands the everlasting salvation of our souls!
3.And we are commanded of God our Savior to remember the law, that we might rest in Christ and call the Sabbath of Faith a delight (Isa 58:13-14).
(Isa 58:13-14) If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: 14 Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
Here the prophet of God, with the inspired vision of prophecy, looks beyond the carnal, Jewish sabbath and sees in it a picture of Christ, who is the true Sabbath, and the blessed rest of faith in him[2].
[2] This becomes obvious when we observe that Isaiahs exhortation – Call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, should read, Call the sabbath a delight the Holy One of the Lord.
When can we, when do we, Call the sabbath a delight. We can and do call the sabbath a delight only when we are brought to the blessed rest of faith in Christ, who is our Sabbath, when we keep the sabbath of faith, ceasing from our own works and resting in Christ alone for our entire acceptance with God.
When a person turns from his way, from his sin, from the pleasure of his depraved heart and from this world to the Lord Jesus Christ, finding rest in him, he finds that Christ, in whom he rests, is a delight, a luxury and that faith in him is an honor. Indeed, all who trust Christ delight themselves in him, triumph over all their foes in him, and shall at last obtain the full heritage of the heavenly Canaan, called here the heritage of Jacob. For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
CHRIST OUR SABBATH
We can and will call the sabbath a delight only when we understand that Christ is our Sabbath. We do not observe a literal, legal sabbath day, because Christ is our Sabbath, and we rest in him. I know many who pretend to keep a literal sabbath day. Many try their best to delight in legal sabbath work. But I do not know a sabbatarian in the world who really delights in his attempts at sabbath keeping, not a single one. Every sabbatarian I know finds the yoke of their legal observance oppressive and galling. It is a spiritual flagellation they feel they must perform in order to be holy.
Sabbath keeping, like animal sacrifices, was a part of the Old Testament law. It has nothing to do with New Testament worship. I know that the sabbath day is frequently mentioned in the four gospels and the Book of Acts, during that transitional period in which the church of God passed from the Old Testament era into the New. However, it is always mentioned in connection with the Jews and Jewish worship in the temple, or in their synagogues. But it is mentioned only two times in all the Epistles (Romans through Revelation).
In Col 2:16-17 we read, Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ. Here the apostle Paul forbids the observance of legal sabbath days in any form. He does so on the basis of the fact that in Christ Gods elect are entirely free from the law (Rom 7:4; Rom 10:4).
In Heb 4:3-4; Heb 4:9-11 the sabbath that remains in this gospel age is called rest. Here the Apostle shows us that all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ keep the sabbath in a spiritual way. That is to say, they and they only truly keep the sabbath by faith in him, by resting in him.
FINISHED WORK
We can and will call the sabbath a delight when we realize that our all glorious Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, our Mediator, has entered into his rest, and his rest is glorious, because he has finished his work (Heb 4:10; Isa 11:10). Our Saviors rest in heaven is glorious and it is his glory His rest shall be glory! As God rested on the seventh day, because his work of creation was finished, so the God-man our Mediator has entered into his rest in heaven, because he has made all things new for his people, having finished his work of redemption (Rom 8:34; 2Co 5:17-21; Heb 10:10-14).
Behold our exalted Savior! Do you see him seated upon his throne in heaven? There he sits in undisturbed and undisturbable sovereign serenity! His rest is his glory (Joh 17:2; Php 2:9-11). That exalted God-man, as our divinely appointed Representative, has fulfilled all the legal sabbath requirements for us, even as he did all the other requirements of the law. Now, in heaven, he is keeping an everlasting sabbath rest (Isa 53:10-12). And his rest, which is his glory, tells us that he has finished his work (Joh 17:4; Joh 19:30), the salvation of his people is certain (Heb 9:12), and all his enemies shall soon be made his footstool (Heb 10:13). There is no more work to be done. Christ did it all! And when all the work was done for us, our blessed Savior entered into his rest. Now, all who find rest in him call that sabbath a delight!
SABBATH REST
All who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ keep the sabbath by faith (Heb 4:3), because we have entered into his rest; and we call this blessed sabbath rest of faith in Christ a delight, the delight of our souls. We do not yet keep the sabbath perfectly, because we do not yet trust our Savior as we should. We do not yet trust him perfectly. But we do keep the sabbath truly and sincerely by faith. Our sabbath observance is not a carnal, literal thing. We do not keep a sabbath day. God forbids that (Col 2:16-17). We keep the sabbath spiritually by faith.
Remember, the sabbath day was ordained by God in the ceremonial worship of the Jews in the Old Testament as a symbol of Gods rest after creation and as a reminder of the Jews redemption out of Egypt. The essence of sabbath observation was self-denial and consecration to God. Anything personally profitable or pleasurable was expressly forbidden (Isa 56:2; Isa 58:13; Eze 20:12; Eze 20:21). Sabbath observance was, in its essence, an unconditional, all-encompassing, self-denial. It was a renunciation of self and a dedication of ones self to God. That is exactly the way we observe the sabbath spiritually by faith in Christ, not one day in seven, but all the days of our lives. The believers life is a perpetual keeping of the sabbath!
The Lord Jesus Christ gives rest to every sinner who comes to him in faith. He says, Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Mat 11:28). Are you laboring and heavy-laden under the load of sin and guilt? Do you long for rest? In your inmost soul do you struggle hard with sin, longing to find peace with God? Will you hear what the Lord Jesus says? Come That is: believe, trust, rely upon me. Come unto me! Not to the preacher. Not to my church. Not even to my doctrine. But Come unto me, and I will give you rest! When a sinner comes to Christ, he quits working for Gods favor, because he rests his soul upon the finished work of his Substitute (1Co 1:30-31).
Yet, this sabbath of faith involves more than a ceasing from our works and the remembrance of our redemption by Christ. It also involves, in its very essence, the consecration of our lives to our dear Savior (Mat 11:29-30). We keep the sabbath of faith and find rest unto our souls as we willfully, deliberately, wholeheartedly surrender to Christ as our Lord. If we would keep the sabbath, truly keep the sabbath, it will take considerably more than going to church on Sunday and reserving one day a week for religious exercises! We keep the sabbath by putting ourselves under the yoke of Christs dominion, submitting to his will in all things,, learning of him what to believe, how to live, and how to honor God. As we do, we find that his yoke is easy and his burden is light. When we submit to Christs dominion, when we bow to his will, we find rest for our souls and call the sabbath a delight!
Believing on the Lord Jesus, resting in him as our Savior, we remember and honor the law of our God.
ELIJAH AND HIS WORK
Go back to Malachi 4, for just a minute. Here in Mal 3:5-6, the Lord God declares that he will send Elijah to prepare the way of the Lord.
(Mal 4:5-6) Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: (6) And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
There is no question that this refers to John the Baptist. The Lord Jesus plainly tells us this in Mat 11:13-14.
(Mat 11:13-14) For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John 14 And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come.
When the Day of Grace is about to dawn upon the soul, God always sends one of his prophets to proclaim the Gospel, to prepare the way of the Lord. And that prophets work, when made effectual by his grace, is a work that restores dignity, worth and meaning to fallen humanity, turning the hearts of fathers to their children and turning the hearts of children to their fathers, bringing them to be of one mind, judgment and faith, causing them to have a true and sincere love to one another and to the Lord Christ. That is to say, the preachers work is to bring Christ to the sinner and the sinner to Christ, lest the sinner be smitten of God in wrath with the curse he deserves.
I cannot send you home without calling your attention to the fact that this chapter and the whole volume of the Old Testament closes with the word curse; but the very first sermon our Lord Jesus preached proclaims blessed are those sinners saved by his blood and grace (Mat 5:1-12). Out of Christ everything is a curse. In Christ everything is a blessing!
Application
How very solemn an account is here given of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, so often spoken of in Scripture! It is a day that is certain and rapidly approaching. How terrible shall the judgments of that day be which will then overtake the ungodly. For if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear. Oh, what paleness, horror and everlasting dismay, will then seize every Christless soul, when appearing before the Judge of all the earth without an Advocate to plead his cause! What torments shall seize you who are void of all righteousness to justify you, you who have no cleansing for your souls!
While this Day of Grace continues, it is my prayer that the Sun of Righteousness will arise upon your benighted soul, with healing in his wings.
Blessed Lord Jesus, dearest Savior, our Light, our Life, our Righteousness, arise upon our souls now and forever. Oh! be for our souls the one great source of our peace, confidence, hope and joy! As you were made a curse for your people, so make chosen redeemed sinners the righteousness of God in yourself. Arise, O Sun of Righteousness and shime upon our souls, with heaing in your wings.
O blessed Sun of Righteousness,
Arise, spread forth Thy wings,
Dispel the darkness of my soul,
The death I feel within!
I try, but cannot lift myself,
Or cheer my troubled heart.
Spirit of God, Jesus reveal,
Fresh grace to me impart!
The bones that You have broken, Lord,
The wounds that You have made,
No hand but Yours can heal again;
Father, behold my need!
This darkness, that o’erwhelms my soul,
Is caused by my own sin;
The fault is mine! Purge me with blood,
Restore and make me clean!
Helpless, I wait for grace, my God,
In pity look on me;
Your covenant remember, Lord,
Revive and set me free!
O blessed Sun of Righteousness,
Send forth the healing ray,
Arise within my gloomy soul,
Bathe me in light today!
Amen.
Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible
God
Summary of the O.T. revelation of Deity: God is revealed in the O.T. (1) through His names, as follows: ClassEnglish FormHebrew EquivalentPrimaryGodEl, Elah, or Elohim (Gen 1:1)LORDJehovah (Gen 2:4)LordAdon or Adonai (Gen 15:2)Compound (with El = God)Almighty GodEl Shaddai (Gen 17:1)Most High, or most high GodEl Elyon (Gen 14:18)everlasting GodEl Olam (Gen 21:33)Compound (with Jehovah = Lord)LORD GodJehovah Elohim (Gen 2:4)Lord GODAdonai Jehovah (Gen 15:2)LORD of hostsJehovah Sabaoth (1Sa 1:3)
The trinity is suggested by the three times repeated groups of threes. This is not an arbitrary arrangement, but inheres in the O.T. itself.
This revelation of God by His name is invariably made in connection with some particular need of His people, and there can be no need of man to which these names do not answer as showing that man’s true resource is in God. Even human failure and sin but evoke new and fuller revelations of the divine fulness.
(2) The O.T. Scriptures reveal the existence of a Supreme Being, the Creator of the universe and of man, the Source of all life and of all intelligence, who is to be worshipped and served by men and angels. This Supreme Being is One, but, in some sense not fully revealed in the O.T., is a unity in plurality. This is shown by the plural name, Elohim, by the use of the plural pronoun in the interrelation of deity as evidenced in Gen 1:26; Gen 3:22; Psa 110:1; Isa 6:8. That this plurality is really a Trinity is intimated in the three primary names of Deity, and in the threefold ascription of the Seraphim in Isa 6:3 That the interrelation of Deity is that of Father and Son is directly asserted; Psa 2:7; Heb 1:5 and the Spirit is distinctly recognized in His personality, and to Him are ascribed all the divine attributes (e.g.; Gen 1:2; Num 11:25; Num 24:2; Jdg 3:10; Jdg 6:34; Jdg 11:29; Jdg 13:25; Jdg 14:6; Jdg 14:19; Jdg 15:14; 2Sa 23:2; Job 26:13; Job 33:4; Psa 106:33; Psa 139:7; Isa 40:7; Isa 59:19; Isa 63:10. (See Scofield “Mal 2:15”).
(3) The future incarnation is intimated in the theophanies, or appearances of God in human form (e.g. Gen 18:1; Gen 18:13; Gen 18:17-22; Gen 32:24-30 and distinctly predicted in the promises connected with redemption (e.g. Gen 3:15 and with the Davidic Covenant Isa 7:13-14; Isa 9:6-7; Jer 23:5; Jer 23:6.
The revelation of Deity in the N.T. so illuminates that of the O.T. that the latter is seen to be, from Genesis to Malachi, the foreshadowing of the coming incarnation of God in Jesus the Christ. In promise, covenant, type, and prophecy the O.T. points forward to Him.
(4) The revelation of God to man is one of authority and redemption. He requires righteousness from man, but saves the unrighteous through sacrifice; and in His redemptive dealings with man all the divine persons and attributes are brought into manifestation. The O.T. reveals the justice of God equally with His mercy, but never in opposition to His mercy. The flood, e.g., was an unspeakable mercy to unborn generations. From Genesis to Malachi He is revealed as the seeking God who has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, and who heaps up before the sinner every possible motive to persuade to faith and obedience.
(5) In the experience of the O.T. men of faith their God inspires reverence but never slavish fear; and they exhaust the resources of language to express their love and adoration in view of His loving-kindness and tender mercy. This adoring love of His saints is the triumphant answer to those who pretend to find the O.T. revelation of God cruel and repellent. It is in harmony, not contrast, with the N.T. revelation of God in Christ.
(6) Those passages which attribute to God bodily parts and human emotions (e.g. Exo 33:11; Exo 33:20; Deu 29:20; 2Ch 16:9; Gen 6:6; Gen 6:7; Jer 15:6) are metaphorical and mean that in the infinite being of God exists that which answers to these things–eyes, a hand, feet, etc.; and the jealousy and anger attributed to Him are the emotions of perfect Love in view of the havoc of sin.
(7) In the O.T. revelation there is a true sense in which, wholly apart from sin or infirmity, God is like His creature man Gen 1:27 and the supreme and perfect revelation of God, toward which the O.T. points, is a revelation in and through a perfect Man.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
the day: Mal 4:5, Mal 3:2, Eze 7:10, Joe 2:1, Joe 2:31, Zep 1:14, Zec 14:1, Luk 19:43, Luk 21:20, 2Pe 3:7
shall burn: Psa 21:9, Psa 21:10, Nah 1:5, Nah 1:6, Zep 1:18, Mat 3:12, 2Th 1:8
and all the: Mal 3:15, Mal 3:18, Exo 15:7, Psa 119:119, Isa 2:12-17, Isa 5:24, Isa 40:24, Isa 41:2, Isa 47:14, Oba 1:18, Nah 1:10
that it: Job 18:16, Amo 2:9
Reciprocal: Deu 32:22 – For a fire 2Sa 22:39 – General 2Sa 22:43 – as small 2Ki 10:17 – he slew Job 40:11 – behold Psa 50:3 – a fire Psa 83:14 – As the fire Psa 92:7 – workers Psa 97:3 – General Psa 119:21 – rebuked Ecc 2:13 – I saw Isa 1:31 – and they Isa 2:11 – lofty Isa 4:4 – by the spirit Isa 9:9 – in the pride Isa 9:18 – wickedness Isa 10:17 – for a flame Isa 13:9 – cruel Isa 23:9 – to stain Isa 24:6 – hath Isa 26:11 – fire Isa 28:18 – trodden down by it Isa 31:9 – whose fire Isa 43:2 – when thou walkest Isa 61:2 – and Jer 7:20 – Behold Jer 30:7 – for Jer 30:15 – thy sorrow Lam 2:3 – he burned Eze 12:23 – The days Eze 15:4 – the fire Eze 20:38 – I will purge Eze 21:32 – for fuel Eze 22:15 – consume Eze 24:11 – that the filthiness Dan 11:7 – out of Dan 11:35 – to try Hos 9:16 – their root Hos 11:6 – consume Amo 5:18 – the day of the Lord is Amo 9:10 – the sinners Zep 1:7 – for the day Zep 2:2 – before the fierce Zec 13:8 – two Mat 3:10 – now Mat 13:30 – burn Mat 21:41 – He will Mat 24:21 – General Luk 12:49 – come Luk 17:24 – in Luk 21:22 – all Act 2:19 – General Act 13:40 – Beware 1Th 2:16 – for Heb 6:8 – whose Heb 10:27 – fiery
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
The day when the Lord of hosts makes up His jewels will be a day of discrimination, and therefore of judgment as well as blessing. This comes clearly to light as we commence to read the last chapter of this short prophecy. The earth is of course in view, and when judgment does arrive it will be final and complete. Neither root nor branch will be left as far as the wicked are concerned. The Sun of righteousness will arise to exterminate the wicked, while He will bring healing and full blessing to those who fear His name.
In the Old Testament the Lord Jesus – the coming One – has been presented under a variety of beautiful figures; this closing figure comes home to us all, we trust, with singular force. He who has read through the 39 books, up to this point, has certainly surveyed a very dark scene with here and there little patches of light. We now close with the promise of God’s resplendent day, introduced by the rising of the ‘Sun’, in whom all true light is concentrated, and who is specially to be the display of, and the enforcer of, righteousness in perfection. In a world ruined by sin everything is wrong: hence if an order of things is to be established according to God, the first consideration must be what is right. This is seen even in the Gospel that we preach today, as expounded in the epistle of the Romans. Paul was not ashamed of the Gospel since it is the power of God unto salvation; and it is that because in it righteousness of God is proclaimed, and made available by faith for sinners such as we were. Behind the righteousness lies of course the love of God, but that is not actually mentioned in the epistle until we reach Rom 5:1-21.
If righteousness be fully established it must mean the elimination of all that is wrong. Hence the beams of that glorious ‘Sun’ will burn like an oven destroying the ungodly, while bringing healing and fertility to those who fear God.
How different is the final presentation of the Lord Jesus in the New Testament, where He comes before us as the bright, Morning Star, which is the harbinger of the coming day. No thought of judgment enters here for, as the Lord Jesus Himself says, He sent His angel ‘to testify unto you these things in the churches’. For only those who are in ‘the churches’, have the knowledge of Him, who is the ‘Morning Star’, and who are on the look-out for Him, while the world is still in darkness before the rising of the ‘Sun’. When the Morning Star appears, there will be the first sign of the rising of the Sun of righteousness, and the coming of the day of the Lord; for there will be the ‘rapture’, or snatching away of saints, both dead and living, to present them before the Father in their heavenly home.
We now have to call attention to verse Mal 4:4 of our chapter. It might strike us at first as a rather extraordinary command to be interjected at this very late hour in Israel’s history, about a thousand years after the law was given through Moses. But enshrined in it we see two important principles. First, the law was given for ‘all Israel’ and it was given ‘with the statutes and judgments’. The people in the land, to whom specially Malachi wrote, were comparatively few and in surroundings very different from the days of Moses, or even the days of David and Solomon, but if a man was an Israelite the whole law, in all its details was still binding upon him, and to be obeyed.
And in the second place, not only was it a case of all the law for every Israelite, wherever he might be, but it was also a case of all the time. The fact that many centuries had passed made no difference. In Malachi’s day some Israelite might have been saying to himself – But circumstances are so different today; surely a lot of these minor details of the law are not so binding as at the beginning. Here then was the necessary word for one, such as that.
Exactly the same tendency confronts us today. As an instance of what we mean, take Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians, written at the outset of our dispensation, nine. teen centuries ago. There was much disorder among the Corinthian Christians, so the Apostle was inspired to lay down the order that should prevail amongst them both in their individual lives, and in their functions as members of the body of Christ, which is the church. In 1Co 14:1-40 he lays down the Divine administration for their assembly meetings, and concludes by calling upon them to recognize that the directions he gives are ‘the commandments of the Lord’. Are any of us tempted to say, or even to think, – Yes, but the changes that have supervened during these many centuries are far greater than at any other period of the world’s history, surely we are hardly bound to these small details of assembly life and practice. If we are so tempted let us consider this verse.
It is happily true that we, ‘are not under the law, but under grace’ (Rom 6:14), and yet we are furnished with many commandments. The commandments of the law were given, that by keeping them men might establish their righteousness before God. This they never did. Grace brings salvation to us who believe, and then teaches us to live sober, righteous and godly lives, as is stated in Tit 2:11, Tit 2:12, and then issues commandments, to guide us in so doing. But commandments they are, and not to be brushed aside while the dispensation lasts.
What we have indicated is further supported by the closing chapter of the New Testament. We have already noticed how Rev 22:1-21 ends with the ‘Morning Star’, rather than the ‘Sun of righteousness’, and now we notice that it closes also with a strong assertion of the sacred integrity of the Word of God. No man is to add to, or take away from, its words. This has doubtless special reference to the Revelation, but coming at the close of the New Testament, we believe it has reference to the whole New Testament revelation, in a secondary way, just as the verse we have been considering applies to the whole Old Testament revelation.
In these closing words the minds of the people were not only carried back to Moses, but also onward to Elijah, as we see in verse 5. Through Moses the law had been given. By Elijah the ten tribes had been recalled to God and His law, in days when they were almost swamped by the worship of Baal. Before the coming of the predicted day of the Lord an ‘Elijah’ is to appear. We may remember that when John the Baptist was asked if he were Elijah, he answered, No. Yet he came in the spirit and power of Elijah, so that in regard to the first coming our Lord could say, ‘If ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come’ (Mat 11:14).
But the first coming of our Lord was the introduction of the day of grace. It is His second coming in power and glory that will introduce ‘the great and dreadful day of the Lord’. Hence, we judge, this prediction in its fulness must still await its fulfilment. In Rev 11:3-6, we read of ‘two witnesses’, marked by features in their testimony, reminiscent of Moses and Elijah, and these precede the second coming of the Lord. We may connect the Elijah of our verse with one of these. What we can say with assurance is that God ever raises up adequate witness, and gives adequate warning, before He acts in judgment.
What is stated in the last verse may seem rather obscure, but if we read Luk 1:17, the bearing of it is plain. The ‘disobedient’ will be turned to ‘the wisdom of the just’, and thus a people prepared for the Lord. Thus a godly remnant will be found, otherwise the whole earth would be smitten with a curse.
The Old Testament is the history of man under the law: hence its last word is, ‘curse’. The New Testament is the story of the appearing of God’s grace: hence the last word is, ‘The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with all the saints’ (New Trans.). How happy are we to live in a day when grace is on the throne, reigning through righteousness!
Fuente: F. B. Hole’s Old and New Testaments Commentary
Mal 4:1. The preposition for is used to connect the present passage with the one immediately preceding it in chapter 3: 18, The strictness of the Gospe l in its requirements as to the Citizens of the new kingdom is the subject. (See Act 17:30 and 1Pe 4:17-18.) We also recal1 the many instances where Christ showed the contrast between the old and the new, He would refer to certain liberties that bad been tolerated in “old time” and then say “but I say unto you,” etc. This strictness of the new law is figuratively referred to as an oven fOr burning refuse. Leave them neither root nor branch refers to the complete condemnation and rejection of the ways of stn that was to be manifested by Christians.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Mal 4:1. For behold the day cometh Though it may appear to be at a distance from you, yet it is coming, and will soon overtake and overwhelm you: even that great and terrible day of the Lord, as it is called Joe 2:31. That shall burn as an oven God is described as a consuming fire, when he comes to execute his judgments, Deu 4:24, and the prediction here was remarkably verified when, upon the taking of the city and temple of Jerusalem, by the Roman army under Titus, they were both destroyed by such flames as no human power could quench. The refiners fire, mentioned Mal 3:2, now became unspeakably more dreadful, raging everywhere through the city and temple, and most fiercely where the arched roofs made it double itself and infold flames within flames: by which terrible destruction, and the judgments accompanying it, an end was put to the whole state of the Jews: an awful image this of the conflagration of the heavens and the earth, and the final judgment of the last day on the whole human race. And all the proud Such especially as those spoken of Mal 3:15. And all that do wickedly All impenitent sinners, of whatever kind, whether heathen, Jews, or Christians, so called, even all that do not obey the truth, whether manifested by Gods works or his word, but obey unrighteousness, shall be as stubble Shall perish by these awful judgments. And the day that cometh shall burn them up Shall totally and speedily consume them. It shall leave them neither root nor branch A proverbial expression for utter destruction, and signifying, as applied to the unbelieving Jews, that both they and their families should be utterly destroyed.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Mal 4:1. Behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven. The anger of God against the jews for crucifying the Lord of glory, and persecuting his saints. The sin of rejecting the remedy is more than the disease.
It shall burn them upit shall leave them neither root nor branch. It shall make an utter end of all the nobles that condemned the Saviour, and cut off all their infant offspring during the tremendous siege. Surely there is with God a day of retribution for the crimes of men; surely there is a day of redress for a bleeding church, and for suffering saints.
Mal 4:2. Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings. While the destruction of the jewish nation, and finally of all the impenitent, is foretold in the most terrific language, and the whole earth threatened with a general conflagration, mercy looks with a tender eye upon the righteous, provides for them an asylum when the storm descends, and calms their fears with the brightest hopes of immortality. The sacred scriptures delight in this sort of contrasted grandeur, where all that is appalling and all that is cheering and delightful commingle in the same sentence. When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not his gospel, he shall at the same time be glorified in his saints and admired in all them that believe. So when it is here foretold by the prophet that storms of vengeance would desolate Judea, and extinguish all their national glory, it is promised to the lowly and tender-hearted, who fear the name of the Lord, that the Sun of righteousness should arise and shed upon them his morning beams, should chase away the long and dreary night, and cheer them with the brightness of the long-expected day. How strikingly was this exemplified in the case of Simeon and Anna, of Zachariah and Elizabeth, and as many as were waiting for the consolation of Israel; and what a glow of holy feeling did the first intimations of the Saviours advent create in their bosoms, when they burst into a song of praise, that the day-spring from on high had visited them, to give light to them that sat in darkness, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.
Mal 4:5. Behold, I send you Elijah the prophet. John the baptist, as the gospel indicates, coming in the spirit and power of Elijah, whose ministry shall produce a great reformation. But as Elijah was promised, chap. 3. l, why should it be repeated here? And why after Jerusalem is burned, and Christ the sun risen on the earth? Some doctors of great name in the ancient church, think, as some rabbins, that Elijah is yet to be expected in person to effectuate the conversion of the jews to Christ; for at present, the fathers among them seem as though they would kill their children, and the children as though they would kill their parents for believing in Christ.
Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. The coming of Christ is generally described by the prophets as an event that would excite the greatest joy, and fill the whole creation with songs of praise. Psa 96:11; Psa 96:13. Yet here it is called the great and terrible day of the Lord. Isaiah, when personating the Saviour, gives also a twofold character to his advent. The day of vengeance is in my heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. The same event which afforded joy to those who received the Saviour, brought destruction upon those who received him not. The rejection of him and his crucifixion by the unbelieving jews brought such tribulation upon them as had not been since the beginning of the world, in the awful destruction of their city and temple by the Romans. That was the day more immediately referred to in Mal 4:1, which should burn as an oven, when all the proud, and all that do wickedly, would be as stuble to be burned up, without leaving either root or branch, though this awful threatening will receive its full accomplishment in the last day.
Mal 4:6. He shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and of the children to their fathers. Sin has not only made a breach betwixt God and man, but has also separated chief friends, and filled the earth with strife and violence. So baneful are its effects that it turns the tide of natural affection out of its usual course, and alienates even the hearts of parents and children from each other. In addition to its ordinary operation upon society, it appears from well-authenticated history that the jewish people especially were encreasing in crime, from the days of Malachi to the coming of Christ. Having been brought under the authority of the Roman government, one part attached themselves to the interests of their foreign rulers, for the sake of some private advantage, and accepted offices of emolument under them, which rendered such mercenaries sufficiently odious to their countrymen. Some enlisted themselves in the Roman army, and treated their brethren with violence and outrage, as is plainly intimated by the admonitions of John the baptist. Luk 3:14. Others became publicans, or farmers of the public taxes, coperating with the government in a system of oppression. A spirit of selfishness pervaded all ranks and orders of men, prompting one party to acts of injustice, and exciting in another feelings of discontent and of bitter antipathy. In addition to this, the jewish community were divided into religious sects and parties, hearing the most inveterate hatred to each other, while they were as much opposed to truth and righteousness as they could be to one another.
Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. The ministry of John the baptist, it is here foretold, would have a conciliatory tendency, turning mens hearts to each other, and so averting the curse suspended over that sinful people. This effect however was not produced by merely attempting to effect an outward reformation among the people, but by first bringing them to true repentance, to a state of reconciliation with God through the mediator, and so to peace and harmony among themselves. Johns ministry is described by an evangelist as turning the hearts of the fathers to the children by turning the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, and thus making ready a people prepared for the Lord. His errand was to call sinners to repentance, and to faith in Him whose harbinger he was; and wherever this effect was produced a new bond of union existed, and former antipathies were forgotten. Those who repented and believed the gospel were as the salt of the land, and it seems to have been for their sakes that its punishment was deferred till forty years after they had crucified the Lord of glory. When God had taken out a people from among them, the remnant grew worse and worse, till at last the curse overtook them. Having killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, they filled up the measure of their iniquity, by persecuting the followers of Christ with unmitigable rage and fury, until the great and terrible day of the Lord came, and utterly destroyed them as a nation. From that time the land of Judea has been smitten with a curse, and under the curse it continues to this day, an awful proof of the truth of prophecy, and a lasting warning to the enemies of Christ.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Mal 3:13 to Mal 4:3. The Final Triumph of Righteousness.The prophet here returns to the complaint of those who thought that religion did not pay (with Mal 3:14; cf. Mal 2:17). They had kept Gods charge, faithfully observing their religious duties, and even wearing the sackcloth and ashes which marked humiliation and penance. Yet it is the arrogant and lax members of the community (cf. Psa 119:21; Psa 119:51, etc.) that do well; they challenge Gods judgment by their evil-doing, yet it does not fall upon them. Such were the words of pious Jews in Malachis day (the first word of Mal 3:16 should be thus or these things (LXX) instead of then), and Yahweh, ever mindful of His people, prepared a record (cf. the custom referred to in Est 6:1 f.) so that He may not fail to do them justice when the hour strikes. In the day of His action (the day on which I do or act) they, the true Israel, will be His peculium or special private possession, and while the sons who have been rebellious and disloyal are punished, those who have been faithful in service will be protected. Men will return and discern (i.e. they will once more, as in the good old times, see) virtue rewarded and vice punished; the moral distinctions will no longer be obliterated or blurred. Indeed, the arrogant and wicked will be totally destroyed like a prairie or a forest on fire. But the righteousness of the God-fearers (or of God Himself) will shine forth conspicuous to all, like the sun, and in its beneficent rays all their affliction will be healed. We may note that the Babylonian Shamash, the sun-god, was conceived of as the god of justice, and that Assyrian, Persian, and Egyptian monuments represent the solar disc with wings issuing on either side, his (Mal 4:2) is simply the archaic form of its; Malachi is not definitely predicting Christ, or indeed any personal agent. Exulting in their vindication, the godly will be as vigorous and joyful as young calves turned out from the dark stall to the sunny meadow. Alongside this picture is the grimmer one of the fate of the wicked (cf. Isa 66:24).
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
4:1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall {a} burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
(a) He prophesies of God’s judgments against the wicked, who would not receive Christ, when God would send him for the restoration of his Church.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The Lord now elaborated on the day to which He had just referred (Mal 3:17). There is no chapter division in the Hebrew Bible; all of chapter 4 appears as the end of chapter 3. This day of the Lord would be a day of judgment. The Lord compared it to a fiery furnace in which all the arrogant and every evildoer (a hendiadys meaning every arrogant evildoer) would burn like chaff (or stubble; cf. Mal 3:2-3; Mal 3:15). Fire language is common in connection with divine judgment and anger (e.g., Gen 19:24-28; Psa 2:12; Psa 89:46; Isa 30:27; Jer 4:4; Jer 21:12; Amo 1:4; Amo 1:7; Amo 1:10; Amo 1:12; Amo 1:14; Amo 2:2; Amo 2:5). That day would set them ablaze in that the Lord would set them ablaze in that day. He would so thoroughly purge them that they would be entirely consumed, like a shrub thrown into a hot fire is totally burned up, from root to branch (a merism of totality). The judgment of wicked unbelievers is in view (cf. Mat 25:46). Later revelation clarified the time of this judgment, namely, the end of the Millennium (Rev 20:11-15). Because God would deal with the unsaved wicked so severely, His people needed to repent remembering that He will deal with all sinners severely.
"This verse gives no basis for the error of annihilationism. It describes physical death, not the state of the soul after death. The unsaved are in conscious eternal woe (Rev 14:10-11; Rev 20:11-15), as the saved are in conscious eternal bliss (Rev 21:1-7)." [Note: The New Scofield Reference Bible, p. 982.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
4; Mal 2:1-17; Mal 3:1-18; Mal 4:1-6
PROPHECY WITHIN THE LAW
“MALACHI” 1-4
BENEATH this title we may gather all the eight sections of the Book of “Malachi.” They contain many things of perennial interest and validity: their truth is applicable, their music is still musical, to ourselves. But their chief significance is historical. They illustrate the development of prophecy within the Law. Not under the Law, be it observed. For if one thing be more clear than another about “Malachis” teaching, it is that the spirit of prophecy is not yet crushed by the legalism which finally killed it within Israel. “Malachi” observes and enforces the demands of the Deuteronomic law under which his people had lived since the Return from Exile. But he traces each of these to some spiritual principle, to some essential of religion in the character of Israels God, which is either doubted or neglected by his contemporaries in their lax performance of the Law. That is why we may entitle his book Prophecy within the Law, The essential principles of the religion of Israel which had been shaken or obscured by the delinquency of the people during the half-century after the rebuilding of the Temple were three-the distinctive Love of Jehovah for His people, His Holiness, and His Righteousness. The Book of “Malachi” takes up each of these in turn, and proves or enforces it according as the people have formally doubted it or in their carelessness done it despite.