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MALACHI 4:1-6
(Reading: Matthew 16:21-17:13; Zephaniah 1:7-2:3)
The Lord Re-Claims His Covenant!
Malachi brings his prophecy to quite some finale! In these six last verses there is packed the most amazing word pictures. There’s the furnace that burns up all the wicked, the release of the righteous like calves from their stalls, the trampling upon the ashes of the evil ones, the turning of the hearts of the fathers to their children – and vice versa! And yet it all comes back to what it has been about all along – the law and the prophets.
You see, this is above all about the covenant. When the Lord closes this human history, as we know it, to an end with the glorious return of his Son, this is what it’s about.
So let’s draw out not only some quite phenomenal imagery here but especially how much this is all about the Lord here. It is his Day!
From verse 1 we see this by noting, THERE IS CERTAINLY A COMING JUDGMENT DAY. This is the first aspect to our text.
“Surely…” the text begins. Other versions use the word ‘Behold!’ Malachi declared the Lord is coming back. And when he does that he will decisively deal with whoever opposed his plan. The imagery of consuming fire shows how extensive this will be.
It’s this imagery which connects the words here with what the Lord’s prophets had said before Malachi – and after. Joel 2:3 spoke of the devouring fire, Isaiah 30:27 of the consuming fire, and Zephaniah 3:8 of the whole world consumed by the fire of the Lord’s jealous anger. And there is much, much more. Right through to 2nd Thessalonians 1:7 with the Lord’s blazing fire, this is a constant scriptural picture.
So this Day of the Lord is nothing new. While individual prophets may have had aspects of their immediate context in mind, that Day was also a future and final day. There is always the teaching that the Lord would destroy the whole earth.
The down-side to this is quite clear. It is a down-side that many don’t like to hear. They argue that everyone is going to be saved!
They are universalists who promote the love of God over against the justice of God. So they say there won’t be any day of judgment apart from that general sense that every day we suffer the bad effects of our bad actions.
They will also claim that the major aspects of this day have already been fulfilled. They point, for example, to Acts 2:27 and the fulfilment of Joel’s words at Pentecost. And so they come up with excuses for getting rid of all future predictions of judgment from these prophecies. But the Scripture is clear, even as it describes the judgments that have happened. Because you ain’t seen anything yet! There’s going to be a judgment day that will tower over them all!
All the wicked, the proud, and every evil-doer will be lit up like dry stubble or chaff. They will be set ablaze in the “furnace” of God’s anger. As Psalm 21 verse 9 declares, “In his wrath the LORD will swallow them up, and his fire will consume them.”
Now, there is a lot of people’s imagination that has gone into what this punishment involves. Dante, Virgil, and Milton are responsible for a lot of error about what hell is and what it is like.
And while there are those who like to think that this means simply the annihilation of the wicked that doesn’t do justice to keeping alive all whom God has created. That’s why the permanent and eternal eviction from the presence of the Lord is the real substance in this. They will be forever in the place where God isn’t – believe me that is hell! In the words of 2nd Thessalonians 1, verse 9, “They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power…”
There, my friend, you can do whatever you want to. So can everyone else there! And that’s no freedom – that’s the worst nightmare!
THERE IS CERTAINLY A COMING JUDGMENT DAY. And then, in the verses 2 and 3, we note, THUS THERE IS COMING GOD’S FREEDOM DAY.
This is a second aspect to our text. It is an aspect which is the other side of the coin to the first aspect.
You see, for those who love the Lord and his Word, that day will bring the “sun of righteousness.” How much doesn’t that ring out Messianic sounds! He who in John 8:12 calls himself “the light of the world” is this “sun of righteousness.” Indeed, he who is called “the light of men” and “the light to the Gentiles” is exactly who is in mind here. Never mind if some have tried to explain this away. The context in Malachi 3:1 is clearly expecting the Messiah in the One who is “the messenger of the covenant.”
This is the One the priest Zechariah spoke of in Luke 1, the verses 76 till 79. There he says of his son, John the Baptist, “And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the LORD to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness, and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”
It’s quite some description! But then Christ Jesus is quite some person! He is the one who rises with healing in his wings. And what is this healing but his triumph, his vindication, and his restoration. The long winter of suffering for God’s own ends with Christ’s reviving, enlivening, and saving.
No wonder the early New Testament Church had that constant refrain upon their lips, ‘Maranatha,’ – “Come, O Lord!” How much weren’t they anticipating Christ’s second coming!
Verse 2 concludes expressing the freedom the saints have on that great Day. To say that “you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall” is to picture how much those animals look forward to enjoying the spring weather outside! The winter is over!
Further proof is provided in verse 3. There the prophet declares of God’s saints: “‘Then you will trample down the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I will do these things,’ says the LORD Almighty.’
You see, not only will the righteous be liberated from all oppression, they will also acquire power over the ungodly. They will, with the Lord, tread down the wicked. The wicked who then have become ashes because of the fire of the judgment.
This is the same as what another prophet had told of. As we read in Isaiah 25, the verses 5 and 6, “He humbled those who dwell on high, he lays the lofty city low; he levels it to the ground and casts it down to the dust. Feet trample it down – the feet of the oppressed, the footsteps of the poor.”
How much won’t the Lord be vindicated that day? It all turns out exactly his way!
And then verse 4 brings in another aspect relating to that coming Day. So it is we see, in the third place, HERE IS THE LAW PREPARING THAT DAY.
Malachi brings in the fact that to come out right on this great and coming Day you need to take to heart and observe the law. Don’t think that formalism or ritualistic legalism is going to be what helps you then. Rather this is about the real core of the law – its absolute focus on the holiness of God. This is what our Lord spoke of in Matthew 5 verse 17. There he declares, “Do not think I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them.”
So if you want to escape the curse with which the wicked are threatened with in the law; if you want to join in the salvation promised to those who love the Lord; you must “remember” the law. This was the law Moses delivered as the “servant” of the Lord. It is this law which, if it’s not fulfilled in the nation must be executed upon the nation.
Horeb is simply another name for Sinai. So this is the place Moses was given the law by the Lord God up on the mountain. It is this law that still continue to be valid in its moral parts today, even though the ceremonial aspects have been fulfilled in Christ.
So we must be careful to uphold the law until the Lord’s return. There is no distinction between law and grace in this regard. They have both been part of God’s dispensation for his people. As Paul said in Romans 3:31, “Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.”
Paul was most definitive! The Law is still very much alive! Indeed, it is by faith that we really come to treasure what the law is to us.
And one thing the Law does make us very much aware of is the curse that comes with it. This is the curse which only could be dealt with by Christ himself coming under the curse of the law. As we have heard from Galatians 3:13, Christ redeemed us from that curse by doing exactly that! “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree,” Deuteronomy 21:23 declares. And our Saviour was!
It is now we come to the link between verse 4 and the last two verses in Malachi. For, in order to avert this curse from Israel, the Lord would send the prophet Elijah before his coming. This was so that people would repent and so be ready for his coming.
In this way we come to the fourth aspect to the text. Thus we note, HERE IS THE PROPHET BRINGING THIS DAY.
Our text joins together two of the dominant lines within the Old Testament – the Law, as we’ve seen in verse 4, and the Prophets, which we see in the verses 5 and 6. And the way it ties in the prophets is through the promise we have already met in verse 1 of chapter 3. There is a link between Elijah the prophet and God’s messenger who will prepare the way before him.
In fact we find there are four links between Malachi 3, verse 1, and the verses 5 and 6 here in chapter 4.
There is, first of all, the opening expression. In the NIV both verses begin with “See…” Other versions have “Behold…”
Then there is, secondly, the participle, “I will send.” As a word formed from a verb and used as an adjective or noun it tells us of something more than just doing something.
In the third place we see that both speak of a mission to clear the way and to restore. There is implied here a turning to the Lord.
And then there is, fourthly, the coming of that messenger, followed by references to that great and dreadful day of the Lord. This places Malachi in a common pattern with the other prophets, as he predicts the fulfilment of the Lord’s words.
Why Elijah? Well, he is certainly regarded as the head of the prophetic order. All the other prophets followed him. Elijah had called down fire from heaven, he had witnessed the Lord’s wind, earthquake and fire at Horeb, and he had been taken from Elisha in a chariot of fire. He was also a man raised up at a very corrupt time in Israel’s history. The rejection of his words was followed by very sharp punishments of the Lord.
But Elijah’s spirit and power did not just stay with him. They were passed on to his successor, Elisha. So when John the Baptist came in the same line of prophets he too came, as Luke 1:17 says, “in the spirit and power of Elijah.” There is even a connection in the clothes John the Baptist wore, and where he conducted his ministry. Certainly what the angel Gabriel prophesied about him in Luke 1 and what Jesus confirmed about him in Matthew 17 makes the connection clear.
The various generations in Israel’s history also comes out in verse 6. When Malachi speaks of the hearts of the fathers turning to their children and the hearts of the children turning to their fathers this is no bridging of a present-day generation gap. Rather, the “fathers” here are the ancestors of the nation – the patriarchs and spiritual forefathers, such as David. The “children” are what Israel has become in the degenerates of Malachi’s time. They are those who are most definitely ungodly.
This is the gap that Elijah will fill up. This is the way the Lord will come to his people so that there will be blessing and not cursing.
And as the prophet Elijah predicted by Malachi appeared in John the Baptist so did the Lord came to his temple in the appearing of Jesus Christ. Don’t become distracted by those Christians who say that the first coming of Christ was only a provisional fulfilment of this. Don’t let those who say the great Day is yet to come sidetrack you here. The Day of the Lord, which they announce as the Day of Judgment, began with Christ’s first coming. Didn’t Jesus himself say he had come into the world to judge the world? In John 9:39 he couldn’t mean anything else!
It was this judgment that burst upon the Jewish nation soon after the ascension of Christ. Israel rejected its Saviour and so Jerusalem fell.
And it’s this judgment that continues wherever the gospel is proclaimed throughout this world. This is the judgment that will be consummated at Christ’s second coming.
So what a way to bring the prophecy of the Old Testament to an end? For there would be no further prophet now until John the Baptist himself came. And then the Lord came to his temple – Christ Jesus came to his own to make all who received him children of God.
We are directly tied here to the scene at the Mount of Transfiguration. There appeared Moses – the founder of the law and the mediator of the old covenant – and Elijah – the prophet who restored the law in Israel. They spoke with Jesus of what he was about to do in Jerusalem to testify to the apostles, and to us all.
And what is it they testify to? It can only be that Jesus Christ, who laid down his life for us, who bore our sin and so redeemed us from the curse of the law, is the beloved Son of the Father. He is the one of whom the Father declared from heaven in Matthew 17:5, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”
Please, don’t dare do anything else. Malachi ends with a curse for a reason! Don’t you suffer it! Amen.
PRAYER:
Let’s pray…
O Lord God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, how much don’t we thank and praise you for your gracious plan fulfilled in him! Our hearts have been humbled before you, and now we too can testify to the sun of our righteousness. Christ has set us free.
And, so, how much don’t we look to being with him and you and the Holy Spirit for all eternity in the perfect place! In his saving and ruling name, we pray, Amen.
* As a matter of courtesy please advise Rev. Sjirk Bajema, if you plan to use this sermon in a worship service. Thank-you.
(c) Copyright 2023, Rev. Sjirk Bajema
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