Mining the Minors: Malachi (6)

As we noted last week, the last half of chapter 2 has been Malachi speaking on God’s behalf. As we move into chapter 3, God will return to directly addressing the nation in the first person. Prior to that, we receive a remarkable look into the future announcing the coming of both John the Baptist and the Word made flesh.

“Where is the God of justice?” the people have been asking. God is in the process of providing his answer: “Behold, he is coming.” The manger in Bethlehem might still be 400 years away, yet “the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness”.

First, the fourth of God’s five complaints against Judah and its priests.

2/ Five Complaints (continued)

Malachi 2:17 — Pitiable Platitudes

“You have wearied the Lord with your words. But you say, ‘How have we wearied him?’ By saying, ‘Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.’ Or by asking, ‘Where is the God of justice?’ ”

A Common Thread

The thread of commonality between these two comments about God is the tendency to draw conclusions about his preferences and purposes from circumstances rather than from God’s revealed character, his track record and his promises.

This faithlessness manifests in one of two ways. Firstly, if wicked men appear to do well, the obvious conclusion is that they cannot be truly wicked, because clearly they have God’s favor. Secondly, any lack of immediate justice meted out against evildoers may lead men to conclude that God is absent or uninterested.

Both conclusions are wrong, but the tendency to leap to them in troubled times is remarkably common. As Peter points out, it is a feature of unbelief. “Where is the promise of his coming?” ask the scoffers of the last days, as if God is a performer with an obligation to appear onstage for us when we clap for an encore.

The Weariness of Inversion

Like Israel, we may weary the Lord with words. The tendency to call evil good and good evil is as prevalent today as in 400 BC; it’s just picked up a catchy new name: inversion. So tolerating evil becomes a “Christian obligation” rather than a sin that allows false teachers to run rampant, murdering children becomes a “sacrament”, sexual perversion is an act of love as valid as marriage, taking and promoting untested vaccines is “loving your neighbor”, and so on. All these are direct inversions of the truth. Scripture anticipates this sort of upside-down morality, and the prophets called it out in Israel thousands of years ago.

Those who actually read scripture will find that God has answered all the questions we might have about him repeatedly. Unbelief simply refuses to acknowledge any answer it doesn’t like.

Malachi 3:1-5 — Interlude: Warning of Judgment

“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.

Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.”

Two Messengers

We have two messengers referenced in these five verses, the Hebrew word for “messenger” being the root word from which we get Malachi’s name. Given the Hebrew penchant for wordplay, it’s hard to see the references to “messenger” in this passage as anything other than a deliberate way of drawing attention to these two parties. These verses may be the most important of Malachi’s prophecy. Readers of the New Testament will have no trouble identifying the two messengers to whom he refers.

First, there is “my messenger”, who will “prepare the way before me”. That is indisputably a nod to John the Baptist, but not the first one. Isaiah 40 contains a passage concerning a voice that cries, “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord.” Isaiah was centuries before Malachi, so the prophet is not saying anything unprecedented here: Messiah would have a forerunner. This is the first mention of John in Malachi, and he will reappear in the book’s final two verses more explicitly. The idea is that Messiah would have a man sent from God to announce him, as might any visiting royalty, and to ensure the people to whom the king of Israel came were forewarned of his coming.

Secondly, there is the mysterious “messenger of the covenant”, who seems to be identified with “the Lord whom you seek”. Furthermore, the first messenger is preparing “the way before me”. If it is indeed YHWH speaking, then our second messenger is both “the Lord” and “me”, and he is intimately associated with the covenant that has been the subject of Malachi’s prophecy, and which the people of Judah are guilty of corrupting and profaning by despising it and treating it as if it is of no consequence. Those who doubt the many assertions in scripture that Jesus of Nazareth was God made flesh are simply not reading carefully enough.

Seeking and Delighting

This second messenger is variously called “the Lord whom you seek” and “the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight”. Both expressions suggest the Jewish people both anticipated and longed for Messiah. How then was he overlooked when he appeared?

The New Testament shows us that while not all Israel longed for the qualities that Jesus brought to the fore when he appeared, large numbers of devout Jews did indeed get the picture. I have just been enjoying the early chapters of Luke, which make much of the anticipation of the devout.

We have Mary, who speaks of him helping “his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy”.

We have Zechariah, who speaks of him as “a horn of salvation for us”, repeatedly looking to Messiah as the one who would deliver Israel from all its enemies, and give light to all those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death”. The wording strongly indicates he saw Messiah as both national and spiritual deliverer of God’s people.

Next, we have Simeon, who calls the messenger of the covenant “your salvation that you have prepared … a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel”. Simeon goes beyond what Zechariah apprehended, making the messenger the salvation of the world.

Finally, there is Anna, who gave thanks for the Lord Jesus, and testified of him to “all that were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem”.

Thus, though he came to his own and his own esteemed him not, there was a strong current of “seeking” and “delight” in Israel that found ways to express itself upon recognizing their messenger had finally come.

Ominous Signs

We also have indications not all will be delightful about the messenger’s arrival. “Who can endure the day of his coming?” asks the prophet. “Who can stand when he appears?” To be refined and purified is a transformative exercise, one not easily or comfortably accomplished. He is the “refiner’s fire” and the “fuller’s soap”. All impurities and defilement must be rooted out. In preparing the way for Messiah, John the Baptist could only get the ball rolling, so to speak. He could perform a baptism of repentance, but he could never “purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver”. Refining metals involves fire and permanent reshaping in an image not of one’s own design. Many would not choose it voluntarily.

Perhaps some of our readers have had dealings with the Lord that transformed them. Those who have will know it is not an easy experience, but very much a necessary one. No man, however godly, could accomplish the purification of Israel’s priesthood. The messenger of the covenant, again, was the Word of God made flesh.

First and Second Comings

John, who came in the spirit and power of Elijah, accomplished his work in advance of our Lord’s first “coming”. Another “Elijah” awaits this world, as the Lord himself declared. In between the two Elijah’s, he says, “Elijah does come, and he will restore all things.” He adds, “But I tell you that Elijah has already come.” So then, we have it on good authority that Malachi’s prophecy has (at least) a double fulfillment, the first movement of which is already accomplished, and another which we await. As with so many other Old Testament prophecies, the two advents merge in ways that would have made it very difficult for first century Jews to prise them apart in their thinking. So then, we go right from John the Baptist preparing the way for the Lord Jesus to the second-advent purification of the Levites, so that “the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years”. It should be evident that the latter purification has yet to occur.

Immediately after the messenger of the covenant reinstitutes righteous sacrifice in Jerusalem, he will turn his attention to false Jews: the sorcerers, the adulterers, those who swear falsely, those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear God. Worship comes first; indeed, judgment begins with the house of God. But the restoration of the Levitical priesthood is only the beginning. All Israel will be refined and purified.

A little more on this in chapter 4.