Mining the Minors: Malachi (9)

New Testament quotations and allusions to Malachi are primarily (though not exclusively) related to the role of John the Baptist as the herald of Messiah who would make ready for the Lord “a people prepared”, tying together the two halves of our Bibles and bridging the 400-year revelation gap between the Testaments.

Let’s go through these in as close to chronological order as possible.

Mark Quoting Malachi Quoting Isaiah

We should probably reiterate that Old Testament predictions concerning the person and role of John did not originate with Malachi. Chapter 40 of Isaiah contains this prophetic statement:

“A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’ ”

So then, some three centuries prior to Malachi’s reference to John as “Elijah the prophet”, Isaiah led Israel to anticipate a forerunner for Messiah with the words “prepare the way of the Lord”, a voice crying in the wilderness. This explains Mark’s otherwise-obscure mention of Isaiah in 1:2, where he says, “As it is written in Isaiah the prophet” and promptly goes on to quote Malachi instead. This was not an error on Mark’s part: he’s quoting a passage from Malachi that, in turn, quotes Isaiah directly, ensuring we know Malachi’s “Elijah” is the same man of whom Isaiah wrote.

Malachi in the New Testament

1/ Gabriel interprets Malachi 4:5-6

Luke 1:16-17	Malachi 4:5-6
“And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”	“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”

Luke’s gospel gives us more about John the Baptist than any other, particularly the miraculous circumstances of his birth, and further prophecies about the forerunner made by his father Zechariah. Luke begins his gospel with the story of how the angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah, an aged, childless priest, while he was ministering in the temple by burning incense to the Lord. Gabriel promises Zechariah’s wife Elizabeth will shortly bear a son who will be the fulfillment of Malachi’s prophecy, turning many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. In doing so, he clarifies Malachi, who simply spoke of Messiah’s forerunner as “Elijah the prophet”, a reference some in Israel may have taken literally. Gabriel says John will go before the Lord “in the spirit and power of Elijah”. He was to be like the famous prophet, not Elijah’s reincarnation.

Elijah was pretty much the definitive Old Testament prophetic loner, spending much of his life on the run from Queen Jezebel in the northern kingdom. When people speak of “the prophetic voice”, they usually mean someone more like Elijah or Jonah than Jeremiah or Hosea, more fear-inducing than tearful. Gabriel said John would come in that same strident spirit, and so he did, addressing his audiences as a “brood of vipers” and warning them, “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

The matter of turning the father’s hearts to the children and vice versa is discussed in detail in last week’s Mining the Minors post.

2/ Zechariah alludes to Malachi 4:2

Luke 1:76-79	Malachi 4:2
“And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways … because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”	“But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.”

After John was born, neighbors and relatives gathered for his circumcision and naming. Both his mother and father insisted on calling him John in obedience to the angel’s command, and in defiance of tradition. Upon writing the words “His name is John”, Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and began to prophesy concerning the coming Messiah’s deliverance of Israel and also with regard to his miracle child. He saw John’s role as the first act in the tender mercy of God, who would illuminate those sitting in the shadow of death (Israel) with the “sunrise”. This is almost surely imagery he picked up from Malachi’s final few verses, concerning the “sun of righteousness” rising with healing in its wings. The healing of which Malachi spoke, Zechariah clarifies, was not primarily physical, but rather had to do with guiding the feet of Israel’s remnant “into the way of peace”. It was to be a spiritual healing, though Messiah healed many physically as well.

3/ Jesus quotes Malachi 3:1 and alludes to 4:5

Matthew 11:10-14	Mark 1:2-4	Luke 7:27-28	Malachi 3:1
“This is he of whom it is written, ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’ Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist ... For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.”	“As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,” ’ John appeared.”	“This is he of whom it is written, ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’ I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John.”	“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me.”

Matthew and Luke have the Lord Jesus quoting Malachi in almost exactly the same words, strongly suggesting a common source document from which both took material for their gospels. Mark introduces his gospel with the same quote, ascribing it to Isaiah as noted above. The purpose in all cases is to clearly identify John the Baptist as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy concerning Messiah’s forerunner, and therefore (and also of much greater importance) to identify the Lord Jesus as Messiah.

John the apostle gives us the Baptist’s sense of mission most clearly. He was not “the light”, merely a witness. He also denied being Elijah when asked. This was probably because his interrogators were literalists and pedants, and he understood his role was not to point to himself but to encourage others to “Behold the Lamb” and to testify that Jesus is the Son of God. He was denying being Elijah’s reincarnation, not denying being the fulfillment of the OT prophecies about the “Elijah” to come. Later, he compared himself to a “friend of the bridegroom” and the Lord Jesus to the bridegroom.

Matthew 17:10-13	Mark 9:11-13	Malachi 4:5-6
“And the disciples asked him, ‘Then why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come?’ He answered, ‘Elijah does come, and he will restore all things. But I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they pleased.’ … Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist.”	“And they asked him, ‘Why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come?’ And he said to them, ‘Elijah does come first to restore all things … But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him.”	“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”

There is a hint here, consistent with the familiar Bible device of multiple prophetic fulfillments, that yet another man is still to come in the spirit and power of Elijah prior to the day of the Lord. This is more explicit in Matthew than Mark. Matthew writes, “He [Elijah] will restore all things.” The future tense cannot possibly refer to the Baptist, who had already been beheaded by Herod. At that point, John was done restoring much of anything. Having ruled John out, this may be an allusion to one of the two witnesses in Jerusalem during the great tribulation period. In any case, the Lord confirms here that John successfully fulfilled his mission, and despite his denial of being literally Elijah, both Isaiah and Malachi prophesied of him. Well, at least he was one of those about whom they prophesied.

4/ Paul quotes Malachi 1:2-3

Romans 9:13	Malachi 1:2-3
“As it is written, ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.’ ”	“ ‘Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?’ declares the Lord. ‘Yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.’ ”

Finally, we have a single reference in Romans to a much-misunderstood quotation from Malachi often used to distort the Bible’s teaching about God’s sovereignty, making it about election to personal salvation or damnation. I have tried to clarify Paul’s intent in this post. As spelled out in the second post of this series, “Jacob” and “Esau” are not individuals here, but rather nations, and their “election” is to strategic purposes in God’s manipulation of human history, not to heaven or to the lake of fire.

This passage alone should suffice to put mistaken notions about sovereignty to bed. How did God’s relative hatred of “Esau” manifest itself? Not in damning Jacob’s brother, but in laying waste the hill country of his rebellious offspring thousands of years later.