Malachi 4

Mal 4:1-6.

GOD'S

COMING

JUDGMENT:

TRIUMPH OF THE

GODLY:

RETURN TO THE LAW

THE

BEST

PREPARATION FOR

JEHOVAH'S

COMING:

ELIJAH'S

PREPARATORY

MISSION OF

REFORMATION.

1. the day cometh . . . burn--

(Mal 3:2;

2Pe 3:7).

Primarily is meant the judgment coming on Jerusalem; but as this will

not exhaust the meaning, without supposing what is inadmissible in

Scripture--exaggeration--the final and full accomplishment, of which

the former was the earnest, is the day of general judgment. This

principle of interpretation is not double, but successive

fulfilment. The language is abrupt, "Behold, the day cometh! It

burns like a furnace." The abruptness imparts terrible reality to the

picture, as if it suddenly burst on the prophet's view.

all the proud--in opposition to the cavil above

(Mal 3:15),

"now we call the proud (haughty despisers of God) happy."

stubble--

(Ob 18;

Mt 3:12).

As Canaan, the inheritance of the Israelites, was prepared for their

possession by purging out the heathen, so judgment on the apostates

shall usher in the entrance of the saints upon the Lord's inheritance,

of which Canaan is the type--not heaven, but earth to its utmost bounds

(Ps 2:8)

purged of all things that offend

(Mt 13:41),

which are to be "gathered out of His kingdom," the scene of the

judgment being that also of the kingdom. The present dispensation is a

spiritual kingdom, parenthetical between the Jews' literal kingdom and

its antitype, the coming literal kingdom of the Lord Jesus.

neither root nor branch--proverbial for utter destruction

(Am 2:9).

2. The effect of the judgment on the righteous, as contrasted with

its effect on the wicked

(Mal 4:1).

To the wicked it shall be as an oven that consumes the stubble

(Mt 6:30);

to the righteous it shall be the advent of the gladdening Sun, not of

condemnation, but "of righteousness"; not destroying, but "healing"

(Jer 23:6).

you that fear my name--The same as those in

Mal 3:16,

who confessed God amidst abounding blasphemy

(Isa 66:5;

Mt 10:32).

The spiritual blessings brought by Him are summed up in the two,

"righteousness"

(1Co 1:30)

and spiritual "healing"

(Ps 103:3;

Isa 57:19).

Those who walk in the dark now may take comfort in the certainty that

they shall walk hereafter in eternal light

(Isa 50:10).

in his wings--implying the winged swiftness with which He shall

appear (compare "suddenly,"

Mal 3:1)

for the relief of His people. The beams of the Sun are His

"wings." Compare "wings of the morning,"

Ps 139:9.

The "Sun" gladdening the righteous is suggested by the previous "day"

of terror consuming the wicked. Compare as to Christ,

2Sa 23:4;

Ps 84:11;

Lu 1:78;

Joh 1:9; 8:12;

Eph 5:14;

and in His second coming,

2Pe 1:19.

The Church is the moon reflecting His light

(Re 12:1).

The righteous shall by His righteousness "shine as the Sun in the

kingdom of the Father"

(Mt 13:43).

ye shall go forth--from the straits in which you were, as it were,

held captive. An earnest of this was given in the escape of the

Christians to Pella before the destruction of Jerusalem.

grow up--rather, "leap" as frisking calves

[CALVIN]; literally,

"spread," "take a wide range."

as calves of the stall--which when set free from the stall disport

with joy

(Ac 8:8; 13:52; 20:24;

Ro 14:17;

Ga 5:22;

Php 1:4;

1Pe 1:8).

Especially the godly shall rejoice at their final deliverance at

Christ's second coming

(Isa 61:10).

3. Solving the difficulty

(Mal 3:15)

that the wicked often now prosper. Their prosperity and the adversity

of the godly shall soon be reversed. Yea, the righteous shall be the

army attending Christ in His final destruction of the ungodly

(2Sa 22:43;

Ps 49:14; 47:3;

Mic 7:10;

Zec 10:5;

1Co 6:2;

Re 2:26, 27; 19:14, 15).

ashes--after having been burnt with the fire of judgment

(Mal 4:1).

4. Remember . . . law--"The law and all the prophets"

were to be in force until John

(Mt 11:13),

no prophet intervening after Malachi; therefore they are told,

"Remember the law," for in the absence of living prophets, they were

likely to forget it. The office of Christ's forerunner was to bring

them back to the law, which they had too much forgotten, and so "to

make ready a people prepared for the Lord" at His coming

(Lu 1:17).

God withheld prophets for a time that men might seek after Christ with

the greater desire [CALVIN]. The history of human

advancement is marked by periods of rest, and again progress. So in

Revelation: it is given for a time; then during its suspension men live

on the memories of the past. After Malachi there was a silence of four

hundred years; then a harbinger of light in the wilderness, ushering in

the brightest of all the lights that had been manifested, but

short-lived; then eighteen centuries during which we have been guided

been longer than before, and will be succeeded by a more glorious and

awful revelation than ever. John the Baptist was to "restore" the

defaced image of "the law," so that the original might be recognized

when it appeared among men [HINDS]. Just as

"Moses" and "Elias" are here connected with the Lord's coming, so at

the transfiguration they converse with Him, implying that the law and

prophets which had prepared His way were now fulfilled in Him.

statutes . . . judgments--ceremonial "statutes": "judgments" in

civil questions at issue. "The law" refers to morals and religion.

5. I send you Elijah--as a means towards your "remembering the law"

(Mal 4:4).

the prophet--emphatical; not "the Tishbite"; for it is in his official,

not his personal capacity, that his coming is here predicted. In this

sense, John the Baptist was an Elijah in spirit

(Lu 1:16, 17),

but not the literal Elijah; whence when asked, "Art thou Elias?"

(Joh 1:21),

He answered, "I am not." "Art thou that prophet?" "No." This implies

that John, though knowing from the angel's announcement to his father

that he was referred to by

Mal 4:5

(Lu 1:17),

whence he wore the costume of Elijah, yet knew by inspiration that he

did not exhaustively fulfil all that is included in this

prophecy: that there is a further fulfilment (compare Note, see

on

Mal 3:1).

As Moses in

Mal 4:4

represents the law, so Elijah represents the prophets. The Jews always

understood it of the literal Elijah. Their saying is, "Messiah must be

anointed by Elijah." As there is another consummating advent of Messiah

Himself, so also of His forerunner Elijah; perhaps in person, as at the

transfiguration

(Mt 17:3;

compare

Mt 17:11).

He in his appearance at the transfiguration in that body on which death

had never passed is the forerunner of the saints who shall be found

alive at the Lord's second coming.

Re 11:3

may refer to the same witnesses as at the transfiguration, Moses and

Elijah;

Re 11:6

identifies the latter (compare

1Ki 17:1;

Jas 5:17).

Even after the transfiguration Jesus

(Mt 17:11)

speaks of Elijah's coming "to restore all things" as still future,

though He adds that Elijah (in the person of John the Baptist) is come

already in a sense (compare

Ac 3:21).

However, the future forerunner of Messiah at His second coming may be a

prophet or number of prophets clothed with Elijah's power, who, with

zealous upholders of "the law" clothed in the spirit of "Moses," may be

the forerunning witnesses alluded to here and in

Re 11:2-12.

The words "before the . . . dreadful day of the Lord,"

show that John cannot be exclusively meant; for he came before the day

of Christ's coming in grace, not before His coming in terror, of which

last the destruction of Jerusalem was the earnest

(Mal 4:1;

Joe 2:31).

6. turn . . . heart of . . . fathers to . . . children, &c.--Explained

Lu 1:16, 17

substitutes for "the heart of the children to the fathers," "the

disobedient to the wisdom of the just," implying that the

reconciliation to be effected was that between the unbelieving

disobedient children and the believing ancestors, Jacob, Levi, "Moses,"

and "Elijah" (just mentioned) (compare

Mal 1:2; 2:4, 6; 3:3, 4).

The threat here is that, if this restoration were not effected,

Messiah's coming would prove "a curse" to the "earth," not a blessing.

It proved so to guilty Jerusalem and the "earth," that is, the

land of Judea when it rejected Messiah at His first advent,

though He brought blessings

(Ge 12:3)

to those who accepted Him

(Joh 1:11-13).

Many were delivered from the common destruction of the nation through

John's preaching

(Ro 9:29; 11:5).

It will prove so to the disobedient at His second advent, though He

comes to be glorified in His saints

(2Th 1:6-10).

curse--Hebrew, Cherem, "a ban"; the fearful term applied by the

Jews to the extermination of the guilty Canaanites. Under this ban Judea

has long lain. Similar is the awful curse on all of Gentile churches who

love not the Lord Jesus now

(1Co 16:22).

For if God spare not the natural branches, the Jews, much less will He

spare unbelieving professors of the Gentiles

(Ro 11:20, 21).

It is deeply suggestive that the last utterance from heaven for four

hundred years before Messiah was the awful word "curse." Messiah's

first word on the mount was "Blessed"

(Mt 5:3).

The law speaks wrath; the Gospel, blessing. Judea is now under the

"curse" because it rejects Messiah; when the spirit of Elijah, or a

literal Elijah, shall bring the Jewish children back to the Hope of

their "fathers," blessing shall be theirs, whereas the apostate "earth"

shall be "smitten with the curse" previous to the coming restoration of

all things

(Zec 12:13, 14).

May the writer of this Commentary and his readers have grace "to take

heed to the sure word of prophecy as unto a light shining in a dark

place, until the day dawn!" To the triune Jehovah be all glory ascribed

for ever!

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