Bible Commentaries

The Coming of the Lord

Malachi 3:1

Here is a twofold prediction: we have a forerunner of Christ announced in it and then Christ Himself.

I. This tells us two things of this forerunner.

a. It points out his mission from God. Our Lord Himself refers to this passage, and says that it points to John the Baptist and the ministry of the Baptist

b. The work this forerunner was to perform. The very appointment of a messenger to precede Jesus, even in His Humiliation, was a foresight and evidence of Christ's royal dignity of his being King over His believing people.

II. We have in this passage two statements of Christ's Divinity:—

a. He is called the Lord. It is most important thus to observe the Divinity of Jesus, not only where it is directly but even where it is incidentally stated in Scripture, for the Deity of Christ supports the very substance of our religion.

b. The end of the verse tells us, it is the Lord of Hosts. The Lord Jesus and the Lord of hosts are one and the same. Thus constantly throughout Scripture we meet with this same truth of the Deity of Jesus.

III. He is also called—

a. "The messenger of the Covenant." The covenant is the gracious term used by Jehovah in regard to the promises which He makes to His people to bless and save them.

b. A messenger. For it is He who has made known the glad tidings of salvation, and through the Holy Spirit He reveals and offers to us the blessing of the Gospel. In these two names we observe the happy blending together of our Lord's majesty and lowliness. He is the Lord of the temple, and at the same time a Messenger, the Lord of hosts and yet a servant.

IV. Observe the place, He shall come to his Temple; and about this temple the last three Prophets frequently spoke telling the Jews that they polluted and profaned it, but that the Lord Jehovah would one day honour it and come to it.

—E. J. Brewster, The Shield of Faith, p174.

The Glory of God's House

Malachi 3:1, etc

I. We may trace four stages in Messianic prophecy:—

a. From the Fall to the Exodus.

b. From the time of Moses to Saul.

c. The period of the earlier kings.

d. From Isaiah to Malachi.

II. Malachi tells of the coming of the Lord to His temple, and calls attention to the unexpectedness of that coming and to the misapprehension of its purpose. They had expected him to come and judge the heathen. But the Prophet warns them that they themselves shall be first judged.

III. The purpose of the temple was twofold. A house for God to dwell in among His people, and a place where acceptable sacrifices might be offered. We may notice three stages in the development of the sacrificial idea:—

e. The building of altars of sacrifice.

f. The building of a tabernacle in the wilderness to be a dwelling for the ark with which was associated God's abiding presence.

g. The temple planned by David and built by Solomon was but a development of the tabernacle, linked in the same way with God's presence.

IV. The temple reached its glory when Christ entered it The two ideas connected with the Temple blend into one in the Holy Eucharist, the presence and the sacrifice.

—A. G. Mortimer, One Hundred Miniature Sermons, p181.

References.—III:1.—J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, vol. ii. p268. Ibid. vol. iv. p126. H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No2611. III:1 , 2.—Bishop E. H. Browne, Messiah as Foretold and Expected, p30. III:1 , 3.—C. Stanford, Symbols of Christ, p175. III:2.—F. B. Woodward, Sermons (2Series), p73. III:3.—F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. v. p205. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii. No1575.

The Light of Other Days

Malachi 3:4

It seems as if we heard God's own voice in these words and the words that accompany them. This is not a man talking about the light of other days; it Malachi 3:16

The internal state of Jerusalem was bad beyond all former example. The crimes of those men who one after another filled the high priest's office, and the general wickedness of the people, were quite enough to prevent them from expecting those blessings which had been promised as the reward of their faithful obedience.

I. To what then could a good man look with hope in such a time of darkness? Outward signs of God's favour to His people were nowhere to be seen; their condition was in no respect better, and in some it was worse, than that of the heathen nations around them. Had God then cast them off utterly, and was there nothing more to be hoped from trying to serve Him? Many of them did not scruple to say that it was so.

II. For those who looked only on the surface of things, there was nothing that could support their faith. But the more thoughtful, and those who loved God better, sought to find whether there was not some ground of comfort yet left them. They turned over the volume of the law and the prophets; they found trust in God urged as a duty which would never be practised in vain.

III. We must live by faith; that is, we must take much upon trust; we must sow in patience, believing that the harvest will come All our practice in common life is founded upon belief, not upon certainty: we cannot be sure that a single plan we form will answer; we cannot be sure that a single step we take will lead to our good. So then we may believe or not, as we choose; and herein lies our trial.

References.—III:16.—J. Baldwin Brown, The Sunday Afternoon, p20. III:16 , 17.—J. C M. Bellew, Christian Life: Life in Christ, p249. C. D. Bell, The Name Above Every Name, p85. III:18.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxiv. No1415. III.—Canon Jelf, Sermons for the People, p152.