Malachi 4:1-6 - The coming of the LORD

Summary

God’s people in Malachi’s did not believe that God had any interest in justice. Their actions towards God and towards each other demonstrate their hardness of heart. As we have repeatedly seen in our journey through Malachi, the problem was with God’s people, not God. God loved them, but they were unfaithful to him.

We have looked at Malachi’s final confrontation with God’s people in two parts. In the first part of this oracle from God, we saw the judgement and deliverance due to those of God’s people who accused God of wrong or who trusted God despite their difficulties. In the final part of the oracle (Malachi 4:1-6), God promises to come himself after one final prophet to bring the judgement and deliverance he announced.

Our passage explained

v1-3

This promised coming of God will bring judgement against the wicked. The day is described as “burning like an oven” when those who spoke hard words against God and all other wicked evil-doers will be burned up like stubble, the leftovers of a harvest (4:1). They will be consumed by the blaze so that nothing will be left – “it will leave them neither root nor branch.” The judgement of God against all who oppose him, whether outwardly part of his covenant community or not, will be swift, complete, and final.

However, for those who trust in God, his promised coming will bring deliverance. While for the wicked it will be like a great fire of destruction, consuming everything, for believers it will be like the rising of “the sun of righteousness” with “healing in its wings” (v.2). The righteous will be vindicated. Like the sun’s rays warm us as they peek out over the horizon, so too God’s coming will warm the hearts of God’s people who patiently await him.

The deliverance will not only bring comfort and vindication but also joy. The righteous will “go out leaping like calves from the stall” and trample over the ashes of the wicked who have been judged and burnt (vv.2-3). When God comes, the wicked will finally be separated from the righteous and receive their just punishment, leaving the righteous to rejoice in liberty and freedom in God’s presence.

v4-6

Before the promised coming of God comes a final warning and chance to repent. In verse 4, God encourages the people to remember the “the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him.” Many of Malachi’s contemporaries considered God’s laws unworthy of keeping because of his perceived inaction, but Malachi calls them to repent and return to keeping the covenant which God was ever faithful to.

The final chance to repent would be provided when God sent his prophet Elijah, before the coming day of judgement (v.5). This final prophet would “turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers”, that is, bring repentance and restoration of relationships, lest God’s people be judged and wiped out like the Canaanites were by Joshua and the Israelites one thousand years before (v.6). The final call to repentance would be followed by God visiting judgement on the nations.

Our passage applied

We know that the final prophet came; the prophet Elijah’s coming was fulfilled in John the Baptist (Luke 1:17). John came to prepare the way for Jesus, God comes to dwell with his people (John 1:14) and bring judgement. The form of judgement was not what the Jews of Jesus’ day expected though.

Instead of the immediate and fiery destruction of all God’s enemies, Jesus secured on the Cross the means of God’s vindication of the righteous, by taking their sins upon himself (Rom 4:23-25) and bearing the judgement they ought to have suffered so they might be reconciled to him (2 Cor 5:21). Jesus’ coming brought true separation between the righteous and the wicked (Matt 10:34-39), for all those who trust in him will be saved but those who do not will be judged and destroyed.

The final destruction of the wicked is still to come, but if we trust in our crucified Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ, there is no wrath but the comfort and joy of God’s eternal presence, vindicated in our faith as the wicked of the world look on and mock. “For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him” (1 Thess 5:9-10).

It is through the agony of the Cross, where the truly and only righteous man Jesus took upon himself the judgement which we deserve, that we are freed from sin and reconciled to God, equipped and enabled to do his will. In Christ, we know the goodness of God for us, his children.

As we wait for Jesus, our Saviour and our God, to return and bring final judgement and deliverance, let’s spread the good news of deliverance so others might trust in Jesus for salvation too.