BIBLE BOOK: Malachi – My Messenger

The Old Testament’s Last Voice

 

The position Malachi occupies at the very end of the Old Testament is not without significance. His was the final prophetic voice to be heard before a 400 year period of silence descended that was not to be broken until the words of John the Baptist echoed across Judea, signalling the dawning of a new era. Malachi was truly God’s last Old Testament voice.

 

 

 

 

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

The name Malachi means “My Messenger” or “Messenger of Jah”. If this was the name given to him by his parents when he was born it indicates their faith, for in the purposes of God Malachi was to become God’s last messenger in the Old Testament. He is mentioned nowhere else in the Old Testament, and no certain details about him have been preserved – though some Jewish traditions exist. Questions have been raised about his identity. For instance, was Malachi a kind of surname given to him because he was God’s messenger? Some have even suggested that he is the man we know as Ezra. This idea, of course, is only speculative, and no proof for such a conjecture will ever be found in the Bible.       

 

 

 

LIFE IN THOSE DAYS

It will be helpful to set the scene for this Old Testament book. The temple in Jerusalem had already been rebuilt in 515BC, and sacrifices were once again being offered on its altar after the Babylonian exile. Ezra had ministered, teaching the Law of God in Jerusalem (Ezra 7:10). Two significant prophets had also brought God’s revelation to the people – Haggai and Zechariah – but their ministry had been almost a hundred years earlier.

 

Malachi, like these two servants of God, also had a contemporary – not a fellow-prophet but a civil leader. Nehemiah had returned from Persia in 433 BC to be governor in Jerusalem, and Malachi’s prophecy needs to be read against the background of Nehemiah’s Old Testament book. Sadly, God’s people had already departed from the ways established by those earlier reformers. The sanctity of the temple was being disregarded (Neh.13:1-9), the people were being slack in bringing tithes and offerings to the Lord (Neh.13:10-14), the Sabbath was not being observed as it should have been (Neh.13:15-22), and mixed marriages were taking places among God’s covenant people (Neh.13:23-27). Into such a scene Malachi appeared, bringing God’s message to a retrograde people.

 

 

 

 

STRAIGHT TO THE POINT

Without any introduction, Malachi launches into his attack. He was a man with a “burden” (1:1 KJV). The solemnity of the message weighed heavily upon him, for he was the bearer of “the word of the LORD”. His opening sentence ought to have kindled a devotional response from his hearers. Instead, his audience quickly sought to justify themselves. The words from the Lord, “I have loved you,” deserved a better response than the unthinking rejoinder, “Wherein hast Thou loved us?” (1:2).

 

Israel only had to look back to Egypt and recall God’s mighty deliverance. Was this not evidence of His love for these wayward people? We can look back to a greater deliverance. Should we ever be tempted to ask for proof of God’s love, as they did, we can remember the very fact that “Christ died for us” demonstrates His great love (Rom.5:8). In the words of Elizabeth Rundle Charles, we ought to be “Never further than Thy cross, never higher than Thy feet” (1). Another hymn-writer expresses very personally the need for the Lord Jesus to “keep me near the cross” (2). That is our place of safety, for we learn at the cross the profound extent of God’s love and of our own sinful and worthless state but for His divine grace. Humbly taking our place beneath the cross, we will not think of questioning the unfailing and inextinguishable love of God.

 

The people’s initial retort indicated that things were not right. God was not receiving the “honour” and the “fear” that were rightly His, but once again the priests remonstrated (1:6). How could they, the religious elite, possibly have despised Him? Malachi could see through their feigned ignorance. Their excuse, “the table of the LORD is contemptible” (1:7) betrayed contempt for God Himself. Did they regard the sacrificial altar (which was outside the temple courts) as not being sacred? Was this the reason the people were allowed to bring inferior animals to God for sacrifice – blind, lame or sick creatures? By doing such a thing they were insulting a perfect God who had stated clearly that only animals “without blemish” should be offered to Him (Ex.12:5).

 

 

 

 

A SOVEREIGN GOD

The people of Jerusalem living in that closing period of Old Testament history had clearly lost sight of the Sovereignty of God. The LORD their God deserved to “be magnified from the border of Israel” (1:5). He was both their “Father” and their “Master” and therefore was rightly entitled to respect (1:6). He was also “Governor” of  His people, and in that capacity they should have been seeking to please Him (1:8). He had given them His Law (4:4) and would judge them justly according to their observance of it (2:1-4; 3:1-5; 4:1). Yet this same God was the potential Source of all their blessings (3:10) and could preserve them from the coming day of judgment (3:17; 4:2-3).

 

 

 

 

ANOTHER MESSENGER

Malachi (whose name means “My Messenger”) introduces another messenger to us. “Behold, I will send My messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me” (3:1). The 400 year period of silence was broken when John the Baptist emerged upon the scene and perfectly fulfilled Malachi’s prophecy. The Lord Jesus Himself connected this prediction with the ministry of John when, speaking of him, He declared: “For this is he, of whom it is written, ‘Behold, I send My messenger before Thy face, which shall prepare Thy way before Thee” (Mt.11:10). Indeed, John’s cry in the wilderness was to “prepare ye the way of the Lord” (Mt.3:3). Very much like Malachi, John commanded God’s professing people to repent in preparation for their King. The Lord Jesus also likened John the Baptist to Elijah of old on two separate occasions (recorded in Matthew 11:14 and 17:12-13). Malachi 4:5 refers to the coming of “Elijah the prophet” – and according to our Lord there was a fulfilment of that prophecy in John’s ministry.

 

 

 

 …..AND ANOTHER

However, another “Messenger” is also seen in Malachi’s book. The writer to the Hebrews tells us that after speaking to our forefathers by the prophets, God has now “spoken unto us by His Son” (Heb.1:1-2). John the Baptist (the second “Malachi”) was in one sense the last of the Old Testament prophets. The era “Before Christ” closed when the voice of John fell silent and people turned to follow the Son of God. That transition is envisaged in Malachi 3:1, for we read there that “the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the Covenant…”  The four New Testament gospels record those occasions when the ultimate “Messenger”, through whom God would speak, literally entered the temple atJerusalem. When He came, Jesus found that same temple defiled by sin and had to exercise His authority to cleanse it from the profiteering that had invaded its sacred courts (Jn.2:13-16; Mt.21:12-13).

 

Although all this happened, we must not imagine that Malachi is a closed book. There are prophecies within its four chapters that have yet to be fulfilled. The Lord’s first coming was in grace, for He did not come to judge the world (Jn.3:17). The language employed in Malachi 3:2-3 takes us beyond the past and on to the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, “who may abide the day of His coming? And who shall stand when He appeareth?” But after that scrupulous judgment of evil, there will be blessing for a cleansed and forgiven people – for then “the Sun of Righteousness [will] arise with healing in His wings” (4:2).      

 

 

 

A CURSE OR A BLESSING?

 Malachi’s prophecy, as we have seen, is strategically placed. Through His prophet, God had been pleading with His people, seeking to restore them to Himself. The formalism displayed by the priests and people in Malachi’s day led to the Pharisaical movement of the New Testament, while the scepticism that we also discern can be linked with the later unbelief of the Sadducees. The last word in the sacred text is the word “curse” (4:6). Contrast this with the concluding benediction of the New Testament in Revelation 22:21: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.” What has brought about such a change?

 

 

END NOTES:-  (1) Hymn 191 in HYMNS OF FAITH: Never further than Thy cross, by E. R. Charles.  (2) Hymn 134 in SANKEY’S SACRED SONGS & SOLOS: Near the Cross, by F. J. Crosby.