Malachi 4:4–6

Of all the many injunctions that fill the pages of the Old Testament none is more significant than the last — Malachi 4:4.

There were those who feared the Lord and thought about His Name, and who spoke often to one another, and these were the people on whom the Lord set His eye. Here are the last words of instruction for these godly people, left now for 400 years until the dawn from on high should visit them. The prophet says: Remember the law given through Moses in all its parts, without leaving out any details, and not just some of it. Remember too that it is for all Israel, and therefore for everyone who is of Israel. His message, if summarised, might read: All the Word of God for all the people of God.

In verse 4 Jehovah recalls the people to the unchanging basis of His covenant with them — the law. This was His standard for them, the measure of their responsibility, and so the condition of blessing. Their safety, like the safety of God's people in all ages, would lie in obedience to the word. Test everything by that infallible standard. Refuse all that does not answer to it. At the same time, seek grace to restore it to its rule over our own hearts and ways. That is the only path of recovery and blessing. They were to go back to the beginning — not to the times of Nehemiah and Ezra, nor to the glory of the kingdom in the days of David and Solomon, but to Horeb.

Exodus 20:1-17 records the ten commandments. They gave a special summary of the demands made by God's holy law. The next chapter opens with the "judgments," which were to be set before them. In Malachi 4:4 we find "statutes" and "judgments" mentioned as well as the "law." These three words cover all the laws that reached Israel through Moses. In the days of Malachi, nearly a thousand years after it was first given, the law was still as binding as at the beginning. What God sets up at the beginning of an age stands good. He never turns aside from it, however far His people may turn.

When Malachi prophesied, many centuries had passed since God gave the law at Horeb. The nation that received it had seen many ups and downs and disasters. This was so much the case that many would surely have reasoned like this. Laws given while the people lived in the wilderness could hardly bind them in every respect once they had settled in a land of their own. Nor when they were later scattered in Assyria or Babylon. Nor later still, when a feeble remnant were allowed to live again in the land of promise.

The law given through Moses dealt with the basic evils and disorders that mark men and their hearts and ways as the fruit of SIN. Changes in circumstances may produce a few ripples on the surface of the dark river of sin. But they do not change where it is going, and they do not lighten its darkness. In His holy law with its statutes and judgments God had in view basic facts and not surface changes.

One is the remembrance of the law of Moses. They look back, and this is the test that judges their whole course from first to last. Again they will look forward: "Behold I send you Elijah the prophet." So, though this is about Israel, it shows us the two ways of judging the present rightly — in the light of the past, and in the light of the future. So it always takes faith to judge according to God.

You cannot miss the joining of Moses and Elijah (vv. 4, 5) at the close of the Old Testament. They are, as we know, the expressions of the law and the prophets, and these remain for ever — until the close of all God's ways on the earth.

Next follow two points of interest. One is the remembrance of the law of Moses. They look back; and this is the test to judge their whole course from first to last. Again they look forward: "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet." So, though this is about Israel, it shows us the two ways to judge the present rightly — in the light of the past, and in the light of the future. It always takes faith to judge as God judges. So Malachi brings in, on the moral side, the giver of the law and the restorer of the law, the two great pillars of the Jewish nation. They herald the way before Jehovah, who alone can give and sustain the blessing.

Elijah the prophet is announced. John the Baptist came in the Spirit and power of Elijah, but he was not the Elijah promised here. If you are willing to accept it, said our Lord, he is Elijah who is to come. It was a testimony to faith and not the fulfilment of Malachi's prophecy. If the Jews had accepted Christ, John would have been Elijah. Our Lord bears witness to this: "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." When the age closes another will appear — the Elijah announced by Malachi. He does his work of restoration before the great and dreadful day of the Lord comes.

Because Israel rejected the Messiah, the mission spoken of in Malachi 3 will be carried out by another. This explains why John the Baptist told the messengers of the Jews that he was not Elijah. Who will this future Elijah be? "Elijah the prophet," it says. We must remember that Elijah did not see death. Such a man would be a worthy forerunner of the One who is coming in judgment.

So Malachi 4:5 ties Elijah's appearing to the great and terrible day of the Lord. That had not come when the Lord was on earth, nor has it yet. A herald, however, was to precede Messiah (Isaiah 40). The herald had come and gone; John the Baptist had appeared. Here was the solution of the difficulty. The Elijah of Malachi 4:5 belongs to the second coming, not the first.

In Revelation 11:3-6 we read of "two witnesses". Features of their testimony remind us of Moses and Elijah, and they come before the second coming of the Lord. We may connect the Elijah of our verse with one of these. We can say this with confidence: God always raises up adequate witness, and gives adequate warning, before He acts in judgment.

In the day of judgment, however, He remembers mercy. So before the great and dreadful day of the Lord arrives, He will send Elijah to test the hearts of His people, and to call them back to His unchanging faithfulness and grace. And the very mention of Elijah is significant of the state in which Israel will then be found. Elijah's mission came at a time when the nation as a whole had abandoned God. They had openly disowned Jehovah and chosen Baal in His place... As in the time of Ahab there was a hidden remnant, so it will be again. God will never leave Himself without witness on the earth.

The Old Testament closed with the hope of the Lord's coming to reign. It closed too with the need of preparing hearts to receive Him, so that He would not come and strike the earth with a curse (Malachi 4:6). The New Testament carries us on to millennial blessing, when there shall be no more curse (Rev. 22:3).

Next follow two points of interest. One is the remembrance of the law of Moses. They look back; and this is the test to judge their whole course from first to last. Again they will look forward: "Behold I send you Elijah the prophet." So, though this concerns Israel, it shows us the two right ways of judging the present. One is in the light of the past. The other is in the light of the future. It always needs faith, therefore, to judge according to God.

We know that the moral restoring of all things will be worked in the hearts of fathers and sons in Israel. We know too that God will make them as life from the dead to the world. In this way He will spread His saving health among all nations, who shall be blessed, not cursed, in the Seed of promise.

What is stated in the last verse may seem rather obscure, but if we read Luke 1:17, its bearing is plain. The "disobedient" will be turned to "the wisdom of the just," and so a people will be prepared for the Lord. In this way a godly remnant will be found; otherwise the whole earth would be struck with a curse.

If the Jews had received John the Baptist, they would also have received the Messiah. The kingdom would at once have been set up in power. In that case Malachi 4:5-6 would have been true of John. But in fact it was not. Crowds gathered around him when he first rang out the cry, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Yet there was little work of conscience, and scarcely any turning of "the heart of the fathers to the children."

Even in our Lord's own case, the unbelief of the people stopped everything bright and clearly blessed for Israel... So for the time the moral restoration of the Jews was partial. The mass of the people did not repent, and family bonds were completely loosened and broken. The land has been struck with a curse from that day to this. But it will not always be so. For grace will work in a remnant once more in the last days. Then Elijah's mission will be fully accomplished (Matt. 17:11).

Elijah's own mission came at a time when the nation had turned away from God. Israel had openly disowned Jehovah and chosen Baal in His place. And we gather from many scriptures that the same turning away will mark Israel as a whole in the last days. In the time of King Ahab there was a hidden remnant, and so it will be again. God will never leave Himself without a witness on the earth... A people whom God has called and prepared in grace will once again be the salt of the earth. For their sake the earth — or more likely the land — will be spared what is here called a curse: pure, unmixed judgment.

When children fight and quarrel, that is the time they may expect their father to come and separate them with his rod... Strife and contention put a people next door to a curse. God brings a heavy judgment on a people when He Himself leaves them.