The Day of God
Malachi 4
This chapter contains six brief verses concerning the Day of the Lord, and the Sun of Righteousness who ushers it in (in the Hebrew Bible they are added to the third chapter).
The people had been complaining of the injustice and lack of punishment by the LORD. The first verse vividly describes the punishment of the proud and the wicked on a day still to come: the day shall burn as an oven, and they shall all be stubble disappearing from earth without leaving trace.
The Book of Revelation provides great detail of the Day of the LORD - not a day of 24 hours, but a period of seven years of tribulation followed by judgement, when all the wicked then still alive will be judged and removed from the earth's scene and only the righteous will enter the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus.
Regardless of how life looks now, God controls the future, and everything will be made right when the Lord Jesus comes to this earth to establish His Kingdom: the wicked will be trod as ashes under the feet of the righteous. We who have loved and served God look forward to a joyful celebration. This hope for the future becomes ours when we trust God with our lives.
The Sun of Righteousness in the Old Testament is the same person who is the Bright and Morning Star in the New Testament (Revelation 22:16). However, Christ is never called the Sun of Righteousness in the New Testament, and He's never called the Bright and Morning Star in the Old Testament!
This prophecy of Malachi, being the last time the LORD spoke to His people before an interval of four centuries, exhorted Israel to remember the law of Moses. It was God's Word for them, until such time as the Lord Jesus came to fulfil it to the letter and by His grace to give His life in propitiation for the sins of all those who trust in God, before, during and after His time on earth. Then the Law of Moses, as the means of salvation, was abolished.
God's silence was broken when He sent the angel Gabriel to another Zechariah [Zecharias], serving in the temple four hundred years later. He announced the forthcoming birth of John the Baptist, and said "he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, 'to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children' and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.". Some of this is a quotation from Malachi, but note the absence of the words "Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD" (see Luke 1:5-25).
The prophet Elijah will indeed return before the great and dreadful day of the LORD. At the Passover Feast, in the Orthodox Jew's home, a chair is put at the table in which no one sits. It is for Elijah who shall come, in fulfilment of this prophecy.
The Jews thought John the Baptist was Elijah. The Lord Jesus confirmed: "if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come" (Matthew 11:14) and "Indeed, Elijah is coming first and will restore all things. But I say to you that Elijah has come already, and they did not know him but did to him whatever they wished. Likewise the Son of Man is also about to suffer at their hands." (Matt 17:12). John the Baptist came for the same purpose as Elijah is prophesied to come first and restore all things. It was in the same spirit.
But John the Baptist didn't restore all things, just as the Lord Jesus didn't come that time to bring judgement upon the wicked. Both were killed.
John came to announce the Messiah, the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world, the Saviour, not the great and terrible Day of the Lord that is coming. This is still in the future.
The last word of the Old Testament, spoken by God to close it, is "curse". At the beginning, when Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden and disobeyed God, God said that the ground would be cursed and that the curse would rest upon them. It resulted from sin, and it will not be removed until the Lord comes to this earth the second time for judgement upon the wicked and to reign in justice on earth, with a rod of iron.
The curse is upon sinning mankind and upon all creation: "The earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labours with birth pangs together until now." (Romans 8:19-22).
The Old Testament closed with the darkness of night, but also with a promise of the light of a new day to those who fear the LORD's name: "The Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings". It may have closed with a curse, but not for the God-fearing: they were given a great hope that, although the sun had gone down and it was very dark, there was light to come in a new day. It didn't say when, but other prophecies indicated how (i.e. Isaiah 53) and where (Micah 5:2, Isaiah 9:1,2).
The promise was fulfilled in the Lord Jesus: "He was in the beginning with God … in Him was life, and the life was the light of men … John came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe … the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world … as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name" (John 1:1-12).
But the world is still in the night of sin, all is dark. We feel that we might be at the darkest moment today. But there is coming a day when the Sun of Righteousness will rise and spiritual light will break all over our little planet. That Sun of Righteousness is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ who will come again to fulfil this prophecy.
In the Old Testament Christ is presented as the Sun of Righteousness, but in the New Testament He presents Himself to us as the Bright and Morning Star, when He concludes Revelation, at the very end of the Word of God: "I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things in the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the Bright and Morning Star." (Revelation 22:16).
As "the Root and the Offspring of David" He is the King who will reign on this earth, in accordance with prophecy.
As the Bright and Morning star, Christ will come first in the air to take His church out of the world, but doesn't touch the earth. The morning star precedes the radiance of the sun. A star marked His birth but it speaks not only of where He was born but also of why He died. He said, 'Behold, I have come … to do Your will, O God.' (Hebrews 10:7). The star points to a manger, but it also points to a cross. The emphasis was on His death, and that is what we remember at the Lord's Supper until He comes again (He never asked anyone to remember His birth).
As the sun of righteousness the Lord will come for the second time to the earth to establish His Kingdom. The Jewish apostles were told at the time of the Ascension, ". . . This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven" (Acts 1:11), and Zechariah tells us that His feet shall touch the Mount of Olives (see Zechariah 14:4), having come from Bozra in Edom - Jordan today (Isaiah 63:1).
R David Jones
1 "For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, and all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up," says the LORD of hosts, "that will leave them neither root nor branch.
2 But to you who fear My name The Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings; and you shall go out and grow fat like stall-fed calves.
3 You shall trample the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day that I do this," says the LORD of hosts.
4 "Remember the Law of Moses, My servant, which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgements.
5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.
6 And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse."