Chapter 2 concluded with the people asking, "Where is the God of justice?" Chapter 3 begins with God answering, "I am on My way!"
Our passage opens with this prophetic announcement, "I will send My messenger, who will prepare the way before Me." (Malachi 3:1a) The Lord is speaking in the voice of the second person of the Trinity: the Lord Jesus Christ. Before He comes He will send a messenger to tell the people to prepare for His arrival, just as a great king in ancient times would send a messenger to tell the people to prepare for his arrival. This prophecy was fulfilled by the ministry of John the Baptist, according to the gospel of Mark, who quotes Malachi 3:1 and Isaiah 40:3 in reference to John, "'I will send My messenger ahead of You, who will prepare Your way'---'a voice of one calling in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him'. And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins." (Mark 1:2-4)
John's ministry was to prepare the hearts of the people to hear the teachings of Jesus. A messenger who went ahead of a great king's procession would not only announce his impending arrival, but would also remove obstacles from the path and fill in holes in the roadway. A king's chariot was to be able to proceed smoothly without bouncing up and down on rocks and without hitting any potholes that might cause a wheel to come loose. John worked to remove obstacles of the heart and to fill in any areas where the people lacked enough knowledge of God's laws and commandments. He helped the people to recognize and confess their faults, softening their hearts to hear Jesus' message of redemption. This had to be done because the human heart doesn't seek a savior until it realizes it needs saving.
"'Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to His temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,' says the Lord Almighty." (Malachi 3:1b) Yesterday's passage dealt with the subject of covenant and how God is a covenant-keeper while man tends to be a covenant-breaker. When the people returned from captivity they hoped the Messiah would come and that the kingdom would come. When the nation was not restored to glory the people lost heart and grew cool toward the Lord, but His promise and His covenant still stands. They may not all have kept their end of the bargain, but God will keep His. The messenger of the covenant, the Messiah, is coming. But He will not be who they expect Him to be. He will not burst onto the scene as a mighty warrior king like David and liberate the nation from all her enemies forever. He will quietly walk onto the stage of the world, stand up in the synagogue of Nazareth, read from the scroll of Isaiah, and tell the people that He is the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy of the Anointed One. (Luke 4:16-21, Isaiah 61:1-2a) The passage Jesus reads is this one, "The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
Malachi's prophecy about the Messiah today is like most prophecies of the Bible. It is twofold and includes the first and second advent of Jesus Christ without any clear line between them and without any space of time between them. This is quite common in prophecy. Jesus Himself, when prophesying the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD and the "time of Jacob's trouble" of the last days, merged the two events together without any clear line between them. Malachi has already told us that the Messiah, the messenger of the covenant, will appear suddenly to His people. Now he warns those who long for Messiah's coming that unless they repent they will not be able to stand before Him. This has to do with the second advent of Christ, when He will come as the conquering King of Revelation instead of the suffering Servant of Isaiah. "But who can endure the day of His coming? Who can stand when He appears? For He will be like a refiner's fire or a launderer's soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; He will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years." (Malachi 3:2-4)
The Lord is the only one who can make us pure. It is a frightful thing to imagine Him coming in power and glory to a sinful world, but Malachi makes it clear that His desire is not to destroy but to restore. That's why he compares Him to a refiner and a launderer. A refiner works to remove the dross from precious metals and a launderer works to remove stains from cloth. This is what the Lord wants to do for us. He wants to purify us and make us clean. Only those who refuse the redemption and mercy He offers will have to face His wrath. "'So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear Me,' says the Lord Almighty." (Malachi 3:5) Malachi, the final messenger of the Old Testament, urges the people, "Repent in the fear of the Lord!" John the Baptist, the first messenger of the New Testament, will also cry out, "Repent in the fear of the Lord!"
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