Malachi Chapter One, Universal Reconciliation

 

Among all of these wonders the Gentiles will be included. “On that day I will raise up the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down, and repair its damages; I will raise up its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old; that they may possess the remnant of Edom, and all the Gentiles who are called by My name,” says the Lord who does this thing,” Amos 9:11, 12. “Many nations shall come and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths,” Micah 4:2. The messianic kingdom was always meant to incorporate the Gentiles, and to reconcile the wayward kingdoms of the earth back to God. Humanity had, as a united body rebelled against God at Babel under the leadership of Nimrod. Disjointed and restless, the Gentiles (referred to symbolically as the Sea in Scripture) will be brought back into God’s graces through one Man, Jesus Christ. Israel’s rejection of their long awaited Savior brought the world back to God.

In the age glimpsed in this verse of Malachi we see the temple worship described in vivid detail throughout Ezekiel chapters 40 through 48. Yahweh’s name, given first to Moses, will be great among the Gentiles in all of their sundry places. Everywhere, says the Holy Spirit, shall incense and a pure offering be presented. The thousand years does address the topic of offerings, Ezekiel 43:19-27. Since the writer of Hebrews informs us that animal sacrifice was symbolic and not spiritually efficacious (Hebrews 10:1-4), the millennial sacrifices would also be symbols of what has been done on our behalf in Christ. Symbolism is entirely in view here since Isaiah tells us, “But on this one I will look: on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word. He who kills a bull is as if he slays a man; He who sacrifices a lamb, as if he breaks a dog’s neck; he who offers a grain offering, as if he offers swine’s blood; he who burns incense, as if he blesses an idol,” Isaiah 66:2, 3. The sacrificial death of animals for atonement will no longer be necessary since Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us. During the thousand years, like the Lord’s Supper memorializes His triumphant death until His return, the temple and its majesty symbolize the offering of Christ, whose blood has truly washed away our sins, whether Jew or Gentile. If the animal sacrifices of Ezekiel occur during the thousand years it will be like the bread and wine of Fellowship: reminders of what has been, to stir our memory of God and His goodness. Offerings made for any other purpose reveal a rejection of Christ’s offering of Himself, and receive a curse, as Isaiah writes above.

 

To add a final note to the consideration of offerings, the apostle John, during his vision of heavenly things in Revelation of Jesus Christ, tells us that the prayers of the saints mingle with “much incense” to be offered upon the altar before God’s throne in heaven, Revelation 8:3, 4. The incense of Old Testament worship then represents the prayers of God’s children, rising up before Him. In the Tabernacle in the wilderness, the altar of incense sat before the veil leading into the Holy of Holies, where the mercy seat sat. Aaron and his posterity were commanded to always burn incense before the Lord for all generations and “strange incense,” was not permitted to be burned on the altar of incense. It was perpetual, dedicated to its singular purpose, and interposed between the mercy seat and the holy place, Exodus 30:1-10. Its imagery invokes Paul’s plea for the Christian to, “pray without ceasing,” 1 Thessalonians 5:17.

 

We find a complimentary verse to Malachi in Habakkuk. The prophet writes, “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea,” Habakkuk 2:14.  In this the prophets agree with one voice: the entire earth will be permeated with the knowledge of God’s glory, and His name will go far beyond the borders of Israel. Although the church is universal in the sense that it encompasses the globe and invites Jew and Gentile alike, the language in Malachi and Habakkuk indicates a degree of divine awareness and attendant worship the church has not produced. The church, or the “called out ones, or Ecclesia” add souls to the body of Christ, which will be fulfilled and revealed upon His Second Coming, bodily, to the earth. Resurrected saints and the Jewish people who survive the battle at Megiddo will be the instrumentality to affect the global worship and awareness of God’s localized presence once more returned to earth. Like Eden, the tabernacle, and then the temple, Christ will reign from David’s throne to usher in righteousness during the thousand years.

 

The prophets of the Old Testament, Peter tells us, saw the sufferings of the Christ and the ensuing glories, 1 Peter 1:10-12. When prophets such as Malachi were suddenly led by the Holy Spirit to include the Gentiles in God’s overarching plan, as is stated here, it is said that they sought for answers, even a “time” in which these things will occur. As it stood, a wise teacher once put it this way: the prophets stood on a summit and from there they saw the cross and the kingdom. But from their vantage they did not see the valley that comprised the church age, the span of time between Daniel’s 483 “sevens of years” and the final “seven” that would open the door to the messianic kingdom, or the thousand years, Revelation 20:4-7. Clearly in this day and age, the church age, Jew and Gentile alike are being saved daily in the body of Christ. As already stated, the incorporation of the Gentiles into global worship was always God’s plan, and we do not need to see far off into the thousand year reign of our Lord to know that today is the day to believe and receive life in Jesus’ name if we have not already. This verse, a quick glimpse of the glories Israel will receive when the promise is fulfilled, invokes much excitement and wonder, as the Jews become God’s evangelistic vehicle to reach the world after the Tribulation. As Peter attested, it is a small wonder if the prophets were duly interested to know more about what they were inspired to write. If there is even more to the matter than we understand presently, then we must simply be patient and wait until conjecture gives way to experience.