Malachi Chapter Four, Making Ready For Messiah

 

Malachi 4:5 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.

 

Chapter 4 is devoted to what this verse terms “the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” In this passage we have something of a chronological progression of events. As already stipulated in Malachi 3:1 and Isaiah 40:3-5 Elijah’s coming would precede the Christ’s, and the purpose of his coming would be to prepare for Him. To be more specific, to prepare the people. John the Baptist’s ministry fulfilled the role of Elijah as the forerunner to the Christ. Jesus testified of John, telling us, “And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come,” Matthew 11:14. John’s purpose was to make the people ready to receive the kingdom through the ministry of repentance. To repent can be transliterated as “change your mind” about a formerly held viewpoint. John taught repentance to the Jews to make them ready to receive their King. In this respect John was certainly the forerunner of Messiah, as Malachi and Isaiah both testified. And for those willing to receive John’s ministry, the Scripture was accomplished in him.

We learn from Luke, “He [John] 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,” Luke 1:17. Partly quoting Malachi 4:6, the angel Gabriel actually does an excellent commentary on this passage. The fathers would be the patriarchs, the heads of Israel, the leaders and teachers of its people. The children, in Gabriel’s words, are the disobedient that need their hearts turned toward the wisdom of the just. In both cases the hearts need turning. Direction needs to be adjusted as the wizened look to groom the young with the wisdom age and Scripture have given them. The young must be turned toward that wisdom, which begins with the fear of the Lord (Proverbs 1:7) and the justification that such fear brings, as was witnessed in Malachi 3:16.

 

In verse 4, we are reminded of the Law of Moses, whose purpose was to lead the Jews to Christ, to make His people ready to receive Him as their King. The “tutor” of Paul’s message in Galatians 3:24 is the Greek “pedagogue” and means child-trainer or child-discipliner. Our modern day equivalent would be a schoolteacher. They point out material to the class and do their utmost to bring them into the knowledge presented, but the responsibility of learning falls entirely on the child in question. The Law, like a teacher or pedagogue, borrowed material from the source or Authority and related or enforced it. One passed or failed on the merit of their understanding of it as schoolwork as tests indicated. God tested the Jews many times over, and they failed their tests because they did not allow the Law to train them as it was meant to do. They spent 40 years wandering, the entire era of the Judges being conquered and enslaved time and again before finally suffering exile to Assyria and Babylon respectively. If you carry this parallel to its conclusion Israel failed tests, flunked grades, and eventually was expelled from school. This is a very antiseptic way of explaining the Law’s purpose for Israel, but it is true that Moses’ Law stood as witness against their unwillingness to submit to its direction.

 

On top of remembering the Law, God promised to send them Elijah, the forerunner. Note that Elijah’s ministry was to come “before” the great and dreadful Day of the Lord. Chronologically it precedes the Day, with the purpose of turning or changing the hearts of the people, or bringing them to repentance to make them ready for the Christ. Ready or not, however, the Day of the Lord comes; Elijah’s success or failure is not a deterrent to the Day. His ministry is not meant to prevent this Day but to make Israel prepared for it. The Day is coming, burning like an oven, Malachi says, and the wicked and proud will be consumed by it. Conversely, those who fear God’s name will be set at liberty when this Day arrives. It is vengeance from the Almighty, vengeance for His people. “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him,” Jude 14, 15. When Saul (later, Paul) persecuted the church to death and Jesus confronted him on the Damascus road, our Lord said, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” Acts 9:4. Christ is a part of His church in the same manner that our limbs are a part of our body. He is the organic head, and when a part of the body is struck it is an attack on the Lord.

 

To preserve the Jews, God condescends to send Elijah to turn them each one from the error of his own way. Yet the individual must choose to respond. The Jews that joined John in the Jordan River were baptized, symbolizing their repentance and their readiness to receive the Coming One. John’s ministry made the community of Israel recognize their need; Christ came after, providing the remedy in His own body, Isaiah 53:4.