Malachi 3:2-4To: Malachi Main MenuTo: Grace Notes Home Page Malachi 3:2,3"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."The Hebrew word for "endure" is KUL and here Malachi uses the pilpel participle; the word means "to contain; to sustain or endure heavy judgments." [123] And Robert Thieme provides the interesting note that KUL means "to endure with happiness, i.e., to be in a difficult situation and enjoy it." [124] And the difficult situation is "the day of his coming," that is, specifically, the Second Advent of Christ. Thus, Malachi is asking, "Who will endure with happiness the Second Advent of our Lord?" Answer: only those who are believers in Christ, those who have obtained His righteousness through faith. At the Second Advent, those who are unbelievers will not endure His fury, nor will they be happy with the outcome of His judgment. The word for "coming" is BO, the qal infinitive construct, which emphasizes the inevitability, the certainty, the finality of His coming. The infinitive provides no room for doubt; in other words, Malachi is stating that He in fact, indeed, surely, certainly -- is coming. This coming is referred to in Psalm 96:13, "For he cometh, for he cometh to judge the earth; He shall judge the world in righteousness, and the people with His truth." And in Zech. 12:10 the "coming one" is designated as NEKKAR, i.e., "the pierced," which means that the "coming one," the judge, is Him who was pierced. "And I will pour out on the house of David (Judah) and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. The will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son." And in the next breath Malachi asks, "Who will stand acquitted when He appears?" The word for appears is RA'AH, which means "form, appearance, to see." Who will stand not guilty when God Himself is seen at the Second Advent? None but the justified, those who have believed in Him. "For He will be like the refiner's fire or the fuller's soap." This is a beautiful simile which describes the Baptism of Fire at the Second Advent of our Lord. The fire of the smelter heats the ore and causes the dross, the unbelievers, to rise to the top. The dross is then skimmed off and discarded. And that which is left is the pure ore; this portion is saved and kept. Thus the dross represents the unbelievers, and the purified ore represents the believers. And the dross is cast into the Lake of Fire. Likewise, the fuller, the one who prepared and cleaned cloth in the ancient world, cleansed the cloth with lye soap, washing the dirt away. Here the dirt is analogous to the unbelievers, and the clean cloth is the believers. And once again the unbelievers final end is the Lake of Fire, and the believers end is to enter the Millennium. Then Malachi utilizes an anthropopathism as he describes our Lord 'seated' as a smelter or purifier. Here our Lord is pictured as seated on His throne of judgment as He 'proves and tries' the sons of Levi, the Levitical priests; that is, our Lord separates the believing priests from the unbelieving priests. And Ezekiel 22:17-22 describes this purifying process: "Then the word of the Lord came to me: 'Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross (slag) to me; all of them are the copper, tin, iron and lead left inside a furnace. They are but the dross of silver (atonement). Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: 'Because you have all become dross, I will gather you into Jerusalem. As men gather silver, copper, iron, lead and tin into a furnace to melt it with a fiery blast, so will I gather you in my anger and my wrath and put you inside the city and melt you. I will gather you and I will blow on you with my fiery wrath, and you will be melted inside her. As silver is melted in a furnace, so you will be melted inside her, and you will know that I the Lord have poured out my wrath upon you.'" For the unbelieving apostate Levitical priests of Malachi's day presumed that their natural ancestry and status as members of the Tribe of Levi were sufficient for deliverance. Remember, the Levites had human talents, education, and physical comeliness; indeed, physical beauty was a prerequisite for the priesthood. They were rhetoricians, vocalists, and musicians of expertise; all the tangible advantages were theirs. In their arrogance, they assumed that they were sufficient unto themselves. They had been beguiled and betrayed by their own 'perfections.' For the enjoyment of beauty is magnified in the presence of others; and they theorized that God, too, must admire their attractiveness. What marvelous effrontery; it can almost be admired. In reality, before the God of the universe, they were frail, vulnerable, egregious, boorish, and unacceptable. Ceremonial cleansing was insufficient; for Proverbs 20:9 states, "Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?" After the refining process, after proving and trying them, "then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness." Ezekiel 48:11 says, "This will be for the consecrated priests, the Zadokites, who were faithful in serving me and did not go astray as the Levites did when the Israelites went astray." The word for "righteousness" is from TSADAK, which is "righteousness attained through faith." [125] And the term appears "to be in some measure legal or forensic rather than moral or psychological." [126] This, then, is righteousness which is credited to the believer by means of faith. Just as in Genesis 15:6, "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him (for) righteousness." Moreover, the concept of dual fulfillment of prophecy is in view here in Malachi 3:3. In Malachi's day, through the ministry of Malachi, the priests would return to their proper function. And this function is depicted commemoratively during the Millennium (Ezekiel 40-48). Thus, the apostate priests of Malachi's day would eventually accept atonement through faith. Regarding the future commemorative function of the priests during the Millennium, H.A. Ironside has written eloquently, "that in the days when the kingdom is established over all the earth, sacrifices and offerings will be reinstituted in Jerusalem and the land of Judah, though only as commemorative of the one great sacrifice of the cross; thus sustaining to millennial saints the same relationship that the Lord's Supper now occupies among Christians." [127] Malachi 3:4"And the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in the days gone by, as in former years." Here is corroboration of the dual fulfillment concept already discussed in the last pronouncement of Malachi 3:3.The word for "offerings" in verse 4 is MINCHAH, which is a bloodless offering, a gift-offering, which emphasizes the sufficiency (propitiation) of the Person of Christ, i.e., the perfection of the offering. And the term is in stark contrast with the term for "offer" in Mal. 3:3, which is wgn, nagash, and applies to the presentation of the offerings, the approach. And the approach to God is based, as discussed, upon credited righteousness. And such righteousness is procured only by faith in the perfect offering, the minchah. Salvation in the Old TestamentThe model of salvation in the Old Testament is found in Genesis 15:6 (vide supra), in which, by means of faith in God, righteousness was "reckoned to Abraham." And the term for "God" in Genesis 15:6 is JHWH (the tetragrammaton), and in context the term refers to Jehovah Jesus Christ. Additionally, it should be comprehended that "Jehovah" indicates a "relationship," which relationship is intimate and personal. The Apostle Paul quotes Genesis 15:6 in Galatians 3:6 and Romans 4:3. Indeed, Paul comments on Old Testament salvation in Romans 4:1-7, and again in Romans 9:30-34, which reads, "What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the 'stumbling stone.' As it is written: [Isa. 8:14; 28:16] 'See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.'" The gospel as promulgated in the Old Testament is stated by the Apostle Paul in I Cor. 15:3: "For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures." The weighty word in this verse is "Scriptures," for it designates the Old Testament Canon. And the Old Testament Canon prophesied the Messiah's death, burial, resurrection, ascension and session in Isa. 53, and Lev. 1:3, which reads, "If the offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he is to offer a male without defect. He must present it at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting so that it will be acceptable to the Lord." Here, of course, is the prophesy of the death of our Lord on the Cross. The gospel of the Old Testament necessarily looked forward to the Cross with certain expectation. For this reason it was depicted in 'shadow' or 'silhouette' configuration in the Levitical Offerings, the structure of the Tabernacle, the furniture of the Tabernacle, the Levitical Priesthood, and the Feasts. And this conclusion is presented in Hebrews 10:1, which states, "The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming -- not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship." Thus, one more time, the law could not save; only the "reality," i.e., the efficacious sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, could actually save. Finally, according to Galatians 2:16, Old Testament believers were saved by faith in Christ as He was revealed through the Offerings, the Tabernacle, the Priesthood, and the Feast Days. "Know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus (just as in Old Testament times) and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified." [128] Thus, it is resolved that salvation in the Old Testament was also by faith in Jehovah Jesus Christ. However, the unveiling of Christ was unlike that of the present Church Age because Christ was not yet crucified. Notes: [123] Wilson, William. Old Testament Word Studies; page 2. [124] Thieme, Robert. Malachi; from notes. [125] Girdlestone, Robert B. Synonyms of the Old Testament; page 158. [126] Ibid. [127] Ironside, H.A. Notes on the Minor Prophets; page 452. [128] Thieme, Robert. This dissertation of Salvation in the Old Testament was originally compiled by Robert Thieme; altered, revised, and appended by R.E. Radic. There is no charge for Grace Notes Materials. You can help further this work by your prayer and by sending a contribution to: Grace Notes 1705 Aggie Lane Austin, Texas 78757 wdoud@bga.com Grace Notes Web site: http://www.realtime.net/~wdoud/ Anonymous FTP site: ftp://ftp.bga.com/vendors/wdoud/ Grace Notes is a ministry of Village Missions International. |
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