Malachi's Closing Warning of [an A.D. 1st-century] Judgment on Israel

Malachi's Closing Warning of [an A.D. 1st-century] Judgment on Israel Below is the second of multiple excerpts of commentary from Parts I and II of The Parousia, the late 19th-century masterpiece on the Second Coming by James Stuart Russell. The initial 31 posts on this blog deal with the Book of Revelation, which is cogently interpreted in Part III of Russell's magnum opus. (For all blog posts, see russellparousia.blogspot.com) "THE LAST WORDS OF OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECY. "THE BOOK OF MALACHI "The canon of the Old Testament Scriptures closes in a very different manner from what might have been expected after the splendid future revealed to the covenant nation [Israel] in the visions of Isaiah. None of the prophets is the bearer of a heavier burden than the last. Malachi is the [5th century B.C.] prophet of doom. ... "The Book of Malachi is one long and terrible impeachment of the nation. The Lord Himself is the accuser, and sustains every charge against the guilty people by the clearest proof. The long indictment includes sacrilege, hypocrisy, contempt of God, conjugal infidelity, perjury, apostasy, blasphemy; while, on the other hand, the people have the effrontery to repudiate the accusation, and to plead 'not guilty' to every charge. They appear to have reached that stage of moral insensibility when men call evil good, and good evil, and are fast ripening for judgment [Mal. 3:5, "I will come near you to judgment..."; Mal. 4:1, "For behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven"]. ... "That this is no vague and unmeaning threat is evident from the distinct and definite terms in which it is announced. Everything points to an approaching crisis in the history of the nation, when God would inflict judgment upon His rebellious people. ...It had already been foretold in precisely the same words by the Prophet Joel (ii. 31 [Joel 2:31]): 'The great and terrible day of the Lord;' and we shall meet with a distinct reference to it in the address of the Apostle Peter on the Day of Pentecost (Acts ii. 20 [2:20]). But the period is further more precisely defined by the remarkable statement of Malachi in chap. iv. 5 [4:5]: 'Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord.' The explicit declaration of our Lord that the predicted Elijah was no other than His own forerunner, John the Baptist (Matt. xi. 14 [11:14]), enables us to determine the time [A.D. 1st century] and the event [destruction of Jerusalem] referred to as 'the great and terrible day of the Lord.' It must be sought at no great distance from the period of John the Baptist. That is to say, the allusion is to the judgment of the Jewish nation, when their city and temple were destroyed [by the Romans in A.D. 70] and the entire fabric of the Mosaic polity [government] was dissolved. "It deserves to be noticed, that both Isaiah and Malachi predict the appearance of John the Baptist [in the role of Elijah] as the forerunner of our Lord, but in very different terms. Isaiah represents him as the herald of the coming Saviour: 'The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God' (Isa. xl. 3 [40:3]). Malachi represents John as the precursor of the coming Judge: 'Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me; and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts' (Mal. iii. 1 [3:1]). "That this is a coming to judgment, is manifest from the words which immediately follow, describing the alarm and dismay caused by His appearing: 'But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth?' (Mal. iii. 2 [3:2].) ... "At the same time, while judgment and wrath are the predominant elements of the prophecy, features of a different character are not wholly absent. The day of wrath is also a day of redemption. There is a faithful remnant, even among the apostate nation: there are gold and silver to be refined, and stubble to be burned. ...Even Malachi intimates that the door of mercy is not yet shut. If the nation would return unto God, He would return unto them. ...At the eleventh hour, if the mission of the second Elijah should succeed in winning the hearts of the people, the impending catastrophe might after all be averted ([Mal.] chap. iii. 3, 16-18 [3:3, 16-18]; iv. 2, 3, 5, 6 [4:2, 3, 5, 6]).

"Nevertheless, there is a foregone conclusion that expostulation [reasoning] and threatening will be unavailing. The last words sound like the knell of doom (Mal. iv. 6 [4:6]): 'Lest I come and smite the land with a curse!'"
***** 

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