Malachi 4:1 - Meaning and Application

The great and terrible day of the Lord is foretold here. Like the pillar of cloud and fire in the wilderness, it has one side of darkness for the Egyptians who fight against God, and one side of light for the faithful Israelites who follow him. “The day comes” means “the Lord comes.” This points to both Christ’s first coming and his second coming, and both fit the character described here.

In both comings, Christ is a consuming fire to those who rebel against him. His coming day will burn like an oven, a day of wrath and fiery anger. This was said of the Messiah in (Psalm 21:9): “Your hand will find all your enemies and make them like a fiery oven in the time of your anger.” It will be a day of terror and destruction, like a city burning, or like a dry forest catching fire. That is the picture Isaiah gives in (Isaiah 10:17-18), where the Holy One of Israel burns up the glory of the forest and fruitful land.

Here we should notice who will be fuel for this fire. It will be all who are proud in heart, who speak boldly against God and refuse to bow their necks to his commands. It includes all who will not seek God, will not submit to the grace and rule of Jesus Christ, and will not have Christ reign over them. It also includes all who keep doing evil in their hearts and lives, openly resisting God’s law. Daniel had recently described such people as those who do wickedly against the covenant (Daniel 11:32).

God knows every person’s character perfectly, so he knows who the proud are and who does wickedly. They will be like stubble in this fire, easily and completely burned up. This is their own doing, because they have made themselves combustible, ready for judgment. If they were not stubble, the fire would not consume them. The fire judges each person according to what they are and what they have done. If a life is like wood, hay, and stubble, it will be burned away. If it is like gold, silver, and precious stones, it will endure and be purified (1 Corinthians 3:13-15). Those who oppose Christ in unbelief put themselves before a devouring fire, like briers and thorns before flames (Isaiah 27:4-5).

The coming day will both terrify them and destroy them. It will leave them with neither root nor branch, that is, neither them nor their descendants will be spared. They will be cut off completely. Who really knows the power of God’s anger? The proud and evil doers do not fear it now, but they will be made to feel it. Those who once called the proud happy will see them made fully miserable, with no branch of their former happiness left and no root from which it could rise again.

This was fulfilled in several ways. It was fulfilled when Christ’s teaching brought terror and judgment on the proud Pharisees and other wicked Jews, and when he sent fire on the earth that burned up the chaff of human traditions and false interpretations of God’s law. It was also fulfilled when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, and the Jewish nation, as a nation, was wiped out from under heaven, with neither root nor branch left. That seems to be the main meaning here. Jesus called those times the days of vengeance, when everything written about that judgment would be completed (Luke 21:22). Then the unbelieving Jews were like stubble before the devouring fire of God’s judgments, which gathered on them as eagles gather to a carcass.

This passage also fits the day of judgment, both the particular judgment at death and, especially, the final judgment at the end of time. At death, the souls of the wicked come under punishment at once, as some Jewish teachers understood it. Even more, Christ will be revealed in flaming fire at the last judgment to judge the proud and all who do evil. Then the whole world will burn like an oven, and all who have set their hearts on this world and chosen it as their portion will be ruined with it. The fire that is then kindled will never be put out.

In both his comings, Christ is also a joyful light to those who serve him faithfully, those who fear his name and honor him as they should (Malachi 4:2). Those who stand in awe of his name, which the wicked profane and trample on, are given mercy and comfort here. To all who fear the Lord and think on his name, mercy and comfort are stored up.

This comfort comes from this: “To you who fear my name, the Sun of righteousness will rise, with healing in his wings.” What is a storm of fire and judgment to the wicked is a fair and bright day to God’s people, like sunrise after darkness. When others faint with fear, they can lift up their heads with joy, because their redemption is near (Luke 21:28). The “Sun of righteousness” is Jesus Christ, who would protect the believing remnant in the day when Jerusalem was destroyed and comfort them in their distress. He told those in Judea to flee to the mountains (Matthew 24:16), and they did, and so they were safe in Pella.

More broadly, this refers to Christ’s coming in the flesh to seek and save the lost. Then the Sun of righteousness rose on this dark world. Christ is the light of the world, the true light, the great light that gives day and rules the day (John 8:12). He is the light of human beings (John 1:4), and to the soul he is what the sun is to the visible world. Without the sun, the world would be a prison of darkness. Without Christ, humanity would be darkness itself, if the glory of God did not shine in his face. Christ is the Sun who has light in himself and gives light to others (Psalm 19:4-6). He is the Sun of righteousness because he is a righteous Savior. His righteousness is both the light and the warmth of this Sun. His word of righteousness guides, teaches, and gives life, and so does the everlasting righteousness he has brought in.

He is made for us by God to be righteousness. He is the Lord our righteousness, and so he is rightly called the Sun of righteousness. Through him we are made right with God and set apart for him, and in that way we are brought into light. This Sun of righteousness rose on the world in the fullness of time, and with him light came into the world (John 3:19), a great light (Matthew 4:16). In him the dawn from on high visited us, to give light to those who sit in darkness (Luke 1:78-79). Here “righteousness” can also mean mercy or kindness, and it was in Christ that the tender mercy of our God came to us.

This can also be understood of the graces and comforts brought into people’s souls by the Holy Spirit. Grotius takes it to mean Christ giving the Spirit to his people, to shine in their hearts and comfort them, like a sun and shield. Those who live in holy fear of God and have a deep awe of his greatness will also have his love poured into their hearts by the Holy Spirit. Then the sun may be said to rise within them, bringing both a joyful day and a fruitful spring.

Christ’s second coming will also be a glorious and welcome sunrise for all who fear his name. It will be that morning of the resurrection, when the upright will rule (Psalm 49:14). The day that burns like an oven for the wicked will be bright as morning for the righteous. They wait for it more eagerly than people wait for dawn.

This mercy and comfort will also bring healing. He will arise with healing under his wings, or in his rays and beams, which are like the wings of the sun. Christ came, like the sun, not only to bring light to a dark world, but also health to a sick and troubled world. The Jews, as Dr. Pocock notes, have a proverb: when the sun rises, weakness decreases, and flowers that drooped through the night revive in the morning. Christ came into the world as the great physician, and even as the great medicine, the balm in Gilead and the healer there. While he was on earth, he went about like the sun on its course, doing good. He healed every kind of sickness and disease among the people. He healed widely and freely, as the sun spreads its light.

Some translate this as, “He will arise with healing in his skirts,” and connect it with the woman who touched the edge of his garment and was made well, because power went out from him (Mark 5:28-30). But his healing of bodily disease was only a sign of his greater purpose. He came to heal the diseases of people’s souls and bring them into a sound condition, so they could serve and enjoy both God and themselves.

This good will have real effects on them. It will make them strong within themselves. “You will go out,” like people who have been healed and return to their work. At death, the soul goes out from the body, and at the resurrection the body comes out of the grave, like prisoners leaving their dungeon, both to see the light and to be set free. “You will go out” can also mean going out like plants from the ground when spring returns and the sun comes back. Some take it to mean the Christians’ escape from Jerusalem when they fled before its destruction. In that way, the souls on whom the Sun of righteousness rises go out of the world, and out of Babylon, like people made truly free.

“You will also grow up.” Restored to health and liberty, you will increase in knowledge, grace, and spiritual strength. The souls on whom the Sun of righteousness rises keep growing toward full maturity. Those whom God makes wise and good by his grace become wiser and better still, and their path, like the rising sun, shines more and more until the perfect day (Proverbs 4:18). Their growth is compared to calves in the stall, which grow quickly, strongly, and in a useful way. They will not grow like the flower of the field, which is thin, weak, and short-lived. They will grow like calves in the stall, which, as one rabbinic writer explains, become full of flesh and fatness, enough to fill God’s altars and people’s tables. In that way, the growth of the saints honors both God and man. Some read it as, “You will move yourselves” or “leap for joy,” as lively as calves let loose into the open field. It points to the joy of the saints, who rejoice in Christ Jesus. They will even leap for joy, because they are always led in triumph.

This mercy will also make them victorious over their enemies (Malachi 4:3). “You will tread down the wicked.” There was a time when the wicked trod on them and said to their souls, “Bow down, so we may walk over you.” But the day will come when they will tread down the wicked. The wicked, being made Christ’s footstool, are also made the church’s footstool (Psalm 110:1), and come and worship at the feet of the church (Revelation 3:9). The older will serve the younger. When believers overcome the world by faith, when they put down their own sinful desires and passions, when the God of peace crushes Satan under their feet, then they tread down the wicked.

When Christians came into the place of triumph over the Jews who had insulted them, this promise was fulfilled: “They will be ashes under the soles of your feet.” They will not only be trodden down, but ground to dust. When the day comes that burns them up, they will be trampled like ashes. When the righteous rise to everlasting life, the wicked rise to everlasting shame. The righteous will not triumph over them in a proud way, but they will rejoice in God, whose justice is shown in their destruction. The saints in glory are said to be given power over the nations, to rule them with a rod of iron (Revelation 2:26-27).

“This you will do in the day that I do this.” The saints’ victories all come from God’s victories. It is not they who do this, but God who does it for them, the one who says, “Come, set your feet on the necks of these kings.” Some read it as, “In the day that I make,” meaning the great and striking day I will appoint, about which you will say with joy, “This is the day the Lord has made.” The day of Jerusalem’s destruction is called the great and notable day of the Lord (Acts 2:20), and our Lord, when he foretold that destruction, used language that also fits the end of the world and the last judgment. It was such a terrible showing of God’s wrath from heaven, and brought such horror on the earth, that it could rightly serve as a picture of that great event, which will close the days of time and open the days of eternity. When these prophecies were fulfilled in the ruin of the Jewish nation, our faith is strengthened in the promises Christ has given about the end of all things.

“Surely I come quickly,” says Christ, the Lord of hosts, to whom all authority in heaven and on earth has been given.