Malachi 3:1
“I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty. (NIV)
Today’s Reading: Malachi 3:1-5
Today we will focus on the the phrase found in Malachi 3:1:
“Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple.”
The first word being “then” causes us to look at what happened before the “then.” As we covered yesterday, God will first send a messenger to prepare the way before Him. That was clearly John the Baptist because Jesus quotes this exact Scripture and told us that John fulfilled it. So first God will send John the Baptist to prepare the way for Jesus. “Then” and “suddenly” the Lord will come to his temple.
If we are looking for the exact fulfillment of this Scripture, we aren’t going to be certain of any specific event. When Jesus was born, Mary and Joseph took him to the Temple as required by law 40 days after he was born:
“When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord’), and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: ‘a pair of doves or two young pigeons’” (Luke 2:22-24).
Luke tells us that a man named Simeon was there at the temple waiting for Jesus as part of a divine appointment. God led Simeon to the temple that day so that he could see the Messiah as God had promised him. A prophet named Anna was also there at the temple and she also recognized Jesus as the Messiah. So this being Jesus’s first appearance at the Temple may have fulfilled Malachi 3:1.
However, Jesus was often in the temple. He was born as a Jew and would have been raised according to the Jewish law. Jews were obligated to appear before the Lord at the Temple in Jerusalem three times every year for the three major festivals – Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. We see one of these instances when Jesus was twelve. His parents made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem during Passover as required by Jewish law:
“Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions” (Luke 2:41-46).
The other significant time that Jesus visited the temple that may be the fulfillment of Malachi 3:1 was after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem as the King. Jesus entered Jerusalem to celebrate that last Passover when he would be crucified. He came riding on a colt with the masses waving palms shouting praises at Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah. The next day he visited the Temple and it was quite the event:
“On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, ‘Is it not written: “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations”? But you have made it “a den of robbers”‘” (Mark 11:15-17).
But there’s even one more time that could be when God is telling Malachi that the Lord will come to his temple. The word “suddenly” is what throws us off and makes us think that Jesus didn’t fulfill this prophecy completely during his first visit and it will be fulfilled on his second visit. Scripture tells us that Jesus will suddenly appear without warning when he comes again:
“You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him… The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of” (Luke 12:40, 46).
““Look, I come like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake and remains clothed, so as not to go naked and be shamefully exposed” (Rev 16:15).
“I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple” (Rev 21:22).
When Jesus returns, he will be the temple. He will appear suddenly like a thief in the night. He will establish his kingdom on earth and all of creation will worship him. There will be no physical temple – only Jesus. And it will be glorious!
Christ in the Old Testament 
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