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
Malachi 3:1 is such a rich prophecy. It foretold of John the Baptist preparing the way for Jesus. It also foretold Jesus coming at a time when the Temple still existed. We know that the Temple had recently been rebuilt in Jerusalem after its total destruction by the Babylonians about 150 years before Malachi’s prophecy. We also know that in 70 AD, the Temple was destroyed again by the Romans. So the Messiah was to come during this 500 year period when the second Temple existed – and he did.
Malachi 3:1 tells us yet even more. It tells us that the Messiah would be God in the flesh and deliver a new covenant. First, the Messiah would be God:
“Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple.”
Mark makes this connection at the very outset of his gospel:
“The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet…” (Mark 1:1-2).
Mark then goes on to quote both Malachi 3:1 and Isaiah 40:3 that speak about the messenger who will prepare the way for the Lord. God is coming to earth and will walk among us. Jesus also made this claim very plainly in an exchange with his apostle Philip:
“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.’
“Philip said, ‘Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.’
“Jesus answered: ‘Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father’” (John 14:6-9).
Anyone who has seen Jesus has seen the Father. The only way Jesus can make that claim is if he and God are one and the same. You wouldn’t say if you’ve seen me then you’ve seen my father. You are the same person as your dad. But Jesus is the same as God and he claimed it. So Mark points us to this prophecy as being fulfilled in Jesus as the Son of God.
His mission had multiple aspects to it. His primary mission was to bring God’s kingdom to us. In bringing the kingdom, he would need to replace the Old Covenant with a new one. The Old Covenant wouldn’t allow us to enter God’s kingdom. We could never be good enough to uphold God’s law. So Jesus fulfilled the Old Covenant and replaced it with a better one:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matt 5:17).
“For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant” (Heb 9:15).
John pulls all the details of Malachi’s prophecy together in the opening monologue to his gospel:
“(John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known” (John 1:15-18).
The New Covenant came through Jesus. It’s a covenant of both grace and truth. All praise to Jesus that we are no longer slaves to sin! We are free indeed because of him!
Christ in the Old Testament 
Leave a comment