Then they that feared the Lord— Houbigant remarks, that by the word jewels in Malachi 3:17 are meant those who feared God, and embraced the faith of the Gospel. This, says he, is principally to be understood of those Jerusalem Christians who retreated to Pella, when the destruction of Jerusalem drew nigh. But Mr. Peters, I think, justly observes, that the last verse fixes the time to the resurrection, and the general judgment; when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, and when alone it will be possible for us to discern who are righteous, and who are wicked, by the divine distributions towards them; when every man shall receive his final lot, either of reward or punishment; and then shall we know with certainty, both who are, and what is to be God's סגלה seguliah, his jewels or treasure, for so the word signifies; something highly valuable. See his Dissert. on Job, p. 316. The words may be read, And they shall be to me, saith the Lord of Hosts, in the day that I shall appoint, a peculiar treasure.
REFLECTIONS.—1st, If the words of the conclusion of the foregoing chapter be considered, as they are by some commentators, as the scoff of the infidel, who, because the Messiah's appearing was long delayed, concluded that he would never come, the opening of this chapter contains a full answer to such a suggestion. See the Critical Notes.
1. The harbinger of the Messiah approaches. Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me. Of whom this is spoken we cannot be in doubt (see Matthew 11:10. Mark 1:2.), John the Baptist being sent to point out the Lamb of God, and, by preaching repentance, to lead the people to him who alone can give remission of sins.
2. The Lord of life and glory shall immediately follow his herald and forerunner. The Lord, whom ye seek, the long-expected Messiah, to whom the eyes of Israel were directed, shall suddenly come to his temple, and by his presence fulfil the prophesy of Haggai, putting the most distinguished honour on that holy place,—even the messenger of the covenant of grace, who, as the great prophet sent from God, publishes and explains the tenor of that covenant more clearly and distinctly than it was ever done before; whom ye delight in: they in general pleased themselves with the expectation of him, though they entirely mistook the nature of his office; but many there were also among them, who waited for him as a spiritual Messiah, coming to save his people from their sins. He shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts, whose promise is faithful, and the accomplishment of it, in the fulness of time, sure.
3. The great end of his coming is declared. Many wished for his appearing, who little understood the design of it; therefore is the question asked, But who may abide the day of his coming? who will be able to bear the doctrines that he advances, concerning his own Deity, the purpose of his coming to die for sinners, the nature of his kingdom, &c. or his sharp and piercing rebukes against the characters of the men of that generation, held in highest admiration; and who shall stand when he appeareth? before the piercing energy of his word; which intimates how few would endure or receive the truths that he taught while he abode upon earth; for he is like a refiner's fire; by his word separating the precious from the vile; distinguishing the true sense of God's word from the adulterating glosses of the scribes; and purifying his believing followers who received him; while the wicked, who rejected him, are cast away as dross: and like fuller's soap, which cleanses the garment from spots, so shall he cleanse his believing people from their sins.
Many shall be happy partakers of his grace, willingly receiving him with penitent hearts. On them he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; by the various methods that he uses, he will purge away the dross of guilt and corruption from their souls; making every means of grace effectual, and every providence sanctified. When he puts those who thus believingly cleave to him into any furnace of affliction or temptation, he himself will regulate the fire, and take care that they shall be in it no longer, nor feel it fiercer, than they are able to bear; and the whole shall ultimately be for their good. And he shall purify the sons of Levi; not merely those Jews who were of that family, or the apostles and ministers of the gospel; but all his people, who are, through faith in him, consecrated to be priests unto God; and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness, even themselves a living sacrifice, and the well-pleasing oblation of prayer and praise, and all their works and labours of love, accepted now in Jesus Christ. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years; like the offering of Abel, the sacrifice of Abraham, or the burnt-offering of Aaron, which the heavenly fire devoured. Justified through the infinite merit of Christ's sacrifice, and sanctified by the Spirit of Jesus, all the services of his people shall be a sweet-smelling favour.
To some for judgment he will come into the world, a savour of death unto them through their wilful impenitence, as of life unto others. Their characters are declared: they are sorcerers, who used enchantments and divination; adulterers, wallowing in the lusts of uncleanness; false swearers, who profaned God's name, and called him to witness to a lie; oppressors of the hireling, defrauding him of his wages; of the widow and fatherless, taking advantage of their helplessness to plunder and devour them; and turn aside the stranger from his right; because ignorant of the law, or through the partiality of the judges; and they fear not me, saith the Lord of Hosts, nor obey his Gospel. For all which things Christ threatens to be a swift witness against them, and will bring their sins to light, however secretly committed; and execute just judgment in consequence upon them, and that quickly; as he did, shortly after his appearing in the flesh, in the destruction of Jerusalem; and as he will do in the great day of perdition of all the ungodly.
4. He ratifies the determined purposes of his word. I am the Lord, Jehovah, self-existent, self-sufficient, able to save or destroy to the uttermost. I change not; I am love itself towards every returning penitent, and in me is fulness of grace for every genuine believer; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed; I still wait to receive you, if ye will turn and live: but if ye will not return, ye have only yourselves to blame: still I change not; but my decrees of judgment against the finally impenitent shall stand for ever.
2nd, We have,
1. The charge, drawn up against the Jewish people, of long-continued iniquities. From the days of their fathers the apostacy began; they had forsaken God's ordinances, and had not kept them; yet he, patient and gracious, invited them to return, with the kindest assurances of forgiveness and acceptance. Return unto me, and I will return unto you; but they, instead of obeying, in the pride and stubbornness of their hearts, replied, Wherein shall we return? as if they had done nothing amiss, and needed no repentance; or were displeased at the gracious invitation, because it implied a rebuke. God therefore lays their crimes to their conscience: Will a man rob God? or the gods? even a heathen would not act thus toward his idols: or the judges; none could think with impunity thus to treat a magistrate; how daring the attempt then, and how insolent the provocation, to rob God of his honour, glory, and service, as they had done; yet ye have robbed me. Note; Robbers of God are the worst of robbers: all these persist in maintaining their innocence, and impudently challenge him to prove the accusation: Wherein have we robbed thee? The proof is evident; in tithes and offerings: they robbed God's altar of its due, and his ministers of their maintenance; making no conscience of defrauding them of their appointed portion, or giving them the worst, when the best should have been brought; as if the blind and lame were good enough for an offering. This was the sin of the whole nation, and the universality of the crime was an aggravation of it; therefore ye are cursed with a curse; with barrenness, want, and locusts, which devoured their labours. So little is got by robbing God; for they who think that they shall grow the richer by their fraudulent dealings with God's ministers, will find the curse of God, like a canker-worm, devouring their substance.
2. They are warned to amend their ways: and the gracious invitation still abides the same; Return unto me, and I will return unto you: and they would find themselves abundant gainers by rendering to him his due; bring ye all the tithes into the store-house; all, conscientiously scrupulous that nothing in quantity or quality be kept back; that there may be meat in mine house; for God's altar* should be served before our own tables, and the support of his worship and service should be dearer to us, than any secular concerns more immediately our own; and such honesty will be found the best policy, as it will procure God's blessing. And prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if they should not find abundantly their advantage in so doing. They who dare trust God will be convinced by experience, that their dues and benefactions for the support of a Gospel-ministry, and their charity to the poor, shall never impoverish but enrich them. Prove me, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, which had been shut up; and send the needful refreshing rains, and pour you out a blessing, abundant fruitfulness, and plenty of all good things; so that ye shall not be sufficient; there shall be more than there are hands to reap and gather, barns to fill, or vessels to receive: and I will rebuke the devourer for your sake; the locust and caterpillar shall no more destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall the vine, through drought, blasting, or hurricanes, cast her fruit before the time in the flesh. And all nations, who before reproached them with their want and poverty, shall call you blessed, beholding the evident care and kindness of God towards them; for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of Hosts; where plenty reigns, and over which God continually watches with his peculiar love and favour; and these indeed make the truly delightsome land.
* In these Reflections, I have applied the prophet's words to the Christian dispensation; but the reader is requested to make all due allowances for the dissimilarity of circumstances.
3rdly, The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. He observes the characters of men, and they will be punished or rewarded accordingly.
1. He observed among the Jews some who, with daring insolence, arraigned the dispensations of his providence and grace, and revolted from his worship and ordinances. Your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord: yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee? as if they had been clear from blame: or if an inadvertent word had dropped from them, it was not a matter that deserved such sharp admonition. So ready are sinners to extenuate their faults; and because they have no sense of the evil of sin themselves, they think God severe in his rebukes: yet surely they had provoked him most highly. Ye have said, It is vain to serve God, since there is nothing to be got by his service; but the wicked often fare better than the righteous; and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, exact in the observation of his worship and ceremonies, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of Hosts, in the habit of penitents. Perhaps reference is here had to the Sadducees, who denied a future state, and the Pharisees, who, rigidly scrupulous in the form of godliness, observed it merely for worldly ends, and looked upon it as a burthensome task. But their evil report will be confuted by the experience of every gracious person, who will find God's ways both pleasant and profitable; and count God's service perfect freedom, and its own reward. And now we call the proud happy; they judged of happiness by outward wealth and splendour, and because they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are delivered, for such they beheld who prospered in iniquity; and though their presumptuous sins seemed to cry for vengeance, no evil came upon them; therefore they were ready to conclude, that there was neither a providence here, nor a judgment to come; and that those were the happiest who gratified every desire of the flesh and of the mind. And these were the hard speeches that God heard, which he will confute and confound when the wrath, which pursues the most prosperous sinner, shall quickly overtake him.
2. He heard with pleasure the gracious conversation of the few faithful ones, who feared and served him. We have,
[1.] Their character. (1.) They feared the Lord, reverenced his authority, submitted to his providential will without murmuring, were jealous of offending, and kept themselves with constancy in his holy worship and ways. (2.) They thought upon his name; remembering him, his word, his promises; and meditated thereon, supporting their faith in these trying days with the consideration of his adorable perfections, and maintaining still their communion with him. (3.) They spoke often one to another; the more iniquity abounded, the more they stirred each other up to love and to good works: whilst others spake so much against God, they made bold profession of his religion, and encouraged each other with zeal to appear in his cause: when their neighbours had renounced all religious worship and conversation, they assembled to talk of God's goodness, and to unite in prayer and praise at a throne of grace. May we, who live in these ungodly days, be enabled to go and do likewise!
[2.] The honour that God put upon them. (1.) The Lord hearkened and heard it: was present in their private assemblies; and where two or three met together for these gracious purposes, he was in the midst of them, testifying his approbation of their conduct, by the comfort, strength, and encouragement that he bestowed upon them. (2.) A book of remembrance was written before him; he entered every gracious word into his sacred records,—treasured them up in his all-comprehensive mind,—laid them up for the comfort of the faithful unto the great day, when they shall come into remembrance, and be recompensed at the resurrection of the just. (3.) They shall be mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels, delivered from the flames of Jerusalem, in which the others fell; or in general this is spoken of all God's faithful saints, who are jewels dear and precious to him, glittering with divine graces, and intended to deck the crown of the eternal King; they are mine, saith God; he has a peculiar property in his believing people, and regards them as a man does his own things, with especial affection. The day referred to is that of the appearing of the great God and Saviour Jesus Christ, who shall separate the precious and the vile: and when the wicked are made as the dung, the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father: he will make them up, collecting them together into his glorious treasury in heaven, and there shall they be ever with the Lord. (4.) I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him; loving God, and walking with him, they shall continually experience from him a father's love: since they shew themselves in spirit and temper his dutiful children, he will overlook their infirmities, will forgive their offences; tenderness shall soften all his rebukes, whilst every feeble effort to please him, though but like the lispings of a child, shall be accepted. (5.) He will put such a distinguishing difference between them and others, that all shall take knowledge of them, and own that they are the blessed of the Lord. Then shall ye, who have spoken so stoutly against the Lord, and the unprofitableness of his service, return; shall change your sentiments and language, and shall discern, by the sequel, the difference which God makes between the righteous and the wicked between him that serveth God, and him that serveth him not; and this was evident at the destruction of Jerusalem, out of which the people of God had escaped before the siege; and shall be abundantly manifest in the judgment-day. The real characters of men are now difficult to be discerned; the veil of hypocrisy, our prejudices, and the weakness of our understandings, make us often mistake, and count them gracious whom God will disown, and those vile who are beloved of him: but every man's true state will then appear: the righteous in Christ Jesus, through his blood and Spirit, who have loved and served him faithfully, will then be without spot before the throne of God, and go with him into eternal glory; while the wicked, who lived in impenitence or hypocrisy, shall be seen and abhorred of all, and go away into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Reader, Judge nothing before the time concerning the characters of others, or at least judge mercifully; but judge thyself, that thou mayest not be judged of the Lord.