But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap:
But who may abide the day of his coming? - (Malachi 4:1; Revelation 6:15; Revelation 16:17). The Messiah would come, not, as they expected, to flatter the theocratic nation's prejudices, but to subject their principles to the fiery test of His heart-searching truth (Matthew 3:10-12), and to destroy Jerusalem and the theocracy after they had rejected Him.
For he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap. His mission is here regarded as a whole, from the first to the second advent; the process of refining and separating the godly from the ungodly, beginning during Christ's stay on earth, going on ever since, and about to continue until the final separation (Matthew 25:31-46). The refining process, whereby a third of the Jews is refined as silver of its dross, while two-thirds perish, is described, Zechariah 13:8-9 (cf. Isaiah 1:25).