The Last Word and the First Light: What Malachi Is Waiting For
"But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings." — Malachi 4:2 (ESV)
When we started this series, my goal was to do a bit of creative (but hopefully accurate!) imagination of what Jesus may have shared with the two disciples on the Emmaus road in Luke 24. Using the scriptures he had available at the time, which we know as the entire Old Testament, he demonstrated to them that all that had happened on the cross was not a surprise. It had been unfolded in Scripture all along.
In this post, we come to the last book of the Old Testament, right before God stops speaking to through the prophets for 400 years. As we take a look at how Jesus is foreshadowed in Malachi, remember that though he is silent, he is not absent. He is still at work.
The End of Act One
If we consider, as Nancy Guthrie suggests in her Bible study, The Word of the Lord, that the Old Testament is like Act One before the intermission, we would expect a bit of a cliff hanger so that the audience returns for the next act.
From the paradise of Eden to the despair of slavery, to the heights of the monarchy to the depths of exile, the people have come a long way. Malachi writes to a people who have come home from exile and found that home is not what they hoped. The temple has been rebuilt, but it is nothing like Ezekiel's vision. The crops are thin. A foreign king sits on the throne. The promised restoration feels very far away.
So they have done what exhausted, disappointed people do. They go through the motions. In a series of six disputes or arguments between God and his people, we see clearly that returning from exile or even rebuilding the temple didn’t make them holy. They were offering their sacrificial “leftovers” of blemished animals, breaking marriage covenants and robbing God by refusing to give their tithes.
The book follows a consistent pattern: God makes an accusation, they question or argue with him, and God responds. At the heart of it, they complain that serving God is worthless, that the wicked prosper while the faithful suffer, that there is no benefit to belonging to Him (3:13–15). In short, they practiced the form of their faith, but they had lost their personal relationship with God. Their hearts had grown cold. Performance replaced love.
Over time, going through the motions without true devotion and love will harden the heart and blind us to the truth. It’s easy then to miss the whole point of it: worship. This is just as bad as the idolatry that sent them into exile in the first place. For this, the curse of judgment is the last word they hear from God.
Hope in Christ
Despite all the correction, Malachi still points to Christ. It may end with hard words but before closing his message, this book is ultimately a book of hope. It points to Jesus in three major ways:
He is the messenger of the covenant (3:1). Besides the voice preparing the way in the wilderness (identified as John the Baptist in Matt. 11:10), the Lord himself will come to the temple. This is the moment they have been waiting for, the return of God's glory that Ezekiel prophesied.
He is the refiner’s fire (3:2-4). These verses describe Him as a silversmith who purges impurity through fire until what remains is pure and radiant. He comes to purify, not to destroy, by taking the impurity onto Himself, which begins the ongoing work of sanctification that the Spirit will continue.
He is the sun of righteousness (4:2). He shall rise with healing in its wings. Christ rises on a new creation, healing every wound sin left behind. The curse that was the last word of the Old Testament will not be the last word of the story. The day that destroys the arrogant will refine and reward the remnant of the faithful, who stay true.
Living in Act Two
Though they would have to wait for 400 years before their Savior arrives, he does. Act Two opens with his birth—the first glimmers of “the day that is coming.” Since his first coming, it continues to grow brighter and stronger, just as the light first peeps out in the early morning rays of dawn and gradually gets brighter.
One day, we will feel the full heat of the sun when it reaches its zenith at his second coming. This ultimate day of judgment is still in the future—when all sin will eventually be purged and evil destroyed. The remnant of the faithful will be spared, and they will get to enjoy the new heaven and new earth that is still yet to come.
The two disciples on the Emmaus road didn’t realize this yet but what they thought was darkness was actually the dawn of a new era of redemptive history. They didn’t know it then, but they were actually eyewitnesses to a miracle that would change the course of history.
It has been 2000 years since the initial light broke out, but we are closer now to that day of judgment—and the day of reunion. We may see this day come in our lifetime, or we may not. But it is coming. It is sure.
Until then, we wait, not as people going through the motions, but as people who have seen the Promised One and know how the story ends.
The Son is rising. And He rises with healing in his wings.
