God wants His people to follow Him. When addressing His people in Malachi He initiates a plan for them to know Him and follow Him rightly. God declares, “’Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming,’ says the LORD of Hosts” (Malachi 3:1).[1]
God says He will send two messengers. The first will be a human messenger we now know would be John the Baptist (Matt 11:2-15). As the first messenger John the Baptist will “clear the way” for God’s Son, Jesus Christ.
The second messenger will be a heavenly messenger. This is how God is coming. God says He “will suddenly come to His temple.” The word “suddenly” does not mean fast but means unexpected.
In Jesus’s life on earth we saw two fulfillments of this verse which we call “the day of Christ.” The first fulfillment is when Jesus arrived at the temple and someone asked Jesus why He didn’t pay an annual tax that supported the temple (Matt 17:24-27). When Jesus approached the temple He said He was exempt from paying the temple tax because He was God and He owned the temple. But He still paid it as a way to keep the peace, but made it clear He didn’t have to pay it.
The second fulfillment is when Jesus announced the new covenant in the Upper Room. In Matthew 26:28 Jesus told them He was making a new covenant with the people (Ezekiel 36; Jeremiah 31; Isaiah 54). These two events describe “the day of Christ” that we live in now and which is often called the time of grace or the era of the church.
The third fulfillment is when Jesus approaches the earth at his second coming. The first and second coming are separated. This second coming of Christ in the end times is what is called “the day of the Lord.”
But there is one more messenger described here in Malachi 3:1 in addition to John the Baptist and Jesus Christ: the third is us reading it and who have a responsibility to proclaim it.
We tell this message about Jesus Christ as the Savior. It is our responsibility to tell people about Jesus’s love, how He gave his life as a sacrifice on behalf of others, in order to cleanse them from their sins and provide a way for them to live forever in heaven with God.
We are also God’s messengers because of our day-to-day activities that we do and how we do them. Are we kind, respectful, and courteous to all people in all walks of life regardless of their economic status and skin color? Do we deal honestly with people and have integrity in our dealings with other people? Do we do what we say we will do and follow through on our commitments? These might sound like basic things, but non-Christians are watching Christians all the time. They are watching us to see if we really practice what we preach.
Our works also involve the things we do to other people. Are we good friend to people that need our help? Are we considerate to our neighbors? Do we bring people food that are sick when they need help? Do we help people that are elderly to work on their house or mow their lawn?
We are God’s messengers when we serve other people with love in these ways just as Jesus served us in love by dying on behalf of us.
[1] Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible, Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission.