MESSENGER OF THE COVENANT

‘I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come … even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in.’

These words, in context, are God’s answer to the question? ‘Where is the God of judgment?’, Mal. 2.17. For some, the covenant messenger brings purifying judgement. Yet to those who fear the Lord, these would be words of hope. Israel had already heard the messages of the covenants. The Abrahamic covenant promised them existence as a great nation and a blessing to all the nations of the earth. The Mosaic covenant promised them national and spiritual privileges. The new covenant sanctioned by the prophets promised them future peace and mercy, Isa. 55. 3; Jer. 31. 31-34; Ezek. 37. 26. But now more than a message, the messenger Himself, the Lord, would come.

The New Covenant identifies the first messenger of verse 1, the one who prepares the way of ‘the messenger of the covenant’, as John the Baptist, Matt. 11. 7-15. John identified the covenant messenger, ‘the Lord’, as Jesus, John 1. 29-34. The message of the New Covenant is wonderful: ‘I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more’, Heb. 10. 16, 17. cf. Jer. 31. 33, 34. An inward work and an outward removal: cleansed and changed. What a message this messenger brings: words of life, hope, grace and forgiveness - and in the form of a covenant, God’s official promises - not feelings. Not only are the promises new, but the principle of giving them is new: not conditional on man’s performance, as was the Mosaic, but on God’s faithfulness to His message to those who believe.

Even more amazing is that the messenger of the covenant is also the means of the covenant. Many bring a message but do nothing to cause one to experience the message. The Lord Jesus shed His sacrificial blood as a full payment for our sins and called it ‘the new testament in my blood’, Luke 22. 20.

Because He lives before the Father, He is ‘the mediator of the new covenant’, and we can come to God by Him, Heb. 12. 24. Yet further, Malachi says, He ‘shall suddenly come’.