“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.” Malachi 3:5,6
In the final prophetical book of the Old Testament, Malachi, written approximately 400-500 years before the birth of Christ, the burden that the Lord God gave to him to communicate to His people was this: “‘I have loved you,’ says the Lord, ‘…yet you say, ‘In what way have You loved us?'” (1:2) God goes on to tell Israel how they had fallen so far in the recognition of the love of God, having turned away from Him, His word, and thus His power, time and again. Now, as a nation, though she will not be completely abandoned by God, she will forfeit the great blessing of His manifest presence, and the goodness that He has longed to reveal to her, and through her, so that the ends of the earth will know that He is God. Four hundred years stretches out before her now, a period of waiting for two men, who would be instrumental to God’s only revealed solution for the salvation of mankind, particularly those who would truly trust in the Messiah, Christ.
The first of these two men would be, as God called him, “My messenger.” His purpose would be to prepare the way for the second man, who would be the Christ, the Messiah. The first man would come in the “…the strength and power of Elijah.” (Luke 1:17) His coming would be distinguished, not by the pomp and pride of men, but by a “voice crying in the wilderness,” a man clothed with a garment of camel’s hair, and eating locusts and wild honey. John the Baptist, as he would later be called, would be a man “great in the sight of the Lord,” a man who was unique, first of all by his birth to parents, the mother of which was beyond child-bearing years. Even in the womb of Elizabeth his mother, at the salutation by Mary, the mother of Jesus, already carrying the child Jesus in her womb, John would leap for joy. From his birth, John the Baptist was filled with the Spirit of God, the same Spirit that filled Christ as a babe, and later as the man, Christ Jesus. John was also unique in that God gave him the name, John, which would mean, “God is gracious.” The man was set apart by God, the very fulfillment of God’s promise to Israel so long before, and destined to be by the Spirit of God, the fulfillment of God’s promise, and as his earthly father would declare: “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest; for your will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people by the remission of their sins.” (Lk. 1:76,77) John’s ministry began one day in the wilderness, when, “…the word of God” came to him. (3:2)
The second man who came after John the Baptist was the Lord Jesus Christ. He too would be unique, and more so, because of the manifestation of the Spirit of God, firstly coming upon Him after his baptism, proving that He was the Messiah, the Lamb who would take away the sin of the world, but also, revealing that the moment had come to begin his ministry of salvation for all men. He too would be characterized by “strength and power,” to first and foremost reveal the living God in the flesh to men, that they might know and believe wholly in Him as their only, and complete Savior. His words of power, His selfless life, His perfect sacrifice and completed work, would testify to all men, for all time and eternity, that He was and is not only the Son of God, but the Savior of the world, for every individual who would truly repent and believe.
Dear Father, Grant us Thy Spirit. In Jesus’ name, Amen.