The final exhortation and promise point backwards and forwards, summing up duty in obedience to the law, and fixing hope on a future reappearance of the leader of the prophets. Moses and Elijah are the two giant figures which dominate the history of Israel. Law and prophecy are the two forms in which God spoke to the fathers. The former is of perpetual obligation, the latter will flash up again in power on the threshold of the day. Jesus has interpreted this closing word for us. John came in the spirit and power of Elijah,' and the purpose of his coming was to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children' (Luke 1:16-17); that is, to bring back the devout dispositions of the patriarchs to the existing generations, and so to bring the hearts of the children to their fathers,' as united with them in devout obedience. If John's mission had succeeded, the curse' which smote Israel would have been stayed. God has done all that He can do to keep us from being consumed by the fire of that day. The Incarnation, Life, and Death of Jesus Christ made a day of the Lord which has the twofold character of that in Malachi's vision, for He is a savour of life unto life' or of death unto death,' and must be one or other to us. But another day of the Lord is still to come, and for each of us it will come burning as a furnace or bright as sunrise. Then the universe shall discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not.'
