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| Of the Prophecy of the Three Prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.
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Chapter 35.—Of the Prophecy of
the Three Prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.
There remain three minor prophets,
Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, who prophesied at the close of the
captivity. Of these Haggai more openly prophesies of Christ and
the Church thus briefly: “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Yet one
little while, and I will shake the heaven, and the earth, and the
sea, and the dry land; and I will move all nations, and the desired
of all nations shall come.”1201
The fulfillment of this prophecy
is in part already seen, and in part hoped for in the end. For He
moved the heaven by the testimony of the angels and the stars, when
Christ became incarnate. He moved the earth by the great miracle
of His birth of the virgin. He moved the sea and the dry land,
when Christ was
proclaimed both in the isles
and in the whole world. So we see all nations moved to the faith;
and the fulfillment of what follows, “And the desired of all
nations shall come,” is looked for at His last coming. For ere
men can desire and and wait for Him, they must believe and love
Him.
Zechariah says of Christ and the
Church, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion; shout joyfully, O
daughter of Jerusalem; behold, thy King shall come unto thee, just
and the Saviour; Himself poor, and mounting an ass, and a colt the
foal of an ass: and His dominion shall be from sea to sea, and
from the river even to the ends of the earth.”1202
How this was done, when the Lord
Christ on His journey used a beast of burden of this kind, we read
in the Gospel, where, also, as much of this prophecy is quoted as
appears sufficient for the context. In another place, speaking in
the Spirit of prophecy to Christ Himself of the remission of sins
through His blood, he says, “Thou also, by the blood of Thy
testament, hast sent forth Thy prisoners from the lake wherein is
no water.”1203
Different opinions may be held, consistently with right belief, as
to what he meant by this lake. Yet it seems to me that no meaning
suits better than that of the depth of human misery, which is, as
it were, dry and barren, where there are no streams of
righteousness, but only the mire of iniquity. For it is said of
it in the Psalms, “And He led me forth out of the lake of misery,
and from the miry clay.”1204
Malachi, foretelling the Church
which we now behold propagated through Christ, says most openly to
the Jews, in the person of God, “I have no pleasure in you, and I
will not accept a gift at your hand. For from the rising even to
the going down of the sun, my name is great among the nations; and
in every place sacrifice shall be made, and a pure oblation shall
be offered unto my name: for my name shall be great among the
nations, saith the Lord.”1205
Since we can already see this
sacrifice offered to God in every place, from the rising of the sun
to his going down, through Christ’s priesthood after the order of
Melchisedec, while the Jews, to whom it was said, “I have no
pleasure in you, neither will I accept a gift at your hand,”
cannot deny that their sacrifice has ceased, why do they still look
for another Christ, when they read this in the prophecy, and see it
fulfilled, which could not be fulfilled except through Him? And a
little after he says of Him, in the person of God, “My covenant
was with Him of life and peace: and I gave to Him that He might
fear me with fear, and be afraid before my name. The law of truth
was in His mouth: directing in peace He hath walked with me, and
hath turned many away from iniquity. For the Priest’s lips
shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law at His mouth:
for He is the Angel of the Lord Almighty.”1206
Nor is it to be wondered at that
Christ Jesus is called the Angel of the Almighty God. For just as
He is called a servant on account of the form of a servant in which
He came to men, so He is called an angel on account of the
evangel which He proclaimed to men. For if we interpret these
Greek words, evangel is “good news,” and angel is
“messenger.” Again he says of Him, “Behold I will send mine
angel, and He will look out the way before my face: and the Lord,
whom ye seek, shall suddenly come into His temple, even the Angel
of the testament, whom ye desire. Behold, He cometh, saith the
Lord Almighty, and who shall abide the day of His entry, or who
shall stand at His appearing?”1207
In this place he has foretold
both the first and second advent of Christ: the first, to wit, of
which he says, “And He shall come suddenly into His temple;”
that is, into His flesh, of which He said in the Gospel, “Destroy
this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again.”1208
And of
the second advent he says, “Behold, He cometh, saith the Lord
Almighty, and who shall abide the day of His entry, or who shall
stand at His appearing?” But what he says, “The Lord whom ye
seek, and the Angel of the testament whom ye desire,” just means
that even the Jews, according to the Scriptures which they read,
shall seek and desire Christ. But many of them did not
acknowledge that He whom they sought and desired had come, being
blinded in their hearts, which were preoccupied with their own
merits. Now what he here calls the testament, either above, where
he says, “My testament had been with Him,” or here, where he
has called Him the Angel of the testament, we ought, beyond a
doubt, to take to be the new testament, in which the things
promised are eternal, and not the old, in which they are only
temporal. Yet many who are weak are troubled when they see the
wicked abound in such temporal things, because they value them
greatly, and serve the true God to be rewarded with them. On this
account, to distinguish the eternal blessedness of the new
testament, which shall be given only to the good, from the earthly
felicity of the old, which for the most part is given to the bad as
well, the same prophet
says, “Ye have made your
words burdensome to me: yet ye have said, In what have we spoken
ill of Thee? Ye have said, Foolish is every one who serves God;
and what profit is it that we have kept His observances, and that
we have walked as suppliants before the face of the Lord
Almighty? And now we call the aliens blessed; yea, all that do
wicked things are built up again; yea, they are opposed to God and
are saved. They that feared the Lord uttered these reproaches
every one to his neighbor: and the Lord hearkened and heard; and
He wrote a book of remembrance before Him, for them that fear the
Lord and that revere His name.”1209
By that book is meant the New
Testament. Finally, let us hear what follows: “And they shall
be an acquisition for me, saith the Lord Almighty, in the day which
I make; and I will choose them as a man chooseth his son that
serveth him. And ye shall return, and shall discern between the
just and the unjust, and between him that serveth God and him that
serveth Him not. For, behold, the day cometh burning as an oven,
and it shall burn them up; and all the aliens and all that do
wickedly shall be stubble: and the day that shall come will set
them on fire, saith the Lord Almighty, and shall leave neither root
nor branch. And unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of
Righteousness arise, and health shall be in His wings; and ye shall
go forth, and exult as calves let loose from bonds. And ye shall
tread down the wicked, and they shall be ashes under your feet, in
the day in which I shall do [this], saith the Lord Almighty.”1210
This day
is the day of judgment, of which, if God will, we shall speak more
fully in its own place.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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