Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare 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
Luke 1:76 And you, child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for Him,
This passage is often brought up by trinitarians to show that Jesus is God. Their basic claim is:
Malachi says that God will send his messenger to prepare the way before himself. “I send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me.” Jesus says that this messenger is John the Baptist. “This is the one about whom it is written: “’I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’” Matthew 11:10, speaking of John the Baptist. If John prepares the way for God, and John prepares the way for Jesus, then Jesus is God.
There seem to be disagreements among Trinitarians on the usage of “Lord” in this passage (the first usage in this verse). Some argue that this usage of the term (root: adon) is not a specifically divine title used of God, and is similar to the “lord” used in Psalm 110:1 of the messiah. Others argue that the form of this term used here is limited only to God in every case, and is therefore an exclusively divine title. Yet they both agree that this “Lord” is Jesus. Either recognizing him as the messiah or recognizing him as God.
They read the passage this way: “Behold, I, Jesus, send my messenger John, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord Jesus whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, Jesus, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts Jesus. (Or “the Son”)
Our first problem is that Jesus never sends John the Baptist.
John 1:6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John.
“God” here would surely refer to the Father, even in Trinitarian theology, as in verse 2 we read “the word was with God in the beginning,” and they take this to mean that Jesus was with the Father in the beginning. When John the Baptist was sent into his ministry, he was around 30 years of age, and Jesus was already incarnated as a man, and John did not recognize him as the messiah until he came to be baptized. If Jesus is the one who sent John to prepare his way, surely John would have known that Jesus was the messiah before this revelation.
John 1:33 I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.
When we read “I am sending my messenger and he will prepare the way for me,” who is speaking here? Was John not sent by God the Father? Then he is the speaker. The Father sent John to baptize to prepare the way for himself. By preparing the way for Jesus, John is preparing the way for God, not because Jesus is God, but because God is in him (John 3:2, 10:38, 14:9-11, 20). Jesus makes the Father known (John 1:18). In ancient times, roads were not paved and kept up by a government or property owner. Roads were often very rough, overgrown, and not well worn. If a king wished to travel to another land, he would send a servant to prepare the road by filling the holes, removing obstacles and whatever was needed. A messenger was sent ahead to announce the kings arrival so that preparations could be made for him. We must keep these roles in mind as we seek to understand the passage.
“And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple;”
Whether the term here for “Lord” is a properly divine term only used for God or not is truly besides the point (my own personal opinion, it is not an exclusively divine title). In the time of Malachi, who did they know the Lord to be here? This was quite obviously God. The temple would be the temple in which they worshipped. But keep in mind Jesus’ words:
John 4:21-24 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
Where will believers worship? In the temple? No, but in the spirit. Many Trinitarians believe Malachi to be speaking of Jesus entering the temple, and in this way “the Lord Jesus will soon come into his temple.” But what is the temple in the ministry of Jesus?
John 2:21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body.
The body of Christ was the temple of God. The temple is where God resides by his presence. God was in Christ by his spirit.
1 Corinthians 3:16 Do you not know that you yourselves are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
1 Corithians 6:19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;
2 Corinthians 6:16 What agreement can exist between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be My people.
Ephesians 2:21-22 21In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
It is painfully clear that the temple of God is no longer a building of stone built with human hands, but in the spirit in the heart of true believers. The temple has always been said to be the house of the Father because it is where he resides. When Jesus says that the Father is “in him” this is because his body is where God resides, and in God is where he resides. Similarly, we are “in Christ” when we are in the Spirit of Christ. When we read that the Lord is coming into his temple, the Lord is clearly the Father coming into his home, and his home is in the temple of the body of Jesus. When does this happen? When does the spirit of God tabernacle in the flesh of Jesus?
John 1:32-34 Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ 34I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.”
Note that John says “the one who sent me” and this is not Jesus, this is someone else speaking about Jesus, who is “God’s chosen one.” How did John the Baptist prepare the way for the Lord? Was it not by baptizing and preaching repentance for the kingdom of God? When John baptized Jesus and the holy spirit descended and remained on him, John prepared the way for God the Father to enter his temple in the body of Jesus (this is what “the word became flesh and took up residence among us” means as well).
“And the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.”
Who is the messenger of the covenant? Jesus, the messenger of a new and greater covenant (Hebrews 12:24). The language here is literally “the angel of the covenant.” This is argued by some (very few, I find) to show that Jesus, being the angel of the covenant is also the angel of the LORD, who is the angel of the old covenant to Israel. This is easily disproven by Hebrews 8:6 which reads
Hebrews 8:6 But in fact the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises.
Jesus is said specifically to be the mediator of the new superior covenant, not the mediator of the old covenant. This is, after all, the point of the letter to the Hebrews; to show that Jesus is superior to the angels and thus, the covenant which he instituted is superior to that which was given by angels. If Jesus is the mediator of the old covenant, and the angel who gave it, the letter to the Hebrews has entirely missed its mark. Jesus is the mediator not of an old covenant but the new. This actually disproves that Jesus is the angel of the LORD.
“‘He is coming’ says the LORD of hosts.” Note that he who is coming is specifically distinct to the one who is speaking. This is not, as some have said, “He who speaks, is He who should come, God the Son” (Albert Barnes Notes, commentary on Malachi 3:1).
This passage is not Jesus foretelling that he will come as God, nor is it telling us that John the Baptist is preparing the way for God by preparing the way for Jesus because Jesus is God, nor is it telling us that Jesus is God or the angel of the LORD in any obscure way. The true reading of the passage is to be understood this way:
Behold, I (God the Father) send my messenger (John the Baptist), and he will prepare the way before me (by baptizing). And the Lord (God the Father) whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple (the body of Jesus Christ, by his Spirit, at the Jordan River); and the messenger of the covenant (Jesus) in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts (God the Father).