Sermon Bible Commentary
Malachi 3:3
Under the image of the text is symbolized the whole course of the sanctification of the elect, until, through the searching discipline of God, they attain the perfection to which they are predestined Our Lord's Passion has caused an entire revolution in the experiences and views of mankind. As the Cross, once an object accursed, is now elevated among material forms to be the object of highest reverence; even so suffering in the flesh, from being regarded as the mark of Divine displeasure, is become a means of closest union with God, a seal of His love, a law of highest sanctity. The laws which regulate our purification move along two different lines, each having its counterpart in the passion of our Lord.
I. One form of spiritual chastening is found in the internal discipline, the self-imposed effort involving secret pain, with which the soul, strengthened by the grace of God, subdues its natural emotions in meeting and overcoming trial. To nerve our hearts and overcome in the hour of temptation, and choose the higher course, is the very condition of our sanctification.
II. The outward circumstances in which we are placed have, moreover, their own special office as a further means of spiritual chastening. We are girt about with innumerable influences, from which we cannot escape, which act upon us unceasingly from hour to hour. The fall has caused that close fellowship, that keen sensibility, which were to have been the rich enhancement of every pure joy, to be the occasions of a searching discipline, and ofttimes the aggravations of suffering, in proportion to the prevalence of sin and the multiform workings of our common infirmity.
III. Two incidental results from the imagery employed in the text, to strengthen and encourage the soul in its course of trial. (1) It may have been that the custom of the refiner watching the furnace, to see his face reflected on the surface of the burning mass, as the test of its attaining the required purity, was in the mind of the Spirit when selecting this image, to denote the mystery of our sanctification. Such a custom is a beautiful exemplification of the momentous truth that the object of all spiritual discipline is the restoration of the likeness of God. (2) Silver, in its pure state, is the brightest of all metals. The selection of silver in the text conveys the blessed promise of the exceeding glory with which, even now, humanity is being clothed, as it passes out of great tribulation, its robes washed white in the blood of the Lamb.
T. T. Carter, Sermons,p. 275.
I. Look first at the process: "He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and purge them as gold and silver." From this we see clearly that one important truth is assumed, and that is the inherent preciousness of man. That which is not of more or less value no one will take the pains to purify. The Scriptures nowhere, from the beginning, allow you to suppose that they treat man as an insignificant creature. When they introduce him at first it is in great stateliness, as the crown and flower of creation, the last in the ascending series of earthly creatures, and the best. When he fell from holiness and happiness he did not fall from his lordship. That still remained, though often sadly perverted and degraded, a lordship of tyranny and wrong.
Our Saviour constantly and anxiously keeps man to the front and at the top of all other things. He set His seal upon the infinite worth of man by taking his nature. The cradle of Bethlehem is the mirror in which man can see his own face as the image of the invisible God. If we were worthless Christ would not sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. He sees the dross, and He sees the metal, and He does not cast away the metal because of the dross, but He seeks to cast out the dross from the metal.
II. "He shall purify." Here we see the great aim and purpose of the Gospel. So far as man's own life and character are concerned, there is no other of higher end that the Gospel can contemplate than this our purification. This is the end of our Saviour's incarnation, the end of His teaching, the end of His atoning death, the end of His intercession, the end of all His discipline and providence with respect to us; this is His will, even our sanctification.
It is clear, from the words of our text, that among the agencies through means of which this purity is to be accomplished, one is that of trial trial as if by fire. It is an unspeakable joy to the Christian to know that, as he must be tried in the fire, he is to be tried under the eye, and hand, and heart of his Saviour. We know that a process over which He presides will be conducted with infinite wisdom. He alone knows the nature of the evil which has to be separated, and He alone knows the kind of trials to send.
E. Mellor, The Hem of Christ's Garment,p. 72.
References: Malachi 3:3. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxvii., No. 1575; Homiletic Quarterly,vol. vi., p. 329; F. D. Maurice, Sermons,vol. v., p. 205.