But to you who fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in its wings. You will go out, and leap like calves of the stall.
Parallel Translations
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But to you who fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in its wings. You will go out, and leap like calves of the stall.
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But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.
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(3-20) But unto you that fear My name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in its wings; and ye shall go forth, and gambol as calves of the stall.
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Cross-references (55)
Passages linked to Malachi 4:2 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Jeremiah 33:6 ‘Behold, I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them; and I will reveal to them abundance of peace and truth.
- Psalms 84:11 For Yahweh God is a sun and a shield. Yahweh will give grace and glory. He withholds no good thing from those who walk blamelessly.
- Isaiah 30:26 Moreover the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, in the day that Yahweh binds up the fracture of his people, and heals the wound they were struck with.
- Luke 1:78 because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the dawn from on high will visit us,
- John 8:12 Again, therefore, Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.”
- Isaiah 53:5 But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed.
- Revelation 22:16 I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify these things to you for the assemblies. I am the root and the offspring of David, the Bright and Morning Star.”
- 2 Samuel 23:4 shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun rises, a morning without clouds, when the tender grass springs out of the earth, through clear shining after rain.’
- Malachi 3:16 Then those who feared Yahweh spoke one with another; and Yahweh listened, and heard, and a book of memory was written before him, for those who feared Yahweh, and who honored his name.
- John 1:4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
- 2 Peter 1:19 We have the more sure word of prophecy; and you do well that you heed it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns, and the morning star arises in your hearts:
- Psalms 147:3 He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds.
- Revelation 22:2 in the middle of its street. On this side of the river and on that was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruits, yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
- Ruth 2:12 May Yahweh repay your work, and a full reward be given to you from Yahweh, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”
- Revelation 2:28 and I will give him the morning star.
- Psalms 103:3 who forgives all your sins, who heals all your diseases,
- Matthew 4:15-16 “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, toward the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who sat in darkness saw a great light, to those who sat in the region and shadow of death, to them light has dawned.”
- Psalms 92:12-14 The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree. He will grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in Yahweh’s house. They will flourish in our God’s courts. They will still produce fruit in old age. They will be full of sap and green,
- Isaiah 55:12-13 For you shall go out with joy, and be led out with peace. The mountains and the hills will break out before you into singing; and all the trees of the fields will clap their hands. Instead of the thorn the cypress tree will come up; and instead of the brier the myrtle tree will come up. It will make a name for Yahweh, for an everlasting sign that will not be cut off.”
- Ezekiel 47:12 By the river on its bank, on this side and on that side, will grow every tree for food, whose leaf won’t wither, neither will its fruit fail. It will produce new fruit every month, because its waters issue out of the sanctuary. Its fruit will be for food, and its leaf for healing.”
- John 9:4 I must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. The night is coming, when no one can work.
- John 12:35-36 Jesus therefore said to them, “Yet a little while the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, that darkness doesn’t overtake you. He who walks in the darkness doesn’t know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become children of light.” Jesus said these things, and he departed and hid himself from them.
- Acts 13:47 For so has the Lord commanded us, saying, ‘I have set you as a light for the Gentiles, that you should bring salvation to the uttermost parts of the earth.’ ”
- Acts 26:18 to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive remission of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’
- Psalms 67:1 May God be merciful to us, bless us, and cause his face to shine on us.
- Psalms 85:9 Surely his salvation is near those who fear him, that glory may dwell in our land.
- Proverbs 4:18 But the path of the righteous is like the dawning light that shines more and more until the perfect day.
- Isaiah 9:2 The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. The light has shined on those who lived in the land of the shadow of death.
- Isaiah 35:6 Then the lame man will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will sing; for waters will break out in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.
- Isaiah 50:10 Who among you fears Yahweh and obeys the voice of his servant? He who walks in darkness and has no light, let him trust in Yahweh’s name, and rely on his God.
- Hosea 6:1 “Come! Let’s return to Yahweh; for he has torn us to pieces, and he will heal us; he has injured us, and he will bind up our wounds.
- Hosea 6:3 Let’s acknowledge Yahweh. Let’s press on to know Yahweh. As surely as the sun rises, Yahweh will appear. He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain that waters the earth.”
- Matthew 11:5 the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.
- Luke 2:32 a light for revelation to the nations, and the glory of your people Israel.”
- Isaiah 60:1-3 “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and Yahweh’s glory has risen on you. For, behold, darkness will cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but Yahweh will arise on you, and his glory shall be seen on you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.
- Isaiah 66:1-2 Yahweh says, “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build to me? Where will I rest? For my hand has made all these things, and so all these things came to be,” says Yahweh: “but I will look to this man, even to he who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at my word.
- Hosea 14:4-7 “I will heal their waywardness. I will love them freely; for my anger is turned away from him. I will be like the dew to Israel. He will blossom like the lily, and send down his roots like Lebanon. His branches will spread, and his beauty will be like the olive tree, and his fragrance like Lebanon. Men will dwell in his shade. They will revive like the grain, and blossom like the vine. Their fragrance will be like the wine of Lebanon.
- Matthew 23:37 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!
- Luke 1:50 His mercy is for generations of generations on those who fear him.
- John 1:8 He was not the light, but was sent that he might testify about the light.
- John 1:14 The Word became flesh, and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.
- Ephesians 5:8-14 For you were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth, proving what is well pleasing to the Lord. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but rather even reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret. But all things, when they are reproved, are revealed by the light, for everything that reveals is light. Therefore he says, “Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
- 2 Thessalonians 1:3 We are bound to always give thanks to God for you, brothers, even as it is appropriate, because your faith grows exceedingly, and the love of each and every one of you toward one another abounds,
- 1 John 2:8 Again, I write a new commandment to you, which is true in him and in you; because the darkness is passing away and the true light already shines.
- Revelation 11:18 The nations were angry, and your wrath came, as did the time for the dead to be judged, and to give your bondservants the prophets, their reward, as well as to the saints, and those who fear your name, to the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth.”
- Isaiah 49:6 Indeed, he says, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel. I will also give you as a light to the nations, that you may be my salvation to the end of the earth.”
- Isaiah 57:18-19 I have seen his ways, and will heal him. I will lead him also, and restore comforts to him and to his mourners. I create the fruit of the lips: Peace, peace, to him who is far off and to him who is near,” says Yahweh; “and I will heal them.”
- Jeremiah 17:14 Heal me, O Yahweh, and I will be healed. Save me, and I will be saved; for you are my praise.
- Isaiah 49:9-10 saying to those who are bound, ‘Come out!’; to those who are in darkness, ‘Show yourselves!’ “They shall feed along the paths, and their pasture shall be on all treeless heights. They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun strike them: for he who has mercy on them will lead them. He will guide them by springs of water.
- John 12:40 “He has blinded their eyes and he hardened their heart, lest they should see with their eyes, and perceive with their heart, and would turn, and I would heal them.”
- 2 Peter 3:18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.
- Isaiah 60:19-20 The sun will be no more your light by day; nor will the brightness of the moon give light to you, but Yahweh will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Your sun will not go down any more, nor will your moon withdraw itself; for Yahweh will be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning will end.
- John 15:2-5 Every branch in me that doesn’t bear fruit, he takes away. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already pruned clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I in you. As the branch can’t bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you, unless you remain in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
- Jeremiah 31:9-14 They will come with weeping. I will lead them with petitions. I will cause them to walk by rivers of waters, in a straight way in which they won’t stumble; for I am a father to Israel. Ephraim is my firstborn. “Hear Yahweh’s word, you nations, and declare it in the distant islands. Say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd does his flock.’ For Yahweh has ransomed Jacob, and redeemed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he. They will come and sing in the height of Zion, and will flow to the goodness of Yahweh, to the grain, to the new wine, to the oil, and to the young of the flock and of the herd. Their soul will be as a watered garden. They will not sorrow any more at all. Then the virgin will rejoice in the dance; the young men and the old together; for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow. I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people will be satisfied with my goodness,” says Yahweh.
- Acts 13:26 Brothers, children of the stock of Abraham, and those among you who fear God, the word of this salvation is sent out to you.
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain The Prophet now turns his discourse to the godly;…
The Prophet now turns his discourse to the godly; and hence it appears more clearly that he has been hitherto threatening those gross hypocrites who arrogated sanctity to themselves alone, while yet they were continuing to provoke God’s wrath; for he evidently addresses some different from those previously spoken of, when he says, Arise to you, etc.; he separates those who feared God, or the true servants of God, from that multitude with whom he has been hitherto contending. Arise, then, to you who fear my name, etc
There is to be noticed here a contrast; for the body of the people were infected as it were with a general contagion, but God had preserved a few uncontaminated. As then he had been hitherto contending with the greatest part of the people, so he now gathers as it were apart the chosen few, and promises to them Christ as the author of salvation. For the godly, we know, trembled at threatenings, and would have almost fainted, had not God mitigated them. Whenever he denounced vengeance on sinners, the greater part either mocked, or became angry, at least were not duly impressed. Thus it happens that while God is thundering, the ungodly go on securely in their sinful courses; but the godly tremble at a word, and would be altogether cast down, were not God to apply a remedy.
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Hence our Prophet softens the severity of the threatening which we have observed; as though he had said, that he had not announced the coming of Christ as terrible for the purpose of filling pious souls with fear, (for it was not spoken to them,) but only of terrifying the ungodly. The sum of the whole is briefly this — “Hearken ye,” he says, “who fear God; for I have a different word for you, and that is, that the Sun of righteousness shall arise, which will bring healing in its wings. Let those despisers of God then perish, who, though they carry on war with him, yet seek to have him as it were bound to them; but raise ye up your heads, and patiently look for that day, and with the hope of it calmly bear your troubles.” We now understand the import of this verse.
There is indeed no doubt but that Malachi calls Christ the Sun of righteousness; and a most suitable term it is, when we consider how the condition of the fathers differed from ours. God has always given light to his Church, but Christ brought the full light, according to what Isaiah teaches us,
“On thee shall Jehovah arise, and the glory of God shall be seen in thee.” (Isaiah 60:1.)
This can be applied to none but to Christ. Again he says, “Behold darkness shall cover the earth,” etc.; “shine on thee shall Jehovah;” and farther,
“There shall be now no sun by day nor moon by night; but God alone shall give thee light.” (Isaiah 60:19.)
All these words show that Sun is a name appropriate to Christ; for God the Father has given a much clearer light in the person of Christ than formerly by the law, and by all the appendages of the law. And for this reason also is Christ called the light of the world; not that the fathers wandered as the blind in darkness, but that they were content with the dawn only, or with the moon and stars. We indeed know how obscure was the doctrine of the law, so that it may truly be said to be shadowy. When therefore the heavens became at length opened and clear by means of the gospel, it was through the rising of the Sun, which brought the full day; and hence it is the peculiar office of Christ to illuminate. And on this account it is said in the first chapter of John, that he was from the beginning the true light, which illuminates every man that cometh into the world, and yet that it was a light shining in darkness; for some sparks of reason continue in men, however blinded they are become through the fall of Adam and the corruption of nature. But Christ is peculiarly called light with regard to the faithful, whom he delivers from the blindness in which all are involved by nature, and whom he undertakes to guide by his Spirit.
The meaning then of the word sun, when metaphorically applied to Christ, is this, — that he is called a sun, because without him we cannot but wander and go astray, but that by his guidance we shall keep in the right way; and hence he says,
“He who follows me walks not in darkness.” (John 8:12.)
But we must observe that this is not to be confined to the person of Christ, but extended to the gospel. Hence Paul says,
“Awake thou who sleepest, and rise from darkness, and Christ shall illuminate thee.” (Ephesians 5:14)
Christ then daily illuminates us by his doctrine and his Spirit; and though we see him not with our eyes, yet we find by experience that he is a sun.
He is called the sun of righteousness, either because of his perfect rectitude, in whom there is nothing defective, or because the righteousness of God is conspicuous in him: and yet, that we may know the light, derived from him, which proceeds from him to us and irradiates us, we are not to regard the transient concerns of this life, but what belongs to the spiritual life. The first thing is, that Christ performs towards us the office of a sun, not to guide our feet and hands as to what is earthly, but that he brings light to us, to show the way to heaven, and that by its means we may come to the enjoyment of a blessed and eternal life. We must secondly observe, that this spiritual light cannot be separated from righteousness; for how does Christ become our sun? It is by regenerating us by his Spirit into righteousness, by delivering us from the pollutions of the world, by renewing us after the image of God. We now then see the import of the word righteousness.
He adds, And healing in its wings. He gives the name of wings to the rays of the sun; and this comparison has much beauty, for it is taken from nature, and most fitly applied to Christ. There is nothing, we know, more cheering and healing than the rays of the sun; for ill-savor would soon overwhelm us, even within a day, were not the sun to purge the earth from its dregs; and without the sun there would be no respiration. We also feel a sort of relief at the rising of the sun; for the night is a kind of burden. When the sun sets, we feel as it were a heaviness in all our members; and the sick are exhilarated in the morning and experience a change from the influence of the sun; for it brings to us healing in its wing. But the Prophet has expressed what is still more, — that a clear sun in a serene sky brings healing; for there is an implied opposition between a cloudy or stormy time and a clear and bright season. During time of serenity we are far more cheerful, whether we be in health or in sickness; and there is no one who does not derive some cheerfulness from the serenity of the heavens: but when it is cloudy, even the most healthy feels some inconvenience.
According to this view Malachi now says, that there would be healing in the wings of Christ, inasmuch as many evils were to be borne by the true servants of God; for if we consider the history of those times, it will appear that the condition of that people was most grievous. He now promises a change to them; for the restoration of the Church would bring them joy. See then in what way he meant there would be healing in the wings of Christ; for the darkness would be dissipated, and the heavens would be free from clouds, so as to exhilarate the minds of the godly.
By calling the godly those who fear God, he adopts the common language of Scripture; for we have said that the chief part of righteousness and holiness consists in the true worship of God: but something new is here expressed; for this fear is what peculiarly belongs to true religion, so that men submit to God, though he is invisible, though he does not address them face to face, though he does not openly show his hand armed with scourges. When therefore men of their own accord reverence the glory of God, and acknowledge that the world is governed by him, and that they are under his authority, this is a real evidence of true religion: and this is what the Prophet means by name. Hence they who fear the name of God, desire not to draw him down from heaven, nor seek manifest signs of his presence, but suffer their faith to be thus tried, so that they adore and worship God, though they see him not face to face, but only through a mirror and that darkly, and also through the displays of his power, justice, and other attributes, which are evident before our eyes.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Ye shall be set at liberty, and increase in…
Ye shall be set at liberty, and increase in the joy of the Spirit, 2 Cor. 3:17.
Meaning, Christ, who with his wings or beams of his grace should lighten and comfort his Church, Eph. 5:14, and he is called the sun of righteousness, because in himself he hath all perfection and also the justice of the Father dwelleth in him: whereby he regenerateth us unto righteousness, cleanseth us from the filth of this world, and reformeth us to the image of God.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Mal 4:2 But unto you that fear my name…
Mal 4:2 But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.
Ver. 2. But unto you that fear my name] What shall be the condition of graceless persons hath been said already. Now, for the righteous, that they have not served God in vain, it shall well appear by the many benefits they shall reap and receive by Christ; five whereof are here recited. 1. Imputation of Christ’s righteousness, which is compared to the enlightening of this lower world by the beams of the sun 2. Remission of sins, which is compared to the healing of diseases. 3. Regeneration, which is likened to a sick man’s walking forth when he is somewhat recovered. 4. Spiritual growth as calves of the stall. 5. Victory over all enemies, corporal and spiritual, which shall be trodden under-foot, as ashes of the furnace, Mal 4:3.
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Shall the Sun of righteousness arise] So Christ is called (as by other prophets, Isa 60:1-2; Isa 60:19 Luk 1:78 Joh 8:12), to signify the joy of God’s elect at the sight of him, Psa 84:11; as those that have long lain in darkness count it a pleasant thing to see the light. A "Sun of righteousness" he is said to be, 1. As asserting and vindicating the righteousness of God, called in question by those blasphemers. 2. As bestowing upon his people a double righteousness (imputed and imparted), as the sun doth his light, Joh 1:16. It is further said here, that he shall arise, that is, he shall appear and show himself on earth, who now lieth hidden, as it were, in heaven; as the material sun doth under the horizon. God was manifested in the flesh, 1Ti 3:16. Manifested out of the bosom of his Father, out of the womb of his mother, out of the types of the law. In his nativity he came forth as the sun doth, as a bridegroom out of his chamber. In the whole course of his life he rejoiced as a giant to run his race. He enlightened and warmed the dark and dry hearts of men, he filled them with the fruits of righteousness, Joh 15:5. He could not be stayed or stopped in his course; he made his gospel to run and be glorified. He was and is still in continual motion for the good of his Church; as the sun in heaven is for the good of the world. He went under a cloud in his passion, and brake forth again in his resurrection. From heaven he daily darts forth his beams of righteousness, and showers down all spiritual blessings in heavenly privileges, Eph 1:3. The sun sucks up foul water from the earth, draws it up into the air, not to hold it there; but first purifies it, and then distils it down again with a fattening and fructifying property. Hereupon the thankful earth brings forth most fair and fragrant fruits and flowers, &c. Semblably, this "Sun of righteousness" took on him our sins and miseries, sordes nostras induit, assumed our human nature, not to retain it, and glorify it in himself alone, but that we might be con-glorified, and, in the mean time, filled with those fruits of holiness, which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God, Php 1:10. And as the sun, the nearer he runs to the earth the weaker he is in operation, as in winter time, but the higher in heaven the more effectual; so, while Christ was not yet ascended, the Holy Ghost and his graces were not in that full measure imparted, nor Churches gathered, as afterwards, Joh 7:39. Lastly, at that last and great day he will show himself in special manner a "Sun of rlghteousness"; clearing all obscurities, bringing to light the hidden things of darkness, causing his people’s most holy faith, that now lies hidden in great part, to be found to praise, honour, and glory, cheering up their spirits after manifold tribulations, healing all their spiritual maladies; for he comes with healing under his wings and making them as so many Samsons, whose name signifies a little sun, in the noon of their full strength, Ipse est ergo noster Apollo sanitatis praeses. For the righteous shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father, Matt, xiii. I shall shut up this discourse with that observation of an ancient: When the Sun of righteousness was yet in his mother’s womb, he might be said to be in Virgo; when on the cross, in Taurus; when he rose from death, in Leo; when he shall come again to judgment, in Libra. And as when the sun is in Libra the day is of an equal length; so, when Christ cometh, all shall be perfected.
With healing in his wings] That is, in his beams. This implies sickness in all to whom Christ comes; the world being, as it were, a great hospital or Nosecomium (though few feel it), and that true of every person that is spoken of the whole people, Isa 1:5 "The whole head is sick," &c. O my head, my head, said the Shunammite’s son: my belly, my belly, saith the prophet, my leanness, my leanness, &c. And surely it were happy if men would be more sensible of their malady, and make out to this Jehovah Rophe, this Almighty Physician, that lacks neither will nor skill to cure all that come unto him, Exo 15:26. See him hanging out his tables, as it were, and setting to sell his eye-salve, Rev 3:18, for there he begins the cure, Act 26:18. Hear him, 1. Complaining of our dulness, backwardness, frowardness, Jer 8:22 Eze 24:13 Hos 7:12. Wishing we had more care of our poor souls. "Oh that this people were wise," &c. "Why will ye die?" 3. Threatening, Eze 24:13 4. Promising, Hos 14:4 Mat 11:28 5. Performing, Psa 103:3 2Ch 30:20. Lastly, providing all sorts of physic for us; preventing, purging, restoring, corrosives of the law, lenitives of the gospel, plaisters of his own blood, for here Sanguis medici est curatio phrenetici; and requiring us no more but to come unto him, as they of old did to the brazen serpent, with sorrow for sin, and faith in his name, having a good opinion of our physician, and casting ourselves wholly upon him for cure; calling upon him, as blind Bartimaeus did, and crying out as that martyr did at the stake, Son of God, shine upon me; and immediately the sun shone out of a dark cloud so full in his face, that he was constrained to look another way. What shall I say more? this blessed "Sun of righteousness" must be sought in the west, if we will get the kingdom (as Statio’s servant in Justin did by the advice of his master, whom he had preserved); upon the cross, I mean, and in the state of his abasement; so shall we be sure to find healing in his wings, that is, the gracious influence of the Holy Spirit conveying the virtue of Christ’s blood to the conscience, as the beams of the sun do the heat and influence thereof to the earth; thereby calling out the herbs and flowers, and healing those deformities that winter had brought upon it.
And ye shall go forth] To show that yo are thoroughly healed, ye shall rise up and walk. Where the Spirit is, there is liberty, 2Co 3:17. Live things love to be stirring; and those that are restored to health after sickness are not satisfied till they can go about their business in their accustomed strength, Quod sanitas in corpor, id sanctitas in corde. Holiness is to the soul what health is to the body. Let men make it out that Christ Jesus hath wrought a cure upon their souls, by being active and abundant in his work. Life consists in action. Isa 38:16 "O Lord, by these things, and in all these things, is the life of my spirit," saith Hezekiah; and, if ye do my commandments ye shall live in them, saith the Lord; as the fish lives in his element, as the lamp lives in the oil, and as the creature by his food. Up, therefore, and be doing; live betime, live quickly, and apace. Some men live more in a day than others in a month; as wise men speak more in two words than a fool in two hundred; or as one piece of gold is more worth than twenty of brass. Devise what to do for God, as David did, Psa 116:2; serve out your time as he, Act 13:36, do not idle it out wear out, do not waste out; flame out, do not smother out; burn out, be not blown out. Be not buried alive, as Job 27:15, hissed out of the world, Job 27:23, as Vacia in Seneca ( Hic situs est Vacia). Fall not from the tree of life as leaves in autumn, as that sapless fellow Nabal did; and as those withered trees in St. Jude, "Without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots." God expects that, acted first by him, we should act as the inferiors do ( Ut acti agamus), when moved by the superiors; that, when he hath infused sap, we should fructify; that, when he hath tuned us and doth touch us, we should make music; when he hath once made us willing, he requires that we both will and work that which is good in his sight. When we set victuals before a hungry man we expect he should eat it. Nature teacheth the sucking child to draw the breast when it is once put to the mouth; and to labour for its living, as we use to say (Aug.). He that made us without us doth not save us without us; but expects that our wills, which at first conversion were merely passive, should be afterwards active in adding to faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, 2Pe 1:5, in working out our salvation with fear and trembling, Php 2:12. Herein we work the work of him that sent us, as our Saviour did; we finish the work which he gave us to do, Joh 17:4. This work is to magnify him with our bodies, whether it be by life or death, Php 1:19; yea, to glorify him in our bodies, and in our spirits, which are his, 1Co 6:20. God sells us increase of grace for sweat, saith one. He gives it as Boaz gave Ruth grain, Mal 2:14-17. He could have given her at first an ephah of barley, and it had been no more charge to him; but he will have her gather it, glean it, beat it out, use her endeavour, and that should be the price she should pay for it. So here God’s people healed must go forth or leap about, use legs and have legs, &c. "This I had, because I kept thy precepts," Psa 119:56. What had he? but an ability to keep God’s law, Psa 119:55; he kept it because he kept it; for every new act of obedience fits the soul for a following act, Rom 6:19. And to you that hear shall be more given, Mar 4:24.
And grow up as calves of the stall] Ye shall battle and thrive both in flesh and fat, as R. David expounds it; your souls shall be flourishing and fair liking; as waters of the sanctuary, they shall rise higher; as trees planted in God’s paradise, they shall bring forth new fruit every month, Eze 47:12 Joh 15:2; as the morning sun, they shall shine more and more unto the perfect day, Pro 4:18, when the wicked, by growing worse and worse, 2Ti 3:13, stumble in darkness, 2Ti 3:1-9, so that they lie down in sorrow, Isa 50:11. The blessing on man in the first creation was Increase and multiply; in the second, Grow in grace, Isa 61:8; Isa 61:11. A Christian hath his degrees of growth, and his several ages, of childhood, youth, or well grown age, full grown, and old age, 1Jn 2:14. These things write I unto you that believe in the name of the Son of God, that ye may believe in the name of the Son of God, saith the same apostle, 1Jn 5:13, that is, that ye may grow in that belief, as ye grow in days and years, proceeding from faith to faith, Php 3:14; as the Church in the Canticles hath her first light like the day dawning, her second beauty like the moon, her third degree like the sun, Son 6:10. A Christian, though in some sense perfect, yet hath he still his Plus ultra, and may take for motto Charles V’s Ulterius, Further yet; he must be still adding grace to grace, that he may have an entrance further and further into Christ’s kingdom, 2Pe 1:5; 2Pe 1:11, as by steps and stairs they went up to Solomon’s temple. And the apostle there gives us to understand that those that thus add not to their stock of grace shall have little comfort either from the time past, for they shall forget that they were purged from their sins; or from thoughts of the time to come, for they shall not be able to see things far off, 2Pe 1:9, because they delight not in high flying, as eagles; their wings, as the ostrich’s, do little more than bear them above ground. Many care for no more grace than will keep life and soul together, that is, soul and hell asunder. This is a low and unworthy strain, and comes not near that of St Paul, who set up for his mark the resurrection of the dead, Php 3:10, that is, that perfection of holiness that accompanieth the resurrection. To the attaining hereunto he followed hard on, reaching forth, and stretching out head, hands, and whole body, to lay hold on the high prize proposed unto him, Php 3:12-14, and would have all men to be thus minded. Runners in a race look not how much they have run, but how much remaineth; and although moderate in the beginning (for hot at hand seldom holds out), yet the nearer they grow to the goal the Faster they speed their course; that their last days may be their best days; accounting that day lost wherein they have not some sensible comings in from Christ; like as good husbands, in dead times when stirrings fail, are discontented when they have had no takings.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain You that fear my name; so are they described…
You that fear my name; so are they described to us who were written in the book of remembrance, Mal 3:16; who loved the law of their God, and kept it; who believed his promises, and rejoiced in expectation of the good promised; who believed his threats and trembled at them, that they might rest in the day of trouble, as Hab 3:16; who walked humbly with their God.
The Sun; Christ, who is the day.spring from on high, Luk 1:78; or, as most elegantly described Isa 60:1-3, who is very fitly compared to the sun; Fountain of light and vital heat to his church, he enlightens and enlivens every one Joh 1:4,9.
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Of righteousness; and of mercy and benignity, for the Hebrew word imports both, and neither may be here excluded. His justice is seen in executions of judgment on the proud and wicked, who are consumed in the fire of his wrath; and his righteousness and mercy are seen in the preservation and remuneration of those that fear the Lord: so greatly different shall this time be to the wicked and the godly; to these a day of benign light and kindly influences through the mercy of God, to the wicked a day of destruction. and utter extirpation.
Arise with healing in his wings; his beams and rays shall bring health and strength, with delight and joy, safety and security: it may be (as some have observed from the word) an intimation of the healing virtue that from Christ went forth to such as in faith touched the hem of his garment, Mat 9:20,21, and is as effectual for the healing of soul maladies and infirmities as of bodily diseases.
Ye shall go forth; go out of harm’s way, out of Jerusalem, before the fatal siege, obeying the call from heaven, Go hence to Pella, and that of Christ, Mat 24:15,16.
And grow up, in strength, rigour, and spiritual stature, as calves of the stall; where they are safe guarded and well ordered. So will the Lord keep safe and look well to his preserved ones when the wicked are destroyed.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain But unto you that fear my name,.... The few…
But unto you that fear my name,.... The few that were of this character among that wicked nation; See Gill on Mal 3:16,
shall the Sun of righteousness arise; not the Holy Ghost, who enlightens sinners, convinces of righteousness, and gives joy, peace, and comfort to the saints, but Christ: and thus it is interpreted of him by the ancient Jews, in one of their Midrashes or expositions (a); they say, Moses says not they shall be for ever pledged, that is, the clothes of a neighbour, but until the sun comes, until the Messiah comes, as it is said, "unto you that fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise", &c.; and Philo the Jew (b) not only observes, that God, figuratively speaking, is the sun; but the divine "Logos" or Word of God, the image of the heavenly Being, is called the sun; who, coming to our earthly system, helps the kindred and followers of virtue, and affords ample refuge and salvation to them; referring, as it seems; to this passage: indeed, they generally interpret it of the sun, literally taken, which they suppose, at the end of the world, will have different effects on good and bad men; they say (c),
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"in the world to come, God will bring the sun out of its sheath, and burn the wicked; they will be judged by it, and the righteous will be healed by it:''
for the proof of the former, they produce the words in the first verse of this chapter, "behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven"; and of the latter these words, "but unto you that fear my name &c."; and a very ridiculous notion they have, that Abraham their father had a precious stone or pearl hanging about his neck, and every sick person that saw it was healed by it immediately; and, when he departed out of the world, God took it, and fixed it to the orb of the sun; hence the proverb, the sun rises, and sickness decreases (d); and as it is elsewhere quoted (e), this passage is added to confirm it, as it is said, "to you that fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings": unless this fable should be intended to mean, as Abarbinel (f) interprets it, that Abraham, while he lived, clearly proved the unity of God and his perfections; and that, after his death, the same truth was taught by the wonderful motion of the sun: but, be this as it will, those are undoubtedly in the right who understand these words figuratively of the Messiah; who is compared to the "sun", because, as the sun is a luminous body, the light of the whole world, so is Christ of the world of men, and of the world of saints; particularly of the Gentiles, often called the world; and of the New Jerusalem church state, and of the world to come: and as the sun is the fountain of light, so is Christ the fountain of natural and moral light, as well as of the light of grace, and of the light of glory: as the sun communicates light to all the celestial bodies, so Christ to the moon, the church; to the stars, the ministers of the word; to the morning stars, the angels: as the sun dispels the darkness of the night, and makes the day, so Christ dispelled the darkness of the ceremonial law, and made the Gospel day; and he dispels the darkness of ignorance and unbelief, and makes the day of grace; and will dispel the darkness of imperfection, and will make the day of glory; as the sun is a pure, clear, and lucid body, so is Christ, without the least spot of sin; and so are his people, as they are clothed with his righteousness: as the sun is a glorious body, so is Christ both his natures, divine and human; in his office as Mediator; and will be in his second coming: as the sun is superior to all the celestial bodies, so is Christ to angels and saints: as the sun is but one, so there is but one Son of God; one Mediator between God and man; one Saviour and Redeemer; one Lord and Head of the church: its properties and effects are many; it lays things open and manifest, which before were hid; communicates heat as well as light; make the earth fruitful; is very exhilarating; has its risings and settings, and of great duration: so Christ declares the mind and will of his Father, the hidden mysteries of grace; lays open the thoughts of men's hearts in conversion; and will at the last day bring to light the hidden things of darkness: he warms the hearts of his people with his love, and causes them to burn within them, while they hear his Gospel, and he makes them fervent in spirit while they serve the Lord; he fills them with the fruits of righteousness, and with joy unspeakable, and full of glory; but he is not always seen, is sometimes under a cloud, and withdraws himself; yet his name is as the sun before the Lord, and wilt abide for ever. He is called "the sun of righteousness", because of the glory of his essential righteousness as God; and because of the purity and perfection of his righteousness as man, which appeared in all his actions, and in the administration of all his offices; and because of the display of the righteousness of God in him, in his sufferings and death, in atonement, pardon, and justification by him; and because he is the author and bringer in of righteousness to his people, the glory of which outshines all others, is pure and spotless like the sun, and is everlasting; those who have it are said to be clothed with the sun, and on such he shines in his beams of divine love, grace, and mercy, which righteousness sometimes signifies; and his rays of grace transform men into righteousness and true holiness. The "arising" of this sun may denote the appearance of Christ in our nature; under the former dispensation this sun was not risen, it was then night with the world; John the Baptist was the morning star, the forerunner of it: Christ the sun is now risen; the dayspring from on high hath visited mankind, and has spread its light and heat, its benign influences, by the ministration of the Gospel, the grace of God, which has appeared and shone out, both in Judea, and in the Gentile world: it may be accommodated to his spiritual appearance: this sun is sometimes under a cloud, or seems to be set, which occasions trouble, and is for wise ends, but will and does arise again to them that fear the Lord. The manner is,
with healing in his wings; by which are meant its rays and beams, which are to the sun as wings to a bird, by which it swiftly spreads its light and heat; so we read of the wings of the morning, Psa 139:9. Christ came as a physician, to heal the diseases of men; he healed the bodily diseases of the Jews, and he heals the soul diseases of his people, their sins; which healing he has procured by his blood and stripes: pardon of sin by the blood of Christ is meant by healing, which is universal, infallible, and free, Psa 103:3 it may denote all that preservation, protection, prosperity, and happiness, inward and outward, which they that feared the Lord enjoyed through Christ, when the unbelieving Jews were destroyed; and which is further expressed by what follows:
and ye shall go forth; not out of the world, or out of their graves, as some think; but either out of Jerusalem, as the Christians did a little before its destruction, being warned so to do (g), whereby they were preserved from that calamity; or it intends a going forth with liberty in the exercise of grace and duty, in the exercise of faith on Christ, love to him, hope in him, repentance, humility, self-denial, &c.; and in a cheerful obedience to his will; or else walking on in his ways; having health and strength, with great pleasure and comfort; and, as Aben Ezra says, by the light of this sun.
And grow up as calves of the stall; such as are fat, being put up there for that purpose; see Amo 6:4. Bochart (h) has proved, from many passages out of the Talmud (i), that the word which the Targum here makes use of, and answers to that in the Hebrew text, which is rendered "stall", signifies a yoke or collar, with which oxen or heifers were bound together, while they were threshing or treading out of corn; so that the calves or heifers here referred to were such as were not put up in a stall, but were yoked together, and employed in treading out the corn; now as there was a law that such should not be muzzled while they were thus employed, but might eat of the corn on the floor freely and plentifully, Deu 25:4 these usually grew fat, and so were the choicest and most desirable, to which the allusion may be here, and in Jer 46:21 Amo 6:4 and are a fit emblem of saints joined together in holy fellowship, walking together in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord; where they get spiritual food for their souls, and are in thriving circumstances; where they meet with the corn of heaven, with that corn which makes the young men cheerful, and that bread which nourishes up to everlasting life. The apostle alludes to the custom of oxen yoked together, either in ploughing, or in treading out the corn, when he says, speaking of church fellowship and communion in the ordinances of the Gospel, "be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers", Co2 6:14 for this hinders spiritual edification, as well as the promotion of the glory of God; but where they are equally yoked, and go hand in hand together in the work and ways of the Lord, they grow and flourish; they are comfortable in their souls, and lively in the exercise of grace; and they are the most thriving Christians, generally speaking, who are in church communion, and most constantly attend the means of grace, and keep closest to the word and ordinances: for the metaphor here used is designed to express a spiritual increase in all grace, and in the knowledge of Christ, and a growing up into him in all things, through the use of means, the word and ordinances; whereby saints become fat and flourishing, being fed with the milk of the word, and the breasts of ordinances, and having fellowship with one another; and, above all, this spiritual growth is owing to the dews of the grace of God, the shining of the Sun of righteousness, and the comfortable gales of the south wind of the Spirit of God, which cause the spices to flow out. The Septuagint version, and those that follow it, render it, "ye shall leap" or "skip as calves loosed from bonds"; as such creatures well fed do when at liberty; and may denote the spiritual joy of the saints upon their being healed, or because of their secure, safe, and prosperous estate: and so the word is explained in the Talmud (k), they shall delight themselves in it; and where the Rabbins interpret this and the preceding verse Mal 4:1 of the natural sun in the firmament, which will be the hell (l) in the world to come, and which will burn the wicked, and heal the righteous.
(a) Shemot Rabba, sect. 31. fol. 134. 2. (b) De Somniis, p. 578. (c) T. Bab. Nedarim, fol. 8. 2. & Avoda Zara, fol. 3. 2. (d) T. Bab. Bava Bathra, fol. 16. 2. (e) Apud Yalkut in loc. (f) Comment. in Mal. i. 11. (g) Euseb. Hist. l. 3. c. 5. (h) Hierozoic. par. 1. l. 2. c. 31. col. 303. (i) T. Bab. Gittin, fol. 53. 1. Bava Metzia, fol. 30. 1. Pesachim, fol. 26. 1. Eruvin, fol. 17. 2. (k) T. Bab. Avoda Zara, fol. 4. 1. Nedarim, fol. 8. 2. (l) A notion they elsewhere frequently inculcate, and is not improbable; and which has been of late advanced and defended by a very learned man of our own country, Mr. Tobias Swinden, in a Treatise called "An Inquirer into the Nature and Place of Hell."
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain The sun of righteousness - Christ, who is fitly…
The sun of righteousness - Christ, who is fitly compared to the sun, being the fountain of light, and vital heat to his church. And of mercy and benignity; for the Hebrew word imports both. With healing - His beams shall bring health and strength, with delight and joy, safety and security. Go forth - Go out of Jerusalem, before the fatal siege. Grow up - In strength, vigour and spiritual stature. Of the stall - Where they are safe guarded and well ordered.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 2. You that fear my name] The persons…
Verse 2. You that fear my name] The persons mentioned in the sixteenth verse of the preceding chapter, ye that look for redemption through the Messiah. Mal 3:16
The Sun of righteousness] The Lord Jesus, the promised Messiah; the Hope of Israel.
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With healing in his wings] As the sun, by the rays of light and heat, revives, cheers, and fructifies the whole creation, giving, through God, light and life everywhere; so Jesus Christ, by the influences of his grace and Spirit, shall quicken, awaken, enlighten, warm, invigorate, heal, purify, and refine every soul that believes in him, and, by his wings or rays, diffuse these blessings from one end of heaven to another; everywhere invigorating the seeds of righteousness, and withering and drying up the seeds of sin. The rays of this Sun are the truths of his Gospel, and the influences of his Spirit. And at present these are universally diffused.
And ye shall go forth] Ye who believe on his name shall go forth out of Jerusalem when the Romans shall come up against it. After Cestius Gallus had blockaded the city for some days, he suddenly raised the siege. The Christians who were then in it, knowing, by seeing Jerusalem encompassed with armies, that the day of its destruction was come, when their Lord commanded them to flee into the mountains, took this opportunity to escape from Jerusalem, and go to Pella, in Coelesyria; so that no Christian life fell in the siege and destruction of this city.
But these words are of more general application and meaning; "ye shall go forth" in all the occupations of life, but particularly in the means of grace; and -
Grow up as calves of the stall] Full of health, of life, and spirits; satisfied and happy.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Mal 4:2. But unto you that fear my name…
Mal 4:2. But unto you that fear my name — So they are described, chap. Mal 3:16, whose names were written in the book of remembrance; who loved the law of their God, and kept it; who believed its promises, and rejoiced in expectation of the blessings promised; who believed his threatenings and trembled at them, and who walked humbly with their God; shall the Sun of righteousness arise — Christ, who is fitly compared to the sun, being the fountain of light and vital heat to his church: elsewhere called the day- spring from on high, Luk 1:78, and the east, or sun-rising, for so the word rendered branch, Zec 3:8, is translated by the Chaldee and LXX: see the note there, and on Isa 60:1-2. Thus the church is described, Rev 12:1, as clothed with the sun, that is, adorned with graces communicated to her from Christ. He is termed the Sun OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, not only because he is the end of the law for righteousness, that is, for justification, sanctification, and practical obedience, to believers, and is made of God unto them righteousness, but because he is the medium and source of the divine mercy and benignity to them, as the word rendered righteousness also signifies. He is said to arise with healing in his wings, because his doctrine and mediation, with the spirit of truth and grace, which he has procured for, and confers upon, his true followers, removes men’s ignorance and errors, sins and miseries, and heals all the diseases of their fallen souls, communicating to them spiritual health and strength, with delight and joy, safety and security, and restoring and regulating all their faculties and powers. And ye shall go forth — That is, as the words are thought primarily to signify, out of the city of Jerusalem before the fatal siege begin, being warned by Christ so to do, (see Mat 24:15-18; Luk 21:20-21,) and thereby escaping those dreadful calamities, in which those who stayed in the city were involved. Indeed, those who had faith in Christ’s predictions, apprehending, from the circumstances of things, the destruction of the city to be near at hand, quitted it before it was invested by the Romans. And grow up — In strength, vigour, and spiritual stature; as calves of the stall — Where they are safely guarded, and well ordered and provided for. This shall be your state when the rest of your nation shall be consumed with divers kinds of death. Ye shall be in a good condition through your faith in the Redeemer, which shall be to you the evidence of things not seen; through the peace which you shall have with God, and in your own minds; through the love of God shed abroad in your hearts, and communion with him; and through the well-grounded and lively hopes with which you shall be inspired of the like deliverance in the judgment of the last day.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain But (And) unto you, who fear My Name, shall…
But (And) unto you, who fear My Name, shall the Sun of Righteousness arise - It is said of God Psa 84:11, “The Lord God is a sun and a shield, and Isa 60:19-20, The Lord shall be to thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory; thy sun shall no more go down, for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light;” and Zacharias, speaking of the office of John the Baptist in the words of Malachi, “thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare His way, speaks of Luk 1:76, Luk 1:78-79. the tender mercy of our God, whereby the Dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness.” “He who is often called Lord and God, and Angel and Captain of the Lord’s host, and Christ and priest and Word and Wisdom of God and Image, is now called the Sun of Righteousness. He, the Father promises, will arise, not to all, but to those only who fear His Name, giving them the light of the Sun of Righteousness, as the reward of their fear toward Him. This is God the Word Who saith, ‘I am the Light of the world,’ Who was ‘the Light of every one who cometh into the world.”’ Primarily, Malachi speaks of our Lord’s second Coming, when Heb 9:28. “to them that look for Him shall He appear, a second time unto salvation.”
For as, in so many places (As Psa 1:6; Psa 2:12; Psa 3:7-8; Psa 5:10-12; Psa 6:8-10; Psa 7:16-17; Psa 9:17-20; Psa 10:16-18; Psa 11:6-7; Psa 17:13-15; Psa 20:8; Psa 26:9-12; Psa 31:23; Psa 32:10-11; Psa 34:21-22; Psa 35:26-28; Psa 36:10-12; Psa 37:38-40; Psa 40:15-17; Psa 50:22-23; Psa 52:5-9; Psa 55:22-23; Psa 58:10-11; Psa 63:10-11; Psa 64:9-10; Psa 73:27-28; Psa 104:33-35; Psa 112:9-10; Psa 126:5; Psa 149:9.) the Old Testament exhibits the opposite lots of the righteous and the wicked, so here the prophet speaks of the Day of Judgment, in reference to the two opposite classes, of which he had before spoken, the proud and evil doers, and the fearers of God. The title, “the Sun of Righteousness,” belongs to both comings , “in the first, lie diffused rays of righteousness, whereby He justified and daily justifies any sinners whatever, who will look to Him, i. e., believe in Him and obey Him, as the sun imparts light; joy and life to all who turn toward it.” In the second, the righteousness which He gave, lie will own and exhibit, cleared from all the misjudgment of the world, before men and Angels. Yet more, healing is, throughout Holy Scripture, used of the removal of sickness or curing of wounds, in the individual or state or Church, and, as to the individual, bodily or spiritual.
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So David thanks God, first for the forgiveness Psa 103:3-5, “Who forgiveth all thine iniquities;” then for healing of his soul, “Who healeth all thy diseases;” then for salvation, “Who redeemeth thy life from destruction;” then for the crown laid up for him, “Who crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies;” then, with the abiding sustenance and satisfying joy, “Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things.” Healing then primarily belongs to thin life, in which we are still encompassed with infirmities, and even His elect and His saints have still, whereof to be healed. The full then and complete healing of the soul, the integrity of all its powers will be in the life to come. There, will be “understanding without error, memory without forgetfulness, thought without distraction, love without simulation, sensation without offence, satisfying without satiety, universal health without sickness.” “For through Adam’s sin the soul was wounded in understanding, through obscurity and ignorance; in will, through the leaning to perishing goods; as concupiscent, through infirmity and manifold concupiscence. In heaven Christ will heal all these, giving to the understanding light and knowledge; to the will, constancy in good; to the desire, that it should desire nothing but what is right and good. Then too the healing of the seal will be the light of glory, the vision and fruition of God, and the glorious endowments consequent thereon, overstreaming all the powers of the soul and therefrom to the body.” “God has made the soul of a nature so mighty, that from its most full beatitude, which at the end of time is promised to the saints, there shall overflow to the inferior nature, the body, not bliss, which belongs to the soul as intelligent and capable of fruition, but the fullness of health that is, the vigorousness of incorruption.”
And ye shall go forth - , as from a prison-house, from the miseries of this lifeless life, and grow up, or perhaps more probably, bound as the animal, which has been confined, exults in its regained freedom, itself full of life and exuberance of delight. So the Psalmist Psa 149:5, “The saints shall exult in glory.” And our Lord uses the like word , as to the way, with which they should greet persecution to the utmost, for His Name’s sake. Swiftness of motion is one of the endowments of the spiritual body, after the resurrection; as the angels, to whom the righteous shall be like, Luk 20:36, Eze 1:14 ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning.”
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Wings. The sun is represented with wings, to imply…
Wings. The sun is represented with wings, to imply celerity. The appearance of the Lord will be most acceptable to the virtuous. (Calmet) --- Look up, for your redemption is at hand, Luke xxi. 28. --- Herd. Protestants, "stall." Hebrew marbek, (Haydock) "fattened;" though some explain it of oxen treading out corn: they would not however leap, nor fatten so much. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain The effect of the judgment on the righteous, as…
The effect of the judgment on the righteous, as contrasted with its effect on the wicked (Mal 4:1). To the wicked it shall be as an oven that consumes the stubble (Mat 6:30); to the righteous it shall be the advent of the gladdening Sun, not of condemnation, but "of righteousness"; not destroying, but "healing" (Jer 23:6).
you that fear my name--The same as those in Mal 3:16, who confessed God amidst abounding blasphemy (Isa 66:5; Mat 10:32). The spiritual blessings brought by Him are summed up in the two, "righteousness" (Co1 1:30) and spiritual "healing" (Psa 103:3; Isa 57:19). Those who walk in the dark now may take comfort in the certainty that they shall walk hereafter in eternal light (Isa 50:10).
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in his wings--implying the winged swiftness with which He shall appear (compare "suddenly," Mal 3:1) for the relief of His people. The beams of the Sun are His "wings." Compare "wings of the morning," Psa 139:9. The "Sun" gladdening the righteous is suggested by the previous "day" of terror consuming the wicked. Compare as to Christ, Sa2 23:4; Psa 84:11; Luk 1:78; Joh 1:9; Joh 8:12; Eph 5:14; and in His second coming, Pe2 1:19. The Church is the moon reflecting His light (Rev 12:1). The righteous shall by His righteousness "shine as the Sun in the kingdom of the Father" (Mat 13:43).
ye shall go forth--from the straits in which you were, as it were, held captive. An earnest of this was given in the escape of the Christians to Pella before the destruction of Jerusalem.
grow up--rather, "leap" as frisking calves [CALVIN]; literally, "spread," "take a wide range."
as calves of the stall--which when set free from the stall disport with joy (Act 8:8; Act 13:52; Act 20:24; Rom 14:17; Gal 5:22; Phi 1:4; Pe1 1:8). Especially the godly shall rejoice at their final deliverance at Christ's second coming (Isa 61:10).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 2. the Sun of righteousness] The capital letter with…
2. the Sun of righteousness] The capital letter with which “Sun” is printed in A.V. is of the nature of a comment. It suggests at once to the reader the personal and Messianic reference of the word. But it is better to print “sun” with R.V.; not as denying or obscuring the ultimate and designed reference to Christ, but as exhibiting it in a manner more agreeable to the genius of Old Testament prophecy and to the requirements of the context. The key-thought of this whole paragraph is righteousness. God’s righteousness has been proudly and defiantly called in question by “the wicked”: it has been humbly trusted in and waited for by “the righteous” (Mal 3:18). The day of its manifestation is at hand. That discriminating day shall award to each their righteous recompense. To the wicked it shall come as a burning furnace to consume them: upon the righteous it shall dawn as a day of which the very sun that makes it is righteousness. Just as in the material world the shadows and distortions and illusions of night vanish before the light of the rising sun, which shows all things as they really are, so in the moral world the sun of righteousness shall put to flight the difficulties and perplexities, the inequalities and anomalies, which have been the trial of the faithful and the weapon of the scoffer. No place for them shall be found, when the sun of righteousness shall dawn from new heavens upon a new earth, “wherein dwelleth righteousness”.
But this explanation of the phrase only prepares the way for the personal and Messianic reference. To every Jew the thought of God Himself as a Sun was familiar (Psa_84:11 [Hebrews 12]; Isa_60:19). His religion taught him to look for deliverance and blessing, not from the diffusion of a quality or attribute, but from the manifestation of a Personal God. And it no less plainly taught him that that manifestation would be consummated in “the righteous Branch” who should “execute judgment and justice in the land” (Jer_23:5). For us the Sun of righteousness is none other than “Jesus Christ, the righteous” (1Jn_2:1), “the Lord, the righteous Judge, who shall give at that day a crown of righteousness unto all them that love His appearing” (2Ti_4:8).
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with healing in his wings] Comp. “the wings of the morning”, Psa_139:9. In both cases the rising of the sun is compared, not to the use of the wings in flight, but to lifting them up, or spreading them out. In the Psalm the suddenness and rapidity with which this is done, when the sun “flares up from behind the mountain-wall of Moab,” is the point of comparison (Comp. “the morning spread upon the mountains,” Joe_2:2; and the swift travelling of the light across the landscape in our own country, when the sun emerges from a cloud on a windy day). Here the healing virtue of the outstretched wings is in view. “A pleasant”, and a wholesome, “thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun.” Ecc_11:7.
In Syria “the Sun god was the central object of worship.… It was here too that his special symbol was the solar disk with wings issuing from either side to denote his omnipresent energy. The winged solar disk may have been originally of Babylonian invention, but it passed at an early time to the other Semitic populations of the East. We find it above the figure of a king on a monolith from Birejik now in the British Museum, and it is specially characteristic of the monuments of the Hittites.” Prof. Sayce, Annual Address (1889) to the Victoria Institute on the Cuneiform Inscriptions at Tel El-Amarna, p. 2.
grow up] Rather gambol, R.V. σκιρτήσετε, LXX. Comp. Jer_1:11, “ye are wanton”, R.V.
calves of the stall] ὡς μοσχάρια ἐκ δεσμῶν ἀνειμένα, LXX.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (2) As the rising sun diffuses light and heat,…
(2) As the rising sun diffuses light and heat, so that all that is healthy in nature revives and lifts up its head, while plants that have no depth of root are scorched up and wither away, so the advent of the reign of righteousness, which will reward the good and the wicked, each according to his deserts, will dissipate all darkness of doubt, and heal all the wounds which the apparent injustice of the conduct of affairs has inflicted on the hearts of the righteous.
Wings.—Figurative for rays. The fathers and early commentators have understood Christ by the Sun of Righteousness, and they are so far right that it is the period of His advent that is referred to; but there can be no personal reference to Him in the expression, since “sun” is feminine in Hebrew; and the literal rendering of the word translated “in his wings” is “in her wings.”
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Grow up.—Better, prance, or sport.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain The Sun of Righteousness. The sun which is righteousness,…
The Sun of Righteousness. The sun which is righteousness, in whose wings, that is, rays, are healing and salvation. This Divine righteousness shall beam upon them that fear the Name of God, flooding them with joy and light, healing all wounds, tee moving all miseries, making them incalculably blessed. The Fathers generally apply the title of "Sun of Righteousness" to Christ, who is the Source of all justification and enlightenment and happiness, and who is called, (Jer_23:6) "The Lord our Righteousness." Grow up; rather, gambol; skirthsete (Septuagint); salietis (Vulgate). "Ye shall leap!" The word is used of a horse galloping. (Hab_1:8) The happiness of the righteous is illustrated by a homely image drawn from pastoral pursuits. They had been, as it were, hidden in the time of affliction and temptation; they shall go forth boldly now, free and exulting, like calves driven from the stall to pasture. (comp. Psa_114:4, 6 Son_2:8, Son_2:17)
Ver. 2. "The Sun of Righteousness.
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In vers. 1 and 2 we are once more presented with the twofold aspect of a Divine fact. (See homilies on Mal_3:2 and Mal_3:6) "Dies irae, dies ilia. " But "that day" need not be a "day of wrath." It may be memorable, admirable, as the day of full salvation. As the first coming of Christ was for the "rising again" of some, "that they which see not might see", (Joh_9:39) so at his second coming, though "revealed from heaven in flaming fire," he shall be "admired in all them that believe;" for he shall bring "rest" and full redemption to them. (2Th_1:6-10) The great and terrible day of the Lord will have both a bright and a dark side, like the cloud that came between the Egyptians and the Israelites. To "the proud and all that do wickedly" it will be a day of utter destruction. It will "burn like an oven," fire burning more fiercely in a furnace than in the open air. The wicked, having made themselves like "the dry tree," "ready for the burning," will be consumed root and branch, with no hope of renewed life such as might survive the stroke of the feller"s axe. (Job_14:7-9) These threats are applicable to all times of judgment, when "the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud... and upon all the cedars of Lebanon," etc. (Isa_2:12-17) We may see fulfilments of them in successive epochs of judgment, from the troublous times that followed the days of Malachi down to the destruction of Jerusalem and the judgment of the great day. Similar figures of destruction by fire justify this extended application. (Psa_21:9, 10 Isa_5:24 Isa_10:17, 18 Nah_1:5 Zep_1:18 Mat_3:12 2Pe_3:7-10) But such times need be no terror to the faithful servants of God, for "unto you that fear my Name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings. As we do not confine the prediction of the day of the Lord to any one day, so we do not limit the promise of "the Sun of Righteousness" to any one person. Whenever a signal manifestation of God"s righteousness is displayed on behalf of his servants, it is like the rising of the sun on a dark, cold, and unhealthy land. But the manifestation of the righteousness of God in the Person and work of Christ so far excels all other manifestations that we may limit our further application of the words to our Lord Jesus Christ, "that in all things he may have the pre-eminence." What the sun is to the material world, the Messiah is to the moral world. The following blessings are suggested by the figure.
1. Light after darkness. Such is Christ to all men, (Joh_1:4, Joh_1:9) especially to his own countrymen, (Luk_1:78, 79 Mat_4:12) but in a deeper sense to all that followed him. (Joh_8:12) He brought the light of truth, (Isa_9:2) for he was himself" the Truth." Where he rises, like the dawn, upon the benighted and bewildered traveller, he guides into the way of peace and of salvation. The light of truth shows us "the paths of righteousness". (Psa_143:8, Psa_143:10)
2. Warmth after cold. (Psa_19:6) Christ not only gives light, but life. His presence causes that spiritual warmth which is a life giving power. He is "a quickening Spirit". (Joh_5:21, 25 6:47, etc.) There is a spiritual as well as a solar chemistry. The beams of the Sun of Righteousness both enlighten, warm, and quicken. (1Co_1:30)
3. Health after sickness. The figure of "wings" may allude to the rays of the sun, or perhaps to the breeze which in many hot regions, especially in the zones of the trade winds, begins to blow over the land early in the morning, bringing freshness and health with it. (In the West Indies and elsewhere this morning breeze is popularly called "the doctor.") The Jews had a proverbial saying, "As the sun riseth, infirmities decrease." Christ, when in our midst, scattered around him blessings of healing, both physical and spiritual. At Jericho he brought sight to blind Bartimaeus and life to dead Zacchaeus. So is it wherever he rises, like the light of life, on the souls of men. (Psa_147:3 Isa_57:19 Eze_47:12 1Jn_5:11, 1Jn_5:12) The terms "righteousness" and "healing," being very comprehensive, remind us of the blessings brought by Christ at both his first and second comings. At the first advent he diffused the rays of righteousness, whereby he both justifies and sanctifies those who turn to him, just as the sun imparts light, life, and joy to all who turn towards it. At the second, he will own the righteousness which he gave, and will exhibit it, cleared of all the misjudgments of the world, before men and angels. By his first advent he gave spiritual healing, justification, and all its allied blessings, summed up in the royal gift of "eternal life." At his second he will bring full salvation, when, as one has said, there shall be "understanding without error, memory without forgetfulness, thought without distraction, love without simulation, sensation without offence, satisfying without satiety, universal health without sickness". (Rev_21:23 Rev_22:1-5)
The healing sunrise.
"The Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings." "As the rising sun diffuses light and heat, so that all that is healthy in nature revives and lifts up its head, while plants that have no depth of root are scorched up and wither away, so the advent of the reign of righteousness, which will reward the good and the wicked, each according to his deserts, will dissipate all darkness of doubt, and heal all the wounds which the apparent injustice of the conduct of affairs has inflicted on the hearts of the righteous" (W.H. Lowe). The figure of "healing in his wings" may be illustrated by the fact that, off Smyrna, every morning about sunrise a fresh gale of air blows from the sea across the land, which from its wholesomeness and utility in clearing the infected air is always called "the doctor.
I THE WORLD UNDER THE DARKNESS OF REIGNING EVIL. Represented by those dark, depressing, unhealthy days when there is no light in the sky, and the damp mists lie low. Then the plants droop, the flowers do not care to open, and the leaves hang. The song birds are silent, and the hours drag on wearily. To the good the darkness of prevailing evil sentiment, evil opinion, evil practice, is necessarily afflictive. These things make an unnourishing atmosphere and bad circumstances. When the darkness of evil prevails in
(1) the intellectual world, or
(2) the moral world, or
(3) the social world, then there will surely be abounding error, moral mischiefs, spiritual depression, and vital disease.
As Malachi saw the people in his day, they were in the gloom of triumphant self-will, and there was no sunlight of God in their sky. That sunshine was his hope for the future.
II THE WORLD IN THE LIGHT OF REIGNING RIGHTEOUSNESS. And that time he saw dawning when Messiah should appear. The birth of the Babe of Bethlehem was the strong sunrise of righteousness. Picture the dawning of the sun in full, clear strength after weeks of dulness, damp, and disease. How the sunbeams dry up the mists, warm the chilled earth, waken the music of the birds, make the flowers smile, and gladden man"s heart. "Notice these flowers all around us, how they turn smiling to the sun"s ardent gaze, bend forward in seeming reverence, throw open their pretty cups, and cast around their sweetest perfume. So, when the Sun of Righteousness shines, all moral goodness joyously responds. Evil slinks away into the shadows. When that Sun shines on through the eternal day, man"s answering goodness may flourish abundantly. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Shall the Sun of Righteousness arise.
Mal_4:2
Shall the Sun of Righteousness arise.
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Sun-rising
There is only one sun in our system: and there is one Mediator between God and man. The vastness of the sun is surprising, but Jesus is the Lord of all. His greatness is unsearchable. The beauty and glory of the sun are such that we cannot wonder at its being made the subject of adoration. But He is fairer than the children of men. And all the angels of God worship Him. Consider the inestimable usefulness of this luminary. How he enlightens, warms, fructifies, adorns, blesses. What changes does he produce in garden, wood, and meadow! The sun that ripened Isaacs corn ripens ours, and though he has shone for so many ages, he is undiminished, and as all-sufficient as ever. What an image of Him who is the same yesterday, today, and for ever! He that seeth the Sun of Righteousness, and believeth on Jesus, hath everlasting life. The rising of the sun is the finest spectacle in the creation. But when and how does the Sun of Righteousness arise? His coming was announced immediately after the Fall. His approach obscurely appeared in the types and services of the ceremonial law. In the clearer discoveries of the prophets, the morning was beginning to spread upon the mountains. At length He actually arose--God sent forth His Son. He rises in the dispensation of the Gospel--in spiritual illumination--in renewed manifestations--in ordinances. But how will He arise in the irradiations of heaven!--in the morning of immortality; making a day to be sullied with no cloud, and followed with no evening shade! Then their sun shall no more go down. (William Jay.)
The Sun of Righteousness
As for the godly, He promises to send Christ unto them, bringing illumination, righteousness, healing, protection, and increase of grace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
1. An infallible character of the truly godly is their reverence and holy fear (presumption being very contrary unto piety), and that not only of Gods justice and terrible judgments, which the wicked may tremble at, but also of His name and whatsoever He reveals Himself by; His word being enough to make them tremble, and His goodness to make them fear.
2. Christ is the substance of the encouragement of the godly, as being unto His Church and children in a super-excellent manner, what the sun is to this inferior world, in enlightening all their darkness, illuminating all the inferior lights that shine in any measure, making all hid things patent, rejoicing, warning, cherishing, and ripening all fruits. Unto you that fear My name, shall the sun arise.
3. Not only is every man by nature and without Christ, in a dark, disconsolate condition till He come to them, but His manifestation of Himself under the law was far inferior to that under the Gospel, which is far more clear, glorious, and comfortable, than the legal shadows were: for where Christ comes, the sun ariseth after a dark night; and this especially relates to His incarnation, which is sunlight in comparison of the Old Testament, which had but, as it were, moonlight.
4. That which makes Christ especially comfortable to the godly is, that He brings glorious righteousness to them, whereby they who durst not appear before God, become glorious and beautiful in the eyes of the Lord. He is the Sun of Righteousness--glorious righteousness--to them.
5. As these who get good of Christ will have many sores, and be made to feel the deadly wounds and diseases which every one by nature hath; so Christ is the only Physician to cure such sores, and deliver His people from all sickness of sin and misery. He arises with healing. (George Hutcheson.)
The Sun of Righteousness
From the most glorious creature, the sun, He expresses the most glorious Creator, Christ Jesus, taking occasion to help our understandings in grace by natural things, and teaching us thereby to make a double use of the creatures, corporal and spiritual. Christ is compared to the sun--
1. Because, as all light was gathered into the body of the sun, and from it derived to us, so it pleased God that in Him should the fulness of all excellency dwell.
2. As there is but one sun, so there is but one Sun of Righteousness.
3. As the sun is above the firmament, so Christ is exalted up on high, to convey His graces and virtues to all His creatures here below.
4. As the sun works largely in all things here below, so doth Christ.
5. As the sun is the fountain of light, and the eye of the world, so Christ is the fountain of all spiritual light.
6. As the sun directeth us whither to go and which way, so doth Christ teach us to go to heaven, and by what means; what duties to perform, what things to avoid, and what things to bear.
7. As the sun is pleasant, and darkness is terrible, so Christ is comfortable; for He makes all at peace where He comes; and He sends the Spirit the Comforter.
8. By the beams of the sun is conveyed influence to make things grow, and to distinguish between times and seasons. Thus Christ, by His power, makes all things cheerful, for He quickens the dead and dark soul.
9. The sun works these effects not by coming down to us, but by influence.
10. As the sun doth work freely, drawing up vapours to dissolve them into rain upon the earth, so doth Christ. He freely draws up our hearts to heaven.
11. As the sun shines upon all, but doth not heat all, so Christ is offered to all.
12. As the sun quickens and puts life into dead creatures, so shall Christ, by His power, quicken our dead bodies, and raise them up again. How shall we know whether Christ be to us a sun or not? If we find that we feel the heat and comfort of a Christian, it is a sign that Christ hath effectually shined on us. If Christ have shined upon any effectually, they will walk comely, as children of the light. Uses of this doctrine--
(1) We should pity their estate that are still in darkness.
(2) We should repair to Him, and conceive of Him as one having excellences suitable to our wants.
The text describes this Sun as with healing in His wings, or beams. In these beams there is a healing nature. Naturally, we are all sick and wounded. We should take notice of our diseases in time, and go to the healing God. Christ hath a medicine of His own, able to cure any disease, though never so desperate, any person, though never so sick. Then why are we not healed? What means this that we are subject to these infirmities of ours? Some of Christs works are all at once perfected, and some by degrees, by little and little. The text also promises, Ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. You shall leap forth. Both expressions signify a cheerful moving. We need to grow up. What are means thereunto?
1. Purge and cleanse the soul of weakening matter. Practise the duty of repentance daily.
2. Come at good food. Digest comfortable truths.
3. Use exercise of holy duties.
Take heed not to lightly esteem Gods ordinance; but in reverence use all means for the strengthening of our faith; by the Word, sacraments, and prayer. How shall we know whether we are grown? If we relish the food of our souls, the Word of God; are able to bear great burdens of the infirmities of our brethren; able, like Samson, to break the green cords of pleasure and profits. Our growth in grace is seen in our Performance of duties: if they be strongly, readily, and cheerfully performed. Text says, Ye shall tread down the wicked. While the Jews obeyed God, they were a terror to the whole earth. The Church treadeth, etc., in regard of true judgment and discerning of the estates of the wicked. The Church tramples on all things that rule wicked men. The promise of the text is finally accomplished at the day of judgment. (R. Sibbes.)
Sunrise
I. Who is this Sun of Righteousness?
1. Jesus Christ, who is spoken of as a light to lighten the Gentiles.
2. Light, a frequent Scrip ture symbol. The sun possesses some excellent properties above other luminaries.
3. The sun possesses the property of communicating light to all the other heavenly bodies. All men are indebted to the light of the world for everything that is good. Good men are called lights of the world. The Sun of Righteousness is the great source of light and heat to the soul.
4. Similar effects are produced on the moral world on the rising of the Sun of Righteousness, as are produced on the face of the earth by the rising of the natural sun. Darkness is dispersed, and mists and vapour give way before his powerful rays. When Christ, the true light, shines, moral darkness is dissipated, and in proportion as the true light is received, superstition, error, and ignorance die away.
II. When may this Sun of Righteousness be said to arise?
1. When the prophet says shall arise, we are not to infer that He had never arisen before, but that a more abundant outbeaming of His light should be reflected upon the faithful.
2. In the fulness of time, God sent forth His Son.
3. He arose from the dead.
4. He may be said to arise when He visits any place by His Gospel.
5. When He visits the souls of the children of men by His Spirit.
III. The manner in which He is said to arise. With healing in His wings.
1. Only upon those who fear the Lord: by penitents, and by His own children.
2. Penitents fear God, and seek His face. They shall be made whole, and saved from the guilt and power of sin.
3. The Lords children serve Him with reverence and godly fear, and they too shall be saved from the pollution and indwelling of sin. (B. Bailey.)
The Sun of Righteousness
Nature is replete with types, shadows, or symbols of spiritual things. Our Lord is Himself called the Sun of Righteousness, because, in many respects, He bears the same relation to the moral universe which the sun sustains to the solar system. In this image, or symbol, there is a depth of meaning which does not at once strike the mind; and which, from age to age, continually deepens and expands, as science reveals more and more the intrinsic grandeur and glory of the sun. Plato says, Light is the shadow of God. Scripture says, God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. An apostle says, God is love. But yet is the brightness of this light and love so veiled and obscured to mortal vision that blessing, not blasting, everywhere follows in the track of their influence. The more we study the symbolism of Scripture the more are we lost in admiration of its richness, its fulness, its grandeur, and its beauty.
1. The sun is the central body of our system, by whose attractive influence all the planetary worlds are held in their orbits, and so kept from wandering into the outer darkness of infinite space. By Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, all worlds are kept in society with God, the great central light of the universe. For the Hebrew mind, this little earth of ours was the universe, around which the sun, moon, and stars revolved as the appendages and ornaments of its beauty.
2. The sun is the life of the natural world. Blot out the great luminary and all the beautiful forms of nature, both in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, would sink into one mass of universal decay and death The Sun of Righteousness is the life of the spiritual world. He lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
3. The sun is the only self-luminous body in our system; from which all others derive their light of life. So it is a symbol of Him who is the light of the world, the moral world. It is given to Christ, and to Christ alone, to have light in Himself.
4. The natural sun is, like the Sun of Righteousness, limited in the beneficent effects of its influence. It is often made an objection to the religion of Jesus, that it does not save all men. The same objection might be urged against the natural sun. Behold the arid wastes and barren rocks, on which its light-giving rays fall in vain. So the Sun of Righteousness shines in vain upon all whose sins have rendered their hearts more than stony hard. But for all this He is the life-giving power of the moral world.
5. The Sun of Righteousness is, like the natural sun, the source, or rather the occasion, of many incidental evils. The natural sun, for example, in acting on the corruptions of the earth, often breeds those noxious vapours, or effluvia, which spread pestilence in the air we breathe. But is this the fault of the sun, or of the corruptions on which it acts? It is only in relation to Christ that men blame the physician for the disease He came to cure, and for the evil and malignant passions He came to eradicate or subdue.
6. For many weary, countless ages men sought an answer to this question: What is the foundation of the earth? After all their searching, it was discovered that the earth rested on nothing: it was suspended from the sun. Men have been seeking the foundation of society, but the everlasting, foolish search is all in vain, for the foundation of the moral world is nowhere. It is suspended from above. The Sun of Righteousness is its only point of support and rest. All the planetary worlds are like a magnificent chandelier, suspended from the sun; so are all social states, nay, all moral worlds, upheld and sustained by the Sun of Righteousness.
7. The sun is, by virtue of its transforming power, a magnificent type or symbol of Christ. The Divine power of Christ, working silently and unseen through all the ages, is fitly symbolised only by those stupendous agencies which, with such inconceivable grandeur, are ever at work on the magnificent theatre of the material universe.
(1) It is no task for suns to shine. And yet, by the pervasive force of the suns rays, all the mighty changes of the earth are wrought, and all the wondrous harmonies produced.
(2) The suns rays are indeed His ministering angels, sent forth to minister to all things on earth.
(3) Nor is the solid globe itself exempt from the transforming power of the suns rays. All the stupendous coal strata of the globe are but so many entombed vegetable kingdoms of the past, all of which were reared and ruled by the mighty sun. It is not without significance that the great Reformer, or rather the great Trans former, of the moral world is called the Sun of Righteousness.
8. The power of the sun, by which all natural things are progressively developed, symbolises the corresponding power or influence of Christ in the development and progress of the moral world. The progress of Christianity is the progress of man. All real progress has been confined to Christian nations.
9. The Sun of Righteousness, like the natural sun, works silently, but efficiently, in the depths of His dominion, and acts on the secret springs or principles of its inner life. And a glance at the past is sufficient to inspire us with hope for the future. The kingdom of Christ, though once the least of all seeds, is now the greatest of all trees. Having its roots in faith, its vital principle is love, its blossoms are immortal hopes, and its fruit eternal life. (R. Bledsoe.)
The rising of the Sun of Righteousness
I. The persons to whom the promise is made. Those that fear the name of the Lord. By the name of God is meant the character of God. We have, in ourselves, no knowledge of the nature and character of God, and therefore cannot fear His name until He send forth the Spirit of truth into our hearts, to lead us into all truth. All the notions which we form of Him, before the Spirit of truth is in us, are as contrary to His true character as darkness is to light. While we are in this state of blindness we can have no real fear of God according to His Word. The true fear springs up with faith, and arises chiefly from the soul believing some part of Gods Word, which the Holy Spirit carries home to the sinners conscience to awaken him. This fear will be marked by a growing desire to know the true character of God. And this is not a feeling which passes away. The text does not speak of those that have feared the name of God, but of those that do fear it, i.e., continue to do so. It is not a passing fright, but a holy abiding fear. The marks of it are an abiding sense of sin, a desire to be taught of God, by searching the Word of God in order to know His name, or true character, and by praying for the teaching of the Spirit of truth.
II. The promise itself. The Sun of Righteousness shall arise upon them with healing in His wings. Jesus Christ is to the soul what the natural sun is to the earth. The sun gives light and warmth to the earth, by which its various fruits are brought forth and ripened. Jesus is especially the Sun of Righteousness, as being the fountain of all righteousness; of that perfect righteousness by which believers are testified in the sight of God. Jesus fulfilled all righteousness in His own person when manifest in the flesh, and was perfectly obedient to the will of God, even unto death. This perfect righteousness of Christ is imputed, or reckoned to believers, through faith, as if they had entirely fulfilled it themselves; and thus they are justified or made righteous in the sight of God. Jesus is also the fountain of the righteousness of sanctification. The mode in which the Sun of Righteousness arises upon the soul of His people is, by pouring into them more and more of the light of the Holy Spirit strengthening their faith, and enabling them to see that Christ, with all His blessings, and all His promises, is theirs. He thus also rises with healing in His wings, to heal the broken hearts of His people.
III. The happy effect of the fulfilment of the promises. They shall grow up, as calves in the stall. The believer is enabled to go forth with peace and joy on his way to Zion. The blessed effect will be manifested both by the peace and shed into the believers soul, and by his growth in holiness. The rising of the Son of Righteousness will also greatly promote the believers growth in grace. The growth in size of calves, when fed in the stall, is very great; so shall the growth of believers be great. Apply subject to ourselves. Are there not too many amongst you who are entirely strangers to the fear of the name or character of God? Perhaps you have hitherto been brought only to fear God, and you walk in dark ness. You should apply to yourselves this text: let the Sun of Righteousness rise on your souls with healing in His wings. If He rises on your soul you will have peace with God. (H. Gipps, LL. D.)
The Sun of Righteousness
This passage seems to refer principally to the second coming of our Lord; the text itself may be safely understood of His first coming in the flesh. It points out, primarily at least, the judgments to be brought upon the unbelieving and impenitent Jews.
I. The coming of Christ, as the Sun of Righteousness rising upon the world. The most glorious object in creation is the fittest to represent the King of Glory. The sun is the great source of heat and life and light; of everything that is beautiful and beneficial. The Sun of Righteous ness here is the Lord and Saviour Christ; the Lord and giver of life to His servants: a never-failing source of spiritual health and comfort to His servants. Whatever the sun is in the material world, that, and much more, in a spiritual sense, is the Lord to His Church. Sun of Righteousness may mean that He is perfectly just and righteous in Himself, and therefore discovers and rebukes sin, brings to light the hidden things of darkness and vice, and affords in Him self a perfect example of light and virtue, by which others may see and avoid their errors and failings. Or it may mean that, by His own righteousness, He justifies many. This Sun arose when our Lord came into the world. He again rose in His resurrection. He will again rise when He comes in glory. And He may be said to rise upon each of us when by faith we receive Him into our souls.
II. The salvation which the Sun of Righteousness brings with him. With healing in His wings. The Son of God came to earth as a Saviour. This character He maintained through the course of His ministry upon earth, during which He went about doing good. How did this Sun of Righteousness bring healing in His wings (or, as we should rather say, in His beams and rays) at His rising?
1. The most natural interpretation is, of the cures which He wrought upon the bodies of men.
2. The great act of salvation was bearing our sins in His own body on the tree. By His stripes we are healed. This healing procured the pardon of our sins, and the grace of the Spirit of God, to enable us to fulfil the conditions required of us. Only by joining these two together can the salvation be regarded as complete. Notice how great is His mercy in administering comfort to the penitent.
III. The qualifications required of those to whom the Son of God will prove a Saviour. You that fear My name. Religious fear of God is necessary to qualify a man to receive the healing grace of Christ. To the soul which has no fear Christ brings no healing. This is the state of the true Christian; in which his terrors are never so great as to extinguish his hopes, and his hopes never prevail so much as to make him confident and secure. (T. Bowdler, A. M.)
Sun of Righteousness
I. Illustrate the comparison of our Lord Jesus Christ to a sun.
1. His unapproachable pre-eminence.
2. His benign influence.
3. His relation to the whole world.
II. Describe His restorative or remedial efficacy. In the world; in a country; in an individual.
III. Consider the persons to whom His efficacy is confined. Who are they? And why are they the sole recipients of the promised blessing? Consider Christ--as the centre of the spiritual world; as the source of light; as the source of heat; as the object of attraction. (O. Brooks.)
Parallel between Christ and the sun
A parallel is drawn between Jesus Christ and the natural sun.
1. Before the rising of the natural sun there is darkness; until Jesus Christ arise or is apprehended there is darkness--moral and spiritual darkness. Look to the world before the coming of Christ: the heathen; the multitudes around us; any one of the unconverted; the place of outer darkness.
2. Jesus Christ, as the natural sun does, arose gradually.
(1) He arose in the Scriptures, through the prophecies and promises, the types and sacrifices, until, in the development of Gods providence, He appeared above the horizon.
(2) He arose, in His own personal history, in the completion of His work, in His resurrection, in His ascension, in the gift of the Holy Spirit.
(3) He rises in the souls of His people, on earth, in heaven, for ever.
3. Jesus Christ, like the natural sun, reveals or is the source of light.
(1) He reveals God, perfections, purposes, past, future, creation, providence.
(2) He reveals man, law, way of salvation, Gospel.
(3) All time; eternity; the invisible worlds, and the paths to them.
4. Jesus Christ, like the natural sun, is the centre of a system. Of the material universe; and the moral and spiritual universe. Centre and sum of revealed truth of the Church.
5. Jesus Christ, like the natural sun, has His image reflected, both in the material and in the moral universe.
6. Is the source of enjoyment. He has all blessing; and admits to His own joy.
7. Is often concealed by clouds.
(1) By a cloud of guilt on the conscience.
(2) By a cloud of corruptions.
(3) By a cloud of misrepresentations.
8. He dispenses His influence freely. Without money and without price.
9. He hastens the process of decay and corruption. A stone of stumbling and a rock of offence. (James Stewart.)
The Messiah as the Sun of Righteousness
That the promised Messiah should be termed the Sun of Righteousness may appear characteristic and appropriate. But what are we to understand by a sun with wings? What by those wings being endowed with the powers of healing? what mean we when we term the Messiah Sun of Righteousness, but that we, being by nature the heirs of Gods curse, are through Christ reconciled to Him whom we had offended? what mean we by the wings of the sun? In Egypt a sun with wings was sculptured upon the gateways and monuments. Some regard the sign with a reference to the rays or beams of the luminous body itself. Others interpret it as representing that overhanging canopy of the heavens which bends, like a protecting arch above this lower globe of ours, brooding over it, so to speak, and sheltering it. Others explain the wings as betokening the swiftness with which the light of the sun traverses illimitable space. Others appropriate the term to the cooling breezes which in the East accompany the early sunrise. Those who have experienced the glare and weariness of an Eastern day may be better qualified than most of us to appreciate those first hours of cool and refreshing daylight which are appropriated to health ful exercise and the enjoyment of natures loveliness. The period at which we celebrate the rising of the predicted Sun cannot convey real and fitting gladness to the hearts of those who do not entertain this chastened and holy fear of Gods name. The verse preceding the text is full of woe and alarm for them that despise His loving-kindness and disobey His laws. Apt as is the image of the suns rising and progress through the heavens, to represent the rising of the Sun of Righteousness and His increasing influences as He goes on His way rejoicing, it is when He has reached His height that the metaphor fails us altogether. Slowly and surely the material orb sinks at last in the darkness. Herein we are taught the infinite inferiority of the sign to that which is signified thereby. (T. Ainger, M. A.)
The Sun of Righteousness
Why was it that God permitted His ancient people to be overwhelmed with such unheard of calamities? We have reason to believe it was simply because they rejected Christ, and the offers of mercy and salvation through Him. If God, however, take vengeance on the wicked, He will be favourable to the righteous, and spare them in the great day, as a father spareth his own son that serveth him.
I. The Sun of Righteousness. There is but one Sun from whom proceeds righteousness, and that must be the Son of God. As Christ is the source of all spiritual life and light, so by His sufferings and death He hath procured or merited righteous ness. He is therefore the believers justifying righteousness.
II. His rising on Gods people. Christs face shines on His people and disperses their sorrows, but His face is dark towards sinners, for He is angry with the wicked every day. In the spiritual world, when Christ took on Him our flesh and was born in Bethlehem, then the light was come, and the glory of the Lord was risen upon us! This Sun still shines; He is still shining, in His Gospel and in the power of His Word.
III. The effect of his rising. With healing in His wings. Understanding this literally, we may see how Christ, as man, has arisen with healing in His wings. How many; yea, what multitudes did His hands heal of various maladies. This Sun is still shining. All our spiritual light is from Him. All our spiritual healing comes from the merit of His works. (R. Horsfall.)
Our sun
I. The sun. Of all the things the eye can see the most Christlike is the sun, for he is quite alone in our world. Nor rival, nor helper, nor partner has he. We have many stars, but only one sun. All light is in and from the sun. Yet even this glorious image of the light of the world fails in some ways; for the sun has its dark spots, but in Christ, our sun, is no darkness at all. The sun is the centre of all the worlds. Every star is held in its place by the attractive power of the sun. The sun is the grand river in this world. Our thoughts wax warm as we sum up all the benefits with which he fills our earth. You cannot overstate them. Science is every year finding fresh wonders in sunlight. All kinds of force come from the sun. As the sun gives according to a never-changing law, so Christ blesses only in a righteous way.
II. The sun-rising. Sunrise is probably the grandest sight in the world. In the East it is so magnificent as almost for the moment to make one a Parsee, a worshipper of the rising sun. Malachi was in the twilight, and you are in the daylight. To him the sun was beneath the horizon, sure harbinger of the wished for day. You live in the Gospel-day.
III. The blessings christ brings to men. As the sun destroys only darkness and its hateful brood, so Christ destroys only our miseries, and brings us all blessings.
1. Healing. The Easterns often carved a winged sun above the gateways of their temples. Malachi has a poets quick eye for the glories of nature, and perhaps this also was in his mind,--the sun rises like a birch, with equal wings wide enough to cover the world. Malachis meaning is, that as sunlight brings health to a diseased, dying world, so Christ brings health to our diseased, dying souls; and this healing comes to us with all the ease, swiftness, gentleness, and freshness of morning sunshine. This healing brings health, which shows itself in joyous activity. To healing and health Christ adds victory. (James Wells, M. A.)
The blessings of the Sun of Righteousness
I. The promise which is made.
1. The metaphor under which the coming of Christ is spoken of. The rising of the Sun of Righteousness. Malachi assimilates Christs coming to that of the sun rising upon the earth. Is He not well entitled to this appellation?
2. The manner in which Jesus is to come to His saints. With healing in His wings. It is a bold poetical figure used by the prophet for the beams or rays of the sun; and such bold painted figures are by no means uncommon with Eastern writers.
II. The persons to whom this promise is made. To them who fear the name of the Lord. This expression is used in Scripture for religion in general. Without a certain mixture of fear, taking the term in its most literal signification, no worship can be accept able to Jehovah. Without a certain mixture of fear, no worship can produce any deep or lasting impressions on the worshipper himself--no sanctifying effects on his heart and conscience. The term may, however, be limited and applied to some particular classes of saints.
1. To them who are spiritual mourners.
2. To them persecuted for the sake of religion.
3. To them who sit in heathen darkness.
4. To the elect on the day of judgment.
To the righteous on that day Christ shall arise with healing in His wings. To them shall He come with joy and songs of triumph. (James Watson.)
Christ Jesus the Sun of Righteousness
The great light which the Almighty Maker of the world set up in heaven to rule the day is the most glorious object in the whole visible creation of God. The worship of the sun, as it was the first, so it was assuredly the least degrading of all the idolatries by which men and nations have since been enslaved. Does the sun exhibit the glory of God? What, then, shall we say of Christ Jesus, in whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily? Seen as an absolute God, and by the flashes of the law from Sinai, our God is a consuming fire; but we have the light of the knowledge of His saving glory in the face of Jesus Christ. In Him is light, and the light is the spiritual and everlasting life of men. By rising in the ancient promise He dispelled the midnight ignorance and utter hopelessness of guilty creatures; by rising in His own person, and glorious acts of grace, He chased away the dim shadows of the ceremonial law; by rising in Gospel ordinances He abolished the night of error and delusion; and by rising in His spiritual influences upon the believers soul He says, Let there be light, and there is light. The sun rises gradually over the earth; and so hath the Sun of Righteousness displayed His saving light. His first ray was cast upon this fallen earth when the promise of redemption was given to guilty man in paradise. The law and the prophets reflected it with increasing brightness until His advent. But it is only when that advent is spiritually and graciously made to a soul once darkened and dead in trespasses and sins that the true and efficacious light of salvation reaches him and renews him. Upon whom, then, will this bright and radiant Sun arise? Upon those who fear the name of God. This fear of God is produced by that work of regeneration which the Holy Spirit effects. The fear of the Lord is a gracious and heavenly state; not meritorious of any good at the hand of God, but a disposition which best subserves His great design of raising up and glorifying the riches of His undeserved love. He who thus evangelically fears the Lord is led to serious and solemn self-examination. If you fear God there is a deep, earnest, ardent, unceasing breathing of the soul for Christ, a constant application to His blood as its true Bethesda, its everlastingly appointed house of mercy, where the soul may be made whole. Note the blessing which shall attend those who fear the Lord. Sin is the cause of all spiritual dark ness, because sin is the souls separation from God. Christ comes with spiritual health, and with the abundance of spiritual peace: peace from the guilt of sin rising up to condemn, peace from the accusations of conscience, peace from the curse of the law, peace with the blessed Trinity, and peace with all who are one with Him. The material sin is the source of earths fertility. And how free, how common, how accessible is the sun of the natural world, for all who live beneath it! (R. P. Buddicom, M. A.)
Christ as a sun
I. Of the metaphorical representation of Christ. Metaphors are useful. They arrest the attention: the imagination is engaged in discovering their beauty and admiring their aptitude, while they rivet themselves in the memory by the force with which they bring home to us the subject they are intended to illustrate. To illustrate Christ as the Sun of Righteousness, consider the miserably benighted state in which the human race were in the days anterior to the Gospel dispensation. Jesus Christ, that Sun of Righteousness, pure and spotless, is the author of all righteousness, whether imputed for justification or imparted in sanctification. When Christ rises in the soul He enlightens, quickens, and comforts.
II. What is meant by healing in His wings? The beams of this heavenly luminary may indeed be perceived by us, but do they pervade our hearts and lives? To fear the name is to reverence Him as God and man; to participate by faith in His incarnate sufferings; to accompany Him to the scene of His cruel death. It has its foundation in a deep sense of the enormity of sins, and a humbling conviction of our depravity. (Samuel Crowther.)
The Sun of Righteousness arising with healing in His wings
I. The characters spoken of. The name of the Lord signifies the perfections of the glorious God of heaven--the great ness and goodness of the Lord--God Himself. It is the peculiar character of the people of God that they fear His name. It is a fear of offending God, the tenderness of the child that fears to offend its parent. This fear is an abiding principle, and it is a practical principle; it operates upon the life.
II. The blessed privilege of those that fear the name of God. The Sun of Righteous ness is Immanuel, God with us. And He arose at His birth, because more conspicuous in His ministry; was eclipsed at His death, shone forth brighter after His resurrection and ascension, and attained His meridian splendour when the Jewish dispensation closed and the Christian dispensation was fully established. But the promise of our text is daily receiving its fulfilment in the hearts of Gods believing people. The promise of the text, however, still awaits the consummation of its fulfilment. (Benjamin Maturin, B. A.)
The Sun of Righteousness
I. The persons. Those that fear the name of the Lord. Fear is the passion of our nature opposed to hope, and by it the author of our being guards us against danger. The fear of the Lord is the sublimest principle which can influence a soul. It casts out all other fear. Filial and godly fear is always accompanied with love.
II. The blessings. The Messiah should be, to the spiritual world, what the sun is to the natural world. In this view we may regard Him as the source of light, fertility, comfort, and health. (Peter Grant.)
Christ, the gun of Righteousness
Were I to adhere to the textual view of these words I should be shut up to consider what Christs coming was to those who already had some true light, to those who already feared God and thought upon His name, and thus I should have mainly to set forth the superiority of Christianity to Judaism. But I shall make no apology for giving to this title Sun of Righteousness a wider application, and for considering not so much Christs rising then and there upon Jewish cloudiness and dimness, as rather His arising from first to last upon the total darkness of our fallen world.
I. The nature of Christs light, or enlightening power.
1. This light is saving light. In many parts of the Old Testament righteousness is used in nearly the same sense with salvation. The salvation of God, resting on the perfect righteousness of Gods own Son as the sinners substitute, applied to believers in Him for justification, and in its gracious operation, terminated and completed by their willing return to personal righteousness and holiness of life,--this is what is here meant under the name of righteousness (Jer_23:6). We speak in our own language of the sun of freedom rising upon a country, or of the sunshine of peace revisiting it. But the light which here bursts upon a lost and guilty world is the saving light of righteousness. It announces to the condemned the hope of pardon, and shows the way; and it discloses with equal clearness the means of deliverance from the power and bondage of corruption. In Christ the whole salvation is contained, even as the sun reveals himself. In Him the guilty are righteous in law; in Him, and as subdued by His birth, they are righteous in fact.
2. This light is original light. The light of the sun is unborrowed. It is a mystery which our science has not yet solved, how this fountain is fed. But relatively to all sources of light that we know, it is higher and self-sustained. This images the nature of Christ s light, in contrast with all the knowledge of Divine things which comes to us from other quarters.
3. This light is pre-eminent light. The most glorious object in nature is the sun. The ancient world had its lights, we grant--its poets, philosophers, moralists, law-givers. But what were they in regard to righteous ness or salvation? How much did they diffuse of the light of life? Christ was even pre-eminent above Jewish prophets, who had known and revealed God to men. They were but secondary lights. Their use was to point to Him. It is needless to assert Christs pre-eminence over His own apostles and ministers and people.
4. This light is a universal light. What a universal blessing is sunshine! What an emblem of the Higher Light which is not less universal, though, for reasons which we cannot fathom, it is still beneath the horizon in many a wide region of the earth. Where it has shone, can the natural sun be more unrestricted and free?
II. The nature of Christs healing influence. By wings the prophet means the rays or influence of the sun. In addition to the influence of light we are now to take into account that of heat, of which, too, the sun is the centre.
1. Christs healing power in relation to sin. What is wanted to moralise the whole community? Only one thing, the love of Christ in every mans heart.
2. Christs healing extends to sorrow. This follows from the healing of sin. Every sin has its own sorrow, its remorse, its injuries to mind and heart, and often also to body and estate.
3. The influence of Christs sun shine upon death. The natural sun lights all generations to their grave. How is Christ risen from the dead, risen with healing in His wings for all that sleep in Him! Oh, the glory of that victory over death, the last enemy, which the light of Christs immortal countenance shall achieve! (John Cairns, D. D.)
Christ the Sun of Righteousness
We with the early Fathers take our Lord to be the Sun of Righteousness. The mass of the sun being so vastly greater than that of all the planets and satellites taken together, constitutes it a suitable centre of light, heat, and gravitation; and therefore a striking emblem of Christ. Of the many points of resemblance we will examine two. The darkness which precedes the dawn, and the gradual growth of the light. These are seen--
I. In the growth of Christianity. At the dawn of Christianity there was a darkness like that of Egypt, that might be felt. Darkness is the symbol of ignorance and sin. The intellectual greatness of the Augustan age is seen in its poets, philosophers, etc.; but the flowers grew on a marshy and rotten soil. Classical writers confirm St. Pauls testimony in Romans chap. 1. to the awful moral degradation of the time. The dayspring from on high appears, and gradually asserts its power over the darkness. Christian teachers penetrated where the Roman legions never trod. Persecution did not arrest the wave. When the northern barbarians overwhelmed the Roman Empire, they had to yield to a power greater than their own--that of the Cross. The glory of the meridian sun must fill the earth.
II. In the growth of the Christian. Before conversion our hearts were dark, void and formless, like the original world. The spirit of man is illumined by the Sun of Righteousness, and chaos becomes cosmos. This growth is gradual. Three stages of Christian growth. God calls, touches, blesses; which corresponds in some sort to assent, affiance, and assurance. Growth in religion is mainly characterised by thought of ourselves at its beginning, by consideration for others as we advance in holiness, and by a desire for the glory of God when more matured. Is Christ growing in us? We must be advancing or receding. If Christ be growing in us, certain effects will follow. His light will cleanse and purify; and shining from us, it will give us influence on others. (J. S. Pilkington, M. A.)
The rising of the Sun of Righteousness
All nature is laid under contribution to furnish emblems of Christ in His Person and offices. Text refers to the second advent. But the glory of the second will be the consummation of the grace of the first advent. It was the rising of the Sun of Righteousness when Christ appeared as the Light of the World revealing pardon, peace, liberty, and joy. It will be the rising in full meridian splendour, when He shall appear the second time, to complete the salvation of His saints and to be glorified in them.
1. What the sun is to the natural world, that Christ is in the spiritual, the source and centre of its light and life.
2. Christ is the Sun of Righteousness. He is Righteousness embodied, exhibited as a living reality. He fulfilled all righteousness. He makes His people righteous. As their justification, and as their sanctification and illumination. By His Spirit He imparts His own nature to them, creates them anew in righteousness and true holiness.
3. Christ rises with healing in His wings. The figure admits of a natural and beautiful interpretation. On certain coasts there sets in with the rising sun a balmy breeze which, because of its soothing and salubrious character, the residents call the healer. Regarding this with poetic fancy as winged zephyrs of the rising sun, the prophet speaks of the coming Messiah as a sun rising with healing in His wings.
4. Grow up as calves is better rendered, bound as calves loosed from the stall. Liberty and enlargement of heart, exultation and lightness of spirit, shall be to them on whom the Sun of Righteousness arises. The expression go forth denotes release. We know the exuberance of a young animal set free to range in the open pasturage. To them who fear His name the rising is with healing in His wings. But the sun in the heavens can smite, and scorch and slay. Oh, that terrible sunstroke, so fatal in the East! Christs coming may he to some a revelation of flaming fire taking vengeance. (A. R. Symonds.)
The Sun of Righteousness
I. The blessings Christ imparts, like those of the sun, are of the utmost value. A sunless landscape is less dismal than a Christless soul; whilst a Christly soul has on it a light that never shone on sea or land. The blessings of the natural sun and of the Christ are, in many respects, similar.
1. They are enlightening. Sunrise means daylight.
2. They are restorative. Healing,--for does not the suns influence on drooping flower and faded face of human weakness but hint Christs influence on mens hearts and lives?
II. The blessings Christ imparts, like those of the sun, come to men in a remarkable manner. The sunrise and these wings combine to suggest--
(1) Certainty;
(2) Stillness;
(3) Gentleness;
(4) Swiftness. So Christ blesses.
III. The blessings Christ imparts, like those of the sun, bring benefits that, in a large degree, are universal. The sun shines on the evil and on the good. What spot of earth does it not, directly or indirectly, reach and bless? So many of Christs blessings bless all. Is there not through Him--
(1) Prolonged probation for the whole human race?
(2) Means of grace for multitudes still sinners.
(3) Holy influences of thought and character that restrain and that tend to elevate?
IV. The blessings Christ imparts, like those of the sun, demand special conditions for their full appropriation. The best cultivated soil will best utilise the heat and light of the sun. So the soul that in steadfast faith and love turns to the Christ, and with intense desires drinks in all His truth and grace, will be the soul on which will be most evident the healing influences of the great Sun of Righteousness. (Homilist.)
A message for the faithful
Changed, indeed, are our days from those in which the words of the text were written. Since that time the Sun of Righteousness has arisen. Elias the prophet has come already, and they have done to him all that they listed. The law of Moses, commanded in Horeb for all Israel, has been exchanged for the voice of One who speaks to us from heaven. And yet Gods last words, as here recorded, are still substantially the same with those which He speaks to us to-day after the lapse of more than two-and-twenty centuries.
1. What is the great basis, here set before us, of all revelation? Behold, the day cometh. Everything is tending to one point; every act, every word of ours, is running on before us to that great end, the day of final reckoning. How difficult it is to believe this; how much more difficult still to act upon it! How often does sin triumph! The day cometh; a day revealed by fire; a fire not purifying but consuming to all the proud, yea, and all who do wickedly. And need we remind you who these are? They are all who say in their hearts,--not with their lips indeed, but in their hearts,--There is no God: all who live, that is, as if there was none; live without intercourse with Him; live without regard to His will and His approval. Take with you unto your new life this one great principle, there is a day of judgment coming.
2. Then what force and interest will this first truth give to that which follows. He who is expecting the coming judgment can alone rejoice to hear of One who will enable him to meet it. Unto you that fear My name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings. The prophet is speaking of a time when those who have served God in their generation shall find to their eternal comfort that they have not served Him in vain. This is the great blessedness of Gods service, that all its difficulties and troubles come first: they lie on the surface; they beset its first entrance; diminishing commonly, or made by use lighter to bear, as life advances; and all ceasing absolutely when this life ends. A true Christian is on the winning side in the great battle. With what patience, then, should he who is called to suffer some times for his Christian faithfulness regard those who thus deal with him.
3. This for every one of us is the great lesson, that we look well to our hearts and lives, to the work which God has set us to do, and to the spirit in which we may do it.
4. There remains yet one portion of these last words of God by His prophets, which is scarcely less applicable to days when He has already spoken to us by His Son. Behold, I will send Elijah, etc. The prophetical part of these words has already been fulfilled. The mission of the Baptist accomplished them. But the practical lesson which they contain is of unchangeable moment. You all know how large a part of your duty is connected, by Gods wise appointment, with your parents. God accepts through them an obedience which cannot yet be paid consciously to Himself. God makes it one portion of your duty to Him to honour and obey them. Their approval He would have you to regard as your highest earthly reward; their comfort and happiness as your highest earthly object. (Dean Vaughan.)
Christs first coming
There is a touch of sadness about the Book of Malachi. His are parting words, and they show how Gods people had degenerated, had lost their fervour, and become content with a mere outward service. Malachi revealed the spiritual state of the people to themselves, denounced their sins, and warned them of judgment to come. But he does not leave them without hope. It is the manner of Hebrew prophecy to blend together different events which have relation to one another, and here we have words which belong to both comings of Christ.
I. Christs first coming. Described under the image of the rising of the sun. This implies that the world was in a state of darkness before the Incarnation. The title which the prophet gives to Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, marks one great purpose of His advent illumination. Healing in His wings, applies to the work of Christ, in body and soul. As the rays of the sun look like wings when they stretch out across the heavens, so this healing work of Christ extends, by means of His mystic body, the Church, far and wide over the nations.
II. Who profit by it?
1. Light is diffusive.
2. But we may close our eyes against it, or hide from it.
3. Christ is the sun to those who fear His name.
4. Christs light was convictive, as well as attractive.
5. Even our Lords first coming was, in some sense, an act of judgment.
Lessons--
1. Realise the need of spiritual illumination.
2. Question ourselves how far the light and healing effects of Christs coming have reached us, and how far our daily life is influenced by His presence.
3. To be clear about the fact whether He is a swift witness against us, or the Sun of Righteousness, depends upon ourselves and our use of the grace which is given to us. (The Thinker.)
What Christ is made to believers
Jesus Christ is made unto us of God, a soul-heating, soul-warming sun.
I. What need have we of these warming influences from christ, the sun of righteousness? It is upon the account of the coldness we are subject to in spiritual things. Some are key cold, stone cold; dead in trespasses and sins. Even such as are spiritually alive, are subject to their cold fits. The causes of this spiritual coldness are--
1. Some inward distemper prevailing in the soul.
2. From the season; night-time, and winter-time, are cooling times. When God withdraws, it is both night and winter to the soul.
3. From cooling circumstances, such as want of ordinances, engage ment with carnal relations. The effects of spiritual coldness are--
(1) Inward uneasiness.
(2) Unfitness for action.
(3) Unaptness to receive impressions, by the Word or by the rod.
II. How is heat and warmth communicated by christ to those that fear His name? In general, it is by His wings. In particular, He is a warming sun to us--
1. By the immediate motions and comforts of His Holy Spirit.
2. By His Word and ordinances, though not without the Spirit.
3. By good society. And Jesus Christ is made a heavenly sun, with healing in His wings. Ours is a sick and wounded condition. Sick of the disease of natural corruption; sick of the wounds of actual sin. This is--
(1) The alone healing.
(2) It is all-healing.
(3) It is healing at hand.
And Jesus Christ is made a growth-furthering sun to us. Grow up as calves. Can a tree or plant grow without warmth? And, finally, the Lord Jesus is a fruit-furthering sun. (Philip Henry.)
The inner world of the good
The name of the Lord means Himself, and to fear Him with a loving, filial reverence, is genuine godliness. We have here, in fact, a picture of their inner world.
I. It is a world of solar brightness. The Sun of Righteousness rises on the horizon of their souls. There are souls that are lighted by sparks of their own kindling, and by the gaseous blaze springing from the bogs of inner depravity. All such lights, whether in the forms of philosophic theories or religious creeds, are dim, partial, transitory. The soul of a good man is lighted by the sun. The sun--
(1) Throws his beams over the whole heavens.
(2) Reveals all objects in their true aspects and proportions.
(3) Quickens all into life and beauty.
(4) Is centre, holding the whole system in order. Christ is the light of the good.
II. It is a world of Divine rectitude. Sun of Righteousness. The kingdom of God is within. Eternal right is enthroned. Gods will is the supreme law. The meat and drink of the godly soul are to do the will of their Father, who is in heaven. Such a soul is right--
(1) In relation to itself. All its powers, passions, and impulses are rightly adjusted. Right--
(2) In relation to the universe. It renders to others what it would that others should render unto it. Right--
(3) In relation to God. The Best Being it loves the most, the Greatest Being it reverences the most, the Kindest Being it thanks the most.
III. It is a world of remedial influence. With healing in His wings. The suns beams are in Scripture called His wings. The wings of the morning (Psa_139:1-24.). The soul through sin is diseased. Its eyes are dim, its ears are heavy, its limbs are feeble, its very blood is poisoned. The godly man is under remedial influences. The beams of the Sun of Righteousness work off the disease, repair the constitution, and enable it to run without being weary, and to walk without being faint. There is a proverb among the Jews that as the sun arises, the infirmities decrease. The flowers which drooped and languished all night, revive in the morning. The late Mr. Robinson, of Cambridge, called upon a friend just as he had received a letter from his son, who was surgeon on a vessel then lying off Smyrna. The son mentioned to his father, that every morning about sunrise a fresh gale of air blew from the sea across the land, and from its wholesomeness and utility in clearing the infected air, this wind was called the doctor. Christ is the Physician of souls.
IV. It is a world of buoyant energy. Ye shall go forth and grow up as calves of the stall. See the calf, which from its birth has been shut up in the stall, let forth for the first time into the green fields in May, how full of buoyant energy, it leaps and frolics and frisks. This is the figure employed here to represent the gladsomeness with which the godly soul disports its faculties under the genial beams of the Sun of Righteousness. Conclusion--What a transcendent good is religion! How blessed the soul that has come under its bright, benign, and heavenly influence. (Homilist.)
Progress in the religious life
They were before in darkness and disease; both of which confine. But the Sun of Righteousness arises, and with healing in His wings; and thus, the true light now shining, and health being restored, they become free and active--they go forth and grow up as calves of the stall. For even now they have not attained, they are not already perfect. Nor are they to remain what they are, but to increase with all the increase of God. We are not to deny what God has done for our souls. But though we must not despise the day of small things, we are not to be satisfied with it. A day of greater things is attainable: and if we do not aspire after it, we have reason to suspect even the reality of our religion. Spiritual principles may be weak, but if they are Divine, they will evince it by a tendency to growth. The sacred writers express this progression by every kind of growth. By human growth; vegetable growth; and here we have animal growth. No creatures, perhaps, increase so rapidly and observably as calves, especially when they are well attended and fed, and for the very purpose of growth. We have been reminded, sometimes, of the truth of this image, by the spiritual reality. We have seen those who, in a little time, have surprised all around them, by their progress in the Divine life. But many of us have reason to exclaim, My leanness, my leanness! How little progress have we made in religious knowledge, experience, practice, and usefulness, though we have possessed every advantage, and long enjoyed the means of grace. At present the comparison reproves us. But let it also excite and encourage. It not only reminds us of our duty, but of our privilege. This growth is not only commanded, but promised. It is therefore attainable--and we know the way to our resources. Jesus came, not only that we might have life, but have it more abundantly. (William Jay.)
The Sun has risen
The natives of the now thoroughly Christianised Samoa Islands have commemorated the coming of the Gospel among them, and the remembrance of their friend, John Williams, who laid down his life on their behalf, by erecting a church on the spot where the missionary first landed. The motto chosen for inscription on the walls is simple and expressive, The Sun has risen. (Missionary News.)
Hopeful view of the future of the world
I do not know whether any of my hearers have ever gone up from Riffelburg to Gorner Grat, in the High Alps, to behold the sun rise. Every mountain catches the light according to the height which the upheaving forces that God set in motion have given it. First, the point of Monte Rosa is kissed by the morning beams, blushes for a moment, and forthwith stands clear in the light. Then the Bretthorn, and the dome of Misehabel, and the Matterhorn, and twenty other grand mountains, embracing the distant Jung Frau, receive each in its turn the gladdening rays, bask each for a brief space, and then remain bathed in sunlight. Meanwhile the valleys between lie down dark and dismal as death. But the light which has risen is the light of the morning; and these shadows are even now lessening, and we are sure they will soon altogether vanish. Such is the hopeful view I take of our world. Darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the people; but Gods light hath broken forth in the morning, and to them who sat in darkness a great light has arisen. Already I see favoured spots illumined by it; Great Britain and her spreading colonies, and Prussia extending her influence, and the United States, with her broad territory and her rapidly increasing population, stand in the light; and I see, not twenty, but a hundred points of light, striking up in our scattered mission stations, in old continents and secluded isles and barren deserts, according as Gods grace and mans heaven-kindled love have favoured them. And much as I was enraptured with that grand Alpine scene, and shouted irrepressibly as I surveyed it, I am still more elevated, and I feel as if I could cry aloud for joy, when I hear of light advancing from point to point, and penetrating deeper and deeper into the darkness which we are sure is at last to be dispelled, to allow our earth to stand clear in the light of the Sun of Righteousness. (J. MCosh.)
Properties of light
Light is purifying; let sunshine into a dark cellar, and it soon becomes pure. Light is vivifying; expose a withered plant from a dark room to the sun, and it colours up. Light is power; all sources of fuel are directly from the sun, coming in rays of light. Light is joyous; nothing contributes so much to making a brilliant assembly as a flood of light upon it. Light is comforting; a dark day is always a gloomy day, but a burst of sunshine brings a cheer. Light is strengthening; a puny child may grow strong if he can play in the sunshine. So you should get into the light that streams from the Sun of Righteousness. His presence purifies the heart, energises the mind, brightens the life, cheers the spirits, and strengthens the whole man. (Sunday Companion.)
The Sun of Righteousness
I. His oneness. In the universe there is infinite variety and abundant repetition. In our world many rivers roll their waters into many seas; many mountains attract the many clouds which are born out of many deeps. Above and around us are many worlds; many stars twinkle over many watchers. But there is for m only one Sun, unique in splendour and in power. There is but one Jesus, the only begotten Son of God. There is no other name given under heaven, or among men; only one all-meritorious Saviour.
II. Centralness. Our solar system holds its place in the mechanism of the heavens by revolving in silent grandeur round the central sun. That sun is the pivot and point round which, in smooth, unbroken harmony, the mighty worlds are ever moving in their courses, linked and ordered by the law of gravitation; so is Jesus the true centre of the soul. Apart from Him, the soul, like an erratic meteor, a wandering star, flies ever away from the central point of bliss, to be finally lost and shattered in awful night. The true believer is bound to Jesus by the mightier law of love. Round Him, in the orbit of light and duty, he revolves for ever, subject to the law of righteousness, and brightened with the beatific beams of grace.
III. Light. The moon, bright though her beams are, and radiant her beauty, has no inherent illuminating power. The stars that make obeisance to their fiery lord borrow their glory from this central source, and shed a reflected lustre on the world below. The coal dug out of its subterranean bed, and all other sources of artificial light, have drawn their resources from this central reservoir. So with Jesus. It pleased the Father, that in Him should all fulness dwell. I am the light of the world. As the sun chases the gloom, scatters the clouds, conquers the night, and floods the worlds with day, so He banishes the night of nature, the darkness of ignorance, the clouds of doubt and fear, the gloomy shades of death.
IV. Life. The sun is the great quickener. Winter, made by its absence, is the time of death; bird and beast are sluggish, and comparatively inert; tree and plant and flower are paralysed by an icy grasp. With the returning sun comes the germinating seed, the bursting bud, the swiftly circulating sap, and a marvellous activity pervades creation. So Jesus raises dead souls to life, and quickens the soul of man into hale and thriving resurrection. I am the Life, He says.
V. Beauty. The sun is the greatest artist. His magic pencil gives the sky its peerless blue, robes nature in emerald vestments, silvers every lake and stream, and paints in fairest hues the flowers that gem the earth. Spring-tides green, summer s flush, autumns gold, and winters white, all are the offspring of his magic, pencil, while the sun itself is more glorious than they all. So Jesus Christ is Himself the fairest among ten thousand, and altogether, lovely. He invests with moral excellence and spiritual beauty all that His love shines down upon. He invests the believing soul with the garment of praise and the beauty of holiness.
VI. Gladness. The sun, says the Psalmist, rejoices as a strong man to run a race. It is a type of perfect happiness. A happy face is said to be a sunny countenance; gladness is oft called sunshine. All nature breaks into song under the suns influence; the tiniest insect dances in his beams; the weary invalid welcomes the first rosy salutation of the morning. Jesus is the joy-giver.
VII. Perfectness. The sun is the great ripener. It brings all the processes of nature to perfection. It finds the leaf an imprisoned embryo in russet husk and shell, and continues to expand and beautify it until it flutters in perfect growth on plant or tree. It touches the green bud, and never rests until it shines upon- the perfect flower. It nurses the fruit till it drops ripe and mellow into October s lap. It undertakes charge of the green corn-blade, and never ceases until the golden harvest bends to the reapers scythe. So Jesus is the Great Perfecter; and in the believers nature the good seed of the kingdom is nursed and nurtured until, as Job has it, he becomes a shock of corn ripe for the garner. He that pardons and He that sanctifies is all of one.
VIII. Fulness. The suns resources never fail. What liberal largess he has conferred on the world! What harvests he has ripened! What mountain snows he has melted into crystal streams! What flowers he has painted! What spirits he has gladdened since first his mission was begun! and yet his eye is not dim nor his natural strength abated! So with Jesus. It pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell!
IX. Universalness. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of the earth: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. It bronzes the brow of the rude Fijian, reddens the skin of the Indian warrior, blackens the negros swarthy face, and wraps the world in its benevolent embrace. I am the light of the world, says Jesus. His saving beams have blest humanity in all its tribes, from shivering Esquimaux to sweltering Ethiopian. He tasted death for every man.
X. Impartialness. The sun makes no selection. Where it can shine it will. It beautifies the garden, and smiles upon the desert. It glorifies the rose, and flings a halo round the thistle. It flashes on the crystal lakes, and shimmers on the stagnant pool. It gleams on the topmost oak leaf, and shines on the humblest violet. It burnishes silk and rags alike. Whosoever is the widespread word of Jesus too. If any man thirst, etc. Wealthy Nicodemus or Joseph, poor Bartimeus or the woman by the well. This Sun of Righteousness, does He shine on you? He is your one centre of life and light; the one source of gladness, beauty, and perfection. (J. Jackson Wray.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain fear See note, Psa 19:9 (See Scofield "Psa 19:9").
fear See note, Psa 19:9 (See Scofield "Psa 19:9").
Sun of righteousness (See Scofield "Gen 1:16").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 4:2 The source for the title Sun of Righteousness…
4:2 The source for the title Sun of Righteousness might have been the winged sun disk that is ubiquitous in ancient Near Eastern iconography. Here it might be a title for the Messiah or a figurative description of a new era of righteousness in which God will overturn the curse of sin. Israel’s spiritual restoration, or healing, would be based on God’s cleansing the people and forgiving their sins (see Jer 33:6-8; cp. Jer 8:14-15). It would result from a collective confession of sin and their turning back to God (Mal 3:7; cp. Jer 14:19-20). • in his wings: Outstretched wings are a symbol of God’s protection and rescue (see Exod 19:4; Deut 32:10-11; Ps 17:8; 18:10).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.