NOTES for Mal 3:13-18

The worst thing happens when we begin to count the little time we devote to the Lord and our few good deeds. We begin to argue our case against God: I spent so much time standing in prayer, but You gave me nothing for it; I did such-and-such a good deed for such-and-such a person, which is the same as doing something for You, but You still have not rewarded me. At that moment the distance between us and God becomes monstrously great, because God is Love, while we try to calculate love, bargain with love, and use our displays of love for God, without true love for Him, to buy outward displays of His love. At such moments we do not really believe in God’s love for us; we cease to understand that God does not count, that He loves us all the time. Yet we do not always notice His love; we fail to see in the world around us and in our life His tender smile and His words addressed to us.

And if He truly is silent, might it not be because God does not wish to bargain with us, since He loves us without self-interest?

The question of the meaning of righteousness interested thoughtful people, probably, from the moment when began to go away into history the way of life of the generations and the tribes, in which the system of value and the behavioral models were something in itself understandable and shared by all, such that the question of the meaning of following the moral standards and the corresponding rules to the common leaving did not simply appear. The history moved forward, and since it is about the history of the fallen humanity, it is not surprising that in the spiritual and moral sense, this movement supposed a degradation: because the human sinfulness becomes not less with the development of the civilization, and it manifests itself in the course of the history more considerably.

The consequence of the historic development became, among others, also the depreciation of several spiritual and moral standards, which were formerly considered as something which is obvious and not requiring justification. That was when stood the question about the meaning of what in the biblical books is called righteousness: what is the meaning to be righteous, if righteousness in the fallen world is not only not rewarded, but also cannot change anything in it? The representations of the posthumous reward of the righteous and the posthumous punishment of the sinners formed already in the Antiquity in various cultures became the answer.

We could say that such explanations appeared of hopelessness, that the historic experience was again and again testified: the fallen world is merciless and inequitable, it needs neither the righteousness, nor the righteous. But there is also other thing in these representations: the understanding of the fact that righteousness and morality can exist only according to their own laws, and not according to the laws of the fallen world, and it is necessary to look their foundation in another reality.

And if man is in the state to act morally and be righteous in spite of the laws of the world, in which he lives, thus he the man, also has a relation with this other reality, where are rooted morality and righteousness. But in the doctrine of the posthumous reward was also known incompleteness: because in such case it happened that righteousness has meaning only in a certain perfect world, and the world from here is condemned never to know it and to stay in evil.

That is why, probably, we do not find in the Bible the doctrine of the posthumous reward. On the other hand we find other thing, on which refers the prophet: the doctrine of the transfiguration of the world on the day of judgment and the coming of the Messiah. Transfiguration, after which the world is going to change, and righteousness will occupy in this a suitable place. And the difference between those who serve God, and those who resist him, between the righteous and the sinner will become visible and obvious for everyone.

All the world systems of criminal and private laws are built, generally on the Old Testament. If it is not “eye for eye”, then in the spirit of the Law it is the immediate punishment without reprieve for the crime. The arguments of the defenders of the death penalty are based on this principle of reward while alive, if the conversation arrives to arguments. But with the prophet Malachi, we encounter completely with another Old Testament. This is the Testament of a total delegation to God of the power to render justice, execute or have mercy. This justice of mercy, which in another place is expressed by the words "Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense". It is not a shout "step aside a bit; I will walk here to execute". It is completely the opposite: " stop judging, live with mercy and truth, and I shall take care of the justice Myself".