Where Is the God of Justice? - Malachi 2:17-3:6
It’s easy to get discouraged if you watch the news. There doesn’t ever seem to be anything positive going on. The political climate in the state of Virginia, despite some recent good news, still seems to be trending in an overall negative direction. There’s just so much negative, sad, and disappointing news out there. Oftentimes, it truly feels like the enemies of Christ are winning.
Which is of course, not the way it’s supposed to be. We know who wins in the end, but you know, who wouldn’t like to see a victory here and there in the meantime? If anything, it seems that the world is stacked against Christians. And so, it’s natural to ask, “when is the Lord going to give us justice?
And yet, I think we must be careful whenever we ask that question, because baked into it is the assumption that you and I should be exempt from God’s justice. God’s justice should apply to the world, but not to us.
It’s easy for us to forget an incredibly important point: God’s justice is impartial. When the Lord comes, He’s going to judge His enemies, but He’s also going to purify His own people. The church is going to be purified.
And that’s exactly what we see in this text. The Jews who were living in Judah and Jerusalem at this time were thirsty for vengeance. They were hungry for retribution. They wanted God to settle the scores with their enemies, all the while ignoring their sin. But what ends up happening is that God reveals to them that they’re and by extension us as well on the hook too, and we see this play out in three ways: first, God’s justice exposes our own spiritual blindness (v. 17), second, God’s justice begins with the household of God (vv. 1–4), and lastly God’s justice drives repentant sinners to His mercy (vv. 5–6)
God’s Justice Exposes Our Spiritual Blindness (v. 17)
Notice how it all begins in verse 17. Malachi says, “You have wearied the Lord with your words. But you say, “How have we wearied him?” By saying, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?”
What’s happening in this passage is that the people of Israel have leveled a very serious accusation against the Lord. They said, ““Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.” “Where is the God of justice?”
In other words, they accuse God of favoring evildoers over the righteous. And the reason they said that to God is they didn’t think that God had given them what they deserved. The Lord had made all these glorious promises to them, but only their enemies seemed to have success. So, from the Jewish perspective, they’re looking around asking, “why are the evildoers prevailing? Where is God? Why hasn’t he intervened? Why hasn’t he stepped in and restored Israel to its rightful place? Where is God’s justice?”
To them, God was unjust. But as the commentator Walter Kaiser raises an excellent point. He asked, “According to what standard? From the prophetic view, the standard was supplied by the very character of God. For the prophet’s contemporaries, it was measured chiefly by their own material prosperity.”
Kaiser’s point is that justice is an attribute directly tied to the very character of God Himself. While for the people of Israel, justice and fairness was measured by their prosperity. And so, to the Jews their lack of prosperity was a tangible demonstration of God’s injustice and support of evildoers. But the bottom line is the people were questioning the very character of God. Needless to say, evil is antithetical to the nature and character of God. He hates evil and injustice.
And the Jewish people knew this, but denied it based upon their experience.
Which is why Malachi tells us that Israel had “wearied” the Lord.
God isn’t like us. He doesn’t grow weary. This is an example of anthropomorphism, which is a fancy word for attributing human characteristics, emotions, or behaviors to God. But it’s language that is used to help us better understand who He is and His character and what’s happening in this passage.
What was “wearying” God was Israel’s duplicitousness and hypocrisy. They wanted justice. They wanted punishment for all the nations around them. They wanted God to do what they perceived to be what is fair, all the while, divorcing their wives, chasing foreign women, offering blemished sacrifices, and being completely indifferent towards the Lord. Their hypocrisy and duplicitousness had “wearied” the Lord.
This is why their general posture of asking, ““where is the God of justice?” is so outrageous! The Lord was exposing their spiritual blindness.
What’s absolutely clear was that they believed everyone deserved the full measure of God’s wrath and punishment for their sin except for them. Their issues with marriage and worship were small. Those were really no big deal. They still deserved to be blessed. But the people around them, those people were big sinners.
Aren’t we still tempted to think in this way? We watch the news and think, ‘where is the God of justice’? All the while, we’re harboring unrepentant, besetting sins in our hearts. The temptation is to believe that you’re always the exception while everyone else deserves to be held to the standard.
I know we have some veterans here this morning. No matter what branch you served in, I’m sure you found yourself around someone who violated all sorts of codes of conduct and what not, but they thought they were different. That they deserved special treatment.
I’ve recently been reading through The Canons of Dort and Article 7 paragraph 1 on Election caught my eye. It says,
“Before the foundation of the world, by sheer grace, according to the free good pleasure of his will, he chose in Christ to salvation a definite number of particular people out of the entire human race, which had fallen by its own fault from its original innocence into sin and ruin. Those chosen were neither better nor more deserving than the others, but lay with them in the common misery. He did this in Christ, whom he also appointed from eternity to be the mediator, the head of all those chosen, and the foundation of their salvation.”
The people of Israel had lost sight of God’s grace and truly believed that they were better than everyone else. They had become arrogant and self-righteous. Which is exactly what happened to Jonah. Remember how he went to the top of the hill gleefully hoping that God would destroy Nineveh? Jonah thought he and Israel deserved God’s blessing and favor, but those people in Nineveh, they deserve the full measure of God’s justice and wrath.
If we’re not careful that can happen to us as well. If we lose sight of God’s grace, if we lost sight of our own sinfulness, we can really begin to believe that we’re better. That there’s something special about us. That we’re morally superior.
But the truth is God is just. In fact, He’s perfectly just and is going to give everyone exactly what they deserve.
God’s Justice Begins with the Household of God (3:1–4)
God’s response to Israel’s wearisome statement was that He was going to come to them. Look at what He says there in verse 1:
“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.”
Malachi prophesies that a messenger would prepare the way for the coming of the Lord in the same way a herald would go before a king to announce his arrival. The New Testament tells us this was fulfilled through the Elijah-like ministry of John the Baptist, who prepared the way for Jesus Christ.
But the ‘messenger of the covenant’ is someone greater. This is a reference to Christ Himself. He is the One who came proclaiming the good news of the covenant—the glorious promise that sinful men can be reconciled to God through faith in Christ. Through Christ, peace between God and man is possible. Forgiveness is possible. Restoration is possible. The very people who deserved the justice of God could now receive the mercy of God through the covenant faithfulness of Jesus Christ. All of that happened during Christ’s first advent. He came with a message and it was, as Malachi says, a “delight.”
But it’s in verse 2 that Malachi makes a shocking statement about Christ’s second advent. “But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver…”
The refiner's fire was used to separate the dross from a precious metal like gold or silver. In a similar fashion, fuller’s soap was a harsh chemical extract that was used to remove stubborn stains from clothing. But both the refiner’s fire and fullers’ soap are metaphors for a purification or cleansing process.
This passage is captured well in Handel’s Messiah, because if you’ve ever listened to it you know that there is a powerful moment when the bass sings, “But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth?
And it’s a question that hangs in the air and creates tension because it suggests that something holy is approaching and no one is ready for it on their own. And then the bass answers with, “for he is like a refiner’s fire.”
Handel’s Messiah quotes Malachi 3:2.
You don’t just hear those words when they’re sung, you feel them. And the idea that Handel was trying to press home by quoting Malachi 3:2 is that there is uncleanness that must be dealt with. There is dross that must be removed. There’s a stain that needs to be cleansed.
And the stain isn’t just out there. That’s exactly what the Jewish exiles wanted. They wanted to be told that there was some serious dross and stains among the pagan nations that surrounded them and God was going to take care of them.
But that’s not at all what Malachi says. He says that the Lord was going to be like a “refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi…” The tribe of Levi was where the priesthood came from. All the priests were Levites.
Hopefully you can see where this is going: the Lord’s refining and purifying work was not going to begin with the pagan nations like Israel wanted. It was going to begin with them. God’s cleansing work starts with the household of God.
You see, Israel wanted judgment to fall on everyone around them, but the Lord looked at them and said, before I deal with them, I’m going to deal with you.
Who can’t relate on some level? There’s a tremendous temptation to desire the world around us and think, “they need to repent.” We even do this with our own family! Dad needs to repent for this and my Aunt never apologized for that–but the call of Malachi 3:2 is that you need to repent! Who can stand before the Lord? He is like a refiner’s fire!
But of course the truth is, it’s so much easier to think about all the ways everyone else needs to repent. It’s so much easier to spend all your time reflecting on the ways people have mistreated you. This is exactly what Israel was doing. They did this to us and they did that to us, God you need to come settle the score.
I’m not saying you can never think about the sins of those around you, but my point is, we can consume ourselves with it to such a degree that we never pause to reflect upon our own sin. We never consider what we need to repent of. And I can’t help but think, it’s because it’s easier and frankly a lot more fun to think about how everyone else’s sin struggles than it is to reflect upon my own. Before you call someone else to repent, ask yourself, do I need to repent?
That’s exactly what Jesus meant when he said, take the log out of your own eye before removing the speck out of your brother’s eye. And yet we love to think that that guy’s sin is so obvious, big, and problematic, but my sin, it’s small, insignificant, it’s really not that big of a deal.
Which is why the question that Malachi raises is so powerful: Who can stand before a holy God? Who can endure the day of His coming? Not the self-righteous, not the indifferent, not the wicked—but only those who are made clean. So how does one become clean?
You have to be washed by the fullers’ soap! You need the blood of Jesus Christ to remove the stain and guilt of sin. You need your sinful dross removed by putting your faith in the sin-atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It’s only then that you and I are able to worship the Lord rightly in Spirit and in truth.
Which is why Malachi says that once they’ve been cleansed, “they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord.” The only way you can bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord is if He’s made you clean.
Isn’t it amazing that John the Baptist said that Jesus’ would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire? The only way you can stand before the Lord is if Jesus has taken his refining fire and cleansed your dross of sin away.
Malachi is saying that the Lord would purify His people so deeply that they would no longer be content with empty, corrupt, half-hearted worship. Their hearts would be changed. They would desire to worship the Lord in spirit and in truth would be genuine and sincere.
It’s all pointing to Jesus, isn’t it? Christ removes the dross. He removes the stains. He replaces hearts of stone with hearts of flesh. He transforms His people from the inside out.
God’s Justice Drives Repentant Sinners to His Mercy (v. 5)
Because the truth is, God promises judgment against evil. He will judge the evil in this world. He will set all things right.
Look at verse 5: “Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.”
Things like sorcery or witchcraft, adultery, those who swear falsely, or defraud people, those who commit injustice and mistreat the widow, the fatherless, or the sojourner, all of which were serious crimes in Israel. The Lord is going to draw near for judgment on those who clearly violate His commands.
This is all very serious, scary, and intimidating.
Whenever the subject of God’s judgment comes I tend to think of hell fire and brimstone sermons. I think of Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, and the language and imagery that he used in that sermon was incredibly powerful. He said things like, “There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God.”
Or another famous quote from that sermon is: “The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire…”
And many modern people hear Edwards’ hellfire and brimstone language and dismiss it as exaggerated or manipulative. But perhaps the greater danger today is the exact opposite. We have become so casual, so comfortable, and so entertained that we have lost the fear of God altogether. We speak lightly about sin, casually about holiness, and presume upon the mercy of God while rarely trembling before His justice.
And yet Scripture never treats this as an abstract doctrine meant only to be discussed at a distance. The prophets, the apostles, and even our Lord Jesus speak of judgment as something personal, coming, and unavoidable. It is not merely emotional rhetoric but a sober reality that shapes how we live in the present. A right understanding of judgment does not lead to despair, but to repentance, humility, and dependence upon Christ. Without it, grace becomes cheap, worship becomes hollow, and holiness becomes optional.
I bring all this up because Malachi pointed to the fact they don’t fear the Lord as the foundational cause for all those evil, sinful things.
The people in Malachi wanted God to judge evil around them, but they failed to realize that they themselves stood guilty before a holy God. And the same danger confronts us today. The justice of God is not merely a warning for the world—it is a warning for the church. It’s a warning for you and a warning for me. Because the Lord intends not only to judge the world, but to purify His church as well.
That means the question Malachi presses upon every hearer is not first, “What will God do with them?” but “What will God do with me?” It is far easier to call for judgment on the sins of a culture than it is to examine the condition of our own hearts. Yet Scripture consistently turns the spotlight inward before it ever points outward. The refining work of God does not begin in pagan nations but among His covenant people. He comes, as Malachi says, like a refiner’s fire—not merely to destroy evil, but to expose and purge it from within those who bear His name.
This is why the gospel is never simply about comfort; it is about cleansing. Christ does not only save us from judgment in a future sense, He saves us from hypocrisy in a present sense. He confronts what we excuse. He exposes what we hide. And He calls His people to walk in repentance and faith.
I can’t help but think that much of our frustration with injustice in the world is tangled with a reluctance to confront the injustice in our own hearts. But the Lord will not allow His people to remain unchanged. He is committed to the holiness of His bride. And that commitment means refinement will come—sometimes gently, sometimes painfully, but always purposefully.
The question, then, is not whether God will act in justice, but whether we will submit to His refining work now. Because for those who belong to Christ, judgment has already fallen upon Him at the cross. And yet even redeemed people still need cleansing, still need correction, still need the steady work of grace that conforms us to His image.
So Malachi leaves us here: not as spectators of judgment, but as participants in repentance. The call is not to look around with superiority, but to look within with humility. And to remember that the same holy God who will one day judge all things is already at work purifying His people for His glory.
Amen. Let’s pray together.
