spoke to the fathers. The former is of
perpetual obligation, the latter will flash up again in power on the
threshold of the day. Jesus has interpreted this closing word for us.
John came 'in the spirit and power of Elijah,' and the purpose of his
coming was to 'turn the hearts of the fathers to the children' (Luke i.
16, 17); that is, to bring back the devout dispositions of the
patriarchs to the existing generations, and so to bring the 'hearts of
the children to their fathers,' as united with them in devout obedience.
If John's mission had succeeded, the 'curse' which smote Israel would
have been stayed. God has done all that He can do to keep us from being
consumed by the fire of that day. The Incarnation, Life, and Death of
Jesus Christ made a day of the Lord which has the twofold character of
that in Malachi's vision, for He is a 'saviour of life unto life' or
'of death unto death,' and must be one or other to us. But another day
of the Lord is still to come, and for each of us it will come burning as
a furnace or bright as sunrise. Then the universe shall 'discern between
the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that
serveth Him not.'

THE LAST WORDS OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS

'Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.'--MALACHI iv. 6.

'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
Amen.'--REVELATION xxii. 21.

It is of course only an accident that these words close the Old and the
New Testaments. In the Hebrew Bible Malachi's prophecies do not stand at
the end; but he was the last of the Old Testament prophets, and after
him there were 'four centuries of silence.' We seem to hear in his words
the dying echoes of the rolling thunders of Sinai. They gather up the
whole burden of the Law and of the prophets; of the former in their
declaration of a coming retribution, of the latter in the hope that that
retribution may be averted.

Then, in regard to John's words, of course as they stand they are simply
the parting benediction with which he takes leave of his readers; but it
is fitting that the Book of which they are the close should seal up the
canon, because it stands as the one prophetic book of the New Testament,
and so reaches forward into the coming ages, even to the consummation of
all things. And just as Christ in His Ascension was taken from them
whilst His hands were lifted up in the act of blessing, so it is fitting
that the revelation of whi