This is another in a series of excerpts from The Book of Life: What the Bible Says about God’s Registry of the Redeemed from High Street Press and available at Amazon. This except comes from Chapter 11: A Book of Remembrance: Malachi 3:16.

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At that time those who feared the LORD spoke to one another. The LORD took notice and listened. So a book of remembrance was written before him for those who feared the LORD and had high regard for his name. “They will be mine,” says the LORD of Armies, “my own possession on the day I am preparing. I will have compassion on them as a man has compassion on his son who serves him. So you will again see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him (Mal. 3:16-18).

This is the only reference to “a book of remembrance” in Scripture. However, it bears some similarities to “the book of life” (Ps. 69:28; Isa. 4:3), “the book” (Dan. 12:1), “the book you have written” (Exod. 32:32); “your book” (Ps. 139:16), “my book” (Exod. 32:33), and other books we’ve examined so far in that it distinguishes the righteous from the wicked. 

A heavenly scribe, in the presence of God, writes of those who fear the Lord and highly regard his name. A day is coming when this scroll is opened to show everyone “the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him” (Mal. 3:18).

Let’s begin with a summary of the book of Malachi. Then, we’ll break down Malachi 3:16 – 4:3 to better understand this “book of remembrance.”

“My messenger”

Malachi offers the last prophetic message from God before the close of the Old Testament period, although other books such as Ezra, Nehemiah, and 1 and 2 Chronicles may have been written later. The Lord addresses this message to the Israelites after the rebuilding of the temple in 515 BC, perhaps as late as Nehemiah’s second term as governor of Judea (445-433, 424 BC). Malachi’s name is the Hebrew Malaki and means “my messenger.”

Malachi delivers the Lord’s message at a time of national despair. The Israelites, who have returned to their homeland and rebuilt the temple, find themselves grumbling about the apparent failure of the grand visions of earlier prophets Haggai and Zechariah. They lodge a complaint that Yahweh has forgotten his covenant with Israel. At the same time, they have descended into a morass of religious lethargy, intermarriage with foreigners, neglect of faithful tithing, and oppression of the poor. 

To address these matters, Malachi delivers a series of oracles in which Israelite complaints against God are quoted and then refuted. To cite one example, Malachi begins with a declaration of God’s love and the Israelites’ denial of it:

“I have loved you,” says the LORD.

Yet you ask, “How have you loved us?”

“Wasn’t Esau Jacob’s brother?” This is the LORD’s declaration. “Even so, I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau. I turned his mountains into a wasteland, and gave his inheritance to the desert jackals.” 

Though Edom says, “We have been devastated, but we will rebuild the ruins,” the LORD of Armies says this: “They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called a wicked country and the people the LORD has cursed forever. Your own eyes will see this, and you yourselves will say, ‘The LORD is great, even beyond the borders of Israel’” (Mal. 1:2-5).

There are six such oracles in the book of Malachi, including two in chapter 3, where the “book of remembrance” is cited. The final speech focuses on a coming day of judgment (Mal. 3:13 – 4:3). Malachi may be read as a monologue, punctuated by exchanges between Yahweh and the Israelites. 

Through his prophet, the Lord indicts the religious leaders of the day and scolds his people for their spiritual indifference. He rebukes their skepticism concerning God’s plan for their future. And he calls the people to repent – truly repent – of their wrong attitudes toward God and to trust him with genuine faith. Those who obey are recorded in a book of remembrance.

Malachi 3:13 – 4:3

Let’s focus on Malachi’s final oracle, for it features rebuke and remembrance: 

“Your words against me are harsh,” says the LORD.

Yet you ask, “What have we spoken against you?”

You have said, “It is useless to serve God. What have we gained by keeping his requirements and walking mournfully before the LORD of Armies? So now we consider the arrogant to be fortunate. Not only do those who commit wickedness prosper, they even test God and escape.”

At that time those who feared the LORD spoke to one another. The LORD took notice and listened. So a book of remembrance was written before him for those who feared the LORD and had high regard for his name. “They will be mine,” says the LORD of Armies, “my own possession on the day I am preparing. I will have compassion on them as a man has compassion on his son who serves him. So you will again see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him. 

“For look, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, when all the arrogant and everyone who commits wickedness will become stubble. The coming day will consume them,” says the LORD of Armies, “not leaving them root or branches. But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings, and you will go out and playfully jump like calves from the stall. You will trample the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day I am preparing,” says the LORD of Armies (Mal. 3:13 – 4:3).

The main idea in this passage is that God’s faithfulness to his covenant demands a response from his people. Those who fear God – that is, those who hold him in reverential awe – are set apart as his prized possessions. 

The Lord has just rebuked the Israelites for robbing him of tithes and offerings (Mal. 3:7-12). The issue isn’t so much one of finances. The Lord owns the cattle on a thousand hills; he doesn’t need our money (Ps. 50:10). Rather, God’s grievance against the Israelites is their lack of generosity that reveals deeply rooted greed. As one author puts it, “the heart of the problem was a problem of the heart.”¹ God calls his people to repent, to trust him. In return, he promises to pour out blessings beyond their wildest dreams. 

Two camps

Then, beginning with Malachi 3:13, God cuts to the chase. He divides his people into two camps: the wicked and the righteous; those who refuse to serve the Lord and those who serve him faithfully; those who are separated from God and those who cling to him. 

The first group speaks harshly against the Lord, claiming it’s “useless” to serve him. They’re pursuing a quid pro quo arrangement, which requires God to bless them for going through the motions of religious obligations. They’re not devoted to the Lord, nor do they pursue true repentance. They simply want something from God in exchange for lip service.

“What have we gained by keeping his requirements and walking mournfully before the LORD of Armies?” they ask (3:14). In other words, they claim they’ve already repented, yet God has not responded. Meanwhile, they protest the prosperity of the “arrogant,” who test God and escape his wrath (3:15). 

What good are the penitent acts of God’s people, they ask, when the Lord favors those with an exaggerated sense of self-importance, who mock the upright and seize what rightfully belongs to the penitent? After all, they make no pretense of obeying divine statutes, and yet God seemingly opens the windows of heaven for them.

We can see through these vain arguments, just as Jesus sees through the cold rituals of the scribes and Pharisees and pronounces these pretenders “hypocrites” (see Matt. 23). It’s possible to do the right things with the wrong motives and miss God’s blessing entirely. As Jesus tells the religious leaders of his day, quoting from Isaiah, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines human commands” (Matt. 15:8-9; cf. Isa. 29:13). 

So, this first group consists of people who are outwardly faithful but inwardly corrupt. They are like “whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of the bones of the dead and every kind of impurity” (Matt. 23:27). They perform religious duties, not out of genuine love for God, but out of a selfish craving for prosperity. 

Their thinking goes like this: If they pay their tithes, God owes them a healthy return on their investments. If they give freewill offerings, the Lord is obligated to increase their flocks and herds. If they observe the Sabbaths and the national feasts, Yahweh is duty-bound to exalt them above the less faithful. 

But it doesn’t work that way, and it never has. From the days of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, rebellious people have sought to obey God on their terms. The results have been disastrous: banishment from God’s presence, the withholding of his blessings, and the loss of purpose in daily pursuits. 

The Lord has provided a remedy for these failings. First, he promises a future redeemer – the “offspring” of woman who will crush the serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15). He clothes the naked first family in the skins of animals that serve as the prototype of the sacrificial system and foreshadow the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (see John 1:29). He delivers the law on Mount Sinai to show his holiness, and he gives instructions for a tabernacle that enables sinful people to return to the Garden of Eden, in a sense, and meet God in close fellowship. 

But the wicked care little for the providence of God, and the people in Malachi’s day are having none of it. They hear the prophecies of a future day of glory and demand it now. They read about a coming King of kings and accuse God of unfaithfulness for not seating him on David’s throne in their lifetimes. They hear God’s invitation to intimacy, but they prefer to keep him at arm’s length while they pursue the creature comforts of the Promised Land. As the Lord said to Samuel when the prophet searched for a successor to King Saul in the house of Jesse, “Humans do not see what the Lord sees, for humans see what is visible, but the Lord sees the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7).

God knows the hearts of the wicked, and he separates them from the righteous – now, and in the coming day when he sets all things right:

“For look, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, when all the arrogant and everyone who commits wickedness will become stubble. The coming day will consume them,” says the LORD of Armies, “not leaving them root or branches” (Mal. 4:1).

Next: Attitude: Those Who Truly Repent