John Calvin Commentary Malachi 1:11

"For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name [shall be] great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense [shall be] offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name [shall be] great among the Gentiles, saith Jehovah of hosts." — Malachi 1:11 (ASV)

Here God shows that He no longer cared for the Jews, for He would command altars to be raised for Him everywhere and throughout all parts of the world, so that He might be purely worshipped by all nations. It is indeed a remarkable prophecy regarding the calling of the Gentiles; but we must especially remember this—that whenever the Prophets speak of this calling, they promise the spread of God’s worship as a favor to the Jews, or as a punishment and reproach.

The Prophets then promised to the Jews that the Gentiles would become allied to them; so does Zechariah:

In that day lay hold shall ten men on the skirt of the garment, and will say to a Jew, Be you our leader; for the same God with you will we worship. (Zechariah 8:23).

It would have been, then, the highest honor to the Jews if they had become teachers to all nations, to instruct them in true religion. So also Isaiah says, that is, those who were previously aliens would become the disciples of the chosen people, so that they would willingly submit to their teaching. But as the Jews have fallen from their place, the Gentiles have succeeded and occupied their position. This is why the Prophets, when speaking of the calling of the Gentiles, often denounce it as a punishment on the Jews, as if they had said that when the Jews were repudiated, there would be other children of God, whom He would substitute in their place, according to what Christ threatened to the men of His age:

Taken away from you shall be the kingdom of God, and shall be given to another nation. (Matthew 21:43).

Such is this prophecy, for our prophet does not simply open to the Gentiles the temple of God, to connect them with the Jews and to unite them in true religion; but he first excludes the Jews and shows that the worship of God would be exercised in common by the Gentiles, because the doctrine of salvation would be propagated to the ends of the earth.

This difference should be noticed, which interpreters have not observed, and yet it is very necessary to know. The failure to understand this has led to passages that are entirely different being indiscriminately blended together.

The prophet, then, does not promise here, as we have often stated in other places, that the whole world would be subject to God, so that true religion would everywhere prevail. Instead, he brands the Jews with reproach, as if he had said, “God has repudiated you, but He will find other sons for Himself, who will occupy your place.”

In the previous verse, He had repudiated their sacrifices, and we know how arrogantly the Jews gloried in the holiness of their race. Since they were inflated with so much pride, they thought that God would be no God unless He had them as His holy Church.

The prophet here answers them and anticipates their objection by saying that God’s name would be celebrated throughout the whole world: “You are a few people; all the nations will unite in one body to worship God together. God then will not need you, and after He rejects you, His kingdom will not decay. You indeed think that His kingdom cannot be safe and that His glory will perish unless He is worshipped by you; but I now declare to you that the worship of God will flourish everywhere, even after He shall cast you out of His family.”

So now we see what the prophet means when he says that Great will be the name of God from the rising to the setting of the sun. It is simply said in Psalm 113:3:

From the rising to the setting of the sun wonderful shall be the name of God.

There indeed it is only a promise, but here the prophet includes the punishment which the Jews had deserved, as if he had said that after they were rejected by God on account of their ingratitude, the Gentiles would become holy to God, because He would adopt them instead of that wicked and ungodly people.

But I have said that the calling of the Gentiles is here clearly proved, or may with certainty be drawn from this prophecy, because the name of God cannot be great without the teaching of the truth.

It is therefore the same thing as if the prophet had said that the law which had been given to the Jews would be proclaimed among all nations, so that true religion might spread everywhere. For the basis of true religion is to know how He is to be worshipped by us, since obedience is better than all sacrifices.

And it is necessary always to begin with this principle—to know the God whom we worship. Hence Christ Himself, in the fourth chapter of John, condemns all the religions which then prevailed in the world, because men presumptuously worshipped gods devised by themselves. Since, then, it is necessary that the worship of God should be based on the truth, when God declares that His name would become renowned in every place, He doubtless shows that His law would be known to all nations, so that His will might be known everywhere, which is, as we have said, the only rule of true religion.

He afterwards adds: Everywhere shall be offered incense to My name, and a clean offering. Why? Because My name shall be great. The repetition is not useless, for it was a thing then incredible, since God had not in vain separated the Jews from the rest of the world.

Nor was it an ordinary commendation when Moses said in the fourth chapter of Deuteronomy: Show me a nation to whom God draws near as He does to you. This then is your nobility and your excellence, to have a God near and friendly to you.

Hence also it is said in Psalm 147:20:

He has not done thus to other nations; His judgments has He not made known to them.

It was then the peculiar privilege of the race of Abraham that God was known and worshipped by them. The very novelty, then, of what is here said might have closed the door against this prophecy; and this is the reason why the prophet repeatedly confirms what it was then difficult to believe—the name of God, he says, shall be great in every place.

We must also bear in mind that God cannot be rightly worshipped unless He is known, which Paul confirms when he says: How shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? For unless the truth shines forth, we shall grope like the blind and wander through devious ways. There is therefore no religion approved by God except what is based on His word.

Moreover the prophet, by מנחה, meneche, offering, and by incense, means the worship of God. This mode of speaking is common in the Scriptures, for the prophets who were under the law accommodated their expressions to the understanding of the people.

Whenever, then, they intend to show that the whole world would come to the faith and true religion—“An altar,” they say, “shall be built to God.” By altar they no doubt meant spiritual worship, and not that after Christ’s coming sacrifices should be offered.

For now there is no altar for us, and whoever builds an altar for himself subverts the cross of Christ, on which He offered the only true and perpetual sacrifice.

It then follows that this mode of speaking should be understood in such a way that we may grasp the analogy between the legal rites and the spiritual manner of worshipping God now prescribed in the gospel.

Though, then, the words of the prophet are metaphorical, their meaning is plain enough—that God will be worshipped and adored everywhere. But what are the sacrifices of the New Testament? They are prayers and thanksgivings, according to what the Apostle says in the last chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews.

There was also under the law the spiritual worship of God, as it is especially stated in the fiftieth psalm; but there were then shadows connected with it, as is intimated in these words of Christ:

Now is come the hour when the Father shall be worshipped in spirit and in truth (John 4:13).

He does not indeed deny that God was worshipped in spirit by the fathers; but as that worship was concealed under outward rites, He says that now under the gospel the simple, and, so to speak, the naked truth is taught. What then the prophet says of offering and incense applied under the law; but we must now see what God commands in His gospel, and how He would have us worship Him. We do not find there any incense or sacrifices.

This passage contains nothing other than that the time would come when the pure and spiritual worship of God would prevail in all places.

And thus it appears how absurd are Roman Catholics when they infer from this that God cannot be worshipped without some kind of sacrifice; and on this ground they defend the impiety of their mass, as if it were the sacrifice of which the prophet speaks. But nothing can be more foolish and puerile, for the prophet, as we have said, adopts a mode of speaking common in Scripture.

And if we were to allow offering and incense to be taken here literally, how could מנחה, meneche, offering, be the body and blood of Christ? “Oh!” they say, “it is a sacrifice made of bread, and wine was added. Oh! Christ has thus commanded.” But where has He said “sacrifice?” They again deny that it is bread? For they say that it is transubstantiated into the body of Christ. So then it is not a sacrifice of bread, nor of fine flour, for only the form, visible to the eyes and without substance, remains, as they imagine.

There is meanwhile no reason for us to carefully discuss a subject so clear, for as we have seen in Joel (Joel 2:28): In the last days I will pour My Spirit on all flesh, and prophesy shall your sons and your daughters; your old men dreams shall dream, and your young men visions shall see.

So also we find what is similar in this place. For the Apostles, though not taught by visions, were yet, we know, illuminated; and visions were not commonly given at the commencement of the gospel, nor dreams—they were indeed very rare things. What then does Paul mean? For he speaks of the whole body of the Church, as if he had said that all, from the least to the greatest, would be Prophets. Did those whom God illuminated by the doctrine of the gospel become Prophets by visions and dreams? By no means. But Joel, as I have said, accommodated what he said to the time of the law. So also in this place, the prophet, by offering and incense, designates the spiritual worship of God.