4. Remember . . . law--"The law and all the prophets"
were to be in force until John
(Mt 11:13),
no prophet intervening after Malachi; therefore they are told,
"Remember the law," for in the absence of living prophets, they were
likely to forget it. The office of Christ's forerunner was to bring
them back to the law, which they had too much forgotten, and so "to
make ready a people prepared for the Lord" at His coming
(Lu 1:17).
God withheld prophets for a time that men might seek after Christ with
the greater desire [CALVIN]. The history of human
advancement is marked by periods of rest, and again progress. So in
Revelation: it is given for a time; then during its suspension men live
on the memories of the past. After Malachi there was a silence of four
hundred years; then a harbinger of light in the wilderness, ushering in
the brightest of all the lights that had been manifested, but
short-lived; then eighteen centuries during which we have been guided
by the light which shone in that last manifestation. The silence has
been longer than before, and will be succeeded by a more glorious and
awful revelation than ever. John the Baptist was to "restore" the
defaced image of "the law," so that the original might be recognized
when it appeared among men [HINDS]. Just as
"Moses" and "Elias" are here connected with the Lord's coming, so at
the transfiguration they converse with Him, implying that the law and
prophets which had prepared His way were now fulfilled in Him.
statutes . . . judgments--ceremonial "statutes": "judgments" in
civil questions at issue. "The law" refers to morals and religion.
JFB.
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