““Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.””
http://ref.ly/Ml4.5-6 via the Logos Bible Android app.
Above is the last verse of the Old testament. Talks about the return of Elijah I. E in this case John the Baptist as Jesus himself says that Elijah has come and they have done what they wanted to do with him.
Gabriel announces about John the Baptist before his birth, "And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous--to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." Luke 1:17
"And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come" - Matthew 11:14
So Malachi 4:5-6 is talking about John the Baptist. So the great and awesome day of the Lord refers to the destruction of Jerusalem which happened in AD 70 and which is a consequence of Israel 's rejection of Jesus and his forerunner, John the Baptist.
That was utter destruction for Israel was reformed only in 1948 after it was destroyed by Romans in AD 70.
"Creation of Israel, 1948. On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel. U.S. President Harry S. Truman recognized the new nation on the same day." -https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/creation-israel
Launching the Revolt
"The Jewish Revolt began—and met its bitter end—at Masada, a hunk of rock overlooking the Dead Sea. The Romans had built a virtually impregnable fortress there. Yet the atrocities of Florus inspired some crazy Zealots to attack Masada. Amazingly, they won, slaughtering the Roman army there.
In Jerusalem, the temple captain signified solidarity with the revolt by stopping the daily sacrifices to Caesar. Soon all Jerusalem was in an uproar, expelling or killing the Roman troops. Then all Judea was in revolt; then Galilee.
Cestius Callus, the Roman governor of the region, marched from Syria with twenty thousand soldiers. He besieged Jerusalem for six months, yet failed. He left six thousand dead Roman soldiers, not to mention weaponry that the Jewish defenders picked up and used.
Emperor Nero then sent Vespasian, a decorated general, to quell the Judean rebellion. Vespasian put down the opposition in Galilee, then in Transjordan, then in Idumea. He circled in on Jerusalem. But before the coup de grace, Nero died. Vespasian became embroiled in a leadership struggle that concluded with the eastern armies calling for him to be emperor. One of his first imperial acts was to appoint his son Titus to conduct the Jewish War.
Crushing the Revolt
By now, Jerusalem was isolated from the rest of the nation, and factions within the city fought over strategies of defense. As the siege wore on, people began dying from starvation and plague. The high priest’s wife, who once basked in luxury, scavenged for crumbs in the streets.
Meanwhile the Romans employed new war machines to hurl boulders against the city walls. Battering rams assaulted the fortifications. Jewish defenders fought all day and struggled to rebuild the walls at night. Eventually the Romans broke through the outer wall, then the second wall, and finally the third wall. Still the Jews fought, scurrying to the temple as their last line of defense.
That was the end for the valiant Jewish defenders and for the temple. Historian Josephus claimed that Titus wanted to preserve the temple, but his soldiers were so angry at their resilient opponents that they burned it. The remaining Jews were slaughtered or sold as slaves.
......
Results of the Revolt
The Jewish Revolt marked the end of the Jewish state until modern times. The destruction of the temple also signified a change in the Jews’ worship (although that change had begun as Jews had been scattering throughout the world for at least six hundred years). The first destruction of the temple, by the Babylonians in 586 B.C., had forced the Jews to become people of the Book. The temple’s sad end slammed the door on the Jew’s sacrificial system. They adjusted, of course, creating new rituals for home and synagogue. But the Sanhedrin was dissolved, and the center of Jewish religion moved to the educational institutions of Jamnia.
Where were the Christians? Out of town, basically. Many had been driven out of Jerusalem by persecution decades earlier. Eusebius wrote that when the revolt began, in A.D. 66, some of the remaining Jewish Christians fled to Pella, a city across the Jordan River.
It could be said that these events threw the young church’s balance of power toward the Gentiles. Missionaries like Paul had originally dealt with a strong (and conservative) Jewish church, based in Jerusalem. But the Christian Jews’ non-involvement in the revolt drove an obvious wedge between them and their traditional counterparts. After A.D. 70, Christians were not permitted in the synagogues.
The fall of Jerusalem, then, made the Christians even more distinct from the Jews and impelled the church to develop among the Gentiles."
http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-28/ad-70-titus-destroys-jerusalem.html
Elijah/ John the Baptist was given to Israel to save them from judgement.
But they did not listen to him and Christ whom he preached. So judgement came. So this great and awesome day of the Lord refers to the judgement of Israel and not to the final judgement.
http://ref.ly/Ml4.5-6 via the Logos Bible Android app.
Above is the last verse of the Old testament. Talks about the return of Elijah I. E in this case John the Baptist as Jesus himself says that Elijah has come and they have done what they wanted to do with him.
Gabriel announces about John the Baptist before his birth, "And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous--to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." Luke 1:17
"And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come" - Matthew 11:14
So Malachi 4:5-6 is talking about John the Baptist. So the great and awesome day of the Lord refers to the destruction of Jerusalem which happened in AD 70 and which is a consequence of Israel 's rejection of Jesus and his forerunner, John the Baptist.
That was utter destruction for Israel was reformed only in 1948 after it was destroyed by Romans in AD 70.
"Creation of Israel, 1948. On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel. U.S. President Harry S. Truman recognized the new nation on the same day." -https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/creation-israel
Launching the Revolt
"The Jewish Revolt began—and met its bitter end—at Masada, a hunk of rock overlooking the Dead Sea. The Romans had built a virtually impregnable fortress there. Yet the atrocities of Florus inspired some crazy Zealots to attack Masada. Amazingly, they won, slaughtering the Roman army there.
In Jerusalem, the temple captain signified solidarity with the revolt by stopping the daily sacrifices to Caesar. Soon all Jerusalem was in an uproar, expelling or killing the Roman troops. Then all Judea was in revolt; then Galilee.
Cestius Callus, the Roman governor of the region, marched from Syria with twenty thousand soldiers. He besieged Jerusalem for six months, yet failed. He left six thousand dead Roman soldiers, not to mention weaponry that the Jewish defenders picked up and used.Emperor Nero then sent Vespasian, a decorated general, to quell the Judean rebellion. Vespasian put down the opposition in Galilee, then in Transjordan, then in Idumea. He circled in on Jerusalem. But before the coup de grace, Nero died. Vespasian became embroiled in a leadership struggle that concluded with the eastern armies calling for him to be emperor. One of his first imperial acts was to appoint his son Titus to conduct the Jewish War.
Crushing the Revolt
By now, Jerusalem was isolated from the rest of the nation, and factions within the city fought over strategies of defense. As the siege wore on, people began dying from starvation and plague. The high priest’s wife, who once basked in luxury, scavenged for crumbs in the streets.
Meanwhile the Romans employed new war machines to hurl boulders against the city walls. Battering rams assaulted the fortifications. Jewish defenders fought all day and struggled to rebuild the walls at night. Eventually the Romans broke through the outer wall, then the second wall, and finally the third wall. Still the Jews fought, scurrying to the temple as their last line of defense.
That was the end for the valiant Jewish defenders and for the temple. Historian Josephus claimed that Titus wanted to preserve the temple, but his soldiers were so angry at their resilient opponents that they burned it. The remaining Jews were slaughtered or sold as slaves.
......
Results of the Revolt
The Jewish Revolt marked the end of the Jewish state until modern times. The destruction of the temple also signified a change in the Jews’ worship (although that change had begun as Jews had been scattering throughout the world for at least six hundred years). The first destruction of the temple, by the Babylonians in 586 B.C., had forced the Jews to become people of the Book. The temple’s sad end slammed the door on the Jew’s sacrificial system. They adjusted, of course, creating new rituals for home and synagogue. But the Sanhedrin was dissolved, and the center of Jewish religion moved to the educational institutions of Jamnia.
Where were the Christians? Out of town, basically. Many had been driven out of Jerusalem by persecution decades earlier. Eusebius wrote that when the revolt began, in A.D. 66, some of the remaining Jewish Christians fled to Pella, a city across the Jordan River.
It could be said that these events threw the young church’s balance of power toward the Gentiles. Missionaries like Paul had originally dealt with a strong (and conservative) Jewish church, based in Jerusalem. But the Christian Jews’ non-involvement in the revolt drove an obvious wedge between them and their traditional counterparts. After A.D. 70, Christians were not permitted in the synagogues.
The fall of Jerusalem, then, made the Christians even more distinct from the Jews and impelled the church to develop among the Gentiles."
http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-28/ad-70-titus-destroys-jerusalem.html
Elijah/ John the Baptist was given to Israel to save them from judgement.
But they did not listen to him and Christ whom he preached. So judgement came. So this great and awesome day of the Lord refers to the judgement of Israel and not to the final judgement.
