Russian novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize for writing against his country's oppressive regime. In The Gulag Archipelago, he reflected on his imprisonment in labour camps and noted it was too simplistic to say he was good and his captors were bad. Instead, ″the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being″.

Solzhenitsyn is right. It's hard for us to sort people into good and bad bins. The best are bound to disappoint, and the worst may yet surprise. It's hard for us, but not for Jesus. He will expertly separate the sheep from the goats on the day He returns to judge the world (Matthew 25:31-46).

God ends His final speech by warning that the day of the Lord will ″burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble . . . Not a root or a branch will be left to them″ (Malachi 4:1). What horror of having all that you worked for, day after day, year after year, reduced to dust! Worse, the wicked themselves will become ″ashes under the soles″ of the righteous (v. 3).

God ends Malachi as He began (1:1-5), promising judgment on the wicked and rescue for those ″who revere my name″ (4:2). For the latter, ″the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays″ (v. 2). The phrase ″sun of righteousness″ appears only here in the Bible. It might refer to Yahweh, who is ″a sun and shield″ (Psalm 84:11). The Hebrew term for rays can also mean wings, so the phrase might be inspired by carvings of winged suns, or outstretched eagles overlaid on suns, which were common in the Ancient Near East. These pictures symbolised the gods' supposed protection and deliverance of their worshippers. As David prayed to the true God: ″Hide me in the shadow of your wings″ (Psalm 17:8).

The sun of righteousness is fulfilled in Jesus. When John the Baptist was born, his father prophesied that he would prepare the way for the Lord, who as ″the rising sun will come to us from heaven, to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace″ (Luke 1:78-79). Jesus is the Son whose outstretched, cruciform arms heal us by atoning for our sin.

The line between good and evil runs through every human heart, so the final sorting doesn't depend on us becoming good enough. We can't. The only goodness that matters belongs to the Son of righteousness. His goodness becomes ours when we put our faith in Him. Are you in Him?