Malachi: Return To Me - Week 2 (Malachi 1:6-14)
Malachi 1:6-14
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Israel's Indifference To God
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Malachi 1:6-14 〰️ Israel's Indifference To God 〰️
Malachi 1:6-14 starts with the Lord’s words to Israel, indicting them for their indifference toward their God: “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. But if I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is your fear of me?” (v6). God then, through Malachi, proceeds to explain in what ways they have “despised” God’s name, not fearing or honoring Him.
In the Mosaic Law, God clearly laid out the dos and don’ts of temple sacrifice, and Israel’s casual nature in approaching God is the reason for their repeated exile, slavery, and punishment throughout the Old Testament. In v7, God specifically rebukes them for “presenting defiled food on my altar.” The altar was an intimate place for Israel to bring penance for their sins. The law was very specific in Leviticus (especially chapter 4) about which parts of the animals were to be used for sacrifices, and most importantly, the animal to be sacrificed had to be spotless (foreshadowing for Jesus’ eventual death on the cross). The Lord then asks a series of rhetorical questions, specifying just what Israel had done (and failed to do).
“When you present a blind animal for sacrifice, is it not wrong? And when you present a lame or sick animal, is it not wrong? Bring it to your governor! Would he be pleased with you or show you favor?” asks the Lord of Armies. “And now plead for God’s favor. Will he be gracious to us? Since this has come from your hands, will he show any of you favor?” asks the Lord of Armies. “I wish one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would no longer kindle a useless fire on my altar! I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord of Armies, “and I will accept no offering from your hands.” (v9-10)
The grief in v10 is palpable in this passage, as God tells Israel He would rather they not sacrifice at all than receive the “offerings” they currently bring. In 2 Chronicles 28:24-25, King Ahaz shut the temple doors so that he could make idols to other gods and worship them in the temple, and here, the Lord is so grieved that He would rather the doors be shut again than to continue to see Israel defile His dwelling place.
This blatant disrespect for God and His temple, the temple (previously the moving tabernacle), was an affront to the Lord who lovingly presented opportunity after opportunity for His people tobe restored to Him after their sin. In Ezekiel, we read of God calling the temple his sanctuary and his table, putting on full display the intimate nature of this sacrificial process. “They are the ones who may enter my sanctuary and approach my table to serve me. They will keep my mandate.” (44:16).
Except they didn’t keep His mandate. Imagine inviting someone to your house for a beautiful home-cooked meal, only for them to bring a messy bag of day-old Arby’s and drop it on the table. Kind of offensive, right? That’s what Israel did to the Lord here. They routinely rejected the Lord by rejecting His laws and requirements.
When we read a passage like this, it can be hard to bridge the distance and covenantal gap between the Old Testament and the Mosaic covenant and us now with the New Covenant in Christ. The first question we can ask ourselves is: how am I grieving the Lord by defiling Jesus’ sacrifice? The author of the book of Hebrews was talking about this very question:
“For if we deliberately go on sinning after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire about to consume the adversaries. Anyone who disregarded the law of Moses died without mercy, based on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do you think one will deserve who has trampled on the Son of God, who has regarded as profane the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?” (10:26-29)
As we read this passage alongside Malachi 1:6-14, we don’t have to spend much time in thought to see the parallels. Deliberately living in a casual relationship with God and His temple was Israel’s sin in this passage. For us today, living in a casual relationship with God and His Son is ours. I’ll leave us with Paul’s letter to the Romans because I love how he viewed sin in the life of the believer:
“What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection. For we know that our old self, was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, since a person who has died is freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him, because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over him. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all time; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness. For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under the law but under grace.” (Romans 6:1-14)
Discussion Questions
Could someone read Malachi 1:6-14 for us?
What stood out to you from the passage?
Does this passage remind you of another part of Scripture?
Do you have any questions?
In verse 6, what two relationships does God use (father/son, master/servant)? Why those images?
Why is offering blemished sacrifices more than just a minor mistake? How might this reflect how we view His holiness?
How does this passage reveal the way God views half-hearted worship?
Where in you worship are you giving God less than He deserves?