Malachi Chapter One, Closing The Doors

 

God searches through Jerusalem to find a man with courage enough to shut the doors to His temple and forbid this farce called worship. And make no mistake, shutting the doors would be a courageous act. Those who have succumbed to formulaic service find no error in their present course. God is acknowledged so all is well. He has a part to play in the believer’s life; relegated to whatever time the believer sees fit to grant Him. The roles are woefully reversed. God sits upon the throne of rulership, and we, His subjects ought to bow before His majesty. To close the doors would be to draw alarming attention to gross error being perpetrated amongst God’s people. We learn later in Malachi’s burden that the priests are at fault for the pathetic condition of the offering, “But you (the priesthood) have departed from the way; you have caused many to stumble at the law. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi,” says the Lord of hosts,” Malachi 2:8. Much of what is called Christendom today languishes in the same sorry state. The leadership has become careless or corrupted, and through them obedience is seen as optional, some taxing extra to service already rendered on Sundays. In Israel’s instance where the priesthood failed, God elected prophets to recall the Law to their collective minds.

But what manner of audacity would it be to fly in the face of convention and interrupt the status quo! Christ our Lord did it during the days of His earthly ministry and the rulers hated Him for it. To act with zeal coupled with knowledge against the majority could invoke a crippling fear of the ensuing backlash. You could be labeled a legalist, a schismatic, a Pharisee, an “ist” or a “phobe” or perhaps more colorful terminology. But we are not to be afraid of doing what is right. Nor are we to be violent, wrath-filled, or pugnacious. But we are meant to stand in and for the truth. Like Aaron with his censer full of coals from the altar, Christians are to stand in the gap, between the error of heterodoxy and the pure stream of orthodoxy to preserve the lives of our brothers and sisters, Numbers 16:46-48. Aaron’s moment sounds very dramatic, but is the current state of Christ’s professing church in better condition than Israel in the wilderness wandering? Or of Jerusalem in Malachi’s time? God appealed to the Jews, looking for a man with courage to do His will and close the doors on the offerings that insulted the Spirit of grace. When outrage and anger at such audacity abates, meditation as to its purpose may commence.

 

The Hebrew adverb describing the nature of the fire kindled on God’s altar, rendered “in vain NKJV” or “for nought KJV” is “chinnam.”  It means, “for nothing, for no purpose, useless, without a cause.” God desires a brave soul to shut the temple doors so the altar’s fire would not be uselessly kindled. God counts these offerings as nothing, serving no purpose. Why? “To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure…they profess to know God but in works they deny Him,” Titus 1:15, 16. This line of thought is summarized by God’s terse remark, “I have no pleasure in you,” verse 10. “You” is a collective. The word and the charge the word conveys are not leveled at any individual; it is leveled collectively against Israel for their backsliding habits.

 

Again, a person’s love and devotion to God cannot be perceived or measured by another person, save for how they choose to live out their life. A life of flagrant disobedience and spiritual laxity provides adequate evidence to give the lie to any lip service someone gives regarding their relationship with God. We cannot love our Lord piecemeal. We are not commanded to love our fellow man in pieces, either. We may not agree with what they do, but their actions do not comprise their personhood. We are to love them even if we don’t agree with the choices they make. And above people, we are to love God with all of the faculties He has bestowed upon us as humanity made in His image. When Israel chose to offer less than what was commanded they were making a statement. A child who clearly hears their parent tell them to do something but refuses to do it or only partially listens falls into the camp of disobedience. This tendency can be traced back to the Garden where we read, “Has God indeed said…?” Genesis 3:1. When we begin to dissect God’s word looking for loopholes for our own will to be done, we have tacitly professed that we do not believe God. Genuine belief would result in complete obedience. Not perfect obedience all of the time (which implies perfection) but a willingness to do God’s will and follow His word completely as we understand it. Otherwise we begin to poke holes in it, looking for ways not to conform or obey but to express our own sinful interpretations of the word, subjecting Scripture to our bias.

 

The Lord was crystal clear, however. The doors ought to be shut. Fire ought not to be kindled, because He had no pleasure in the one’s offering the fruit of their disobedience. He will not accept the offering from them. Even though we will learn shortly that the priesthood that had gone largely astray in Malachi’s time might well accept the offering, God Himself would not. And so He sent His prophet to correct and rebuke them. Whereas Haggai and Zechariah’s ministry was to encourage the establishment of temple worship again, Malachi had been appointed to cleanse the robotic formality from God’s people, beginning with the offering. Jerusalem stood again, inhabited with a post-exilic Jewry. The temple had been completed, and Malachi, the final recognized prophet before John the Baptist, had come to provide course correction. Despite their infidelity God still loved His people. His calling and gifts are irrevocable because God is unchanging, Romans 11:29, Malachi 3:6.