Malachi Chapter One, Growing Bored With God

 

Not that Oxford had it entirely wrong. We read in Leviticus, “For I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore consecrate yourselves, and you shall be holy; for I am holy,” Leviticus 11:44. Leviticus has much to say about holiness. Holy is used 90 out of 611 times in the entire Bible, or about 15% of instances the term is used. Leviticus is a book that examines the nature of holiness as God teaches Israel (and through them, us) what it means to worship a holy God. Holiness, and the God who is holy, implies separation. Our God is separate from sinners, and dwells in a light that sin cannot enter, Hebrews 7:26. Holiness involves separation, or in the verses cited, consecration. When an object was devoted to God in the tabernacle it was exclusively for priestly use. If anyone used something that was made holy in the tabernacle it was profaned, i.e. made commonplace through conventional and not consecrated use. The result was death for the offender, see Exodus 30:37, 38, Leviticus 10:1-3. God demands separation; holiness, from a human perspective, is the practice of separating oneself from what the world practices. The Spirit who resides in us and yearns jealously is the Holy Spirit, He is the Spirit who imparts upon us a righteousness that makes us separate, adopting us into God’s household and marking us for His own, like the tools in the tabernacle. This is what God was teaching Israel in Leviticus. Mundane usage of devoted objects profanes them; they are meant to be used with a mind to God and His service. The mechanical repetition of service can dull the mind to what the actions were initially intended for. Soon the action, of itself, is seen as banal. Rather than its performance enlivening us and separating us unto God, we separate the action from God and destroy its purpose.

In the passage quoted out of Hebrews we read that Christ is holy, innocent, undefiled, separate from sinners. Hebrews 7:28 tells us that Jesus was consecrated forevermore. Like the Holy of Holies stood compartmentalized from the rest of the tabernacle, God’s holiness is unapproachable without Him giving provision to do so. Our understanding of holiness has been sorely marred by the Fall. Adam understood, so he hid from God; God of course knew, which was why He called out to Adam. Adam wasn’t lost in the Garden; his fellowship had been severed by sin’s arrival. It is difficult to appreciate holiness until we grasp sin’s depravity and the catastrophic impact it had on our race. The Hebrews mocked at God’s altar: the very symbol of their reconciliation with Him and the table upon which He received the sin offering. They saw not a holy God opening the door of salvation. Rather, it was drudgery, obligation and boredom, as can be easily construed by their commentary toward temple worship.

 

The prevailing attitude toward the offerings continues unabated in verse 13. On top of slandering the altar by calling it defiled and its food contemptible (or despised), the worshipers exasperatedly speak about how wearying it is to serve God. How laborious to bring a sacrifice to the altar! The attending Jews sneered at the altar. The NIV renders the verse, “you sniff at it contemptuously,” while the KJV renders the verse, “ye have snuffed at it.” The original Hebrew word is “naphach,” from a primary root meaning to puff. It is also figuratively used to disesteem something. To disesteem something is to reveal one’s low opinion of it. Sneering, snuffing, or sniffing contemptuously is an audible or visible reaction to the internal feelings one possesses. This becomes manifest when the worshiper comes before the Lord with the “torn, the lame and the sick,” KJV. The NKJV and the Jewish Tanakh render “torn” as stolen, while the NIV translates it as “injured.” The word so rendered is “gazal,” and can mean both. It can connote robbery or tearing by violence, in this instance perhaps an animal’s death by predation. Whichever rendering is used contextually the imagery is dismal. An animal is taken by force to give to Yahweh. It reminds me of the verse in Matthew where we read, “the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force,” Matthew 11:12. It is no better than the alternate translation, which suggests that the worshiper essentially took road-kill to the temple. Does that sound crude? So are their actions. Jesus suffered violent assaults by men who wanted to enter the kingdom their way, and pressed him vehemently. Such worshipers were apparently the forebears of the Pharisees, and the descendants (at least spiritually) of Cain.

 

God is displeased by the state of the offerings being brought to Him. Again, the offering was meant to reconcile the sinner to God: epitomized with the sin offering on the Day of Atonement, brought once a year by the high priest to expiate the collective sins of Israel as a kingdom and people. Saved or unsaved, every person of Israel was symbolized in that blood offering when it was presented in the Holy of Holies. The symbolism becomes starker when we think about how the blood of Christ was shed for all, but all do not receive it. Just as the high priest offered atonement on the mercy seat even for those who rejected Yahweh and whose end would be Hell, so too did Christ offer Himself once for all to pay for the sin of mankind, Hebrews 10:14. Even unbelievers are atoned for, but that atonement is not efficacious for the one who refuses to receive it in the prescribed manner. Those who refuse are not unlike the people of Matthew 11:12 who lay siege upon Heaven to enter their own way, fighting bitterly against God’s revealed truth.

 

Slighting the altar of atonement is like spiting the God who prepared this means of approach. Could such people in Malachi’s day also have fallen under the indictment, “Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common (profane) thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?” Hebrews 10:29. In the verse prior we are reminded that anyone who broke the Law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses, verse 28. The Jews, in Moses’ time, agreed to the covenant Yahweh offered. It was a provisional covenant, based on Israel’s obedience, Exodus 19:5-8. Part of the Law, meticulously evidenced in Leviticus for example, was the proper method for sacrifice, Leviticus chapter 1, etc. Part of that Law stipulated an unblemished offering, illustrative of Christ, “If his offering is of the flocks—of the sheep or of the goats—as a burnt sacrifice, he shall bring a male without blemish,” Leviticus 1:10. So God asks a rhetorical question: “Should I accept this from your hand?” Rendering our all to God is an acceptable service. For all that He has done on our behalf, and to recognize and worship Him for all that He is as our Sovereign and Creator, we should take care not to allow worship to become ritual, and ritual to transform into robotic habit.