Read Malachi 1.What problem is the prophet addressing?
How, today, might we be guilty of the same attitude that led to this rebuke?
Malachi contrasts God’s love for His people with the attitude of the priests, whom he charges with the sin of contempt for God’s holy name. When performing their duties in the temple, these descendants of Aaron accepted lame, blind, and sick animals for sacrifices to the Lord. In this way the people were led astray into thinking that sacrifices were not important. Yet, God had instructed Aaron and his sons in the wilderness that sacrificial animals should be physically perfect, without blemish (see Lev. 1:1-3, 22:19).
The prophet then lists three important reasons why God deserved to be honored and respected by the people of Israel. First, God is their Father. Just as children should honor their parents, so the people must respect their Father in heaven. Second, God is their Master and Lord. Just as servants obey their masters, so God’s people should treat Him in the same way. Third, the Lord is a great King, and an earthly king would not accept a defective or sickly animal as a gift from one of His subjects. So, the prophet is asking why the people would present such an animal to the King of kings, the One who rules over the whole world.
What, of course, makes their actions even more heinous in the sight of God is that these sacrifices were all pointing to Jesus, the spotless Son of God (John 1:29, 1 Pet. 1:18-19). The animals were to be without blemish because Jesus had to be without blemish in order to be our perfect sacrifice.
“To the honor and glory of God, His beloved Son—the Surety, the Substitute—was delivered up and descended into the prisonhouse of the grave. The new tomb enclosed Him in its rocky chambers. If one single sin had tainted His character the stone would never have been rolled away from the door of His rocky chamber, and the world with its burden of guilt would have perished.”—Ellen G. White,Manuscript Releases, vol. 10, p. 385. Is there any wonder, then, that the sacrifices which pointed to Jesus had to be perfect?