CRITICAL NOTES.
Malachi 1:11.] The name of God, treated with contempt by priests, will receive universal homage. Jewish worship will be rejected, and Gentiles offer spiritual worship in the Church of Christ (Matthew 21:43). Place] (John 4:21-23; 1 Timothy 2:8). Incense and pure offerings] Prayers (Revelation 5:8), thanksgiving, and praise (Hebrews 13:15-16).
Malachi 1:12. But] a renewal of charge against priests in Malachi 1:7. Profaned] habitually. Say] by acts and life. Table] i.e. the altar, polluted by worst offerings. Fruit] and food, i.e. the provision of the altar.
Malachi 1:13. Weariness] An oppressive drudgery, not an honourable privilege. Snuff] Do not hide your contempt. Torn] Taken by violence; not fit to eat, and unlawful to offer (Exodus 22:30; Leviticus 7:24; Ezekiel 4:14).
Malachi 1:14. Deceiver] The hypocrite, professing one thing and intending another. The people now reproved. Male] required by law (Leviticus 1:3; Leviticus 1:10). King] An argument for service from the majesty of God. Dreadful] Jews had no fear nor reverence for Jehovah. The heathen] will reproach all who offer to God corrupt and offensive sacrifices.
HOMILETICS
THE GREAT NAME HONOURED.—Malachi 1:11
The priesthood is to be transferred, and the Gentiles will become worshippers of Jehovah in sincerity and truth. A prediction is given of the future glory of God’s name.
I. Great by the universality of its revelation. “Great among the Gentiles,” “great among the heathen,” great “from the rising of the sun, even unto the going down of the same.” The name, the perfections of God, shall be known from east to west—the greatness of God shall be clear and prevalent as the orb of day. “Gentiles shall come to the light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising (lit. sunrising, Isaiah 60:3).
II. Great by the purity and prevalence of its worship. When Jehovah’s greatness is known, then incense and sacrifice will be offered to him, which are not defiled.
1. Pure worship. “A pure offering”—“not the blind, the lame, and the sick,”—pure from carnal ordinances and the corruptions of human life. Offerings which spring from hearts sanctified by the Holy Ghost, and fragrant as incense from the altar. Prayer, praise, and thanksgiving will be holy and acceptable to God.
2. Universal worship. “In every place,” not confined to Jerusalem, Canaan, or any locality. This implies the abrogation of the old dispensation, and the universal spread of the Gospel. “From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same, the Lord’s name is to be praised” (Psalms 113:3).
MAN’S ESTIMATE OF GOD’S WORSHIP.—Malachi 1:12-13
The people were poor, and offered the worst sacrifices. The priests connived at this to secure their gains, and thus profaned the name and despised the service of God.
I. God’s service was burdensome. “Behold, what a weariness is it!” God requires willing service. Nothing is a greater drudgery than service without love. Many are weary in God’s cause. What should be a pleasure is a toil. The Sabbath is a loss of time. Money and gifts presented to God are wasted. Everything done for God is useless. “Wherefore this waste?”
II. God’s service was despised. “Ye have snuffed at it,” treated it contemptuously, think it a trifle to blow away with your breath. If we wrongly estimate God’s service, we shall be vexed with his demands. Who likes to give to any person whom they disregard? To despise anything God-like is a symptom of a base heart. “He that despiseth his ways shall die.”
“Such acts
Of contumacy will provoke the Highest
To make death in us live” [Milton].
GOD’S ESTIMATE OF MAN’S WORSHIP
These words may be taken in another sense (orig.) “You have said, behold what a weariness it is, a matter of weight, whereas you might have blown it away, it was so trifling.”
I. What we think to be great is very little. Little in its substance and spirit—little in comparison to our ability, and God’s claims upon us. What paltry gifts we offer to him who gave himself for us! “Stiff in opinion, always in the wrong” [Dryden].
II. What we think will be acceptable may be rejected. Sacrifices unsuitable and wicked will be cursed (Malachi 1:13).
1. Because offered in a spirit of indifference. We put God off with anything.
2. Because offered in a spirit of deception. Jews offered a female under pretence they had no male in their flocks.
3. Because offered in a spirit of falsehood. “The liar, under stress of danger or desire, vows a pure, and then when the peril is past or the desire gratified, offers an impure or blemished beast.” God cannot be deceived, and will not be mocked!
GOD’S MAJESTY A MOTIVE FOR TRUE SERVICE.—Malachi 1:12-14
Because God’s greatness is known and God’s majesty dreaded among the heathen, they should offer the best sacrifice. David prepared the materials, and Solomon built the temple, under a deep sense of God’s greatness. “Thine, O Lord, is the greatness” (1 Chronicles 29:11; 2 Chronicles 2:5).
I. God’s great majesty calls for due reverence. “Honour to whom honour is due,” is a maxim of social intercourse. What honour, then, must there be due to the Omnipotent, the Infinite, and only wise God! How unreasonable for man to reflect upon his majesty by offering inferior when we can offer superior service! “Our hearts should adore a spiritual majesty, which it cannot comprehend, and, as it were, lose itself in his infinitude. We must believe him great without quantity, omnipresent without place, everlasting without time, and containing all things without extent; and when our thoughts are come to the highest, let us stop, wonder, and adore” [Bp. Hall]. “Who so great a God as our God?”
II. God’s spiritual nature calls for spiritual worship. Formal worship and bodily exercise in waiting upon God, do not honour him. “If this hypocrisy, this resting in outward performances, so odious lo God under the law, a religion full of shadows and ceremonies, certainly it will be much more odious to do so under the Gospel, a religion of much more simplicity, and exacting so much the greater sincerity of heart, even because it disburdens the outward man of the performance of legal rites and observances” [Chillingworth]. Christian sacrifice of prayer and praise must be intelligent and sincere, not outward, slight, and superficial; internal, for only with the spirit can we be earnest and sincere; spiritual as opposed to ritual, to anything outward. God is a Spirit (not matter or form), and they that worship him must worship him in spirit (spiritually and sincerely) and in truth (truthfully in desire and life) (John 4:24).
III. God’s universal dominion demands loyal obedience. “My Name is dreadful among the heathen.” Men have no fear of God before them, treat him as they do a fellow-creature whom they regard, and by whom they are overawed. This is the root of ignorant, heartless service, of irreverent systems and theologies of the present time, says a writer. To correct this error, God reveals his name, insists upon his demands, and sets forth his supremacy and universal dominion. He is a God to whom we have to render account, whose presence and power we cannot shun—a Father who loves and redeems us; we should therefore constantly and cheerfully submit to his authority, and obey his will. God is not dethroned, nor does he reign over a decaying empire. He must and will be obeyed in freedom or force. “The Lord most high is terrible; he is a Great King over all the earth.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Malachi 1:11. The Jewish sacrifices had defects, partly incidental, partly inherent. Incidental were these, with which the prophet had upbraided them; inherent (apart from their mere typical character), that they never could be the religion of the world, since they were locally fixed at Jerusalem. Malachi tells them of a new sacrifice which should be offered throughout the then heathen world, grounded on his new revelation of himself to them. For great shall be my name among the heathen. The prophet anticipates an objection which the Jews might make to him. What then will God do unto his great name? Those by whom he would replace them would be more worthy of God in two ways—
(1) in themselves;
(2) in their universality [Pusey].
Every place.
1. Canonical hours abolished.
2. Holy places abolished—since we cannot be always in them.
3. Every time and place consecrated (cf. Treas. of David, Psalms 113:3), or the daily universality and purity of Divine worship.
Malachi 1:14. King. God is a King—a great King—a great King who is feared. “As God is alone Lord, through his universal providence and his intrinsic authority, so he alone is King so great, that of his greatness, or dignity and perfection, there is no end” [Pusey].
Cursed. The description and doom of the false worshipper.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 1
Malachi 1:14. Deceiver. We never deceive for a good purpose; knavery adds malice to falsehood [Bruyére].