A Gospel for Hypocrites (Malachi)

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The Text

Malachi 3:6–12

3:6 Great Is Thy Faithfulness

God identifies himself here with his covenant name – the Lord. In Leviticus 19, God taught the Israelites that the obedience that he required of them resonated with who he was, with his holy name. But now we learn that on top of being holy, God is constant – he does not change. And this constancy of God is, surprisingly, the foundation of his mercy. It is because he is always the same that you are not consumed.

3:7 Return

It is deeply ironic that God now tells the Jews that what they really need to do is “return.” Had they not already done just that? These were the people who had given up everything to return to Israel. And yet God says that their heart, which is what he really wanted, was far from him. But if they would return to him, he would return to them. And he had been saying this to them for some time (Zech. 1:3).

3:8-10 Test Me

The return to Jerusalem also meant a return to funding the temple system (Neh. 10:35-39). When we think of giving to God the way we would filing our taxes, we find that we are actually robbing ourselves.

God says, “test me.” There is a kind of testing God that we are not supposed to do (Deut. 6:16). But here we find that there is a kind of testing God that we are supposed to do. These actually correspond to two different ways that we can be tested. But God wants his steadfast lovingkindness to be proven, to be displayed. That is what this kind of testing does.

Tithing is meant to be an act of faith, as obedience before God and not man (Luke 21:1-4, Mat. 6:1-4). Your approach to tithes and offerings reveals something fundamental about where your heart is (Mat. 6:19-24). When your eye is on God, you will be generous and you will live under God’s blessing. But if your eye is on the blessing, you will be neither generous nor blessed.

In this passage, we see that God is zealous for his house. Does that make him a great “me monster”? God’s zeal for his own holiness and glory is his supreme gift to you.

3:11-12 The Fruit of the Land

The motivation to hold back the tithe is to hold on to your wealth for yourself. But ironically, we see that this holding back is exactly why they are struggling. Remember that God has been saying that his name will be great amongst all the nations (1:11). But now we see that that when we magnify God’s name, he magnifies us.

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The Text

Malachi 1:6-2:9

Introduction

In the previous section, the Israelites had brought their complaint to God, “how have you loved us?” Now, God comes to the Israelites with his complaint against them – “where is my honor? Where is my reverence?” His complaint is focused on the priests and their profaning of worship.

1:6 What is Weighty

The object of Malachi’s prophecy is the priesthood of Israel. They know that they have are commanded to honor their father (the 5^th commandment). The word for honor here is the same word that is translated as “glory” elsewhere. It means something weighty, glorious. But instead, they have despised God’s name and treated it as trivial. This would actually be a violation of the 3^rd commandment – taking the Lord’s name in vain. They have confused what should be weighty and what should be light.

1:7-10 and 1:12-14 Insincere Worship

They ask, “How have we despised you?” And the Lord’s answer is that they have attempted to cheat God in their worship. In Deut. 15:21, God requires that sacrificial animals needed to be without defect. But the priests have carefully chosen the worst of their livestock to act as their sacrifice to God (v. 8-9 and v. 12-14). Thus they saved their best for themselves and gave their worst to God.

It is so easy to start thinking that our worship of God is a series of boxes to tick. Liturgy can be a great blessing in teaching you how to worship. But it can also become a great stumbling block when you start to think of your Christian service as merely certain chores to perform with minimal effort. This is worship that God doesn’t receive (v. 10 and v. 13). In v. 9, God reverses the priestly benediction that he gave to Moses (Num. 5:24-26).

2:1-9 The Covenant With Levi

Remember that after the Passover, God claimed the firstborn son of every Israelite family (Ex. 13:2). But then he exchanged the firstborn of Israel for the tribe of the Levites (Num. 3) and the tribe of the Levites became the priests who guarded the sanctuary, this is the “covenant with Levi” (2:4 and 2:8). The Levites were chosen because of their zeal during the golden calf incident (Ex. 32:27-29). So the Levites had the duty of guarding the holiness of the sacrificial system. Therefore, for the Levites to be the ones despising it was particularly offensive. With this rebuke God shames them (2:3-4).

1:5, 11, 14 Great Among the Nations

And yet, in all of this, God is not removing his promise, but enforcing it (2:4). And the prophet begins to point out something much larger. If Israel won’t magnify the name of the Lord, then God will cause a pure offering to be offered up by all nations. Israel’s rejection of the worship of God, will turn into the whole world turning to him.

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