Blemished Sacrifices

Why should the condition of a sacrifice matter to God? He created all things, defective animals as well as healthy ones. Why would He not accept gifts that were flawed? And why did God care about this enough to have his messenger Malachi speak so strongly?

The imperfect sacrifices of the priests and people demonstrated the content of their hearts. The people were not sincere. To sacrifice a perfect, healthy animal looked to them like a waste, and they considered the work of preparing their gifts properly to be a foolish use of time and energy. Malachi confronted this attitude with the Law of God, which clearly demanded unblemished sacrifices and sincere hearts (see Lev. 1:3; 3:1; Deut. 17:1). Malachi also confronted the people with God’s judgment of their actions. God was perfectly aware of what they were doing and the condition of their hearts. No sacrifices at all would have been better than second-rate and insincere ones. The people were not giving “sacrifices”; they were merely doing what was convenient, just enough to appear to obey God. Then they would turn around and pat themselves on the back for being righteous.

But even though God’s people had broken their covenant with Him, God remained true to His promises (see Is. 53). He did not shrink from sending His only Son to a cruel death on the Cross. Jesus was the true, unblemished sacrifice to which the Old Testament sacrifices pointed (Heb. 7:26–28). He was perfect — free from all sin. And through Jesus’ sacrificial death the Lord provided salvation for all of our sins. In doing this, the Lord demonstrated His sincere love for us because He sacrificed the very best to save us (see John 3:16).

Taken from NKJV Study Bible