Malachi 2

Achurch member scolded her pastor for preaching a series of sermons on “The Sins of the Saints.” “After all,” she argued, “the sins of Christians are different than the sins of other people.”

Now Malachi directs his message especially to the priests (1:6; 2:1, 7–8), who, instead of living exemplary lives, were guilty of breaking the very law they were supposed to obey and teach. The way they were serving the Lord was a disgrace to His name.

Eight times in this section you find the phrase “my name” (1:6, 11, 14; 2:2, 5; see also 3: and 4:2), referring, of course, to God’s character and reputation. The priests who were supposed to honor God’s name were disgracing it before the people and the Lord. The priests were supposed to be God’s children, yet they weren’t honoring their Father; they were called to be God’s servants, yet they showed no respect for their Master. When Malachi confronted them, the priests arrogantly asked, “In what way have we despised Your name?” (1: nkjv), so he told them.

To begin with, they were offering defiled sacrifices on the altar (vv. 6–14). The word bread means “food” and refers to the sacrifices provided in the law of Moses

(Lev. 1—7). These animals had to be perfect; nothing imperfect could be brought to the altar of God and accepted (Deut. 15:19–23; Lev. 22:17–33). After all, these sacrifices pointed to the Lamb of God who would one day die for the sins of the world (John 1:29; Heb. 10:1–14), and if they were imperfect, how could they typify the Perfect Sacrifice, the Son of God?

In short, the priests were permitting the people to bring God less than their best. If they had offered these defective beasts to their governor, he would have rejected them, but the animals were good enough for the Lord. These priests had forgotten what was written in their own law: “Do not bring anything with a defect, because it will not be accepted on your behalf” (Lev. 22: niv). What does this say to professed Christians who spend hundreds of dollars annually, perhaps thousands, on gifts for themselves, their family, and their friends, but give God a dollar a week when the offering plate is passed?

Our offerings to God are an indication of what’s in our hearts, for “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matt. 6:21). People who claim to love the Lord and His work can easily prove it with their checkbooks! Giving is a grace (2 Cor. 8:1, 6–9), and if we’ve experienced the grace of God, we’ll have no problem giving generously to the Lord who has given so much to us. How can we ask God to be gracious to us and answer prayer (Mal. 1:9) if we’ve not practiced “grace giving” ourselves?

Malachi told these disobedient priests that it would be better to close the doors of the temple and stop the sacrifices altogether than to continue practicing such hypocrisy. Better there were no religion at all than a religion that fails to give God the very best. If our concept of God is so low that we think He’s pleased with cheap halfhearted worship, then we don’t know the God of the Bible. In fact, a God who encourages us to do less than our best is a God who isn’t worthy of worship.

The day will come when the Gentiles will worship God and magnify His great name (v. 11). Malachi looked ahead to the time when the message of salvation would be taken to all nations, and beyond that, he saw the establishing of the kingdom on earth when the Gentiles would “flow into it” (Isa. 2:2; see also 11:3–4, 9; 45:22–25; 49:5–7). God’s call to Abraham involved the Jews becoming a blessing to the whole earth (Gen. 12:1–3), just as His call to the church involves taking the gospel to all nations (Mark 16:15).

The priests even allowed the people to cheat on their vows (Mal. 1:13–14). If a man promised God a sacrifice but brought an animal that was sick or blemished, the priest would accept it, even though the man had a perfect animal back home. In the Mosaic law, vows were purely voluntary, but once they were made, they were binding (Lev. 27; Num. 30; Deut. 23:21–23). If the governor wouldn’t accept cheap offerings (Mal. 1:8), would a great king accept cheap substitutes (v. 14)? God is a great King and He deserves the best we can bring Him. What we promise, we must perform.

Why did the priests deliberately disobey their own law, pollute the altar of the Lord, and encourage the people to worship God in a cheap, careless manner? For one thing, the priests themselves weren’t giving God their best, so why make greater demands on the people? “Like people, like priests” (Hos. 4:9; Jer. 5:30–31), for no ministry rises any higher than its leaders.

But there was another reason why blemished sacrifices were acceptable: the priests and their families were fed from the meat off the altar, and the priests wanted to be sure they had food on the table. After all, the economy was bad, taxes were high, and money was scarce, and only the most devoted Israelite would bring a perfect animal to the Lord. So the priests settled for less than the best and encouraged the people to bring whatever was available. A sick animal would die anyway, and crippled animals were useless, so the people might as well give them to the Lord! They forgot that “to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams” (1 Sam. 15:22; Ps. 51:16–17; Mic. 6:6–8; Mark 12:28–34).

The priests dishonored God’s name in another way: they despised the very privilege of being priests (Mal. 2:1–5). They were taking for granted the high calling God had given them and treating the temple ministry with contempt. Serving at the altar was a job, not a ministry, and they did it to please themselves, not to please and glorify the Lord. Unfortunately, that same attitude is in the church today.

God warned them that He would “curse their [Israel’s] blessings” if they didn’t start “doing the will of God from the heart” (Eph. 6:6) and giving Him their best. In fact, their crops had already been ruined by devouring insects (Mal. 3:11; see Hag. 1:3–11), but things could get worse. God warned that He could curse the very seed that was planted so that it would never germinate and produce a harvest. Since the law gave the priests and Levites a tithe of the produce, ruined crops would mean empty tables.

It’s possible that the word seed in Malachi 2: may refer to their children. It was important that the Jews have children in order to perpetuate the nation, but God could prevent even the human seed from being productive. Another way of looking at it is that God would turn their children, who should be a blessing (Ps. 127), into a burden and a curse. It would be painful not to have children, but it would also be painful to have children who daily broke your heart and created grief in the home.

The refuse from the sacrifices was taken outside the camp and burned (Ex. 29:14), but God would humiliate the priests and “wipe their noses” in the dung of the sacrifices! This would make the priests unclean so that they would have to leave the camp. In short, God was saying, “You’re treating Me with disrespect, so I’ll treat you like garbage! You don’t value the priestly ministry, so why should you be in office?”

The priests took their privileges for granted and forgot the gracious covenant God had made with them through Aaron (Mal. 2:4; Ex. 29) and Aaron’s grandson Phinehas (Num. 25:1–13). It was a great privilege to be a priest, to serve at the altar, to minister in the temple, and to teach the law to the people. But the priests had no fear of God; they treated the sacred things as if they were common things because their hearts weren’t right with God (Ezek. 44:23). The Scottish novelist George Macdonald said, “Nothing is so deadening to the divine as an habitual dealing with the outside of spiritual things.” What the priests were doing wasn’t ministry; it was only ritual, empty religious formality that disgusted the Lord.

There was a third sin: they turned away from God’s law (Mal. 2:6–9). Verses 6–7 describe the perfect servants of God: truth on their lips, obedience in their walk, fellowship with God, a burden to bring others to the Lord, and a passion to share God’s Word with those who need to hear it. But the priests weren’t following this pattern; they were following their own ways. “They shall teach Jacob Your judgments, and Israel Your Law” (Deut. 33:10), but the priests weren’t even obeying the law themselves. “The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own power; and My people love to have it so. But what will you do in the end?” (Jer. 5: nkjv).

It was bad enough that the priests were disobeying the law, but they were causing others to stumble as well (Mal. 2:8). Like the Pharisees Jesus described, the priests were “toxic” and defiled everything and everybody they touched (Matt. 23:15; 25–28). A false minister is an awful weapon in the hands of Satan. “One sinner destroys much good” (Eccl. 9: niv). Because they showed partiality in the way they applied God’s truth (Mal. 2:9), they disobeyed God and harmed His people. (See Lev. 19:15; Deut. 24:17; 1 Tim. 5:21.)

Over the years, I’ve participated in many ordination examinations, and I’ve looked for four characteristics in each candidate: a personal experience of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ; a sense of calling from the Lord; a love for and knowledge of the Word of God; and a high respect for the work of the ministry. Whenever we’ve examined a candidate who was flippant about ministry, who saw it as a job and not a divine calling, he didn’t get my vote. Whether as a pastor, missionary, teacher, choir member, or usher, being a servant of God is a serious thing, and it deserves the very best that we can give.

God caused these hypocritical priests to be “despised and humiliated before all the people” (Matt. 2: niv). The priests wanted to be popular, and even twisted the law to gain friends, but the people had no respect for them. Leaders with integrity and character will have their enemies, but they will still gain the respect of the people. The recent religious television scandals in America have proved that unsaved people expect church leaders to practice what they preach.

Having dealt with the sins of the priests, Malachi now turns to the nation as a whole and confronts the men who divorced their wives to marry pagan women.

Treachery (vv. 10–11, 14). The men loving pagan women wasn’t a new problem in the Jewish nation. When the Jews left Egypt, there was a “mixed multitude” that left with them (Ex. 12:38), which suggests that some Jews had married Egyptian spouses (Lev. 24:10; Num. 11:4). The Jews sinned greatly when they mixed with the women of Midian at Baal Peor (Num. 25), and God judged them severely. Ezra (Ezra 9:1–4) and Nehemiah (Neh. 13:23–31) had to contend with this problem, and it’s not totally absent from the church today (2 Cor. 6:14–18).

In divorcing their Jewish wives and marrying pagan women, the men were committing several sins. To begin with, it was treachery as they broke their vows to God and to their wives. They were profaning God’s covenant and treating it as nothing. Not only had the Lord given specific requirements for marriage in His law (Ex. 34:11–16; Deut. 7:3–4), but the covenant of marriage was built into creation. “Have we not all one father?” (Mal. 2:10) refers to God as the Father of all humans, the Creator (Acts. 17:28). God made man and women for each other and established marriage for the good of the human family. So, what these men did was contrary to what God had written into nature and in His covenant.

Hypocrisy (vv. 12–13). After committing these sins, the men then brought offerings to the Lord and wept at the altar (vv. 12–13), seeking His help and blessing. Perhaps they had the idea that they could sin blatantly with the intention of coming to God for forgiveness. But if they were truly repentant, they would have forsaken their heathen wives and taken their true wives back, which is what Ezra made them do (Ezra 9—10). These men were guilty of hypocritical worship that had nothing to do with a changed heart. Instead of forgiving them, God was ready to “cut them off.”

In matters of ethics and morals, there are many things in society that are legal but are not biblical. Brides and grooms must remember that God is an unseen witness at every wedding (Mal. 2:14), and He also witnesses those who live together who aren’t married. One day there will come a terrible harvest from the seeds being planted today by those who despise God’s laws and the principles He has built into nature.

Purity (v. 15). In the entire book of Malachi, this is recognized as the most difficult verse to translate and interpret. I think the best translation is given by Dr. Gleason Archer: “But no one has done so who has a residue of the Spirit. And what does that one seek for? A godly offspring! Therefore take heed to your spirit [as a true believer under the covenant] and let none of you deal faithlessly with the wife of his youth.”

Here Malachi commended the faithful husbands who obeyed the Spirit of God and the Word of God. Unlike the men who took pagan wives just to satisfy their sexual hunger, these faithful men wanted to father children who would be a godly seed, devoted Jews, and not idol worshipers. The basic issue was not race, for humans are humans whether they are Jews or Midianites. The basic issue was loyalty to the God of Israel and the maintaining of a godly home.

God called Israel to be the channel for bringing the Messiah into the world, and anything that corrupted that stream would work against His great plan of salvation. God commanded the Jews to be a separate people, not because they were better than any other nation, but because He had a very special task for them to perform. Anything that broke down that wall of separation would play into the hands of the evil one, who did all he could to keep the Messiah from being born.

Hostility (v. 16). “I hate divorce!” (niv) is about as clear a statement as God can make. Those who want to please God certainly wouldn’t want to do anything that God so abhors, but would do everything possible to heal the marriage. God gave Adam one wife, not many, and He declared that the two were one flesh (Gen. 2:21–25). Divorce pulls apart that which God put together, and Jesus warned us not to do that (Matt. 19:6). It’s like an act of violence in an area where there ought to be tenderness.

Why does Malachi mention a “garment” and “violence”? In modern Western society, a man puts an engagement ring on a woman’s finger to propose marriage, but in ancient Israel, he placed a corner of his garment over her (Ezek. 16:8; Ruth 3:9). If a man divorces his wife, instead of having a garment that symbolized love, he had a garment that symbolized violence. He wrenched apart that which God said is one; by his infidelity, he made the marriage bed a place of violence.

In spite of a difficult text and differing interpretations, the main lessons of this passage are clear. In marriage, a man and a woman become one flesh, and God is a partner in that union. Through marriage, the Lord is seeking a godly seed that will carry on His work on earth. Marriage is a physical union (“one flesh”) and can be broken by physical causes: death (Rom. 7:1–3), sexual sin (Matt. 19:9), or desertion (1 Cor. 7:12–16). God’s original intent was that one man and one woman be devoted to each other in marriage for one lifetime. Divorce for reasons other than those given in Scripture, even though legal, would grieve the heart of God.

In its “Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” the United Nations describes the family as “the natural and fundamental unit of society.” Historians Will and Ariel Durant call the family “the nucleus of civilization.” Strong families begin with strong marriages, a man and a woman who love each other and want to live each for the other and both for the Lord. Anything

less than that is less than God’s will.

As Malachi continued his message, the people continued their resistance to God’s truth. They had already argued with him about God’s love (1:2), God’s name (v. 6), and God’s teaching about marriage and divorce (2:14), and now they would argue about three other matters: the justice of God, giving to God, and serving God. People who argue with God rarely receive blessings from God. It’s when our mouth is stopped and we submit to His will that we can experience the grace of God (Rom. 3:19).

But Malachi didn’t stop preaching; he went on to deal with these “sins of the saints.”

“You have wearied the Lord with your words,” the prophet said; and they replied, “How have we wearied Him?” (2: niv). Of course, God never gets weary in a physical sense because God doesn’t have a body (Isa. 40:28), but He does grow weary of some of the things His people say and do. The hypocritical people in Israel wearied God with their iniquities (43:24), and the Jewish remnant in Malachi’s day wearied Him with their words.

Their words were cynical and skeptical. “We came back to the land, rebuilt the temple, and restored the worship,” they said, “and look at the difficulties we’re experiencing! Why isn’t God keeping his promise? Where are all the blessings He promised through His prophets?” It was the age-old problem of “Why do the righteous suffer while the wicked prosper?” Job and his friends wrestled with it, and so did Asaph (Ps. 73), Jeremiah (Jer. 12), and Habakkuk.

But these skeptical Jews had forgotten the terms of the covenant and the conditions laid down by the prophets: if the people obeyed God’s law, God would bless them with all they needed. But they were divorcing their wives, marrying pagan women, offering defiled sacrifices, robbing God of tithes and offerings, and complaining about having to serve the Lord! For God to bless people like that would mean approving of their sins. The Jews didn’t need justice; they needed mercy!

Malachi answered their question “Where is the God of justice?” by speaking about two messengers.

“My messenger”—John the Baptist (v. 1a). As we’ve seen, the name Malachi means “my messenger”; and the messenger referred to in this statement we know as John the Baptist. Speaking of John the Baptist, Jesus said, “For this is he of whom it is written, ‘Behold, I send My messenger before Your face who will prepare Your way before You’” (Matt. 11: nkjv; see Mark 1: and Luke 7:27).

While Malachi was the last of the writing prophets, John the Baptist was the last and the greatest of the old covenant prophets. To John was given the unique privilege of ministering at the close of the old dispensation and the beginning of the new, and it was John who presented Jesus to Israel (John 1:29–31). Like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, John was born into a priestly family but was called of God to be a prophet. He was also a martyr, for he gave his life in the work God called him to do (Matt. 14:1–12).

The prophet Isaiah had also written about John’s ministry (Isa. 40:3–5; Mark 1:3; Luke 3:4–6; John 1:23). The image is that of people preparing a way for the king to come, leveling the roads and removing the obstacles so that the king might enjoy an easy and comfortable trip. John prepared the way for the ministry of Jesus by preaching the Word to the crowds, urging them to repent of their sins, baptizing them, and then introducing them to Jesus.

But how does this answer the question “Where is God’s justice for His people?” When Jesus Christ came and died on the cross, He completely satisfied the justice of God. He paid the penalty for the sins of the world and vindicated the holiness of God. Nobody can ever truthfully say, “God isn’t just!” The cross of Christ is proof that the same God who ordained “the law of sin and death” (Gen. 2:15–17; Rom. 6:23; 8:2–4) also “took His own medicine” (to quote Dorothy Sayers) and willingly died for sinners. Because of Calvary, God is both “just and justifier” of all who trust Jesus Christ (3:26).

“The Messenger of the covenant”—Jesus Christ (3:1b–6). The first prophecy refers to our Lord’s first coming in grace and mercy, but this prophecy speaks of His second coming in judgment. When He comes, He will prove that God is just by purifying His people and judging rebellious sinners. Jesus Christ is the “Messenger of the covenant” in that He fulfilled all the demands of the covenant in His life, suffered the penalties in His death, and rose from the dead to usher in a new covenant of grace (Jer. 31:31–40; Matt. 26:26–30; Heb. 8:6–13). All the covenants in Old Testament history unite in pointing to Jesus Christ and His marvelous work of redemption.

An unannounced coming (3:3). Messiah’s second coming will be sudden and unexpected, and its purpose will be the judging of sinners and the establishing of His kingdom on earth. “But of that day and hour, no one knows, no, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only” (Matt. 24: nkjv). “For when they say, ‘Peace and safety!’ then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman” (1 Thess. 5: nkjv).

An unprepared people (3:1). The phrase “whom you delight in” suggests that the Jews in Malachi’s day were hoping that “the day of the Lord” would come soon, not realizing what a terrible day it would be for the whole earth. His listeners were like the people in the days of Amos the prophet who had the same false confidence that they were ready for the promised “day of the Lord.” Amos warned them, “Woe to you who long for the Day of the Lord! Why do you long for the Day of the Lord? That day will be darkness, not light” (Amos 5:18; and see vv. 19–20).

When the Jewish remnant of that day read the prophets, they saw only the promises of blessing and not the warnings of judgment. They rejoiced in the prophecies of the coming King and His glorious kingdom, but they overlooked the prophecies that described worldwide terror when the wrath of God is poured out on sinners. These Israelites were not unlike some Christians today who talk about the coming of the Lord as though seeing Him will be more like beholding a visiting celebrity and basking in his or her glory. Standing at the judgment seat of Christ will be an awesome experience, even though we know that we have a place reserved for us in heaven.

An unclean nation (3:2b–4). Malachi asked, “But who may abide in the day of his coming?” and then described what Messiah would do when He came: He would purify the Jewish nation, especially the priests, and bring swift judgment to the sinners who arrogantly disobeyed His law.

In the law of Moses, God provided three ways for people and things to be cleansed and made acceptable to God: water, fire, and blood. There is no mention here of blood because Jesus Christ died for sinners at His first coming. But He would wash the unclean nation like a launderer washes dirty clothes. He would purify the tribe of Levi the way a jeweler purifies precious metal in his furnace. “In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness” (Zech. 13:1).

Once the nation is cleansed and the priests are purified, then they can become an acceptable sacrifice to the Lord (Mal. 3:4), and He will be pleased with them. The priests in Malachi’s time were offering sacrifices that were unacceptable (1:7–8), and the priests themselves were unacceptable, but in that great day, God’s Messenger would make His people “living sacrifices” that would be acceptable to the Lord (Rom. 12:1).

An unsparing judgment (3:5). This list of sinners gives us some idea of the kind of practices that were going on in Malachi’s time and will be going on in the end times. All of them are contrary to God’s law. Sorcery is forbidden because it means trafficking with demons (Ex. 22:18; Lev. 20:27; Deut. 18:14). The “satanic revival” that’s going on today indicates that many people aren’t heeding God’s warnings as they dabble in witchcraft and other demonic practices. In fact, witchcraft is a legal religion in many