Malachi 2:10-16--Judah Profaned the Covenant

Malachi 2:10-16
English Standard Version

Judah Profaned the Covenant
10 Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers? 11 Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the LORD, which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god. 12 May the LORD cut off from the tents of Jacob any descendant of the man who does this, who brings an offering to the LORD of hosts!

13 And this second thing you do. You cover the LORD's altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. 14 But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the LORD was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. 15 Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. 16 “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the LORD, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”

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It did not take long for Judah to return to her old ways after coming back into the Land after the Exile.  They may have done away with the idols, but they were acting a lot like the pagan nations that the LORD delivered them from.  Who can be surprised by that when the priesthood was corrupt and not teaching the Law to the people and helping to keep them and the Land holy? Should we be surprised that the people no longer love one another with the love of God and have become faithless and profaned the LORD's covenant? Apparently they profaned the sanctuary of the LORD (the Temple), and while it is the duty of the priests to keep it holy, all the people of Judah are held responsible because all of them went along with it by bringing the sub-standard offerings that were offered on the altar (we are talking about the same issue here as we were talking about in the previous section, only the prophecy has now widened to not just talk to the priests who offered the sacrifices on the LORD's Altar, but to the people of Judah who thought they could get away with offering sub-standard sacrifices to the LORD and have therefore made it so that neither the sanctuary or the people were atoned for--sin still remains on the priests, the house of the God, and the people of God).

Then, they come to the Altar weeping because they are not blessed because the LORD did not accept their diseased, deformed, or otherwise sub-standard offering.  The LORD had no regard for it because they have shown they clearly have no regard for Him.  Their hope was to pull the wool over His eyes and give Him something they didn't want anyways and keep the best for themselves instead of giving Him their best and trusting Him to give them even better in return.  The people are still being as faithless with their relationship with the LORD as a man who commits adultery against his wife that he has been married to since the days of their youth--a wife who has always been faithful to him.  (In our relationship with the LORD, He is typically portrayed as the Husband and us as the Bride, but the LORD is speaking to the men who are spiritual leaders here about their spiritual adultery, which is idolatry, that they are still committing, even if they don't bow down to idols anymore).  The have imagined for themselves another kind of god (even if they call him the LORD) that will wink at their sin and accept their substandard sacrifices and bless them because they go through performative motions and rituals that their heart is not in.  They may even be tempted to redefine good and evil so that they believe that the LORD will have to bless their sin and punish those who do what is right.  This was the same sin they committed with the Golden Calf, and it is the same sin many of us commit today when we say things like "The God that I believe in....." and then start to describe a god that is nothing like the God of the Bible.

The LORD wants His people to be united by His Spirit (that happens ultimately at Pentecost and the other times following Pentecost where the Spirit came upon groups of people when the gospel went to new groups of people and new areas).  See the book of Ephesians that talks much about the Spirit who makes us one with each other and with the Lord and Jesus' High Priestly Prayer in the Garden in John 17 where He prays for all of us to be one as He and the Father are one and that He knows that one day we will be one with Him in the same way that He is one with His Father.  That is a kind of unity and intimacy that we are not going to get outside of the miraculous work of the gospel that is at work within us and among us.

The LORD seeks godly offspring (children made in His image and likeness, which is what the Spirit does for us once we are regenerated).

Romans 8:29-30
English Standard Version
29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.  30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

Hebrews 2:10-13
English Standard Version
10 For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. 11 For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, 12 saying,

“I will tell of your name to my brothers;
    in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.”

13 And again,

“I will put my trust in him.”

And again,

“Behold, I and the children God has given me.”

1 John 3:1
English Standard Version
3 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

These are but a few places where we see the gospel at work in making us children of God by Adoption (you can find more about that in the book of Romans).  Then the LORD addresses the same issue that is working itself out among their horizontal relationships--those who are unfaithful in their covenant relationship with Him are also being unfaithful in their covenant relationships with their spouses.  They are seeking no-fault divorce and this is leading to all kinds of violence against spouses, against other men when someone wants to take their spouse from them, against women that men want to take advantage of without marrying them, and all the rest.  The culture has slipped back into all the sexual perversion of the pagan cultures without the idols of gold, silver, stone, and wood because the issue was always within the hearts of the people--it was never really about the thing that they bowed down to so much as they formed another god for themselves in their hearts and minds that they decided they would rather worship because it would let them get away with sin and would still bless them instead of them living under the blessings and curses of the covenant where the LORD promised blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience.  The LORD took Exile off the table and the people took it a license to sin, but the LORD is going to have many other ways to get their attention and prepare them for when the Messiah comes to them "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand (is among you)." (I mention this because our very next passage is going to speak of the harbinger/messenger that the LORD is going to send in advance of His Anointed to prepare the way for Him, and this is exactly how the New Testament opens, fulfilling this very promise).