[Oct. 2d, 1864.]
A sacrifice is properly something slain and presented to God as an atonement for sin, or to propitiate his favor; then, any thing offered to God or done for him. What is here said is that the most sacred, solemn, and even commanded things, are an abomination when rendered or performed by the wicked. Not merely their indifferent actions (as ploughing), but their best actions; those done in obedience to God, out of a sense of religion or desire to secure forgiveness or favor, are hateful in the sight of God.
Abomination is that which excites loathing and disgust. It is applied to moral acts or character, that which excites a high degree of disapprobation and revulsion of mind.
By the wicked is often meant the immoral. But the word means the guilty, those worthy of punishment. It is opposed to the righteous. And as the Scriptures divide all men into the righteous and the wicked, those who do not belong to the one class belong to the other. The wicked are all the guilty, all who are unreconciled to God, who are still under his wrath and curse due to them for sin.
There are two great truths involved in the passage:
I. That no outward service, however enjoined, is acceptable to God when the heart is not right. The principle that God requires to be worshipped in spirit and in truth, is peculiar to the Bible. It does not belong to paganism, nor to corrupt forms of Christianity.
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It stands opposed to all the religions of the heathen, in which the external act is alone regarded. The worship, the ritual, the discipline, are all a series of outward acts, which are assumed to be acceptable for their own sake; as a gift relieves the poor by whomsoever or from whatsoever motive given.
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It condemns the ritual worship of the Romish Church, its penances, its works of merit, all which are assumed to have a value independent of the views and feelings of the worshipper.
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It condemns all formalism. That is, it teaches that we offend God when the service which we render him is rendered only from custom, from regard to public opinion, or is a mere service of the lips.
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It shows how vain are the hopes of sinners who attempt to propitiate God by acts of benevolence even on their death-beds; and also how vain the hopes of those who are inquiring the way of life and seeking salvation, when they rely on their prayers, or their efforts or their own works, in any form, as a means of propitiating God. All service rendered for a wrong object, from a bad motive, or in the abuse of a right frame of mind is an abomination to God. 1. As a God of truth, because the service professes one thing, and the one who renders it professes another. Or, what he does is of the nature of a lie, and of a lie to the God of truth. 2. As a God of holiness. Such hypocritical, insincere service is in its own nature offensive, as the professions of esteem, friendship or love to a fellow-creature, when they are insincere.
II. The other great truth involved in this passage is the one expressed in the parallel proverb, “The ploughing of the wicked is sin.”— Sinfulness attaches to all they do. Not merely their transgressions of the law of God, not merely things in their own nature wrong, but acts in their own nature indifferent, are in their case sins, i.e., acts offensive to God. Such are the representations of the Bible, and therefore in the sense intended, they must be true. Such representations, however, do not mean that indifferent acts are moral acts, that things which have no moral character have a moral character. This would be a contradiction in terms, and would offend the moral judgments of men. Such declarations of the Scriptures are intended to teach us, 1. That acts in themselves indifferent become sinful, or rather the agent sins in performing them, when he has not the right state of mind. There is no sin in eating when hungry, nor in ploughing. But a man sins in eating, and while he eats, if he does it without a sense of gratitude to God, the giver of all good. There is no sin in ploughing; but the man who ploughs or sows his field without a sense of his dependence on God, sins while he ploughs.
- They are designed to teach us that a man out of favor with God, in rebellion against him, is judged and estimated by his abiding character, and not by his individual acts. A profligate son, or a rebel against his sovereign, is a wicked son or subject, whether he eats or sleeps, or whether he ploughs or sows. He is always, while persisting in his rebellion or disobedience, a just object of disapprobation and condemnation. So the sinner until reconciled to God is a sinner in all he does, whether his acts are in themselves indifferent, or in themselves right; whether they be acts of justice, benevolence, or religion. They are the acts of a sinner, and offensive to God.
This principle is often perverted. Men have taught that it was wrong for sinners to pray. This is absurd. It is better for an unconverted farmer to plough than not to plough. He would sin far more in the latter case than in the former. What he should do is to plough with the right spirit. So of prayer.
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