IN these verses Jehovah expresses His abhorrence and detestation of religious rites and ceremonies which are used to cover up iniquity, as though God could be appeased by ceremonial observances by those who persisted in sin. The feasts and solemn assemblies here referred to were those He Himself had commanded (see Leviticus 23; Deut. 26), but which were only acceptable to Him when accompanied by rectitude of life on the part of those who draw near to Him in faith.
“I will not accept them.” It is of the offerings prescribed in Leviticus 1 to 7 that God so speaks, Yet these all typified the person and work of His blessed Son, and were divinely commanded. But when wicked men drew near to His altar with their sacrifices, which they presumptuously offered, He refused to receive or acknowledge them. It was not that the offerings were wrong or opposed to His will, but the people were wrong because they lived in gross self-indulgence and yet dared to come into His courts with their gifts as though nothing had happened to incur His disfavor.
“While the warm blood is pulsing through these veins,
And health, and strength, and energy are mine,
And every throbbing spring of life remains,
This body I ‘present’―O God, ‘tis Thine! ―
‘A living sacrifice!’ With cords divine
Bind it unto the altar. Thy desire
Thus fulfill; send Thou the living firs
To signify that it Thy seal obtains.
And yet, O God, it seems no sacrifice
When I behold what Thou hast done for me:
When thinking on my Saviour’s dying cries,
Love-smitten, and I to the altar flee:
By His own blood made ‘holy’ in Thine eyes―
Acceptable through Him, my God, to Thee.”