A perfect God requires perfect sacrifices. God’s demand for perfection was intended to teach God’s people various truths, as follows.
Our best is not good enough for God. God demands perfection, which no man can render (Genesis 6:5; Psalm 14:1; Job 14:4; Job 15:14; Ecclesiastes 7:20; Romans 3:10). God’s demand for perfection is intended to teach us that we are not acceptable to God because of our good deeds. Although from eternity God graciously prepared good works for us to perform (Ephesians 2:10), our good works cannot merit God’s favour or blessing, since they are all defiled like defiled garments (Isaiah 64:6), and need to be sanctified with the blood of Christ as well. We must look outside of ourselves for the basis of our acceptance by God.
The only basis is in a perfect sacrifice—a person whose life wholly conformed to the will of God and was without sin. Since we cannot render this perfect sacrifice, God commanded that a sacrificial substitute be offered in our place. The perfect, unblemished sacrifices that God commanded in the sacrificial service were foreshadowings of that perfect sacrificial substitute that God would graciously provide. This sacrificial substitute, our Lord Jesus Christ, would need to offer himself as a sacrifice unto death to atone for our imperfections. He alone could atone for our sins, and render the obedience required to secure our righteousness before God.
God’s demand for perfection is intended to incite us to strive to offer perfect sacrifices to God, undefiled by sin. We must pray for the grace of the Spirit and strive to attain in our own life the perfection of Christ that is legally imputed to our account.
6 “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says the LORD of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. But you say, ‘How have we despised your name?’