“Then Aaron answered Moses, ‘Today my sons presented both their sin offering and their burnt offering to the LORD. And yet this tragedy has happened to me. If I had eaten the people’s sin offering on such a tragic day as this, would the LORD have been pleased?’”
Leviticus 10:19 NLT
“Aaron’s service was not formality; it was a worship done in the spirit; and where the spirit could not accompany the rite, he left the rite undone. Herein he glorified God,—he gave Him the honour due unto His name! He felt that it was not worship at all if his soul was not engaged; for ‘God is spirit.'” Bonar, p. 205.
God has always cared about the state of our heart and our attitude towards Him more than the outward workings of our hands. No doubt the outer workings, what we do, is of great importance as well as James reminds us, “faith without works is dead”, but we see here that God is a compassionate God and He allows for our weaknesses giving us much grace. Jesus comes and fulfills the Law to the letter leaving room for us to fulfill it as best we can in our human frailty.