The Sacrifices of God’s People Part 1

Christ is the once for all sacrifice for sin (Hebrews 10:12) and it is by His sacrifice that we are perfected forever even though we are presently in the transforming process of sanctification (Hebrews 10:14).  As the book of Hebrews makes clear, only Jesus, the Great High Priest who offers Himself as the sacrifice, can take away sins and make us holy.  His violent death on the cross did for us what we could never do for ourselves.  Christ’s unrepeatable sacrifice cleanses us from all sin, past, present and future.  Without it we would never be able to approach our holy and righteous God.  Not only has Christ’s atoning work reconciled us to the Father, it is our assurance that the Lord will finish the good work He has begun in us (Philippians 1:6).

While we cannot contribute anything to the sufficiency of Christ’s perfect and unrepeatable sacrifice, it is on the basis of His atoning work that we are admonished to offer our own sacrifices of praise, good works and generosity (Hebrews 13:15-16).  This is the message of Romans 12:1 where Paul urges us to present ourselves as living sacrifices to God.  Such a sacrifice is not only holy and acceptable to God, it is the true worship we owe to Him.  Such sacrifices are in response to the complete redemption provided in the cross.  To fully appreciate this, we need some understanding of the biblical sacrificial system and its fulfillment.

In our day and age, “sophisticated” people consider the notion of blood sacrifices primitive and repulsive.  Nonetheless, the practice of such blood sacrifices is almost universal in the annals of human history.  Every culture has engaged in this practice.  Practically all pagan religions believed that the gods were angry and must be appeased.  Across all ancient cultures was a recognition that the deity (or pantheon of deities) was displeased with humanity, and, without a sacrifice, deity was too dangerous to approach.  The best explanation for this universal sense of divine dread is simply that it is true. Though pagans of the world were worshipping false gods, their sense of human sin and guilt was undeniable.  They realized that approaching deity requires turning away divine wrath. However, their beliefs were a perversion of the truth. For the truth we must turn to Scripture.

"From the beginning, the Lord made it clear that the penalty for sin is death.  When humanity sinned, He was under no obligation to provide a path for redemption."

The practice of sacrifice begins in the first generation of the Fall with Cain and Abel.  First and foremost, sacrifice is about propitiation (satisfaction, redemption and reconciliation).  We were born in sin and estranged from the God of life.  God cannot simply forget about our sin and look the other way.  Because God is holy, reconciliation requires a sacrifice in the form of a forfeiture of life.  From the beginning, the Lord made it clear that the penalty for sin is death.  When humanity sinned, He was under no obligation to provide a path for redemption.  However, if there was to be redemption, someone had to pay the price to satisfy the demands of God’s righteousness and justice.  The debt of sin must be paid.   As the writer of Hebrews makes clear, without the shedding of blood there can be no remission of sins.

This is the basis for substitutionary atonement; that which is sacrificed bears death in place of the one for whom the sacrifice is offered.  God established the Old Testament sacrificial system to prepare His people for the one true sacrifice to come.  Of course, the blood of bulls, goats and unblemished lambs was never sufficient to take away our sins (Hebrews 10:4).  The lives of animals were an insufficient substitute for creatures made in God’s image.  Those bloody sacrifices of the Old Testament were a shadow of the ultimate sacrifice to come.  They anticipated Christ, the eternal Son of God who took on human flesh that He might live sinlessly before giving His life in our place.  It is the sacrifice of Christ that turns away the wrath of our holy God.

In our next post we will consider how the Old Testament sacrificial system established the pattern fulfilled by Christ, permitting the redeemed to present sacrifices that God will accept.

You can listen to Pastor Stan McGehee's series on Philippians under the "Media" section of the website or app.