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Introduction
What comes to mind when we think of sacrifice today?
I think of blood, lots of blood…and fire.
I cannot personally remember a time in my life where killing animals, butchering them in a specific way and then burning them on an alter was normal.
I assume that it wasn’t normal for you either.
In ancient times, it was not uncommon for animal and even human sacrifice.
In modern times, such things are considered primitive and barbaric.
The question is, are we still required to sacrifice to our God?
Are we still required to sacrifice to our God?
Before I answer the question, let’s explore the past and work our way up to the answer.
Sacrifices Before the Flood
A history of sacrifice goes back to the very beginning of time.
The first explicit sacrifice to God is recorded is in Genesis 4:3-4 where it says:
As often happens with humans over short periods of time, we tend to corrupt what is good.
We are so efficient at corruption that the first human offspring fell victim to sin.
We see this in the first two sacrifices ever recorded.
Cain offers the fruit of the ground and his brother Abel offers the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions.
The narrative continues with God in favor of Abel’s offering and against Cain’s offering.
Why was Cain’s offering not accepted by God?
If all that we had to go off of was this narrative, it would seem as though God, for no particular reason decided which offering to accept and which one to reject.
But as we see in Hebrews the difference was how the sacrifice was brought.
Abel offered his sacrifice by faith.
It is implied that the opposite was true of Cain.
And in 1 John it is further clarified:
What was the reason Abel was considered righteous?
Hopefully you see.
Cain was proud and his heart was evil.
His brother Abel, however, was humble before the Lord.
One commentary says “Cain fell to the prey of the crouching evil and eventually went out to form a godless society, rejecting God’s way.
The “way of Cain” (Jude 11), then, is a lack of faith which shows itself in envy of God’s dealings with the righteous, in murderous acts, in denial of responsibility, and in refusal to accept God’s punishment.”
It goes on to say that “Cain’s lack of faith shows up in his response to God’s rejection of his offering of fruit (Gen.
4:5).
Rather than being concerned about remedying the situation and pleasing God, he was very angry.
4:6–7.
Cain was so angry he would not be talked out of his sin—even by God.”
As time continued beyond the flood, humans went from sacrificing animals in honor of God, to dishonoring him by worshiping false gods in a number of ways culminating with the sacrifice of their first born children.
As any good teacher does, God began to lead his people from the known to the unknown through his servant Abraham.
The ancients understood physical sacrifice and God led them to the unknown, spiritual sacrifice.
Sacrifices After the Flood
In Genesis we see a different story.
Abraham, a faithful man, was commanded by God to sacrifice his first born son, Isaac.
Though it must have broken his heart to do it, Abraham did as God commanded.
Except as we find out in the story, God was never going to allow Abraham to complete the task.
Rather, God was testing him to see if he would be faithful even at the cost of his own Son.
At the very last moment, right before he was going to kill his son, an angel of the Lord appeared, stopping him and instead provided a substitutionary sacrifice.
No god, had ever provided their own sacrifice.
Nor could they.
This would have certainly eradicated any doubt from Abraham’s mind and would have put a powerful image in his mind regarding the kind of God our’s is.
So moved by what God did, Abraham called the place where this happened, Jehovah Jireh meaning “The Lord will provide”.
So you can see that God told him to do something that would have been known in the ancient world, that is, human sacrifice.
To the unknown, God himself providing the sacrifice.
Abraham was considered righteous and a friend of God because of his belief, trust and obedience to God, no matter the personal cost.
God continued to work on his people, bringing them from the known to the unknown.
In Exodus, God gave Moses the Ten Commandments and the rest of the Law.
He also gave him instructions on how to build the Tabernacle where God would dwell with his people and where they would offer certain types of sacrifices to him for various reasons.
In Leviticus, God instructed Moses on rules and procedures for conducting sacrifices.
These sacrifices were a way to acknowledge God’s holiness, for the people to remember their sin and to offer a substitutionary agent to bear the consequence of their sin.
These sacrifices were burnt on an alter and the smoke would rise and God said that the aroma of the burnt sacrifices was pleasing to him.
Of course, it was not the smell of the burning animals that was pleasing to God.
It was the heart of those who were offering the sacrifice that was pleasing to him.
Later, the people began to only go through the motions with the sacrifices as more of a duty rather than something they wanted to do out of reverence for their God.
Their hearts were far from God and often set on evil just like Cain’s was.
Eventually, this caused God to reject their sacrifices.
Not only did he reject them, he even said that they became detestable to him.
Consider the words written in Isaiah:
God at this point was fed up with evil people offering sacrifices with impure hearts and therefore wanted nothing more to do with them.
What did he want instead?
He wanted them to turn from evil and walk in righteousness.
But also, he was continuing his instruction.
He was about to show his people that it isn’t through the Law and its sacrifices that they are saved.
In the book Hebrews it says:
A physical substance, such as blood, cannot remove a spiritual problem.
The old covenant was designed to picture forgiveness; it was not designed to bring it.
The Old Testament saints were forgiven their sins, but it was based on faith and God’s grace, not because they had paid a big enough price or earned it.
Forgiveness was available, but it was not through the covenant rituals.
The sacrifices had a shadow of forgiveness — they spoke about forgiveness and they pictured forgiveness — but they were not the way that forgiveness actually comes.
Michael Morrison
So, how does forgiveness come?
What cast this shadow in the background of history?
The shadow of good things to come was from the savior Jesus Christ.
Jesus as the Sacrificial Lamb
Jesus entered the world and lived a sinless life.
Just as God provided a lamb in place of Abraham’s son Isaac (the shadow of good things to come), God provided us with his own son, Jesus, as the sacrificial lamb for our guilt.
In fact, Jesus appeared in Jerusalem at a very specific time of the year.
It was passover week and the day he arrived in Jerusalem was on lamb selection day.
This was a day when the men would go and find a lamb for his family that was without blemish.
The lamb would be offered to the Lord for the forgiveness of sin and in remembrance of the Exodus and Passover in Egypt.
Here is the command regarding that day:
Jesus was our spotless lamb, who God offered up as a sacrifice on our behalf to wash away our sins.
John the Baptist knew this the moment he saw Jesus and he said:
What Does the Lord Require?
It is time to bring this to a close.
To reach far back to the beginning of time and remember Cain and Abel.
One of them offered a sacrifice that pleased the Lord and one offered a sacrifice that the Lord rejected.
We can discern that the rejection of Cain’s sacrifice was not the object that he sacrificed but rather the heart behind the sacrifice he offered.
He was proud, angry and evil.
And God warned him that sin was crouching at the door and its desire was to have him.
He told Cain that if he did right that he would be accepted.
However, Cain’s response to God’s warning was not repentance and humility but rather full of wickedness.
So what does the Lord require?
Let’s look at a word from the prophet Micah.
There is nothing that you can offer to the one who created everything!
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