Sacrifice

What is the purpose of sacrifice? Sacrifice is the offering of food, objects, or the lives of animals to a higher purpose as an act of worship. But what does God want? Bloody corpse? Death?

The Old Covenant (Testament) was inaugurated in Genesis 15:8-19, where God tells Abram of his inheritance that will come someday in the future. Abram’s job in the meantime was to trust God. The Old Testament, therefore, focuses on Abram’s descendants’ failure to fully trust God. In other words, mankind broke their end of the covenant.

What were they trusting God to do? To bring a new kingdom, a new land where their enemies would never harm them, where peace was the theme, where God could once more fellowship with them.

The sacrifices were necessary to connect man’s guilt to God’s promise. The promise could only be fulfilled by God’s faithfulness. Our righteousness wasn’t going to do it. But, every time they had to kill an innocent animal, it was supposed to remind them of that covenant: the animal had to die because of their failure to keep the covenant).

One of the interesting things about many of the animal sacrifices was that the animal had to be fully consumed before the third day (except the entrails and certain organs). But how could one family fully consume the animal? Some portions were easier to eat than others, but the way to do it was to join together with other friends and family to share in the meal provided by this sacrifice.

Although the animal died because of man’s sin, the result of the sacrifice brought people together sharing an important reminder-feast of God’s promises expressed in repentance and fellowship. God’s plan has always been to unite His children together for the purpose of close, meaningful relationship (like it was in the Garden).

But as Hebrews 10:4 says, “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.” Those were just a shadow of the real sacrifice that was to take place by the perfect man AS the perfect lamb to be slaughtered. Isaiah 53:5-7 prophetically describes Jesus this way, “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter… (11) He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities.”

Is there any doubt that God instituted animal sacrifices to show His people how terrible sin is? And Jesus, the Son of God, had to come down and fulfill our end of the covenant too. Take time to read Mark 11:1-11 to get a glimpse of the beginning phase of this ultimate sacrifice offered by Jesus, the Messiah. Then consider the importance of fellowship and repentance in what Jesus established in the church.