Christ was offered once. The Old Testament sacrifices were made by sinful priests who had to atone for their own sins. Christ was the perfect High Priest who presented Himself as the sacrifice. The Old Testament sacrifices provided temporary reconciliation with God. The writer of Hebrews illustrates the contrast between the Old Testament sacrificial system and the sacrifice of Christ this way:.
But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.
All of the specific instructions regarding offerings and sacrifices seem tedious to read. The Old Testament sacrificial system was designed as a regular reminder of the very real problem of sin in each of us that must be atoned for. The fact that those sacrifices were never completed but had to be offered year after year created a longing for the once-for-all sin offering that only God Himself could make. Used with permission. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
My beloved ones, since God has loved us in this way, we also are obligated to love one another. Aeron Sullivan is our Director of Web Technology and comes to us from the military and for-profit technology sector. He holds a bachelors in political science and an MBA.
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Bible Reader. Croatian Hrvatski. Dutch Nederlands. Finnish Suomi. German Deutsch. Hungarian Magyar. Indonesian Bahasa Indonesia. Italian Italiano. Hebrews For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. The sacrifice of animals was never going to make the people perfect, it was simply a way for them to express how sorry they were for their sins.
Hebrews 2 For then would they not have ceased to be offered? Blood sacrifice was required as it caused the sinner to remember their sin, and to feel the burden of their sin each and every year. Without these sacrifices, the people would not have felt any pain for their sins.
Over time, the sin would not feel like a sin at all, if mere words would satisfy God over their sin. So action had to be taken in the form of a blood sacrifice. We have to remember, during the days of old their jobs were maintaining their animals which they used for food and clothing, and of course their crops. When the individual sinned against God, they had to sacrifice the very best of their animals, even their favorite if you will. This destroyed all of their hard work, and destroyed a love they may have had for a close animal.
When you have to destroy something you have put hard work and effort into, when you have to destroy something you love, it breaks your heart. This is why God required sacrifice, there had to be some form of payment for their sin , without some suffering, the sin would mean nothing and continue on. When this question came in, I read it to my boys who were sitting around the table. My oldest son knew the answer, he remembered what I explained some time ago.
And the priest shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of fragrant incense before the Lord that is in the tent of meeting, and all the rest of the blood of the bull he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering that is at the entrance of the tent of meeting.
The blood cleansed the tabernacle, the priests, the people, and the land from the defilement caused by the sin of the people. There was blood on the veil, blood on the horns of the altar, and blood poured out. Everywhere the sinner looked was an unavoidable statement about the pervasive nature of sin and need for atonement.
The guilt offering asked for something beyond sacrifice; it required restitution. The guilty person had to confess his sin publicly, offer the blood sacrifice, and also make full restitution of what was defrauded, adding an additional twenty percent. Rather than a cheap or easy repentance, this dearly cost the person who sinned.
But by offering these sacrifices in faith, the people of the Old Testament demonstrated their faith in Christ, the superior, once-for-all sacrifice, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
The sacrificial provisions in Leviticus taught the Israelites that God can be approached with the blood of a worthy substitute. Yes, there was certainly a cost to these sacrifices. Imagine the expense of taking the best animal in your herd down to the temple in Jerusalem just to be burnt up. You would have to travel and find a place to stay.
Imagine the emotional or spiritual burden as you made this trek, knowing that you would have to identify and confess your sin to the priest in offering your sacrifice.
But also imagine the burden rolling away.
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