• "A Biblical Understanding of Sacrifice"
• Sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent, Commonly Called Passion Sunday
• April 2nd, 2006
• The Reverend Stephen C. Scarlett
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“For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (From the epistle, Hebrews 9:11f.)

The epistle today draws a conditional conclusion: If the blood of bulls and goats offered in sacrifice in the Old Testament accomplished an external form of sanctification, then, surely, the blood of Christ will all the more cleanse us inwardly from sin so that we may serve God.

The author of Hebrews could write this, confident that his Jewish audience would follow the logic. They did indeed believe that the Old Testament sacrifices accomplished the forgiveness of sins just as God said they did. And they could be led to see the Cross against that backdrop.

Today the logic is not so readily understood. People do not grow up with the assumption that sacrifice is the necessary and God-ordained centerpiece of worship. Indeed, many contemporary people see sacrifice as part of the unenlightened religious expression of primitive man.

Contemporary logic might run something like this: Since all ancient and sacrificial religions are to be rejected, let us create some new and better way to find peace. There are two problems with this. First, it has not worked. Many new philosophies and religions have, indeed, been developed and promoted. None has succeeded in transforming individuals and cultures in the manner of historic Christianity.

Second, the notion that we can invent a religion that is superior to the revelation that God has given is extremely prideful. Whether we like it or not, the Bible tells us that God gave specific instructions about how Israel was to relate to God in worship. There is not the least suggestion that the biblical instructions are mere options or that there is some other, equivalent way of approaching God.

In fact, the Bible itself agrees with the modern assessment that animal sacrifice was primitive. It was part of the progressive revelation in the Bible. It was instituted to teach Israel significant truths and point forward to something greater: Christ and his sacrifice.

The animal sacrifices taught Israel that the shedding of blood was necessary to atone for sin. The worshiper learned that sin was serious. It had to be dealt with in a costly way. The animal sacrifices also taught about grace. God provided a death for sin, a substitute that did not require the death of the sinner.

But even in the Old Testament, the inadequacies of the animal sacrifices is proclaimed. Psalm 51 says, “You desire no sacrifice, else would I give it; You do not delight in burnt offerings.” Then the Psalm tells us, “The sacrifice of God is a broken spirit–a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” One problem with the sacrificial system is that it could become a mere external act. People would go through the motions of worship and perform the liturgies of sacrifice but have no genuine repentance for sin, no real love for God in their hearts and no changed behavior as a consequence.

The Bible insists that two things are necessary for the acceptable sacrifice: blood and a heart devoted to God. These two things come together on the cross. Jesus shed his blood for our sins. His offering was also the offering of a willing and faithful heart, as the prayer in Gethsemane bears witness, “Not my will but thy will be done.”

The cross also answers another inadequacy of the Old Testament system. In the offering of animals, there was a sense of destruction. Each sacrifice ended one life to save another life–the animal being expended in the place of the worshiper. The cross unlocks a mystery. The sacrifice God desires does not end in death. It is the very pathway to life. On the cross life met death and death was conquered by life.

The cross reverses the pattern of sin. Man was created to worship and serve God, to live in perfect communion with his Maker. But man chose instead to reject that vocation in favor of disobedience. He chose to sacrifice God’s will to his will. He said, “Not Thy will but my will be done.”

Disobedience began a movement away from God towards autonomy and self-will. This has the appearance of freedom and life but it leads, in fact, to death. Christ answered human sin by living the obedient life, the life perfectly offered to God. The cross is the way of return to the Father. It has the appearance of death but, in fact, it is the very pathway to life.

1 Peter tells us, “Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow in his steps” (2:21).  We embrace the necessary suffering of the Christian life: the struggle to resist temptation, the opposition we encounter because we belong to Christ, the spiritual disciplines that detach us from the world, subdue the flesh and strengthen us in our battle against the devil and his angels. We embrace these things because we know that the way of sacrifice is the way of return to God. Death leads to life.

Our worship teaches us this. Here we present again before the Father the one sacrifice of Christ once offered for our sins–what the blood of bulls and goats looked forward to. Here we offer ourselves, our souls and bodies to God in union with Christ. Here we die with him, and, behold, we live (cf. 2 Cor. 4:10, 6:9).

Lent also teaches us this. It is a season of cross-bearing; it is a season of death that is not really about death at all. For all that is offered to God in obedience, from a faithful heart, will come back to us in the form of new resurrection life on Easter when death will be swallowed up in victory (1 Cor. 15:54).


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