WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS
We must accept that God is right. Our willful human nature must be sacrificed – given up.
Throughout Old Testament times, the worship and service of God involved the sacrificing of animals.
God is the King; He can forgive anyone He wants to forgive, but we humans are in this mess of failure and death because we have broken His laws.
We can understand therefore that God is right to insist that we realize this: that we admit that He is right and we are wrong.
This is the lesson that the sacrificing of animals was meant to teach.
People have misunderstood this; they have thought that God wanted to be appeased by a gift, or that He wanted to vent His anger in some way so instead of killing the sinner He had an animal killed instead.
This is a big mistake because the Living God is not like that.
The sacrifices were not killed to change God`s mind or attitude; they were killed to show that the sinner had changed his (or her) mind - had repented - and was asking God to forgive.
Just like a child who has done wrong tells his parents that he sorry and is forgiven, so it is with ourselves and God.
The animal was brought by the person who had sinned, and was usually killed by himself, personally.
It represented himself. He pressed his hands on the animals head, confessed his sin and then killed it by shedding its blood (for instance, Leviticus 5:5).
It was a sad and solemn moment. He was showing that he knew he was wrong, and like Adam in Genesis 2:17 he did not deserve to live any longer.
He was acting out his own death, which would of course come to him sooner or later in the ordinary way, and he was admitting that God was right in that, and that he was wrong.
When the person`s attitude was right, he was forgiven, just like the repentant child. But if his attitude was not right, the sacrifice had no value at all, because what brought
forgiveness was not the sacrifice itself but the state of mind of the person who had sinned. “The Lord detests the sacrifice of the wicked, but the prayer of the upright pleases Him” (Proverbs 15:8).
“The sacrifice of the wicked is abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 21:3).
In some of these Old Testament ceremonies there was the idea of giving up the old life and starting a new one.
When a leper was healed two birds were used: one was killed and the other flew away free – the old diseased life was `dead` and a new healthy life had begun (Leviticus 14).
Once each year two goats were used: one was killed and the other was let go into the desert – in symbol the people `died` because of the sins committed in the old year, but their sins were `carried into the wilderness`
by the living goat so they had a fresh start (Leviticus 16).
Again, there were ways for people to give their lives to God in a special way, but then some mishap could happen that spoiled that special
relationship with Him: so they shaved off all their hair and let it start to grow again – the spoiled life was `thrown away` and a new life began (Numbers 6:9).
The practice of circumcision taught the same lesson in a different way. From the time of Abraham onwards, all the males of the people of God had a bit of flesh cut off (Genesis 17:10).
Indeed, if it was not done, that man himself would be “cut off from his people!” (verse 14).
That was meant to teach them that if they were to truly be the people of the Living God there were things in life that they must give up, `cut off`, `sacrifice`.
Of itself it didn`t make them superior at all; in fact it was meant to teach the opposite, that unless they cut ungodly ways out of their lives they were not God`s people at all.
So Moses told them to “circumcise their heart and be no longer stubborn” (Deuteronomy 10:16); and Jeremiah says the same “circumcise yourselves unto the Lord” (Jer 4:4).
In all of these different ways, God was encouraging people to admit they were wrong and He was right, to change and come back to Him, and be forgiven.
Most people didn`t but many people did, and we can read about some of them in the Bible.
They tried to make sacrifices in their lives for the sake of their love of God, and in return they received blessings out of all proportion to anything they gave up – even in this life.
And in the future they will be equal to the angels – Jesus said so !
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What The Bible Says
