Old Testament and Sacrifices
- After God brought Israel out of slavery in Egypt, during the Exodus, they were in the wilderness.
- God chose them as His people and wanted to dwell among them, but His holiness required a way to deal with sin.
- Laws to make Israel Holy 613 laws in total (though not all were about holiness)
- Tabernacle: Built as God’s dwelling place among Israel
- Sacrifices: Sin requires atonement (“covering over” or to repay a debt and to purify)
Rebellion did not stop
Even with God’s law, presence, priests, and sacrifices - the problem stayed: the human heart kept turning away from God.
- Repeated sin and idolatry: People repeatedly fall into sin and idolatry - Judges 21
- Spiritual decline of the kings: Period of the kings shows spiritual decline - 2 Kings 17
- Extreme Corruption: Idols filled God’s temple, and child sacrifice became normal - 2 Kings 21
The Ultimate Sacrifice
…and the prophecies there of, hundreds of years before.
- Genesis 3:14-15: (14) Then the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all animals, domestic and wild. You will crawl on your belly, groveling in the dust as long as you live. (15) And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”
- Isaiah 53:5-6: (5) But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. (6) All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.
What does that mean for us?
- Since God has provided the ultimate Sacrifice, which he did not have to in the first place, Paul calls us to worship (show respect and honor) and attempt to live a holy life as a consequence.
- Romans 12:1-2
- (1) And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.
- (2) Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.