Sacrifices
Stephen Terry
Commentary for the October 19, 2013
Sabbath School Lesson
When they reached the place God had
told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He
bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he
reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the
Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he
replied.
“Do not lay a hand on
the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God,
because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” Genesis
22:9-12, NIV
The first
example of mankind offering a sacrifice to God is found when Abel offered up
some fat taken from some of the firstborn sheep of his flock.[i]
We are not told whether this was a spontaneous action on Abel’s part or somehow
he learned to do this and was following some instructions not related in the
text. In any event, spontaneous or not, sacrifice of animals and even humans,
at some point in the distant past of man’s history, became common to most
cultures. Sometimes sacrifices were made for purposes of augury. Other times they
may have been done to demonstrate power either through casting of magic or public
destruction of enemy captives. Probably most often though they were done to
appease an indifferent or hostile deity and obtain favor. An example of that favor
may have been fertility for one’s crops, livestock and household. Another may have
been for military victories.
Offering of
animals perhaps made sense for a nomadic populace with large flocks and
therefore ample grist for the sacrificial altars. The magical element of these
sacrifices was in the blood of the victim. Perhaps it was this that caused many
cultures to also employ human sacrifice. After all if the blood of the animals
sacrificed was powerful, wouldn’t the blood of the men who had power over the
animals be an even more powerful libation? Following that logical progression
could even take us to the idea that the blood of a god would be perhaps the
most powerful fluid of all. By such reasoning, one might see how the blood of
Christ on the cross could be understood as a worldwide balm for evil. But once
you arrive at that plateau, where do you go from there? Perhaps that and some other
salient issues contributed to the end of the system of animal sacrifices.
As mankind
abandoned the nomadic lifestyle to settle in cities, it probably became
difficult to maintain large flocks in close proximity to those cities to
provide the sacrifices. As the cities grew, they may have had to go further
afield to find enough animals to offer. This could possibly have increased the
desire on the part of some to find a reasonable substitute. For the Aztecs of
Middle America and others, this meant the sacrifice of human captives, a supply
made possible for some by a never-ending state of war with those around them.
For others, it may have meant an increasing reliance on grain or drink offerings
which were more easily transported and therefore more readily available, perhaps
animals then being reserved only for the “high” offerings on special dates.
It could be
that another reason blood sacrifices are no longer common is that the practice
simply became unsustainable. With population growth, the number of animals
needed to provide daily sacrifices for the population grew to the point where
one had to make a choice between animals for food and animals for worship, and
still maintaining enough animals for breeding for whatever need was deemed
essential. I cannot fathom the number of animals that would be required to
sustain both the daily food and sacrificial needs of a world population currently
over seven billion and growing. While we often refer to the tearing of the
curtain in the temple at Christ’s death[ii]
as ending the sacrificial system, perhaps it was only the “handwriting on the
wall” for a system already destined to collapse under its own weight.
Other than
the example of Abel and the patriarchs, one cannot help but wonder about the derivation
of the massive sacrificial economy instituted during the Exodus of the
Israelites from Egypt. While the writer of Leviticus indicated this was
instituted to cleanse the people from sin,[iii]
we might be justified in asking why was that necessary if Christ died for all
sins? Apparently it wasn’t necessary for we are told in the New Testament that the
blood of those sacrifices did not cleanse anyone from sin.[iv]
Why the massive bloodshed then? Some might claim the sacrifices pointed forward
to Christ and the cross. However, how big a sign post was necessary? Was it
necessary to wallow in blood every day to realize that there was a messiah coming?
Could there be some other explanation?
The writer
of Hebrews offers up one idea. We are told there that it was to remind people
of their sins.[v] But
someone else already does a pretty good job of that. He is called the “accuser
of the brethren.”[vi]
So if we already have an accuser to point out our sins and an Advocate to set
us free from that accusation, what is the purpose of the sanctuary sacrificial
system? Perhaps it is only allegory.
There are
those individuals who want to project the sanctuary offering system into heaven
based on a single text which states as much.[vii]
Yet this may be speculative writing based on the author’s perspective as
someone who is culturally invested in the primacy of the temple at Jerusalem. It could have a high likelihood of inaccuracy
for three reasons. The first reason is that God showing Moses a pattern[viii]
in no way puts forth the idea that the same thing exists in heaven. The second is
that Paul makes it clear that what is in heaven may be beyond our ability to
understand.[ix]
Third, perhaps the wisest man who ever lived, King Solomon, pointed out how ridiculous
it was to conceive of “God in a box” who dwells in a fixed sanctuary when the
entire universe is His dwelling place.[x]
By definition, God exists everywhere and every when.
Some have
constructed entire systematic theologies with the only biblical foundation for
such being the single aforementioned text in Hebrews, chapter eight. This may
be a theological “house of cards.” We may claim all the extra-biblical inspiration
we want for our position, but if there is little support for it in the Bible,
whom are we kidding? And if we construct our theology on a flimsy biblical
scaffold, what happens if the biblical evidence weighs more heavily against our
interpretation than for it? Not only may the single text give way, but the
entire edifice we have built.
Maybe at
this point we should look at the possible allegorical interpretation of the
bloody sacrifices of the sanctuary. Obviously, in order for a flimsy one-verse
theology to be suspect, there must be the possibility of another theological
perspective. Ezekiel may contain the key to that alternative understanding. In
chapter sixteen,[xi]
he relates that God found Israel as a newborn, wallowing in blood from the
birth process. He willed the child covered in blood to live, and she lived. He
cleansed her and adorned her with beauty. Ultimately she betrayed His love for
her, but the point of the allegory is that perhaps the blood of the sacrificial
system was not the blood of cleansing, which it could never do,[xii]
but rather the blood of birth. Every birth is attended with blood. Perhaps this
is why blood is life, not cleansing, but life.[xiii]
Perhaps this is why Jesus told Nicodemus that to be able to see the kingdom of
God, it was necessary to be born again.
Maybe we
must recognize ourselves as wallowing in Christ’s blood and change our
perspective accordingly. Then perhaps we will understand our need to receive the
cleansing water of baptism. I realize that some may find this imagery
offensive, but maybe no more so than those who turned in disgust from Christ
himself when he proclaimed that they must drink his blood and eat his flesh.[xiv]
Birth is not pretty. It is messy and bloody. However, we rejoice at the child
who comes forth from the womb and as doting parents, we may believe that no other
child is as beautiful as our own.
In spite of
our own messy birth through the blood of Jesus, we are the apple of our Father’s
eye.[xv]
Per Ezekiel, He will cleanse us and make us beautiful as we grow in His care,
something the blood of sheep and cattle could never do. As God adopted that cast
off infant the prophet wrote about, so He adopts us. Through the blood of
Christ we are reborn into our proper family and become sons and daughters of
God.[xvi]
“…to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the
right to become children of God-children born not of natural descent, nor of
human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”[xvii]
