Re: Blood Sacrifice
Submitted by Jules on February 23 2002 08:36:50
In reply to Blood Sacrifice submitted by Ben on February 19 2002 19:04:35
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Hi Ben, Sorry I've not replied before - I've had a few days away and only just read your reply. I've enjoyed reading what you wrote and thinking about it again, but I still think there's a different way of seeing it, in which God is more like the sort of person you'd want to meet, if you know what I mean! I wouldn't be very keen on having a close relationship with someone who could only forgive me by taking it out on someone else instead... If you read the book of Hebrews you pretty soon get the idea that the Old Testament sacrifices were only a poor imitation of the real thing, which is the death of Jesus. In the Old Testament, blood was always shed in response to sin, but that doesn't mean the blood was necessary for God to forgive people. Heb. 9:22 says "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness", but this is just a passing comment on the fact that blood was always used, not that it was the means of forgiveness. Heb. 10:4 makes that clear; it says "it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins." The blood doesn't take away the sins. So what is the blood sacrifice for? 10:3 says that it was to remind the people of their sins. Here's the whole passage: 10:1 The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming-- not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.The animal sacrifices were there to remind the people of their sins, so that they would confess, and receive God's forgiveness. As such, the blood was a symbol of forgiveness, a symbol of cleansing, but God's forgiveness didn't depend on the blood, it depended on their response, which the sacrifices helped to bring about. At least that's how we see it now that Jesus has come; and there were some who realised this in OT times, but not everyone. I'm sure there were many people in OT times who thought of the sacrifices themselves as a way of ensuring God's forgiveness, but these are the very ones who didn't receive it! How much more is that going to be the case with the real thing, the death of Jesus! Hebrews makes a great deal out of the differences between Jesus and animal sacrifices. Jesus' death is called a sacrifice, but it's not a literal sacrifice in the way that the animals were. For example, animals were killed by a priest, with the sinner present; Jesus was not; he offered himself. Animals were killed regularly; Jesus died only once. It's as though, in Jesus, religion has "come of age". Under the Old Testament law, the people needed constant visual reminders of their sin, so that they would repent and receive God's forgiveness. But now that Jesus has come, God treats us as grow-ups! We have the cross to look back at as our reminder of our sin. God now expects more of us, in a sense, now that we don't have the same graphic reminders. So instead of saying that the death of Jesus was a sacrificed modelled on the Old Testament, it's the other way round. The Old Testament sacrifices were just a faint shadow of the real thing, in which Jesus showed by his death how much God had always been ready to forgive. In the OT, the animal sacrifices were needed to help the people realise this, but now we have seen the real thing! Why did God choose such horrible things as animal sacrifices in the first place? One very simple reason is that people had been making animal sacrifices anyway in the pagan religions, long before Moses. It was a picture of sin that people of in that world could understand. The difference is that in the pagan religions, people thought they were getting the gods to forgive them by offering the blood; the sacrifice was made for the benefit of the gods. But in the Jewish law, God turned that round the other way. The sacrifices were made for the benefit of the sinner, to point to God's forgiveness. I wrote another piece about this sort of thing some while ago as well, which I've linked to below. You might be interested to know that, far from being a "liberal", my thinking has been shaped mostly by the time I've had at an evangelical seminary, where this sort of approach is presented as the most authentic understanding of how the death of Jesus "works" - i.e. it works by the response it brings about in us, rather than what it achieves for God. I'm enjoying this; one day I'd love to spend time writing a proper ordered set of articles on this. So please keep responding! With Christian love, Jules |
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