For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.
It is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats in itself to take away sins, remove guilt, cleanse, or provide forgiveness. An animal's life is of less value than the life of the offending sinner and cannot ransom him or satisfy the demands of God's perfect law, which only the divine Son next in authority to the Lawgiver could fully satisfy. The sacrifices, priesthood, and sanctuary service were symbols, types, and shadows pointing forward by faith to Christ as the Lamb of God, and they had meaning, virtue, and acceptance only as they pointed to Him and His great atonement. When Christ died as the Lamb of God for the sins of the world, type met antitype and fulfillment, so the ceremonial law of sacrifices and offerings was to cease while the original moral law engraved in stone stands immutable and still binds. Christ is the one complete, perfect, and infinitely valuable offering whose blood alone brings pardon and eternal life, received through faith alone in Him as Mediator, with true sorrow for sin and obedience worth far more than multitudes of offerings without repentance.
What Animal Blood Cannot Do
The blood of bulls and of goats has in itself no power to take away sins, to remove sin, to wash away guilt, to cleanse, or to provide forgiveness. The offerings were symbols, figures and types pointing to Christ as the Lamb of God, and they had meaning, virtue, acceptance and value only in that pointing, for forgiveness of sins that cling like foul leprosy comes through faith alone in the cleansing blood of Jesus. Their repeated offerings kept the reality of sin, guilt and separation continually before the people, though many lost sight of their meaning, while Christ's own blood ratifies the new covenant and his one offering of his body accomplishes what they could not. When type met its fulfillment at his death the animal offerings became valueless and the ceremonial sacrifices were to cease, with all the sacrifices centering in him as Mediator in the heavenly sanctuary whose atoning sacrifice brings peace and pardon to breakers of God's law.
By themselves the sacrifices could not secure salvation, make the worshipers perfect, free them from sin, or retain any moral efficacy or power to atone after Christ came. They had meaning and virtue only as symbols pointing to Christ and his death and mediatorial work, keeping before fallen people the separation sin caused between God and humanity and the need for a Mediator, and through them people of faith looked forward to Christ, believed in him and trusted in him. He alone as the perfect and infinitely valuable offering could meet the demands of God's law and open again the way back to God that Adam's transgression had closed. Continued after the reality came they were useless and could not take away sins, yet the unbelieving continued to perform them while looking forward to a Messiah who had already come, led to believe Christ was an impostor, choosing their own standard of virtue and purity and refusing to be taught, even leading to death the One those sacrifices had prefigured and illustrated.
Their constant repetition proves this inability, for blood flowed continuously for centuries and could not make worshipers perfect. Rivers of blood flowed at the harvest thanksgiving when sacrifices were offered in such large numbers, meant to teach that the offering of beasts did not cleanse away sin but was a symbol of the great and complete sacrifice to be made for the sins of the whole world, to which even the productions of the earth and bounties for man's sustenance are owed. The temple offerings continued after Christ's death because the worshipers did not know that the sacrifices had reached their fulfillment in him, yet they could not accomplish what his infinite sacrifice for the sin of the world did. The blood of bulls and goats offered for hundreds of years foreshadowed in itself nothing but the death of Christ as Antitype, who had to die in humiliation and sorrow, a truth too humbling for priests and rulers who wanted only a triumphant Messiah to break the Roman yoke and reign as a temporal prince, so they closed their eyes to the prophecies of his suffering and death.
Why It Cannot Atone
The blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sins because an animal's life is of less value than the life of the offending sinner and therefore cannot serve as the sinner's ransom or satisfy the demands of God's perfect law. The slain substitutes represented the death due to human sin, but their deaths had no power in themselves to remove sin and were acceptable only as figures pointing forward by faith to the perfect offering they represented. Only the divine Son, next in authority to the Lawgiver, in the express image of the Father in perfection of character and exalted as commander of the heavenly host, possessed a life of sufficient value to fully satisfy the claims of God's perfect law and rescue fallen humanity from its fallen condition. Fallen man as an imperfect offering could not atone for man, and even sinless angels could not atone as created probationers of less value than the law.
The whole system of animal offerings was added after Adam's fall because God's law had been broken. Without transgression there would have been no death of beast or man and no need for added requirements to meet people in their fallen condition. Its work was to keep continually before fallen people the truth the serpent led Eve to doubt, that disobedience brings death, to teach humility in view of the fallen condition, to lead to repentance and to acknowledgment of guilt, and to lead to trust in God alone through the promised Redeemer for pardon for past breaking of His law. It was appointed to link the minds of sinners with the blood of the Son of God, looking forward by faith to the great and perfect sacrifice to come.
Breaking God's law brings death and separated God and humanity, ending the direct, free, happy communion Adam had in innocency, so that God now communicates to man through Christ and angels. Only the atonement of the Son of God upholds the honor of God's law while making a way of escape from its penalty possible, and only that atonement makes blessing and salvation possible. Broken law made the death of Christ as a sacrifice necessary, revealing that nothing less than the death of God's dear Son could expiate transgression and vindicate God's law.
Sacrifices as Symbols of Christ
The sacrifices with the priesthood, the sanctuary service, and the daily temple offerings were symbols and figures and types and shadows and prophecy in type, pointing forward by faith to Christ as the Lamb of God, the true substance and foundation and Antitype, centering in His death and atoning sacrifice and mediatorial work. Their repeated offering kept this truth before the people, though many lost sight of its meaning, for they could not make worshipers perfect or free them from sin but served as a reminder of the sacrifice to come. Christ Himself originated and founded and instituted and gave the Jewish sacrificial system with its ceremonies and ordinances. As the angel who went before Moses and guided Israel in the wilderness He gave Moses those ceremonies and ordinances, and as a Jew He observed what was binding upon the Jews to the hour of His death upon the cross, with His teachings and work in strict accordance with both the moral and the ceremonial law.
The offerings had meaning and virtue and acceptance and value only as they pointed to Christ and illustrated His great atonement. Apart from Him and after rejecting Him they were useless and valueless, and when the type met its fulfillment at His death their value ended. They were appointed to keep continually before fallen people the reality of sin and guilt and the separation sin caused between God and humanity, and the truth that disobedience brings death. Their work was to teach humility in view of the fallen condition, to bring acknowledgment of guilt and the need for a Mediator, to lead to repentance, and to lead to trust in God alone through the promised Redeemer for pardon for past breaking of His law, linking minds to the blood of the Son of God and keeping faith alive in hearts through ages of darkness and apostasy until the time came for the advent of the promised Messiah.
Adam's first offering made by God's direction was painful because it was the first death he had witnessed, lifting his hand to take life which God alone can give and watching the bleeding victim writhe in the agonies of death. Looking through it to its Antitype, he saw his own hand shedding the blood of the Son of God. The ceremonial offering ordained as a perpetual reminder of guilt and a penitential acknowledgment of sin gave a deeper and more perfect sense of transgression by showing that nothing less than the death of God's dear Son could expiate it. It revealed infinite goodness and matchless love in giving such a ransom to save the guilty, and in the offerings pointing to the great and perfect offering of God's dear Son there was found a star of hope to illuminate the dark and terrible future and relieve its utter hopelessness and ruin, for steadfast obedience to God's holy law would have left no death of beast or man.
Because they pointed to Christ the ceremonies were sanctified and hallowed the temple, and they require holy regard and sacred reverence. The bleeding victim on the altar of sacrifice testified of a Redeemer to come, the cloud of incense ascending with the prayers of Israel represents His righteousness that alone can make the sinner's prayer acceptable to God, and from the holy of holies the visible token of the divine presence shone forth. To intrude upon them presumptuously or hold them lightly shows want of a high sense of the excellence and terrible majesty of God and leads to a low estimate of Christ's offering, yet even after the ceremonial law was no longer to be observed it remains glorious and worthy of its divine Originator, showing its place in the plan of redemption and its relation to the work of Christ.
Type Meets Antitype at Calvary
When Christ died as the Lamb of God for the sins of the world, type met antitype and the sacrificial types reached their great fulfillment. Those offerings had foreshadowed Christ's one offering of his own life and pointed forward by faith to his death, and at his death they became valueless, lost their purpose, and were to cease. No word from God becomes void but stands until prophecy becomes history, yet God who once specified the Hebrew manner of worship authorized a change in its specifications. Christ himself had originated the system as the angel who went before Moses and guided Israel in the wilderness, giving Moses the ceremonies and ordinances, and as a Jew he observed what was binding to the hour of his death upon the cross in strict accordance with both moral and ceremonial law, with teachings and works that did not supplant the law or lessen its claims.
At his crucifixion in A.D. 31 the infinite sacrifice met what the innocent victims had symbolized and pointed to, and the symbols met their fulfillment as the perfect and final sacrifice for sin. The temple veil tore at his crucifixion signifying that the sacrificial system had ended, and the temple and its services with their priesthood representing his mediatorial work became of no more use because type had met antitype in the Lamb voluntarily offering his life to take away the sins of the world. The glorious edifice built at immense cost was to be destroyed from its foundation with not one massive stone left upon another, a ruin the disciples did not comprehend until after all had been accomplished at the crucifixion. Though his blood would soon be shed for the sins of the world, the priests and elders would value it no more than the animal blood they kept pouring out. His death opened a new and living way for both Jews and Gentiles, and he thereafter serves as Priest and Advocate in heaven.
What was abolished and ceased at Christ's death was the ceremonial law of sacrifices and offerings and the laws regulating Jewish sacrifices, including the typical sacrifices and the daily offerings at the tabernacle that pointed to Christ the Lamb of God. Their ending did not mean the Ten Commandments ended, did not repeal or relax the original law engraved in tables of stone, did not destroy the law or set men free from it or lessen the obligation to perfect obedience, but honored the commandments and upheld obedience to them. That moral law stands immutable and holds its claims upon man in all ages, and its ending makes plain its immutable character, magnifies it and makes it honorable. The law and the gospel work in harmony, with the law pointing to the gospel and the gospel revealing Christ in the offerings and reflecting the law's glory, whose sacrifice saves people from sin and not in sin and leads them to loyalty to God's law, opening a way by which humanity united by living faith to Christ's divinity can obey all God's commandments. In the Christian age with salvation through Christ alone more fully brought to light, human duty is not limited but more especially defined and simply expressed, more fully carried out and more extended, requiring greater provisions to sustain the warfare since the death of Christ and greater gifts and offerings in proportion to light and blessings enjoyed.
Therefore Christianity need not connect itself with Jewish laws and ceremonies, for Christ's teaching and work make those Jewish sacrificial offerings of no effect. Once Christ the reality to which the Jewish rites pointed was offered as the one effective offering for the sins of the world, those rites no longer had spiritual force. To continue them after the reality came would dishonor God.
Christ's Sufficient Sacrifice
What animal blood could never do, Christ did as the one complete, perfect, final offering the sacrifices prefigured. He is the Lamb of God and Lamb without blemish, sinless and infinitely valuable, whose one offering of His own body and life on Calvary was freely given while bearing the sin of the world and the curse of the law. That better and priceless sacrifice was for the sins of the whole world, accomplishing what repeated animal offerings kept before the people but could never perform.
His blood alone ratifies the new covenant and brings peace and pardon to breakers of God's law. By that better sacrifice His followers are purchased and consecrated to service. Through faith in Him as the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world, people may have eternal life, for His sacrifice saves from sin and not in sin and leads to loyalty to God.
Through His sacrifice the way back to God that Adam's transgression had closed is opened again as a new and living way for both Jews and Gentiles. All the sacrifices centered in Him, and when the Lamb of God died for the sins of the world He became Priest and Advocate in heaven. He is the Mediator in the heavenly sanctuary, and forgiveness and help come through His intercession in the Most Holy Place, restoring the access to God that sin had separated and opening it anew to guilty sinners.
His sacrifice vindicated God's justice and upheld the unchanging character and honor of God's law, meeting its claims while making a way of escape from its penalty so that blessing and salvation are possible. The death due to human sin, taught by the death of the substitute victim, required nothing less than this atonement, for only the Son of God could uphold the law's honor. He came expressly to vindicate the Father's law and to fulfill all prophecies, standing as Author, Finisher, and foundation of the religion of God's people from Adam's day.
Faith Repentance and Obedience
Forgiveness for sins that cling like foul leprosy comes through faith alone in the cleansing blood of Jesus. Believers of old looked forward through the offerings to Christ and trusted in him, for the sacrifices and priesthood had meaning and virtue only as symbols pointing to his death and mediatorial work. The blood of animals had no power in itself to remove sin but was appointed to link minds to the blood of the Son of God, to keep before people the separation sin caused between God and humanity and the need for a Mediator, and to open again through Christ the way back to God that transgression had closed. Offering the sacrifice showed acknowledgment of guilt and faith looking forward to the great and perfect sacrifice, and sinners now united by living faith to his divinity have access to God only through a Mediator. Adam's first offering taught the same, painful as the first death he witnessed in taking life only God can give and watching the bleeding victim writhe, while seeing through it to its Antitype and his own hand shedding the blood of the Son of God, revealing that nothing less than the death of God's dear Son could expiate sin and revealing infinite goodness and matchless love in such a ransom as a star of hope relieving utter hopelessness.
The ritual service had spiritual meaning only as it pointed to Christ, and to rely on its sacrifices and ordinances themselves is to cling to outward forms instead of the One they signify. Israel had centered religion in the ceremonies and made outward forms all-important while losing the spirit of true worship, performing the rites without looking beyond the shadow to Christ as the substance and True Offering. Their services were corrupted with heathen traditions and practices, enjoined without proper instruction as to their import, perverted and misunderstood by priests and rulers with no link binding them to God, so that spiritual worship was fast disappearing. Even abundant sacrifices of beasts cannot supply the place of true sorrow for sin and obedience to God. A broken heart and contrite spirit is of far more value than multitudes of offerings without true repentance, and animal offerings without humble repentance and obedience are heartless service corrupted for gain that does not honor God.
The guilt fastened upon Jerusalem by rejecting present mercies and warnings could not be washed away by animal blood, though sacrificial blood had flowed continuously for centuries symbolizing the great atonement to be offered for salvation. The proud, self-righteous generation that separated farther and farther from heaven was left in guilt that those sacrifices could not remove. Many did not recognize Christ when he stood among worshipers unrecognized and unhonored as the One symbolized by all their service, the one those sacrifices had prefigured. They rejected and killed the Messiah those offerings represented while expecting only a triumphant temporal prince to break the Roman yoke, closing their eyes to prophecies that he must die in humiliation and sorrow, and priests and elders valued his soon-shed blood for the sins of the world no more than the animal blood they kept pouring out. They continued useless sacrifices and offerings after fulfillment had come because they did not know the infinite sacrifice had been offered, with prayers directed where Jesus was no longer ministering since forgiveness and help come through his intercession in the Most Holy Place.
God brought the people into Babylonian captivity with the temple destroyed and its service suspended so outward ceremonies would not become the sum-total of religion. He did so that principles and practices would be purged from heathen traditions corrupting worship, that heart service would be revived when ritual service ceased, and that the spiritual would be revealed when outward glory was removed. The lessons of the sacrifices are still essential and are to be kept often before children to lay a foundation for prosperous households. With salvation through Christ alone more fully brought to light, duty is not limited but more especially defined and simply expressed, more fully carried out and more extended, with law and gospel working in harmony as the gospel reveals Christ in the offerings and reflects the law's glory, saving from sin and leading to loyalty rather than leaving men in sin. The ending of sacrifices does not destroy the law or lessen obligation to perfect obedience but magnifies it and makes it honorable, so the lessons of practical obedience from the Mount of Blessing and the distinction between sacred and common remain binding, and greater light and blessing require greater provisions, gifts, and offerings to sustain the warfare.
It is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats in itself to take away sins, remove guilt, cleanse, or provide forgiveness. An animal's life is of less value than the life of the offending sinner and cannot ransom him or satisfy the demands of God's perfect law, which only the divine Son next in authority to the Lawgiver could fully satisfy. The sacrifices, priesthood, and sanctuary service were symbols, types, and shadows pointing forward by faith to Christ as the Lamb of God, and they had meaning, virtue, and acceptance only as they pointed to Him and His great atonement. When Christ died as the Lamb of God for the sins of the world, type met antitype and fulfillment, so the ceremonial law of sacrifices and offerings was to cease while the original moral law engraved in stone stands immutable and still binds. Christ is the one complete, perfect, and infinitely valuable offering whose blood alone brings pardon and eternal life, received through faith alone in Him as Mediator, with true sorrow for sin and obedience worth far more than multitudes of offerings without repentance.
What Animal Blood Cannot Do
The blood of bulls and of goats has in itself no power to take away sins, to remove sin, to wash away guilt, to cleanse, or to provide forgiveness. The offerings were symbols, figures and types pointing to Christ as the Lamb of God, and they had meaning, virtue, acceptance and value only in that pointing, for forgiveness of sins that cling like foul leprosy comes through faith alone in the cleansing blood of Jesus. Their repeated offerings kept the reality of sin, guilt and separation continually before the people, though many lost sight of their meaning, while Christ's own blood ratifies the new covenant and his one offering of his body accomplishes what they could not. When type met its fulfillment at his death the animal offerings became valueless and the ceremonial sacrifices were to cease, with all the sacrifices centering in him as Mediator in the heavenly sanctuary whose atoning sacrifice brings peace and pardon to breakers of God's law.
By themselves the sacrifices could not secure salvation, make the worshipers perfect, free them from sin, or retain any moral efficacy or power to atone after Christ came. They had meaning and virtue only as symbols pointing to Christ and his death and mediatorial work, keeping before fallen people the separation sin caused between God and humanity and the need for a Mediator, and through them people of faith looked forward to Christ, believed in him and trusted in him. He alone as the perfect and infinitely valuable offering could meet the demands of God's law and open again the way back to God that Adam's transgression had closed. Continued after the reality came they were useless and could not take away sins, yet the unbelieving continued to perform them while looking forward to a Messiah who had already come, led to believe Christ was an impostor, choosing their own standard of virtue and purity and refusing to be taught, even leading to death the One those sacrifices had prefigured and illustrated.
Their constant repetition proves this inability, for blood flowed continuously for centuries and could not make worshipers perfect. Rivers of blood flowed at the harvest thanksgiving when sacrifices were offered in such large numbers, meant to teach that the offering of beasts did not cleanse away sin but was a symbol of the great and complete sacrifice to be made for the sins of the whole world, to which even the productions of the earth and bounties for man's sustenance are owed. The temple offerings continued after Christ's death because the worshipers did not know that the sacrifices had reached their fulfillment in him, yet they could not accomplish what his infinite sacrifice for the sin of the world did. The blood of bulls and goats offered for hundreds of years foreshadowed in itself nothing but the death of Christ as Antitype, who had to die in humiliation and sorrow, a truth too humbling for priests and rulers who wanted only a triumphant Messiah to break the Roman yoke and reign as a temporal prince, so they closed their eyes to the prophecies of his suffering and death.
Why It Cannot Atone
The blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sins because an animal's life is of less value than the life of the offending sinner and therefore cannot serve as the sinner's ransom or satisfy the demands of God's perfect law. The slain substitutes represented the death due to human sin, but their deaths had no power in themselves to remove sin and were acceptable only as figures pointing forward by faith to the perfect offering they represented. Only the divine Son, next in authority to the Lawgiver, in the express image of the Father in perfection of character and exalted as commander of the heavenly host, possessed a life of sufficient value to fully satisfy the claims of God's perfect law and rescue fallen humanity from its fallen condition. Fallen man as an imperfect offering could not atone for man, and even sinless angels could not atone as created probationers of less value than the law.
The whole system of animal offerings was added after Adam's fall because God's law had been broken. Without transgression there would have been no death of beast or man and no need for added requirements to meet people in their fallen condition. Its work was to keep continually before fallen people the truth the serpent led Eve to doubt, that disobedience brings death, to teach humility in view of the fallen condition, to lead to repentance and to acknowledgment of guilt, and to lead to trust in God alone through the promised Redeemer for pardon for past breaking of His law. It was appointed to link the minds of sinners with the blood of the Son of God, looking forward by faith to the great and perfect sacrifice to come.
Breaking God's law brings death and separated God and humanity, ending the direct, free, happy communion Adam had in innocency, so that God now communicates to man through Christ and angels. Only the atonement of the Son of God upholds the honor of God's law while making a way of escape from its penalty possible, and only that atonement makes blessing and salvation possible. Broken law made the death of Christ as a sacrifice necessary, revealing that nothing less than the death of God's dear Son could expiate transgression and vindicate God's law.
Sacrifices as Symbols of Christ
The sacrifices with the priesthood, the sanctuary service, and the daily temple offerings were symbols and figures and types and shadows and prophecy in type, pointing forward by faith to Christ as the Lamb of God, the true substance and foundation and Antitype, centering in His death and atoning sacrifice and mediatorial work. Their repeated offering kept this truth before the people, though many lost sight of its meaning, for they could not make worshipers perfect or free them from sin but served as a reminder of the sacrifice to come. Christ Himself originated and founded and instituted and gave the Jewish sacrificial system with its ceremonies and ordinances. As the angel who went before Moses and guided Israel in the wilderness He gave Moses those ceremonies and ordinances, and as a Jew He observed what was binding upon the Jews to the hour of His death upon the cross, with His teachings and work in strict accordance with both the moral and the ceremonial law.
The offerings had meaning and virtue and acceptance and value only as they pointed to Christ and illustrated His great atonement. Apart from Him and after rejecting Him they were useless and valueless, and when the type met its fulfillment at His death their value ended. They were appointed to keep continually before fallen people the reality of sin and guilt and the separation sin caused between God and humanity, and the truth that disobedience brings death. Their work was to teach humility in view of the fallen condition, to bring acknowledgment of guilt and the need for a Mediator, to lead to repentance, and to lead to trust in God alone through the promised Redeemer for pardon for past breaking of His law, linking minds to the blood of the Son of God and keeping faith alive in hearts through ages of darkness and apostasy until the time came for the advent of the promised Messiah.
Adam's first offering made by God's direction was painful because it was the first death he had witnessed, lifting his hand to take life which God alone can give and watching the bleeding victim writhe in the agonies of death. Looking through it to its Antitype, he saw his own hand shedding the blood of the Son of God. The ceremonial offering ordained as a perpetual reminder of guilt and a penitential acknowledgment of sin gave a deeper and more perfect sense of transgression by showing that nothing less than the death of God's dear Son could expiate it. It revealed infinite goodness and matchless love in giving such a ransom to save the guilty, and in the offerings pointing to the great and perfect offering of God's dear Son there was found a star of hope to illuminate the dark and terrible future and relieve its utter hopelessness and ruin, for steadfast obedience to God's holy law would have left no death of beast or man.
Because they pointed to Christ the ceremonies were sanctified and hallowed the temple, and they require holy regard and sacred reverence. The bleeding victim on the altar of sacrifice testified of a Redeemer to come, the cloud of incense ascending with the prayers of Israel represents His righteousness that alone can make the sinner's prayer acceptable to God, and from the holy of holies the visible token of the divine presence shone forth. To intrude upon them presumptuously or hold them lightly shows want of a high sense of the excellence and terrible majesty of God and leads to a low estimate of Christ's offering, yet even after the ceremonial law was no longer to be observed it remains glorious and worthy of its divine Originator, showing its place in the plan of redemption and its relation to the work of Christ.
Type Meets Antitype at Calvary
When Christ died as the Lamb of God for the sins of the world, type met antitype and the sacrificial types reached their great fulfillment. Those offerings had foreshadowed Christ's one offering of his own life and pointed forward by faith to his death, and at his death they became valueless, lost their purpose, and were to cease. No word from God becomes void but stands until prophecy becomes history, yet God who once specified the Hebrew manner of worship authorized a change in its specifications. Christ himself had originated the system as the angel who went before Moses and guided Israel in the wilderness, giving Moses the ceremonies and ordinances, and as a Jew he observed what was binding to the hour of his death upon the cross in strict accordance with both moral and ceremonial law, with teachings and works that did not supplant the law or lessen its claims.
At his crucifixion in A.D. 31 the infinite sacrifice met what the innocent victims had symbolized and pointed to, and the symbols met their fulfillment as the perfect and final sacrifice for sin. The temple veil tore at his crucifixion signifying that the sacrificial system had ended, and the temple and its services with their priesthood representing his mediatorial work became of no more use because type had met antitype in the Lamb voluntarily offering his life to take away the sins of the world. The glorious edifice built at immense cost was to be destroyed from its foundation with not one massive stone left upon another, a ruin the disciples did not comprehend until after all had been accomplished at the crucifixion. Though his blood would soon be shed for the sins of the world, the priests and elders would value it no more than the animal blood they kept pouring out. His death opened a new and living way for both Jews and Gentiles, and he thereafter serves as Priest and Advocate in heaven.
What was abolished and ceased at Christ's death was the ceremonial law of sacrifices and offerings and the laws regulating Jewish sacrifices, including the typical sacrifices and the daily offerings at the tabernacle that pointed to Christ the Lamb of God. Their ending did not mean the Ten Commandments ended, did not repeal or relax the original law engraved in tables of stone, did not destroy the law or set men free from it or lessen the obligation to perfect obedience, but honored the commandments and upheld obedience to them. That moral law stands immutable and holds its claims upon man in all ages, and its ending makes plain its immutable character, magnifies it and makes it honorable. The law and the gospel work in harmony, with the law pointing to the gospel and the gospel revealing Christ in the offerings and reflecting the law's glory, whose sacrifice saves people from sin and not in sin and leads them to loyalty to God's law, opening a way by which humanity united by living faith to Christ's divinity can obey all God's commandments. In the Christian age with salvation through Christ alone more fully brought to light, human duty is not limited but more especially defined and simply expressed, more fully carried out and more extended, requiring greater provisions to sustain the warfare since the death of Christ and greater gifts and offerings in proportion to light and blessings enjoyed.
Therefore Christianity need not connect itself with Jewish laws and ceremonies, for Christ's teaching and work make those Jewish sacrificial offerings of no effect. Once Christ the reality to which the Jewish rites pointed was offered as the one effective offering for the sins of the world, those rites no longer had spiritual force. To continue them after the reality came would dishonor God.
Christ's Sufficient Sacrifice
What animal blood could never do, Christ did as the one complete, perfect, final offering the sacrifices prefigured. He is the Lamb of God and Lamb without blemish, sinless and infinitely valuable, whose one offering of His own body and life on Calvary was freely given while bearing the sin of the world and the curse of the law. That better and priceless sacrifice was for the sins of the whole world, accomplishing what repeated animal offerings kept before the people but could never perform.
His blood alone ratifies the new covenant and brings peace and pardon to breakers of God's law. By that better sacrifice His followers are purchased and consecrated to service. Through faith in Him as the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world, people may have eternal life, for His sacrifice saves from sin and not in sin and leads to loyalty to God.
Through His sacrifice the way back to God that Adam's transgression had closed is opened again as a new and living way for both Jews and Gentiles. All the sacrifices centered in Him, and when the Lamb of God died for the sins of the world He became Priest and Advocate in heaven. He is the Mediator in the heavenly sanctuary, and forgiveness and help come through His intercession in the Most Holy Place, restoring the access to God that sin had separated and opening it anew to guilty sinners.
His sacrifice vindicated God's justice and upheld the unchanging character and honor of God's law, meeting its claims while making a way of escape from its penalty so that blessing and salvation are possible. The death due to human sin, taught by the death of the substitute victim, required nothing less than this atonement, for only the Son of God could uphold the law's honor. He came expressly to vindicate the Father's law and to fulfill all prophecies, standing as Author, Finisher, and foundation of the religion of God's people from Adam's day.
Faith Repentance and Obedience
Forgiveness for sins that cling like foul leprosy comes through faith alone in the cleansing blood of Jesus. Believers of old looked forward through the offerings to Christ and trusted in him, for the sacrifices and priesthood had meaning and virtue only as symbols pointing to his death and mediatorial work. The blood of animals had no power in itself to remove sin but was appointed to link minds to the blood of the Son of God, to keep before people the separation sin caused between God and humanity and the need for a Mediator, and to open again through Christ the way back to God that transgression had closed. Offering the sacrifice showed acknowledgment of guilt and faith looking forward to the great and perfect sacrifice, and sinners now united by living faith to his divinity have access to God only through a Mediator. Adam's first offering taught the same, painful as the first death he witnessed in taking life only God can give and watching the bleeding victim writhe, while seeing through it to its Antitype and his own hand shedding the blood of the Son of God, revealing that nothing less than the death of God's dear Son could expiate sin and revealing infinite goodness and matchless love in such a ransom as a star of hope relieving utter hopelessness.
The ritual service had spiritual meaning only as it pointed to Christ, and to rely on its sacrifices and ordinances themselves is to cling to outward forms instead of the One they signify. Israel had centered religion in the ceremonies and made outward forms all-important while losing the spirit of true worship, performing the rites without looking beyond the shadow to Christ as the substance and True Offering. Their services were corrupted with heathen traditions and practices, enjoined without proper instruction as to their import, perverted and misunderstood by priests and rulers with no link binding them to God, so that spiritual worship was fast disappearing. Even abundant sacrifices of beasts cannot supply the place of true sorrow for sin and obedience to God. A broken heart and contrite spirit is of far more value than multitudes of offerings without true repentance, and animal offerings without humble repentance and obedience are heartless service corrupted for gain that does not honor God.
The guilt fastened upon Jerusalem by rejecting present mercies and warnings could not be washed away by animal blood, though sacrificial blood had flowed continuously for centuries symbolizing the great atonement to be offered for salvation. The proud, self-righteous generation that separated farther and farther from heaven was left in guilt that those sacrifices could not remove. Many did not recognize Christ when he stood among worshipers unrecognized and unhonored as the One symbolized by all their service, the one those sacrifices had prefigured. They rejected and killed the Messiah those offerings represented while expecting only a triumphant temporal prince to break the Roman yoke, closing their eyes to prophecies that he must die in humiliation and sorrow, and priests and elders valued his soon-shed blood for the sins of the world no more than the animal blood they kept pouring out. They continued useless sacrifices and offerings after fulfillment had come because they did not know the infinite sacrifice had been offered, with prayers directed where Jesus was no longer ministering since forgiveness and help come through his intercession in the Most Holy Place.
God brought the people into Babylonian captivity with the temple destroyed and its service suspended so outward ceremonies would not become the sum-total of religion. He did so that principles and practices would be purged from heathen traditions corrupting worship, that heart service would be revived when ritual service ceased, and that the spiritual would be revealed when outward glory was removed. The lessons of the sacrifices are still essential and are to be kept often before children to lay a foundation for prosperous households. With salvation through Christ alone more fully brought to light, duty is not limited but more especially defined and simply expressed, more fully carried out and more extended, with law and gospel working in harmony as the gospel reveals Christ in the offerings and reflects the law's glory, saving from sin and leading to loyalty rather than leaving men in sin. The ending of sacrifices does not destroy the law or lessen obligation to perfect obedience but magnifies it and makes it honorable, so the lessons of practical obedience from the Mount of Blessing and the distinction between sacred and common remain binding, and greater light and blessing require greater provisions, gifts, and offerings to sustain the warfare.