In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.
God found no delight in animal offerings and sin sacrifices as the final way to remove sin, do His will, or redeem humanity, for they were never what He ultimately desired or required. These are the words of Christ Himself, spoken from the throne of God when He came to this world as the Light to guilty men, declaring that a body had been prepared for Him to do the Father's will. Those offerings were only temporary types and shadows pointing forward to Him as the spotless Lamb and great Antitype, whose blood alone could take away sin. When type met antitype in His death on the cross, their purpose ended and their value ceased, for He voluntarily offered His own sinless life once for all to ransom the world and open access to God. His death did not abolish the Ten Commandments but honored and upheld them, while outward ceremony without repentance, obedience, and faith in Him can give no rest to the conscience.
Speaker Words and Setting
God had no pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin as the final means of removing sin, doing His will, or redeeming humanity, for they were not what He ultimately desired, required, or purposed as the answer. Offered under the law, those repeated offerings could not take away sins or make the worshipers complete, but served as a reminder of sin and kept the coming sacrifice before the people until Christ came to do God's will. The offering of His body once for all replaces those repeated sacrifices, accomplishes what they could not, and sanctifies believers. Christ came in a prepared human body according to God's design and deliberate plan with His Father, willingly offering Himself with God's law in His heart, so that His obedient life and incarnation, rather than animal sacrifices, fulfill that purpose and stand as no mere substitute for obedience.
The words are those of Christ, heard as a voice of strange and mysterious import from the throne of God in heaven nearly two thousand years ago when He came to this world. He who spoke is One surpassing all imagination and surpassing all angels, coming from heaven to earth as the Light to a guilty world. God would not have sacrifice and offering but prepared a body for Him, and Christ spoke in coming as it is written of Him in the volume of the book to do the will of God. He answered, Lo I come, I delight to do Thy will, Thy law is within My heart.
Before the foundation of the world was laid, when the plan of redemption was devised, this declaration was made in heaven by deliberate plan with His Father. God had prepared a body for Him, and He declared that He would come to do God's will, delighting to do it with God's law within His heart. His life on earth as humanity's Redeemer was thus a deliberate part of that eternal plan, with His coming in human flesh and His obedient life fulfilling what burnt offerings and sin offerings were never desired or required to fulfill.
His incarnation in that prepared human body fulfilled a purpose hidden from eternity. He veiled His divine glory in humanity so people could behold Him and live, and dwelt among them to reveal God's character and life. Placed beside His coming to do God's will, His whole course was one of living in obedience and humbling Himself to death on the cross for the penalty of sin.
Sacrifices Foreshadow Christ
The burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin were temporary ceremonies, types, symbols and sacred ordinances pointing forward to Jesus as the Lamb of God, the spotless Lamb, the great Antitype and the only fully effective offering. Their blood pointed to His blood, and their definite meaning was to keep His coming sacrifice, death and mediating work before the people. Christ Himself was the origin, foundation, author and giver of that Jewish sacrificial system, giving its ceremonies and ordinances to Moses and observing what was binding to the hour of His death. From Adam's day He is the foundation of the religion of God's chosen people.
The system was established after sin and after Adam and Eve failed their test of loyalty to teach that breaking God's law brings death. It was to teach humility about the fallen condition, to lead to repentance and trust in the promised Redeemer for pardon, and to prove and test professed faith and obedience. It was to show the separation caused by sin and the need for a mediator, and to keep faith alive until the advent of the promised Messiah. Every dying victim was a type impressed on mind and heart in solemn ceremony and explained by the priests to rivet that forgiveness comes through Christ's blood alone by faith. The sanctuary service typified grand truths through successive generations, with the bleeding victim testifying of a Redeemer to come, the cloud of incense representing His righteousness making prayer acceptable, and the token of divine presence shining from the holy of holies.
The sacrifices were glorious and worthy of their Originator and called for holy regard and reverence. Yet God gave directions for them because the people had confused their meaning and mixed them with heathen customs, and repeated offerings with cruelty in the temple obscured their meaning so people valued them little. When type met antitype at Christ's death on the cross at Calvary in A.D. 31, prophecy became history and God's word about the sacrifices did not become null but stood fulfilled. The type met its fulfillment in the death of the only begotten Son, the true and perfect offering and one great offering for the sin of the world.
At that death the sacrificial types were fulfilled, their purpose ended, and the need, force, value, acceptability and moral efficacy of animal offerings ceased. The blood of beasts became valueless, the handwriting of ordinances was blotted out and nailed to the cross. The light of the cross reaches back to reveal the true meaning and significance of the Jewish age.
Christ's Obedient Sufficient Sacrifice
God found no pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin as the means of doing His will, for they were not the purpose or final answer, and in their place Christ came in a prepared human body by deliberate plan with His Father to do God's will with God's law in His heart. His obedient life and incarnation, rather than animal sacrifices, fulfill that purpose, and His whole life of humiliation and sorrow led to His death in the manner foretold. The offerings of the Jewish nation for hundreds of years foreshadowed that death, pointing to His life and to the manner of it, though a Messiah who should die was too humbling a thought for priests and rulers to accept.
God took no pleasure in burnt offerings and sin offerings as a means of finally removing sin, for though offered under the law they could not take away sins or make worshipers complete, but served as repeated reminders of sin that kept Christ's coming sacrifice before the people. Christ came to do God's will and offered His body once for all, accomplishing what the old sacrifices could not and sanctifying believers. As a spotless living sacrifice He voluntarily gave Himself, the guiltless Son taking the sinner's place and giving His life to ransom the world, providing the sacrifice animal offerings could not provide. The sacrificial system represented His death and mediating work and kept before people the separation sin caused and their need for a mediator, pointing forward to the perfect offering that would take the place of its symbols.
Christ alone could make an offering equal to the demands of the divine law, and His voluntary sacrifice was sufficient to save. His sacrifice was the one complete offering for the sins of the world, the true and perfect offering as the Lamb of God who takes away sin, in whose crucifixion, priesthood, and ministry in the sanctuary the purpose of every sacrificial type was fulfilled. Through Him access to God was opened, and through His atoning sacrifice and mediation in the heavenly sanctuary as priest, those who break God's law can receive peace and pardon. After His death sacrificial offerings had no moral efficacy, while faith in Him who takes away the world's sin brings eternal life.
In bearing the world's sin as the substance of which He was the great antitype, He bore the law's curse and endured separation from His Father as the punishment for transgression. His sacrifice vindicated God's justice, magnified the law, and testified that it is unchangeable. By humbling Himself to man's estate and making a solemn oblation of Himself as long foretold by prophecy, He identified Himself as the subject of prophecy and the Light that lightens every man, in whom type met antitype, occupying the place the types had prefigured as the only One who could redeem the world.
Law Prophecy and Doctrine
The ending of burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin at Christ's death did not end the Ten Commandments. His death was necessary because of the law's binding claim upon transgressors. That death did not abolish God's law or lessen its claims but honored it, upheld it, vindicated it, magnified it, and declared it immutable. As the spotless living sacrifice bearing the world's sin and the law's curse and enduring separation from His Father as punishment for transgression, His sacrifice vindicated God's justice and testified that the law is unchangeable.
The temporary ceremonial observances founded by Christ are distinguished from the Decalogue and the original law engraved on tables of stone. That original law stands immutable and holds its claims upon man in all ages. The ceremonial law is glorious and worthy of its divine Originator, and even after it was no longer to be observed it keeps its true position and value in its place in the plan of redemption and its relation to the work of Christ. The burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin belonged to that temporary Jewish economy and were to pass away when type met antitype in Christ's one great offering for the sins of the world.
Christ did not come to abrogate the law given on Sinai but to enforce it and to vindicate His Father's law. What He spoke from Sinai is the foundation of the government of heaven, as enduring as eternity. Because the law of God could not be changed to meet man in his fallen condition, He clothed His divinity with humanity and came to take the sins of a fallen race, becoming sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He came to reveal truth and present God in His true character, to rescue truth from men's devices and the rubbish of error and the commandments of men and reset it in the framework of the gospel, presenting the law of God in its original dignity and purity. His sacrifice did not free people from obedience but declared the law immutable and opened the way for people to obey it. The practical obedience He taught from the Mount of Blessing remains binding, and what God has set apart as sacred must still be respected as sacred by those who have greater light than ancient Israel had. In the light of the law the sinner sees himself a sinner, dies to sin, repents of his sins, and has faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour.
Christianity does not connect itself with the Jewish laws and ceremonies. The restrictions and ceremonies of the Jewish law are not made obligatory upon Gentiles accepting the faith of Christ, for at the death of Christ type met its antitype and that which was abolished came to its end, rendering the ceremonies and sacrifices of the Jewish religion valueless. Yet the tithing system enjoined upon the Hebrews was not repealed or relaxed but was to be more fully carried out and more extended as salvation through Christ alone was more fully brought to light, requiring not less gifts but greater in the Christian age in proportion to light and blessings enjoyed. Jesus is the Author and foundation of all the religion of God's chosen people from Adam's day and the Finisher of the faith, the vindicator of the truth and the fulfiller of all prophecies. The prophecies gave sufficient evidence to unprejudiced minds that He was the Son of God and the Saviour of the world.
Empty Ritual Versus True Worship
God takes no pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin when they are offered as outward religious acts, empty ritual, and hypocritical ceremony separated from inward change, humble repentance, obedience, and a broken spirit. He rejects Pharisaical pretense and numerous ceremonies without instruction as to their import, and He is not pleased when ritual service is offered as though it could win His favor. True faith works through love and purifies the soul, while multiplying offerings without a changed heart dishonors their purpose. The ritual service without its spiritual life cannot give rest to the conscience, for the ceremonies were symbols of Christ and their sacrifices pointed people to Him. Trusting in sacrifices and ordinances instead of resting upon Christ perverts their meaning, and when offerings are perverted and misunderstood until spiritual worship is fast disappearing, no link binds priests and rulers to God. Repeated offerings with cruelty in the temple obscured their meaning so that people valued them little, and Christ's work is to establish an altogether different worship.
Israel made outward ceremony the sum and sum-total of religion and centered religion in the ceremonies of the sacrificial system, making forms and outward forms all important. They lost the spirit of true worship, corrupted the services with heathen traditions and practices, and relied on hollow formalism while resisting grace. In performing the sacrificial rites they did not look beyond the shadow to the substance and did not discern Christ as the true offering for the sins of men. God therefore brought the Babylonian captivity in the time when Daniel's prophecies were given, destroyed the Temple, suspended the Temple service, and removed the outward glory and outward representation of His presence. He did this so outward ceremony would not become the whole of religion, to purge principles and practice from heathenism, to cause ritual service to cease in order for heart service to be revived and the spiritual to be revealed. Without outward representation He still manifested Himself when they turned to Him with repentance in humiliation and distress, shining into minds and hearts and giving visions to His prophets unfolding the overthrow of oppressors, the coming of the Redeemer, and the establishment of the everlasting kingdom.
At Christ's first coming the sacrifices and offerings for sin still being performed were useless because the Messiah they awaited had already come. The daily offerings that hallowed the temple prefigured His coming and symbolized His death, yet no preparations were made to welcome Him, and He stood among the worshipers unrecognized and unhonored though He gave the directions for the offerings and understands their symbolic value. Proud Pharisees and scribes repeated long meaningless prayers in the streets for reputation, proclaiming the law and exalting traditions while spiritually blind, ignorant of the manner of His appearing, and indifferent to the advent of the Prince of Life. Satan worked with special skill to lead the Jews to believe Christ was an impostor in order to limit His power to break Satan's hold and free captives. Although the sacrifices under the law were typical of the Lamb of God, illustrated His great atonement, pointed to His life of humiliation and sorrow and the manner of His death, and gave sufficient evidence to unprejudiced minds that He was the Son of God and Saviour of the world, priests and rulers rejected a dying Messiah as too humbling to accept. They would not be taught or receive Him but chose their own standard of virtue and purity of life, turned with contempt from the antitype, led Him as a lamb to the slaughter, and by rejecting Him defeated the purpose of the symbols and made the religious services and ceremonies valueless apart from Him.
God's acceptance of the sacrifices and continued presence among Israel depended on those serving at the sanctuary maintaining holiness of heart, purity of life, reverence for God, and strict obedience. The sacrificial service also taught the people the plan of salvation and their duty, keeping faith alive in the Redeemer to come until Christ established an altogether different worship. The apostles' teaching about the risen Christ made the Jewish sacrificial ceremonies no longer effective, since burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin did not have lasting power to make sin offerings effective.
God found no delight in animal offerings and sin sacrifices as the final way to remove sin, do His will, or redeem humanity, for they were never what He ultimately desired or required. These are the words of Christ Himself, spoken from the throne of God when He came to this world as the Light to guilty men, declaring that a body had been prepared for Him to do the Father's will. Those offerings were only temporary types and shadows pointing forward to Him as the spotless Lamb and great Antitype, whose blood alone could take away sin. When type met antitype in His death on the cross, their purpose ended and their value ceased, for He voluntarily offered His own sinless life once for all to ransom the world and open access to God. His death did not abolish the Ten Commandments but honored and upheld them, while outward ceremony without repentance, obedience, and faith in Him can give no rest to the conscience.
Speaker Words and Setting
God had no pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin as the final means of removing sin, doing His will, or redeeming humanity, for they were not what He ultimately desired, required, or purposed as the answer. Offered under the law, those repeated offerings could not take away sins or make the worshipers complete, but served as a reminder of sin and kept the coming sacrifice before the people until Christ came to do God's will. The offering of His body once for all replaces those repeated sacrifices, accomplishes what they could not, and sanctifies believers. Christ came in a prepared human body according to God's design and deliberate plan with His Father, willingly offering Himself with God's law in His heart, so that His obedient life and incarnation, rather than animal sacrifices, fulfill that purpose and stand as no mere substitute for obedience.
The words are those of Christ, heard as a voice of strange and mysterious import from the throne of God in heaven nearly two thousand years ago when He came to this world. He who spoke is One surpassing all imagination and surpassing all angels, coming from heaven to earth as the Light to a guilty world. God would not have sacrifice and offering but prepared a body for Him, and Christ spoke in coming as it is written of Him in the volume of the book to do the will of God. He answered, Lo I come, I delight to do Thy will, Thy law is within My heart.
Before the foundation of the world was laid, when the plan of redemption was devised, this declaration was made in heaven by deliberate plan with His Father. God had prepared a body for Him, and He declared that He would come to do God's will, delighting to do it with God's law within His heart. His life on earth as humanity's Redeemer was thus a deliberate part of that eternal plan, with His coming in human flesh and His obedient life fulfilling what burnt offerings and sin offerings were never desired or required to fulfill.
His incarnation in that prepared human body fulfilled a purpose hidden from eternity. He veiled His divine glory in humanity so people could behold Him and live, and dwelt among them to reveal God's character and life. Placed beside His coming to do God's will, His whole course was one of living in obedience and humbling Himself to death on the cross for the penalty of sin.
Sacrifices Foreshadow Christ
The burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin were temporary ceremonies, types, symbols and sacred ordinances pointing forward to Jesus as the Lamb of God, the spotless Lamb, the great Antitype and the only fully effective offering. Their blood pointed to His blood, and their definite meaning was to keep His coming sacrifice, death and mediating work before the people. Christ Himself was the origin, foundation, author and giver of that Jewish sacrificial system, giving its ceremonies and ordinances to Moses and observing what was binding to the hour of His death. From Adam's day He is the foundation of the religion of God's chosen people.
The system was established after sin and after Adam and Eve failed their test of loyalty to teach that breaking God's law brings death. It was to teach humility about the fallen condition, to lead to repentance and trust in the promised Redeemer for pardon, and to prove and test professed faith and obedience. It was to show the separation caused by sin and the need for a mediator, and to keep faith alive until the advent of the promised Messiah. Every dying victim was a type impressed on mind and heart in solemn ceremony and explained by the priests to rivet that forgiveness comes through Christ's blood alone by faith. The sanctuary service typified grand truths through successive generations, with the bleeding victim testifying of a Redeemer to come, the cloud of incense representing His righteousness making prayer acceptable, and the token of divine presence shining from the holy of holies.
The sacrifices were glorious and worthy of their Originator and called for holy regard and reverence. Yet God gave directions for them because the people had confused their meaning and mixed them with heathen customs, and repeated offerings with cruelty in the temple obscured their meaning so people valued them little. When type met antitype at Christ's death on the cross at Calvary in A.D. 31, prophecy became history and God's word about the sacrifices did not become null but stood fulfilled. The type met its fulfillment in the death of the only begotten Son, the true and perfect offering and one great offering for the sin of the world.
At that death the sacrificial types were fulfilled, their purpose ended, and the need, force, value, acceptability and moral efficacy of animal offerings ceased. The blood of beasts became valueless, the handwriting of ordinances was blotted out and nailed to the cross. The light of the cross reaches back to reveal the true meaning and significance of the Jewish age.
Christ's Obedient Sufficient Sacrifice
God found no pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin as the means of doing His will, for they were not the purpose or final answer, and in their place Christ came in a prepared human body by deliberate plan with His Father to do God's will with God's law in His heart. His obedient life and incarnation, rather than animal sacrifices, fulfill that purpose, and His whole life of humiliation and sorrow led to His death in the manner foretold. The offerings of the Jewish nation for hundreds of years foreshadowed that death, pointing to His life and to the manner of it, though a Messiah who should die was too humbling a thought for priests and rulers to accept.
God took no pleasure in burnt offerings and sin offerings as a means of finally removing sin, for though offered under the law they could not take away sins or make worshipers complete, but served as repeated reminders of sin that kept Christ's coming sacrifice before the people. Christ came to do God's will and offered His body once for all, accomplishing what the old sacrifices could not and sanctifying believers. As a spotless living sacrifice He voluntarily gave Himself, the guiltless Son taking the sinner's place and giving His life to ransom the world, providing the sacrifice animal offerings could not provide. The sacrificial system represented His death and mediating work and kept before people the separation sin caused and their need for a mediator, pointing forward to the perfect offering that would take the place of its symbols.
Christ alone could make an offering equal to the demands of the divine law, and His voluntary sacrifice was sufficient to save. His sacrifice was the one complete offering for the sins of the world, the true and perfect offering as the Lamb of God who takes away sin, in whose crucifixion, priesthood, and ministry in the sanctuary the purpose of every sacrificial type was fulfilled. Through Him access to God was opened, and through His atoning sacrifice and mediation in the heavenly sanctuary as priest, those who break God's law can receive peace and pardon. After His death sacrificial offerings had no moral efficacy, while faith in Him who takes away the world's sin brings eternal life.
In bearing the world's sin as the substance of which He was the great antitype, He bore the law's curse and endured separation from His Father as the punishment for transgression. His sacrifice vindicated God's justice, magnified the law, and testified that it is unchangeable. By humbling Himself to man's estate and making a solemn oblation of Himself as long foretold by prophecy, He identified Himself as the subject of prophecy and the Light that lightens every man, in whom type met antitype, occupying the place the types had prefigured as the only One who could redeem the world.
Law Prophecy and Doctrine
The ending of burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin at Christ's death did not end the Ten Commandments. His death was necessary because of the law's binding claim upon transgressors. That death did not abolish God's law or lessen its claims but honored it, upheld it, vindicated it, magnified it, and declared it immutable. As the spotless living sacrifice bearing the world's sin and the law's curse and enduring separation from His Father as punishment for transgression, His sacrifice vindicated God's justice and testified that the law is unchangeable.
The temporary ceremonial observances founded by Christ are distinguished from the Decalogue and the original law engraved on tables of stone. That original law stands immutable and holds its claims upon man in all ages. The ceremonial law is glorious and worthy of its divine Originator, and even after it was no longer to be observed it keeps its true position and value in its place in the plan of redemption and its relation to the work of Christ. The burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin belonged to that temporary Jewish economy and were to pass away when type met antitype in Christ's one great offering for the sins of the world.
Christ did not come to abrogate the law given on Sinai but to enforce it and to vindicate His Father's law. What He spoke from Sinai is the foundation of the government of heaven, as enduring as eternity. Because the law of God could not be changed to meet man in his fallen condition, He clothed His divinity with humanity and came to take the sins of a fallen race, becoming sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He came to reveal truth and present God in His true character, to rescue truth from men's devices and the rubbish of error and the commandments of men and reset it in the framework of the gospel, presenting the law of God in its original dignity and purity. His sacrifice did not free people from obedience but declared the law immutable and opened the way for people to obey it. The practical obedience He taught from the Mount of Blessing remains binding, and what God has set apart as sacred must still be respected as sacred by those who have greater light than ancient Israel had. In the light of the law the sinner sees himself a sinner, dies to sin, repents of his sins, and has faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour.
Christianity does not connect itself with the Jewish laws and ceremonies. The restrictions and ceremonies of the Jewish law are not made obligatory upon Gentiles accepting the faith of Christ, for at the death of Christ type met its antitype and that which was abolished came to its end, rendering the ceremonies and sacrifices of the Jewish religion valueless. Yet the tithing system enjoined upon the Hebrews was not repealed or relaxed but was to be more fully carried out and more extended as salvation through Christ alone was more fully brought to light, requiring not less gifts but greater in the Christian age in proportion to light and blessings enjoyed. Jesus is the Author and foundation of all the religion of God's chosen people from Adam's day and the Finisher of the faith, the vindicator of the truth and the fulfiller of all prophecies. The prophecies gave sufficient evidence to unprejudiced minds that He was the Son of God and the Saviour of the world.
Empty Ritual Versus True Worship
God takes no pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin when they are offered as outward religious acts, empty ritual, and hypocritical ceremony separated from inward change, humble repentance, obedience, and a broken spirit. He rejects Pharisaical pretense and numerous ceremonies without instruction as to their import, and He is not pleased when ritual service is offered as though it could win His favor. True faith works through love and purifies the soul, while multiplying offerings without a changed heart dishonors their purpose.
The ritual service without its spiritual life cannot give rest to the conscience, for the ceremonies were symbols of Christ and their sacrifices pointed people to Him. Trusting in sacrifices and ordinances instead of resting upon Christ perverts their meaning, and when offerings are perverted and misunderstood until spiritual worship is fast disappearing, no link binds priests and rulers to God. Repeated offerings with cruelty in the temple obscured their meaning so that people valued them little, and Christ's work is to establish an altogether different worship.
Israel made outward ceremony the sum and sum-total of religion and centered religion in the ceremonies of the sacrificial system, making forms and outward forms all important. They lost the spirit of true worship, corrupted the services with heathen traditions and practices, and relied on hollow formalism while resisting grace. In performing the sacrificial rites they did not look beyond the shadow to the substance and did not discern Christ as the true offering for the sins of men.
God therefore brought the Babylonian captivity in the time when Daniel's prophecies were given, destroyed the Temple, suspended the Temple service, and removed the outward glory and outward representation of His presence. He did this so outward ceremony would not become the whole of religion, to purge principles and practice from heathenism, to cause ritual service to cease in order for heart service to be revived and the spiritual to be revealed. Without outward representation He still manifested Himself when they turned to Him with repentance in humiliation and distress, shining into minds and hearts and giving visions to His prophets unfolding the overthrow of oppressors, the coming of the Redeemer, and the establishment of the everlasting kingdom.
At Christ's first coming the sacrifices and offerings for sin still being performed were useless because the Messiah they awaited had already come. The daily offerings that hallowed the temple prefigured His coming and symbolized His death, yet no preparations were made to welcome Him, and He stood among the worshipers unrecognized and unhonored though He gave the directions for the offerings and understands their symbolic value. Proud Pharisees and scribes repeated long meaningless prayers in the streets for reputation, proclaiming the law and exalting traditions while spiritually blind, ignorant of the manner of His appearing, and indifferent to the advent of the Prince of Life.
Satan worked with special skill to lead the Jews to believe Christ was an impostor in order to limit His power to break Satan's hold and free captives. Although the sacrifices under the law were typical of the Lamb of God, illustrated His great atonement, pointed to His life of humiliation and sorrow and the manner of His death, and gave sufficient evidence to unprejudiced minds that He was the Son of God and Saviour of the world, priests and rulers rejected a dying Messiah as too humbling to accept. They would not be taught or receive Him but chose their own standard of virtue and purity of life, turned with contempt from the antitype, led Him as a lamb to the slaughter, and by rejecting Him defeated the purpose of the symbols and made the religious services and ceremonies valueless apart from Him.
God's acceptance of the sacrifices and continued presence among Israel depended on those serving at the sanctuary maintaining holiness of heart, purity of life, reverence for God, and strict obedience. The sacrificial service also taught the people the plan of salvation and their duty, keeping faith alive in the Redeemer to come until Christ established an altogether different worship. The apostles' teaching about the risen Christ made the Jewish sacrificial ceremonies no longer effective, since burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin did not have lasting power to make sin offerings effective.