Sacrifice

Jesus is the final sacrifice for all mankind. No one will ever be, can ever be, and need ever be a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing. Ever; or the day after that. Selah, or in today’s language, meditate on that for a while.

The book of Hebrews tells us that after providing his blood as an offering in the heavenly temple that sanctified the world, the entire population of mankind, everyone from there to eternity, he sat down at the right hand of the Father waiting for death, his enemy, to be made his footstool. He came as us into this world, lived as us in this world, died on a cross as us in this world, was buried as us in this world, rose into heaven as us into his world because as he, is so are we in this, and their, world. He sits for one simple reason: It is finished.

So let’s consider the propensity of church goers to feel compelled to sacrifice their time, resources, or bodies. I know I’m treading on sacred ground here but before you get all tied up in a doctrinal knot let’s take a brief moment to just reflect on why they’re doing it. I think the first thing that we need to take off of the table in this matter is the bible. No we’re not going to read a passage from it; we’re going to remove it as a reason for doing it.

2,000 years ago the best, single and only acceptable offering/sacrifice was made. The bible records a whole variety of prior offerings and sacrifices which were simply shadows of that one event which was to come and then finally arrived. Saying that church folk continue to present sacrifices because the bible tells them to do so, confirms an inability to properly divide the word. They have obviously missed the many references claiming that God no longer wants or approves sacrifices. What? You question the accuracy of such claim. See Isa 1:11-13; Jer 7:22-23; Hos 6:6; Matt 9:13, 12:7

If Jesus was and is the final sacrifice, why would God require any additional? Do you think he forgot what the sacrifice meant from the Old Testament? Is it possible that he needs reminding of what Jesus did? Could God be as mean as some people think and secretly enjoys killing people and animals?

So what is behind the need of the pulpit to insist that sacrifices are our reasonable service as a backhanded reference to Roman 12:1?