The Idea Of Sacrifice makes an indelible impression on our minds. It involves our love and the deepest feelings of the human heart, and may culminate in the surrender of life itself.
The first sacrifice in the Garden of Eden shows that sacrifice is related to sin. Rejecting their hastily adopted fig-leaf aprons, God had to step in and provide a covering for Adam and Eve. An animal was sacrificed and the skin worn. This told them that the wages of sin is death, and that any atonement, any covering or forgiveness, involves a life being taken or sacrificed. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.
To offer a sacrifice, a person desiring atonement had to place his or her hands upon the head of the sacrificial victim. This action speaks loudly: It is I who deserves to die, not this poor animal. This action also reveals the abundance of God’s grace. There is a deep sense of identity with, and feeling for, the dying animal. Death is real, my death. But I can see, surely, that a butchered lamb cannot really take away my sin and save me from death. All sacrifice under the ancient Law of Moses was a just a reminder that a perfect Lamb of God would come! We might say that these offerings were the next best thing until the Christ came. It was Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, who opened the door so that we can be made righteous by identification with him.
Popular religion throws away all this Bible teaching. Unlike God, it does not treat sin seriously. It tells us that Jesus has done it all: we don’t have to do anything. But it is not that easy!
How do we walk through this door of forgiveness? By just sitting back and doing nothing? No, by making our sacrifice! Jesus Christ has offered himself and rent the veil on our behalf. Now it is up to us! We are not called upon to be dead victims, but living sacrifices (Rom. 12:1). “Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers” (I John 3:16). God is not mocked: there is no salvation for me without sacrifice, my sacrifice. We have to ensure that “our old self is crucified with him” (Rom. 6:6). That certainly is sacrifice! I have to “beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified” (I Cor. 9:27). Daily, every day, I have to take up the cross, making Jesus’ cross my own, and that certainly is sacrifice (Luke 9:23). We tend to like big events, we like drama. But it is in the smallest events of daily life that our sacrifices are most evident.
You will recall the wonderful story Jesus told about a priest and a Levite. Why did they both avoid the man in distress? Because they believed that they were saved already by their busy religious life, without making any sacrifices for anybody! How self-deceived they were! They saw only their religious duties. The Good Samaritan (Jesus) saw a need.
Only when we learn to sacrifice do we glorify God. God’s will becomes our will, so that in time response to need becomes a part of our make-up. Our mind is “renewed” (Rom. 12:2). It is by our sacrifices that we follow Jesus, and we will hopefully pass through three phases. We will look like him, then act like him and finally be like him.
“We shall be like him”. 0 how rich the promise;
What greater could our Father’s love prepare?
His love shall keep our hearts in patient waiting
Till we in glorious beauty see his face.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One