Sacrifice of Christ
"The blood of Jesus Christ... cleanseth us from all sin" (1Jo 1:7).
"Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (Joh
1:29).
The idea of sacrifice is found throughout the Bible from its
beginning to its end. God clothed Adam and Eve to cover their nakedness with
coats of skins (Gen 3:21). This indicates animal sacrifice. In the Book of
Revelation, the saints sing their grateful thanks for the sacrifice of Christ:
"for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every
kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation" (Rev 5:9). In the Letter to the
Hebrews we are told that the sacrifices offered before Christ came were
foreshadowings of his perfect sacrifice. Those sacrifices were "a figure for the
time then present"; "the patterns of things in the heavens"; "a shadow of good
things to come" (Heb 9:9,23; 10:1).
All the acceptable sacrifices offered both before and during
the time of the Mosaic (Old) Covenant pointed forwards to the Lord Jesus
Christ's offering.
The reason for sacrifice
The simple principle stated in Heb 9:22, "without shedding of
blood is no remission", tells us why sacrifice is necessary. Man has sinned, and
the forfeiting of life shows man what sin deserves. In Lev 17:11, amply
confirmed by biological science, we are told that "the life of the flesh is in
the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for
your souls".
What was special about the shedding of the blood of Christ and
the offering of his body? Two passages of Scripture answer this
question:
"for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely
by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set
forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare His
righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance
of God; to declare, I say, at this time His righteousness: that He might be
just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus" (Rom 3:23-26);
"For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God
sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin
in the flesh" (Rom 8:3).
The first passage brings to the fore the fact that Christ's
sacrifice declared the righteousness of God. This is repeated to underline its
importance, along with the other feature, the grace and
forbearance of God. The second passage tells us that Jesus
"condemned sin in the flesh", something that the sacrifices under the Law, and
at other times, could not do.
These passages help us to understand how God could reconcile
sinful man to Himself without jettisoning His principles of righteousness and
justice. God was able to raise Jesus from the dead because he did no sin. He did
not earn sin's wages, but only inherited the sin and death principle by his
descent from Adam. Biological science again confirms that death is programmed
into our human DNA.
Consider the Scriptures:
- "For He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew
no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him" (2Co
5:21)
- "The book of the generation of Jesus
Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham" (Mat
1:1)
- "Forasmuch then as the children are
partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same;
that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is,
the devil" (Heb 2:14)
- "But we see Jesus, who was
made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with
glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man"
(v 9)
- "Who in the days of his flesh, when he had
offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him That
was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared..." (Heb
5:7)
- "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into
the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have
sinned..." (Rom 5:12).
God's righteousness upheld in Jesus' life
For the sacrifice of
Christ to be acceptable, Jesus had to live a sinless life. This was shown, for
example, in the following:
- His baptism "to fulfil all righteousness" (Mat
3:13-17)
- His temptation, in which he repudiated
the suggestions that appealed to the flesh (Luk
4:1-13)
- His rejection of Peter's suggestion that
he should not go up to Jerusalem and be killed (Mat
16:21-23)
- His anguish as he contemplated his
"baptism" or approaching death (Luk 12:50)
- His
reply to the young ruler, in which he repulsed the suggestion that there was any
good in the flesh and instead directed attention to his Father alone as the
source of all good (Mat 19:16,17).
God's righteousness upheld in Jesus' perfect
sacrifice
"God's method for the return of sinful man required the putting to death of
man's condemned and evil nature in a representative man of spotless character
whom He would provide, to declare and uphold His righteousness, as the first
condition of restoration, that He might be just while justifying the unjust, who
should believingly approach Him in humility, repentance and confession (Rom
3:24-6; 8:3; Heb 2:14-15; Rom 5:21)".
This statement (by Robert Roberts) is an excellent summary,
and explains also why other sacrifices would be in vain. In the case of
unblemished animals, physical perfection was a shadowy way of pointing to the
sinlessness required in the 'substance' to come. In fact animals have nothing to
do with man's weakness and sin, cannot be tempted as we are, and so cannot take
away sin. Hence Jesus' sacrifice pleased God more than the sacrifice of oxen
(Heb 9:12-14; 10:4-9; Psa 40:6-8; Isa 53:10; Psa 69:31). Angels cannot die so
cannot be sacrificed.
Though sinless, they could never satisfy God's righteousness
for the redemption of men because they could never represent man (Heb 2:9;
10:14-17). Finally, the death of a mere man would in itself demonstrate and
uphold God's law of sin and death, but resurrection could not follow, and this
was envisaged by God for the Saviour of men.
The sacrifice of Christ brings before us the great love of
God, which was the motive that initiated His plan of redemption. It brings us
also to the great love of Christ for his disciples, without which his sacrifice
would not have been possible. Father and Son together, like Abraham and Isaac
2,000 years previously, walked to Calvary in an act of boundless mercy and love,
to bring about reconciliation and forgiveness. The joy of the resurrection that
followed was the consummation of it all, once again declaring the righteousness
of God.
