The Daily Word

 

Right after Adam and Eve were ejected from the garden of Eden, in fact even before that exile, an animal was sacrificed to provide a physical covering/clothing for Adam and Eve. It was significant, in that the sacrifice of an animal then became a spiritual covering for sin and this custom must have been passed on to Cain and Abel and the patriarchs until the Law was given when formal provisions were laid down by God for physical sacrifices to be made.

The principle of a sacrifice is that it should cost the person who makes it or offers it, something. Like many ordinances, the offering of a sacrifice gradually lost its meaning to most of the Jews. It became a meaningless act and the heart repentance that was supposed to accompany it, disappeared. But whether the person who offered it recognised its significance or not, it still only acted as a covering for sin, a temporary solution until Jesus Christ, God’s Son made the one final sacrifice of His own life to provide forgiveness and the removal of sin’s penalty, forever. Not a covering but an elimination!

From then on, God no longer requires animals to be sacrificed but the state of heart of the person approaching God becomes the key and the spiritual sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to God became the new Order. This is why we gather on Sunday mornings around the Lord’s Table, to remember and to offer that same sacrifice. It won’t cost us like in the Old Testament, because Jesus has paid the price once and for all. But, the offering of praise and worship and thanksgiving to God is our privilege and also our responsibility and that comes from a true recognition of what God has done for us and how we have been spiritually transformed. If we can’t offer that sort of sacrifice this morning, then we are worse than the Jews God condemned in the Old Testament for despising the Law and the provisions God had made.

Article written by Brian Preston, Elder @SFGH Church