Today I will discuss the second area of the overall atoning work of Christ which is sacrifice. The Scripture speak of the atoning sacrifice of Christ in a number of places. Ephesians 5:2 says, And walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. Hebrews 7:26-27 says, For it is fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens, who does not need daily, like those high priests (Old Testament Aaronic priests), to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. And Hebrews 10:11-14 states, Every (Old Testament) priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God.

The death of Christ as a sacrifice for sins was the fulfillment of the Scriptures. His sacrifice was the one true, real and effectual sacrifice of which all of the Old Testament sacrifices were types, shadows, pictures and symbols. The very first place sacrifice for sin was instituted by God was in the Garden of Eden. We are told in Genesis 3:27 that immediately after Adam and Eve sinned, the Lord sacrificed animals, shedding their blood, and made their skins for a covering for Adam and Eve. This covering symbolized atonement for sin.  The Hebrew word for “atonement,” which is kippur, literally means “cover.” Every sacrifice in the Old Testament was a type or a prophetic illustration of the death of Christ. The Old Testament gave many prophetic pictures of the sacrifice of Christ, such as the offering of Isaac by Abraham in Genesis 22, the different kinds of Levitical sacrifices in Leviticus 1-7, and the sacrifice for the sins of the people on Day of Atonement, which is Hebrew is Yom Kippur in Leviticus 16.

This area of Christ’s work of atonement as a sacrifice for sins accomplished the expiation of our sins, which is the removal or cleansing of the guilt of our sin. Expiation has to do with our standing before God and His law and specifically the guilt of our sin before God because we have transgressed His law. It is because we will in an age of lawlessness that people do not believe that atonement for sin is necessary. The lawlessness of the age is fundamentally related to a corrupt view of God’s nature which believes that, because “God is love,” He simply overlooks and forgives sin and does not require the just penalty of sin. The Bible teaches, however, that the justice of God requires that the violation of His Law of God be punished.  Through the sacrifice of Christ, our sin is expiated. Because of this, our guilt is cleansed and removed and we are no longer liable to be punished for our sins of transgressing God’s law.

In this regard, the nature of Christ’s sacrifice is substitutionary, which means that Christ died in our place.  The substitutionary nature of Christ’s death was made known in the sacrifices of the Old Testament. A basic understanding of the offering of sacrifices for sin was that the sacrificial offering represented the one making the sacrifice and was thereby a substitute. This was most clearly demonstrated on the Day of Atonement On this day two goats were used. One was killed by the violent death of shedding its blood. Leviticus 16:20,22 states, When he finishes atoning for the holy place and the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall offer the live goat…The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a solitary land; and he shall release the goat in the wilderness. The other goat was the scapegoat. The High Priest, representing the people of God, laid his hands on the goat and confessed the sin of Israel symbolizing the transfer of sin to the substitute. The goat was then sent away into the desert symbolizing that the sin had been taken away.

There are two fundamental principles that are basic to the concept of sacrifice for atonement for sins:

(1) Justice – The just penalty for sin is death. The Bible says, The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). By the violent death of the shedding of the blood of the substitute that was sacrificed, the just penalty of death for sin is carried out.

(2) Grace – This was demonstrated by the fact that something else could be substituted in the place of the one deserving the just penalty death. The guilt and punishment of sin were transferred to the substitute so that the guilty party could be forgiven.

Perhaps the clearest illustration of these two principles being expressed is sprinkling of the blood on the Ark of the Covenant. On the Day of Atonement, the blood of the sacrificed animal was sprinkled on the Ark of the Covenant that stood in the Holiest Place in the Tabernacle and Temple. This was where the very presence of God was manifested between the wings of the Cherubim, or the Angelic beings that guarded the glory and holiness of God. There was a large curtain that separated the very manifest presence of God from His people which represented that the sin separated God from His people. The Ark itself was a chest containing the tablets of the Ten Commandments of the Law of God. Being the covenant people of God, Israel was required to keep the Law of God. If the law was transgressed, God’s justice required that the sin be punished. The cover of the Ark was a pure gold lid over the tablets of the Law placed between the manifest presence of God above the Ark and the Law of God in the Ark. If there was no cover between God and His law, all that would be done would be the execution of the just wrath of God against sin for the transgression of His law. However, god provided that it was upon this cover that the High Priest would sprinkle the blood of the animal that was sacrificed to make atonement. The Hebrew word translated “atonement” is kopher literally means “cover.” It was the blood that made atonement and covered the sins of God’s people so that He could dwell in their midst. It was because of the transgression of God’s Law that the justice of God required atonement by a sacrifice for sins. It was because of the grace of God that provided the sacrifice for atonement so that the sins of God’s people would be covered.

It is relevant at this point to ask about how effective the Old Testament sacrifices were to take away sin and bring forgiveness of sin?  There are two important principles in this regard:

(1) The Old Testament sacrifices did not in and of themselves take away sin -   Although God instituted the Old Testament sacrifices, Hebrews 10:1-4 tells us that it was impossible for the blood of animal sacrifices to take away sin and that God had no enduring pleasure in those sacrifices as such. It says, For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near, Otherwise, would they not cease to be offered, because the worshippers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins? But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin. The Old Testament makes clear in many places that the sacrifices did not have power to take away sin. For example, we read in the prophets in various places that God could not stand the sacrifices of the people which were merely empty external ritual. In Isaiah 1:11- the Lord says, What are your multitude of sacrifices to Me? says the Lord. I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle, and I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs or goats. When you come to appear before Me. Who requires of you this trampling of My courts? Bring your worthless offering no long. Incense is an abomination to Me. New moon and Sabbath, the calling of assemblies – I cannot endure iniquity and the solemn assembly. I hate your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts, they have become a burden to Me. I am weary of bearing them. Although it was the Lord Himself Who instituted all the sacrifices, as well as the appointed days of worship, that are mentioned here, He is not pleased with the barren exercise of them. They were not effective, in and of themselves, to take away. This is clearly stated by Paul in Romans 3:25 when, speaking about the effectiveness of the sacrifice of Christ to satisfy the justice of God, he alludes to God’s forbearance of the sins committed during the time before Christ, which includes the sins under the Old Testament sacrificial system. His justice requires that sin be punished or atoned, and although this did not actually take place during this time in history, He exercised patience with sinners until the true effectual sacrifice of Christ. Paul says, speaking of Christ, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed. While the Old Testament sacrifices were not effectual to take away sin, God derive a certain degree of pleasure from them. The pleasure God derived through the Old Testament sacrifices was by reason of the second principle.

      (2) It was through faith being expressed in obedience to the law of the Old Testament that the people of God looked forward to and participated in the sacrifice of Christ – The fundamental principle of salvation that was implicit in the Old Testament and made explicit in the New Testament is that salvation is by grace through faith. As Hebrews 11:6 tells us, faith is what pleases God. Faith is always expressed in obedience to God’s Word. In the Old Testament, God ordained the sacrifices to teach the people about the necessity of atonement for sin and be a prophetic picture of the one true sacrifice of Christ.  Those who were true believers expressed their faith in obedience to God’s word by their sacrifices. This faith was reckoned by God as righteousness that would come through Jesus Christ. Again, Romans 3:25 clearly states this saying that God provided propitiation His blood through faith. As the Old Testament believers presented their offerings through faith, God reckoned that they participated in the one true sacrifice of Christ and thereby took pleasure in those offerings.