Jesus says:
Matt.9
[13] Go and learn what this means, `I desire
mercy, and not sacrifice.' For
I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.
Matt.12
[7] And if you had known what
this means, `I desire mercy, and
not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless.
The prophet says:
[6] For I desire
steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God, rather
than burnt offerings. . ..
The above are true
witnesses. Now, here are some examples of the many false
witnesses:
From Billy Graham:.
In ancient Judaism the shedding of blood was to make
atonement for sin. The word "blood" in the Old and the New Testaments
symbolized a life that was given. Jesus Christ became the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world for the sins of the world.
Another
witness testifies as follows:
By His death on the cross, the Lord Jesus made a
perfect atonement for sin, by which the wrath of God against
sinners is appeased and a ground furnished upon which God can deal in
mercy with sinners. He redeemed us from the curse of the law by
becoming a curse in our place. He Who Himself was absolutely without
sin was made sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness
of God in Him.
And
yet another testifies:
Jesus—We
believe that Jesus is the Son of God, was born of a virgin, was wholly
God and wholly man, lived a sinless life, died in our place as a
sacrifice for the sins of mankind,
was buried, arose bodily from the grave, and ascended into Heaven.
Of the many false doctrines of Christendom, none can be more
heinous to the Father than this -- that He required His innocent Son,
Jesus of Nazareth, to atone for the sins of humans by suffering the
horrible death of crucifixion, thus becoming a vicarious, sacrificial
atonement. It is heinous because it renders men --
1. blind to the true message of the Old Testament
scriptures,
2. deaf to the voice of Jesus,
3. utterly ignorant as to the merciful nature of God and
4. seals their condemnation who might otherwise have found salvation.
This is a very serious charge and it is not made lightly.
Let us examine each element briefly.
I. Blindness to the Old Testament Scriptures
The voices of many prophets were raised in Israel
against the practice of sacrifice as a means of reconciliation with
God. Listen to them.
1Samuel
15
[22] And Samuel said, "Has the LORD
as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
as in obeying the voice of the LORD?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
and to hearken than the fat of rams.
[6] Sacrifice and offering thou dost not desire;
but thou hast given me an open ear.
Burnt offering and sin offering
thou hast not required.
[7] Then I said, "Lo, I come;
in the roll of the book it is written of me;
[8] I delight to do thy will, O my God;
thy law is within my heart."
[9] I will accept no bull from your house,
nor he-goat from your folds.
[10] For every beast of the forest is mine,
the cattle on a thousand hills.
[11] I know all the birds of the air,
and all that moves in the field is mine.
[12] "If I were hungry, I would not tell you;
for the world and all that is in it is mine.
[13] Do I eat the flesh of bulls,
or drink the blood of goats?
[14] Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and pay your vows to the Most High;
[15] and call upon me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me."
[15] O Lord, open thou my lips,
and my mouth shall show forth thy praise.
[16] For thou hast no delight in sacrifice;
were I to give a burnt offering, thou wouldst not be pleased.
[17] The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
[10] Hear the word of the LORD,
you rulers of Sodom!
Give ear to the teaching of our God,
you people of Gomor'rah!
[11] "What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?
says the LORD;
I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams
and the fat of fed beasts;
I do not delight in the blood of bulls,
or of lambs, or of he-goats.
[12] "When you come to appear before me,
who requires of you
this trampling of my courts?
[13] Bring no more vain offerings;
incense is an abomination to me.
New moon and sabbath and the calling of assemblies --
I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.
[14] Your new moons and your appointed feasts
my soul hates;
they have become a burden to me,
I am weary of bearing them.
[15] When you spread forth your hands,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers,
I will not listen;
your hands are full of blood.
[16] Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your doings
from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
[17] learn to do good;
seek justice,
correct oppression;
defend the fatherless,
plead for the widow.
[18] "Come now, let us reason together,
says the LORD:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.
[19] If you are willing and obedient,
you shall eat the good of the land;
[20] But if you refuse and rebel,
you shall be devoured by the sword;
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."
[1] Thus says the
LORD: "Heaven is my throne
and the earth is my footstool;
what is the house which you would build for me,
and what is the place of my rest?
[2] All these things my hand has made,
and so all these things are mine, says the LORD.
But this is the man to whom I will look,
he that is humble and contrite in spirit,
and trembles at my word.
[3] "He who slaughters an ox is like him who
kills a man;
he who sacrifices a lamb, like him who breaks a dog's
neck;
he who presents a cereal offering, like him who offers
swine's
blood;
he who makes a memorial offering of frankincense, like
him who
blesses an idol.
These have chosen their own ways,
and their soul delights in their abominations;
[4] I also will choose
affliction for them,
and bring their fears upon them;
because, when I called, no one answered,
when I spoke they did not listen;
but they did what was evil in my eyes,
and chose that in which I did not delight."
[11] Because E'phraim
has multiplied altars for sinning,
they have become to him altars for sinning.
[12] Were I to write for him my laws by ten
thousands,
they would be regarded as a strange thing.
[13] They love sacrifice;
they sacrifice flesh and eat it;
but the LORD has no delight in them.
Now he will remember their iniquity,
and punish their sins;
they shall return to Egypt.
[21] "I hate, I
despise your feasts,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
[22] Even though you offer me your burnt
offerings and cereal
offerings, I will not accept them,
and the peace offerings of your fatted beasts
I will not look upon.
[23] Take away from me the noise of your songs;
to the melody of your harps I will not listen.
[24] But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
[6] With what
shall I come before the LORD,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
[7] Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of
rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my first-born for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?"
[8] He has showed you, O man, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
All of these voices and more were raised in Israel
to declare that the Lord does not desire sacrifices of flesh and blood
upon the bloody altars of Israel. The prophets sometimes sought
to explain this
as being due to the great iniquity of the nation, with the implication
that the Lord would desire and accept their sacrifices if only they
would
repent and mend their ways.
This is illogical if the only remedy for sin is the blood sacrifice.
On this basis, it is only the sinner who requires the sacrifice,
and there is no repentance from sin apart from the sacrifice, and the
sacrifices of the righteous are needless. The
greater the iniquity, the greater the need of sacrifice!
Therefore it is unreasonable to think that God refused to accept
their sacrifices because they were so sinful
if it is only by the sacrifice that the sin can be atoned or
forgiven.
Yet Moses, in the Pentateuch, especially in Leviticus,
presents
God as commanding Israel to make many different sacrifices. Moses
even goes into great detail as to how the altar of sacrifice is to be
prepared, how the priests are to qualify to offer sacrifices, and
exactly
how the offerings are to be performed. Many of the different
kinds
of sacrifices required of the people are listed in this one verse:
[37] This is the law of the burnt offering, of
the cereal offering, of the sin offering, of the guilt offering, of the
consecration, and of the peace offerings,
Did not God therefore desire of Israel that they offer
sacrifices?
Not if one can believe the testimony of Jeremiah:
[22] For in the day that I
brought them out of the land of
Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or
command
them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices.
[23] But this command I gave them, `Obey my voice, and I will
be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk in all the way that I
command you, that it may be well with you.'
This surely refers to the words spoken to Moses by the Lord
"on the third new moon after the people of Israel had gone forth out of
the land of Egypt, for on that
day they came into the wilderness of Sinai (Exodus 19:1)."
Then the Lord said this to Moses.
[5] Now therefore, if you will obey
my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my own possession among all
peoples; for all the earth is mine, . . ..
It was on the third day after this that the Lord delivered the
Decalogue to Moses on Sinai. Then, we read that God immediately
proceeded to command Moses concerning sacrifices:
[24] An
altar of earth you shall make for me and sacrifice
on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and
your
oxen; in every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come
to you and bless you.
Is not this a gross contradiction? Did God command the people to
offer sacrifices when he brought them out of the Land of Egypt, or did
he not, as he stated through Jeremiah?
We can reconcile this seeming contradiction if we refer to the
words of Jesus concerning another of the commandments that God
supposedly delivered to the people through Moses:
[8] He said to them, For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce
your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.
We have here the clear case of Moses issuing a permit for
divorce as though it were the commandment of God, but Jesus has the
explanation. It was only because of the hardness of their hearts
that Moses issued this permission; it was never the will of the Father,
which is true from the beginning.
The commandment to offer sacrifices was given under a
similar permission. It was not desired from the beginning but
Moses allowed them to
offer many sacrifices because of the hardness of their hearts. It
was a practice arising in darkest antiquity and the Israelites were not
inclined to discontinue such a time honored custom.
This presupposes that the offering of sacrifices was already an
established custom among the people of Israel, one they continually
adhered to due to their hardness of heart. Is there biblical
evidence of this?
Yes; before the Israelites left Egypt, we find the practice among them:
[24] Then Pharaoh called
Moses, and said, "Go, serve the LORD; your children also may go with
you; only let your flocks and your herds remain behind."
[25] But Moses said, "You must also let us have
sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our
God.
We can conclude that the offering of sacrifices and burnt
offerings
to God was nothing new to the people who left Egypt, or to Moses.
It
can, in fact, be traced all the way back to their patriarch, Abraham,
who
was proceeding to make a living human sacrifice of his son, Isaac, when
God called him and made a covenant with him. It was an
established part of their pre Moses religion. God, through Moses,
allowed them to maintain it due to the hardness of their hearts.
[7] For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep of his hand.
O that today you would hearken to his voice!
[8] Harden not your hearts, as
at Mer'ibah,
as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
[9] when your fathers tested me,
and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
[10] For forty years I loathed
that generation
and said, "They are a people who err
in heart,
and they do not regard my ways."
[11] Therefore I swore in my anger
that they should not enter my rest.
Can there be any clearer diagnosis of the heart condition of the
Israelites during the entire forty years they spent in the wilderness,
when Moses gave them all that legislation regarding the sacrifices?
Not divorce only, not only the sacrificial practices also, but
many things Moses permitted those hard hearted ones in the wilderness.
The message of the Old Testament is clear with regard to
sacrifices:
1. God never commanded them.
[22] For in the day that I
brought them out of the land
of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning
burnt
offerings and sacrifices.
[23] But this command I gave them, `Obey my voice, and I will
be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk in all the way that
I command you, that it may be well with you.'
2. Through the prophets, God made it known that he did not
require their sacrifices; rather, he always required of them only that
they should obey him -- his true commandments -- and attend to mercy,
justice, and the condition of their hearts.
[6] With what shall I come before the LORD,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
[7] Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my first-born for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?"
[8] He has showed you, O man, what is
good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
This, then, is the message of the Old Testament, with
allowances granted by Moses due to the hardness of their hearts.
Now, when we come to Christendom, we find the multitudes are yet
unprepared to give up their sacrifices. They continue to insists
that Jesus was their sacrifice for sin, offered up on the altar of the
cross. Why?
2. Deafness to the Voice of Jesus
It should not surprise us that it was from the
prophets that Jesus drew his profound utterance concerning the desire
of God. The words quoted in the introduction above from both
Jesus and Hosea show that he verified the prophet as the spokesman of
God and affirmed, in the name of the Father, that He does not desire
sacrifices.
[13] Go
and learn what this means, `I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.'
For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.
Now look to the first phrase of this verse: Go and learn what this means
. . .. It is so easy to overlook such a simple thing, and only
recently did its significance come to me and I felt rather blind not to
have note it the first time I read it. It was addressed to his
enemies, the Pharisees, who were expert in the prophetic texts
and would have known exactly where Jesus found this -- the Prophet
Hosea 6:6. He was telling them to go to Hosea to learn what it
means. So if we go to Hosea, we learn that the prophet is often
involved in rebuking both Judah and Israel due to their idolatry and
iniquity. Then we come to this in Chapter 8:
Hos.8
[13] They love sacrifice; they sacrifice flesh and eat it; but the LORD has no delight in them.
Now he will remember their iniquity, and punish their sins; they shall
return to Egypt
What does God desire if not sacrifices? Jesus
said it, I
desire mercy. Is this not the common
denominator of all the desires of God as expounded by the prophets?
Look at them again:
Isaiah
1
[16] Wash yourselves;
make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your doings
from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
[17] learn to do good;
seek justice,
correct oppression;
defend the fatherless,
plead for the widow.
[23] Take away from me the noise of your
songs;
to the melody of your harps I will not listen.
[24] But let
justice roll down like waters,
and
righteousness like an ever-flowing
stream.
Micah
6
[6] With what shall I come before
the LORD,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
[7] Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my first-born for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?"
[8] He has showed you, O man, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
It is mercy, mercy, mercy that the Lord requires. Why
does Christendom not hear him so as to see that it is not sacrifices
that He wants, nor has he ever wanted such. Always, under the Old
Covenant and the New, his one desire of man is mercy, mercy, mercy!
Therefore we have this wonderful admonition:
[36] Be merciful, even as your Father is
merciful.
We have also this precious beatitude:
Matt.5
[7] Blessed are the
merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
We know why those Jews who had believed in him did not hear
him. Jesus has told us:
[31] Jesus then
said to the Jews who had believed in him, If you continue in my
word, you are truly my disciples,
[32] and you will know the truth, and the truth
will make you free."
[43] Why do you not understand what I say? It is
because you cannot bear to hear my word.
[44] You are of your father the devil, and your
will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the
beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no
truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for
he is a liar and the father of lies.
[45] But, because I tell the truth, you do not
believe me.
[46] Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell
the truth, why do you not believe me?
[47] He who is of God
hears the words of God; the reason why you do not hear them is that you
are not of God. . ..
His Word is astonishingly clear and uncomplicated. The
Father does not desire sacrifice, but mercy is his desire. Jesus
has spoken; human beings have only to hear him. If Jesus of
Nazareth was and is the Truth (and he surely was and is), then trusting
in a sacrifice, and
especially in a sacrifice to Him who states that He does not desire a
sacrifice,
is a most heinous doctrine before the Father. It is one that
insures
the condemnation of all who do not repent of it, because they have been
deaf to the voice of Jesus.
3. Utter Ignorance as to the Merciful Nature of God
All who subscribe to the heinous doctrine of vicarious
atonement can reasonably do so only due to the fact that they have a
monstrous blind spot that obscures the relevant factors. We will seek
here to expose that blind spot in the most direct way. We begin
with a basic premise that
underlies the false doctrine of sacrificial atonement.
A. The Father who is in heaven requires that every sin be atoned for
or "made right" by the shedding of blood of an innocent victim.
The most concise biblical statement of this is as follows:
[22] Indeed, under the law
almost everything is purified with blood, and without
the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
[23] Thus it was necessary for the copies of the
heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly
things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
[24] For Christ has entered, not into a sanctuary made
with hands, a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to
appear in the presence of God on our behalf.
[25] Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the
high priest enters the Holy Place yearly with blood not his own;
[26] for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly
since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once
for all at the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
[27] And just as it is appointed for men to die once,
and after that comes judgment,
[28] So Christ, having been offered
once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to
deal
with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. We
have this statement of the case from the prophet:
[4] Surely he has borne our grief's
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
[5] But he was wounded for our transgressions,
he was bruised for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that made us whole,
and with his stripes we are healed.
[6] All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned every one to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
Having this scriptural support as the basic premise for their
doctrine, the Christians who also believe in the inerrancy of the Bible
suppose that they have a powerful case for their heinous doctrine of
vicarious
atonement. It is ironic that this case also conceals the
monstrous
blind spot that renders them utterly ignorant of the Truth revealed by
Jesus
of Nazareth. They then proceed to make the reasonable (and
correct)
assumption that our sins and iniquities are comparable to debts owed to
God.
Then follows the false assumption that human beings cannot be
reconciled
to God until the debt has been paid, and this can only be performed by
one
who has no debt (sin) of his own!
Enter then the "lamb of God" who has, by shedding his blood
in our behalf, supposedly paid the debt for all mankind contingent on
the individual acceptance of this offering in one's behalf. What
love! What grace! What mercy that He would do such a thing
for us helpless sinners!
B. Now let us consider the implications of the above as to the
character of God. It says specifically that no sin can be
forgiven until the debt has been paid, for without the shedding of
blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. This consideration
alone should be sufficient to wrench our minds from behind that blind
spot so as to begin to ask some questions, such as:
Why?
Shouldn't it be obvious to all that no one has a justifiable excuse for
failing to comprehend? It does not say that God has loved the
world so as to send his Son (John 3:16) but it says that God does
not
forgive sin but will gladly accept the payment of our debts from
one
who is not indebted to him. What creditor would not do the same?
What
does a creditor care about the source of the payment, provided only
that
it is paid? In this case, God does not forgive any sin whatsoever.
What does God (or any creditor) do in this case? He simply accepts
payment, which terminates the obligation. To repeat the
obvious, this is not forgiveness. To state the obvious yet
again, a debt is forgiven
only when it is canceled unpaid.
All who believe in this heinous doctrine therefore also
believe
in a god who is of such a character as to be both merciless and
unforgiving, for this god does not cancel any sin or debt until it has
been fully paid.
This is only part of the picture of the character of a god who requires
the shedding of blood for the remission of sin. There is another
factor that must be considered, which is the justice of God.
All who believe this heinous doctrine believe also in a god who
is absolutely unjust, because he punishes the innocent one (Jesus) for
the sins of the guilty ones!
Any reasonable person can see the truth of this assertion.
Nevertheless, let us take an idealized look at the situation that
prevails in the case of Christian theology. What we have is a god
who is saving his children from their sins and redeeming them to
himself. It is therefore a family
affair. But we have one child of this god, his only begotten son
and
the elder brother of all the other children, who has forever been with
the
father and always does what is pleasing to HIm. He is without sin.
This father looks about and discovers that he has a multitude
of disobedient, disowned children, children who are willful and never
pay any heed to his word, and a single Son who always does his bidding.
This father loves them all, they say, and he longs to draw them
back to himself. Yet, as explained above, he does not have it in his
heart to forgive their sins and indebtedness to him and is determined
that somebody must suffer. So, he takes hold of the perfectly
obedient Son and punishes him with the suffering of a horrible death in
the hope that some of the disobedient ones will accept this as their
punishment and will come back forgiven! And does he have the
consent
and approval of the good Son for this gross injustice? Absolutely
not!
[42] Jesus said to them, If God were your
Father,
you would love me, for I proceeded and came forth from God; I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.
Hey! It wasn't my idea!
So, what we have here is a father who commands and requires his dutiful
and obedient son to suffer the penalty of the sins of all the
disobedient children, against the will and desire of the single
obedient one.
Just imagine yourself in the place of the good son. Do you see
any justice whatsoever here? Come, now, be honest with yourself
and
God. There is no justice here and you know it. No merely
human
judge in a true court of justice would do such a thing. No just parent
would do such a thing to his faithful son.
But all who believe this heinous doctrine of vicarious atonement by
blood sacrifice are blind to blatant injustice. Their god is an
unjust god. They are therefore completely ignorant of the true
character of God the Father, who is just to perfection.
It
gets worse. We must go the next step and assert that this god . .
. yes, this god who tortures the innocent child for the disobedience of
all the guilty children . . . yes, this god and father,
so called, is utterly merciless. He is unforgiving. He is unjust.
Then, as the worst of the torture is being applied to the devoted
son, this god and father, so called, will not look on the scene that he
has himself ordained. He turns his back on the suffering of the
innocent
one who, in that terrible hour, is found to cry out with his last,
tortured breath:
[34] E'lo-i, E'lo-i, la'ma
sabach-tha'ni?" which means, "My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me?
I do not mean to imply that poor Christians who go about
trusting in this heinous doctrine actually acknowledge that their god
is thus deficient in character. To the contrary, they proclaim to
all the world that their god is forgiving, just, and merciful. Therein
is their utter
blindness exposed, because most of them truly believe this fiction that
is
defined by the character of a god that does not forgive sin and is
unjust
and merciless.
All these deficiencies in the character of their god sum up to reveal
yet another trait: he is completely without love for his children.
Surely, a god who is unforgiving, unjust and merciless must also
be without love. Let's add them up, then, and state them once
more so as to rule out any misunderstanding. The god of the these
Christians who believe
this heinous doctrine of atonement via vicarious sacrifice is:
1. Without forgiveness
2. Without justice
3. Without mercy
4. Without love.
All of this is obvious to any one who is unencumbered by a
monstrous blind spot!
It is all completely contrary to the character to the true God and
Father of the Lord Jesus.
4. The Sealing of Their Condemnation Who Might Otherwise
Have
Been Saved
We do not need to expand on this final element of the case,
because we have already pointed out the cause of the blindness of the
Christians who believe this heinous doctrine, and how it utterly
conceals from them
the true God and Father of our Lord Jesus. Trapped as they are in
the
bondage of their error, it is not possible that they see and
acknowledge
the truly miserable state of their condition. Here is the
diagnosis:
[39] For judgment I came into this
world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may
become blind."
[40] Some of the Pharisees near him heard this, and they
said to him, "Are we also blind?"
[41] Jesus said to them, If you were
blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, `We see,' your
guilt remains.
Conclusion
We must finally attend to the question that surely has arisen in your
minds: These things being so, and if God the Father and creator
did not commission the institution of a vicarious, atoning sacrifice,
what
is its origin?
The
simple fact is that we do not know. Its origin is rooted in the
shadowy prehistory of man from which no record has survived to testify
to the first ritual sacrifices of a human being. Ancient pagan
Canaanites performed ritual human sacrifice in the Valley of Hinom that
is just south of Jerusalem. They were making their offerings to
the god, Molech..
There is evidence of this sacrifice ritual in every
ancient culture, from the Andes to the Nile, including human sacrifice
to the god. The evidence reaches back into the remotest recesses
of pre-history. It was practiced by the ancient Egyptians and the
peoples of ancient Mesopotamia. The patriarch, Abraham, brought it with
him from the Tigris-Euphrates delta when he journeyed with Terah to
Haran and thence into Canaan. The Hebrews in Egyptian captivity found
the practice flourishing in the Nile delta and continued offering
sacrifices to the gods. It was ubiquitous in Greek and Roman
religion.
Where
was it? It was very likely in Egypt that the sacrificial rituals
later codified in the Pentateuch began to be developed by the Hebrews
according to which animals, not humans, were offered up to Yahweh.
The
practice continued and was eventually focussed on the Temple in
Jerusalem,
which became the center of all Hebrew sacrifices. And so it continued
until AD 70 when the last temple was destroyed by Titus. It continues
even today among the most primitive peoples, and in those institutions
known as Christian Churches.
The Jews were not unique in the First Century. Greek,
Roman, Egyptian, Syrian, and Persian religions continued the practice
of ritual
sacrifice. This was the custom throughout the world when Jesus of
Nazareth
was crucified, so that it was a natural and normal thing for his
followers
to think that he may have been a human sacrifice to the God of the
Jews.
When their temple was destroyed some forty years later and the
Jewish
sacrifices ceased for lack of temple, alter and priesthood, the thought
that
Jesus had been offered up as the last sacrifice became very attractive
to
certain of his Jewish disciples.
The
evidence indicates that some early disciples, of whom Saul of Tarsus
seems most prominent, began to develop a theological scheme that tied
the crucifixion of Jesus to the Jewish prophets and selected teachings
of Jesus in such a way as to build a case for the false doctrine that
his crucifixion was a vicarious, atoning sacrifice providing
forgiveness of sin. The scheme proved to
be attractive to the many Gentile nations also, for it contained unique
elements
in addition to many common elements that were practically and
intellectually
superior to the sacrificial schemes of the pagan religions of the time,
primarily
those of Greece, Rome, and Persia. The unique evangelical zeal of
the
early Christians then provided the grease that lubricated the rails of
the
new religion as it moved out into the Gentile world.
The rest is history!
But the Father has stated through Jesus and the prophets:
I desire
mercy, and
not sacrifice.
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