What were Old Testament Israelites thinking when they offered animal sacrifices? That’s the question Mark Olivera asked in response to last week’s posts on the Old Testament sacrifices (here and here).

And this is not some trial academic pursuit. Our answer to that question will influence our view of God (does He change the way of salvation from works to grace and from theism to Christ-ism, at half-time?), our view of sin (can mere animal blood cover it), our view of the Bible (does it present two essentially different religions or just one with different degrees of light?), and our view of Old Testament believers (are they brothers and sisters in Christ or simply theists and ritualists who didn’t know Christ until they got to heaven?). So it’s a big question with huge consequences.

Let me recap a little and respond to some of the questions in last weeks posts, and then attempt to do some biblical mind-reading, or, as Mark put it, try to get inside the heads of these OT worshipers.

1. The Levitical sacrifices reminded and convicted of sin (Heb. 10:3).
As Rick Phillips points out, the sacrifices proclaimed: “This is what will happen to you unless a better atonement be found.”

2. The Levitical sacrifices pictured and pointed to the person and work of the Messiah. (Heb. 10:1)
The sacrifices never saved anyone, never washed away or covered one sin. However, they were one of the major means of grace, one of the main ways God used to create, sustain, and nourish faith in the Messiah.

Therefore, just as neglect of the Lord’s Supper damages us spiritually, so neglect of the sacrifices damaged the souls of OT believers. Jim Hamilton wrote that that offering sacrifices were a work that proved living faith. I agree to a limited extent. However, I believe that the primary way that living faith was evidenced in the OT is the same as in the NT – through obedience to the moral law more than the ceremonial law. 

3. As the Levitical sacrifices were commanded by God, disobedience here would bring punishment on the offenders, whether individuals or the nation.
I disagree with Andrew Suttles who thinks the Old Covenant is a law covenant. I believe that the Old Covenant is an administration of the Covenant of Grace. However, I agree with him that faithful observance of the Levitical law did bring God’s temporal blessings upon the nation. 

But Mark made the point that there were sacrifices before the Levitical law linked God’s blessing on (and presence among) the nation with faithful observance of the sacrifices. So there must have been a deeper and more fundamental meaning.

4. The Levitical sacrifices gave ceremonial or ritual cleansing but never atoned for moral transgression (Heb. 9:13; 10:1-4).
They did not pacify the conscience (Heb. 9:9) but rather purified the flesh (9:13). They gave a “ceremonial forgiveness” that allowed physical proximity between the offeror and God’s presence in the Tabernacle and Temple. But of themselves the sacrifices had no impact on spiritual proximity to God. As John Calvin said:

Options
But let me return to Mark’s question as it really helps us to get to the heart of the matter. He asked: “What was the worshiper motivated by as he brought his animal to the Tab/Temple to be slain?” Mark lists these options: 

• “This is just a symbol cause something better is still to come.”
• “Glad I made it – I’m covered for another year.”
• “I feel so awful about what I did last week – hope this sacrifice is enough to cover my guilt – maybe I’ll bring another one next week just as insurance.”
• “Atonement – that is what our Israelite worship is built on – so I’ll keep doing this to help keep our religion going.”

Although many Israelites probably thought like this, Israelite believers didn’t.

Jim Hamilton suggested that the Israelite was thinking along these lines: “This animal costs a lot of money, and it has to be an unblemished one. This animal could yield a lot to me in terms of increased flock, or wool, or whatever, to say nothing of the feast we could have if we ate it. But Moses gave these instructions. Does my transgression (or uncleanness resulting from contact with the dead) require this? This God must be both morally pure and clean. I know that he spoke through Moses, and I know his word is authoritative (cf. Exod 24:6–7), so because I believe I’ll offer this sacrifice.”

Again, I’m sure some Israelites did think like this. But regenerate Israelites didn’t. Why do I say this? Because none of these answers display any consciousness of faith in a coming Messiah, without which no one was saved. 

Biblical mind-reading
Here’s what I think was going on in the minds of OT believers: “This sacrifice tells me what I deserve – death. And it also tells me how to escape – blood sacrifice in my place. How I long for the Promised Seed of the woman who will crush the head of the devil and bless all the nations of the earth by offering blood-sacrifice in my place.”

In other words, their faith was consciously Bruised-Seed-of-the-woman-centered, or Suffering-Messiah-centered. I’m going to appeal to Jonathan Edwards and John Calvin to support this view.

From the life of Abel, Edwards establishes that sacrifices were appointed by God to be “a standing type of the sacrifice of Christ, and that when offered through faith in Christ they were pleasing to God. Also, from the fact that Abel seemed to be complying with an established custom, Edwards argues that sacrifice “was instituted immediately after God had revealed the covenant of grace, in Gen 3:15, which covenant and promise was the foundation on which the custom of sacrificing was built…. That promise was the first stone laid towards this glorious building, the work of redemption; and the next stone, the institution of sacrifices, to be a type of the great sacrifice (Edwards, History of Redemption, 135ff).

Calvin also denied any possibility of knowing God apart from the Mediator.

In his sermons on Deuteronomy, Calvin says: “Indeed the ancient fathers were saved by no other means than by that which we have…they had their salvation grounded in Christ Jesus, as we have: but that was after an obscure manner, so as they beheld the thing afar off which was presented unto them.”

A modern voice
And just to bring us right up to date, here’s a terrific Christ-centered passage from Vern Poythress:

Such a view of what was going on in the heads and hearts of Old Testament believers confirms God’s immutability, underlines that sin is so serious that it required nothing less than the blood of God to put it away, unites the Bible, and joins us in sweet Messiah-centered fellowship with Old Testament believers.

Big question. Bigger consequences.

(Thanks to Jim Hamilton, Mark Anderson, Mark Olivera, Bernard, Andrew Suttles and others for their gracious and stimulating interaction).

Yesterday I highlighted the common confusion that surrounds the place and meaning of the Old Testament sacrifices. So what did they mean? What did they accomplish? Three crystal clear answers are provided in Hebrews 10 verses 1-4.

The OT sacrifices shadowed good things to come (v. 1a)
Try to think of your most cherished and precious religious activity. Maybe it’s singing God’s praises, maybe it’s the prayer meeting, or preaching, or fellowship, or the Lord’s Supper. How would you feel if someone came along and told you, “Hey, that’s just a pale shadow of what we have got in our church.” You would probably feel a bit hurt and offended, and it might even make you say, “Well if there’s one church I’m not going to, it’s yours!”

However, that’s what the Apostle was saying to the Hebrews. He told them that the things they treasured and cherished most were only pale shadows of what the Christian Church was now enjoying. He was not saying that the New Covenant Church was practicing a different religion to the Old Covenant Church, but rather a higher, fuller, and brighter form of the same religion. He was saying that Christ’s saving shadow lay over the OT, but that if they came over to the New Covenant Church, they would see the One who cast the shadow.

Or to put it another way, holding on to the Old Testament sacrifices was like stopping at a signpost that said, “Grand Rapids 100 miles” and calling it home. The Apostle was saying, “The OT sacrifices pointed you in the right direction, but come all the way home! You’ve followed the signposts pointing to good things to come. Great! But as the good “thing” has now come, don’t stop short. You’ve enjoyed the saving shadow; now come and bask in His saving sunlight.”

The OT sacrifices never saved anyone (vv. 1b-4)
1. They could not perfect anyone (1b):  The same sacrifices were repeated endlessly year after year. But they never (not past, present, future) made worshippers perfect. They provided ceremonial cleansing (qualified them to take part in the Tabernacle and Temple rituals and ceremonies). But they never made anyone “perfect,” which means “to bring to completion.” They had the limited usefulness of allowing Israelites to draw near to God physically – granting access to the camp and it’s Tabernacle – but they could not go further. They could not bring people to “completion,” to the intended end of nearness and fellowship with God.

2. They could not pacify the human conscience (2-3): If the sacrifices had ever cleansed the conscience, the worshipers would no longer have felt guilty for their sin, and they would have stopped offering the sacrifices. The fact that they continued to offer the sacrifices proved that they were still conscious of unforgiven sin that broke communion with God. The annual Day of Atonement, which seems to be especially in view here, produced a specially painful conscience in many Hebrews. When it came round every year, the burden of unforgiven sin felt heavier not lighter. The perpetual repetition of the sacrifices proved the ineffectiveness.

3. They could not put away sin before God (4): The Apostle tells us that however many gallons of animal blood was poured into God’s presence, not one sin was ever washed away by that tsunami of blood. Not one. “It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.”

Moral defilement cannot be removed by an animal. (Ps. 51:10, 16f; 1 Sam. 15:22; Ps. 50:8ff; Isa 1:11ff; 66:1ff; Jer. 7:21ff; Hos. 6:6; 14:2; Amos 5:21ff; Mic. 6:6ff). There is a great gulf fixed between animal sacrifices and human beings. It’s so disproportionate. As the Apostle reminds us three times: animal sacrifices cannot take away sin (Heb. 10:1, 4, 11). Even if every animal in the world was sacrificed for me, not one of my sins would be washed away.

And that did not just begin to be true when Jesus came. It was true throughout the Old Testament as well. That’s why in chapter 10, as in so many other places, the Apostle turns to the Old Testament (Ps. 40) to prove his point! 

The OT sacrifices reminded of sin (3)
In fact, far from removing sin, the sacrifices reminded of sin. Every time they were offered it was like a reminder alarm going off in their consciences. “This is what you deserve. This is the danger you are in.”

On the annual Day of Atonement the High Priest confessed all the sins of the nation. So many thousands of sacrifices were offered then and at the Passover, that channels were actually constructed to carry the gallons of blood from the altar to the Brook Kidron. And at the end of the annual Atonement Day, the High Priest came out from his once-a-year visit to the Most Holy Place and said, “That’s it, you don’t need to come back next year or ever again!”

If only!

No, he came out and all that could be said was “See you again next year.” The sacrifices were a powerful reminder of sin, but, in and of themselves, they were powerless to save. If any Israelite ever asked a godly priest, “How many animals will it take to save my soul?” the answer would have been: “It is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin. Look in faith to the coming Messiah that these sacrifices point us toward.”

That’s why the Apostle here turns from animal bodies (Heb. 10:1-4) to the precious and perfect body of Christ (v. 5), and His one perfect offering that perfects us, pacifies our conscience, and puts sin away (vv. 11-14).

One body. One sacrifice. One priest. One salvation. It is finished!