Looking unto Jesus who made His soul an offering for sin
“Some wonder why God desired so many sacrifices and appointed the offering of so many bleeding victims in the Jewish economy.
“Every dying victim was a type of Christ, which lesson was impressed on mind and heart in the most solemn, sacred ceremony, and explained definitely by the priests. Sacrifices were explicitly planned by God Himself to teach this great and momentous truth, that through the blood of Christ alone there is forgiveness of sins.”—Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, book 1, p. 107.
Sin is so blinding. It prevents us from seeing the devastation we produce toward those all around us, and also to God. Only when we see the dying of an innocent being, such as a baby animal, is the realization of sin struck in our conscience. God is not happy to have animals die, nor humans. But for our sake, because of our utter blindness to our corrupt natures and arrogant self-sufficiency, He has allowed the travesty of animal sacrifices.
He says, “Gather My saints together unto Me; those that have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice.” (Ps. 50:5). Only through the breaking of the evil human heart through the witnessing of the death of a baby animal can our pride be put to death. So dense and impregnable is pride that an extreme measure must be taken, witnessed again and again and again.
Without the Old Testament dying sacrifice their worship was worthless to God, even repugnant. This is because only through the dying of the happy lambs and jumping kids and lowing calves and tiny sparrows could those ancient people approach God in humility and in true repentance. Self is at the center of the worship of God, unless we have the vision of a sacrifice to burn up the self-sufficiency. Any other kind of non-bloody sacrifice would be Cain’s sacrifice. Any “nicer” approach to God would be sacrilegious and blasphemous to Him.
Let us go to the Bible and the cross again and again, as a continual sacrifice day after day, and catch the vision of the expiring Son of God, who was typified in so many thousands upon thousands of sacrifices through the millennia, and in so many forms and occasions, the whole world over. Let that sacrifice do for us what our Redeemer God intended it do—i.e. the desolation of our pride, and the restoration of our conscience and love. Anything short of this is wholly abhorrent to God, and makes His stomach very upset. (Rev. 3:16).
“Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day: and he saw it, and was glad.” (Jn. 8:56).
“And this is the will of Him that sent Me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.” (Jn. 6:40).
“Every dying victim was a type of Christ, which lesson was impressed on mind and heart in the most solemn, sacred ceremony, and explained definitely by the priests. Sacrifices were explicitly planned by God Himself to teach this great and momentous truth, that through the blood of Christ alone there is forgiveness of sins.”—Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, book 1, p. 107.
Sin is so blinding. It prevents us from seeing the devastation we produce toward those all around us, and also to God. Only when we see the dying of an innocent being, such as a baby animal, is the realization of sin struck in our conscience. God is not happy to have animals die, nor humans. But for our sake, because of our utter blindness to our corrupt natures and arrogant self-sufficiency, He has allowed the travesty of animal sacrifices.
He says, “Gather My saints together unto Me; those that have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice.” (Ps. 50:5). Only through the breaking of the evil human heart through the witnessing of the death of a baby animal can our pride be put to death. So dense and impregnable is pride that an extreme measure must be taken, witnessed again and again and again.
Without the Old Testament dying sacrifice their worship was worthless to God, even repugnant. This is because only through the dying of the happy lambs and jumping kids and lowing calves and tiny sparrows could those ancient people approach God in humility and in true repentance. Self is at the center of the worship of God, unless we have the vision of a sacrifice to burn up the self-sufficiency. Any other kind of non-bloody sacrifice would be Cain’s sacrifice. Any “nicer” approach to God would be sacrilegious and blasphemous to Him.
Let us go to the Bible and the cross again and again, as a continual sacrifice day after day, and catch the vision of the expiring Son of God, who was typified in so many thousands upon thousands of sacrifices through the millennia, and in so many forms and occasions, the whole world over. Let that sacrifice do for us what our Redeemer God intended it do—i.e. the desolation of our pride, and the restoration of our conscience and love. Anything short of this is wholly abhorrent to God, and makes His stomach very upset. (Rev. 3:16).
“Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day: and he saw it, and was glad.” (Jn. 8:56).
“And this is the will of Him that sent Me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.” (Jn. 6:40).
posted by David | 10:28 AM
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