CHRIST ATONEMENT AND ANIMAL SACRIFICES
“You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house
for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God
through Jesus Christ..” 1 Pet. 2:5
In the covenant at Sinai God provided a highly complex and
rigid structure for His Kingdom of Priests. Within that structure,
national/Theocratic forgiveness was given when appropriate sacrifices were
offered to God through legitimate priests at the Tabernacle/Temple altar. This
forgiveness was promised regardless of the spiritual state of either the person
offering or the priest. However, such sacrificial blood could never cleanse the
conscience or save the soul (Heb. 10:1-2).
So God, repeatedly sent prophets to call His people to love and obey their God
from the heart. Apart from such genuine faith, all the ceremonially kosher
animals in the whole world would not avail anything in the spiritual realm (Psa. 50:7-15; Isa. 1:12-20; Amos 4:4-5;
Amos 5:20-27; Hosea 5:16; Micah 6:6-8; Jer. 6:20; Jer. 7:21-23). It was not
to be either faith or sacrifice; rather it was to be BOTH faith and sacrifices
(Psa. 51:19; Mal. 3:3; 1 Pet. 2:5).
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