Where In The Bible Does God Require Animal Sacrifices

Fauna Cede? Really?

by BibleProject Squad 5 years agone

For many of the states, Leviticus can be a challenging book to read, especially when we get to the chapters outlining animal sacrifice. Can't we just skip this part? Animal sacrifice is a foreign practice to many mod Bible readers—almost of us only don't take categories for what is happening in these sections of Scripture.

Our mod ideas near animal sacrifice come up from all sorts of places, nigh of which are non biblical at all. These range from infidel practices in the temples of ancient Hellenic republic all the way to mod solar day examples, such as the recently suspended Gadhimai festival in southern Nepal. Many of us take inherited a story nearly animal sacrifice, and it goes something like this: The gods are angry with me and are going to kill me. Just maybe if I kill this fauna and brand sure the gods become their pound of flesh, they'll be appeased and happy. Maybe they won't kill me or send a plague on my family.

Sure it's barbaric, just so are the gods.

If you've e'er read (or heard of) any of the Greek classics by Homer, such as The Iliad, or The Odyssey, or perhaps the more ancient Mesopotamians works like the Epic of Gilgamesh, you'll recognize this storyline. The problem is that when we come to read about brute cede in the Bible, we assume that the same gods are at work. Much of pop Christian conventionalities has simply imported a pagan storyline—reminiscent of the Greek and Babylonian cultural texts referenced above—into Leviticus and the stories about Jesus' expiry on the cross.

The Story We Tell Ourselves About Sacrifice

The result is a tragic irony. What the Bible is portraying equally an expression of God's dear gets twisted into something dark.

Our version goes like this: "God is holy and perfect. You are non. Therefore, God is aroused at y'all, or hates y'all, and so he has to kill you. But because he's merciful, he'll let you bring this animate being to him and will have the beast killed instead of you. Thankfully, Jesus came to exist the i who gets killed by God instead of me. Jesus rescues us from God, so at present we can go forever to the happy place after we die and non the bad place."

Is this story recognizable to yous? If so, y'all're not solitary. The primary problem with this story is that it contains enough biblical linguistic communication to pass for what the Bible really says near creature sacrifice and Jesus' death. All the same, when you step back and let Leviticus and the New Testament to speak for themselves, you tin can recognize this story as false. These misconceptions about God'southward character about ofttimes originate in Leviticus and and so become on to fundamentally twist our understanding of God in the rest of the Old Testament. This misunderstanding has a domino consequence—it distorts what we believe about Jesus' life, death, and resurrection in the New Testament.

Sacrifice and Sin

In Leviticus, human sin is an act that vandalizes, infects, and defiles God'due south adept world. This idea is rooted in the delineation of human rebellion found in Genesis 3-11. Sin is the result of fractured relationships, and it leads to power struggles, violence, and widespread, systemic evil.

All of this has a corrosive, or defiling, outcome, not only on the wrongdoer but on the entire customs. Remember, Leviticus comes right after the tabernacle is finished, where God is going to come dwell in the center of the Israelite community. Israel's sin doesn't just defile the camp, it even defiles the sacred infinite itself. Information technology makes God want to leave, just like vandalism and heaps of trash everywhere would make you want to go out a space.

And this isn't but a common infinite. The tabernacle, and the temple, is the meeting identify of Heaven and World—the throne of God in human space. Israel's rebellion isn't merely about breaking a dominion. It's about humans introducing corruption, pain, and death into God's world. They might as well be bringing that corruption right into the habitation identify of God. If Israel's God leaves the temple space, so the entire nation will endure the consequences of living in a land without God.

We already know this story from Genesis 3-eleven, when humanity had to get out God'south presence in Eden. Information technology led to the rebellion of Babylon and ultimately to God'southward people being enslaved in Arab republic of egypt. The story of what happens in Egypt is an exploration of what happens when humans hijack God's adept world and redefine good and evil on their ain terms. God's justice is the simply advisable response to this kind of rebellious vandalism.

Merely God does non want to meet people go down the same road and suffer the same consequences. God knows that the Israelites are corrupt humans similar the remainder of humanity, but he wants to exist near his people. So he made a promise to Abraham that he would restore divine approval to the nations through his descendants (remember Genesis 12).

Past his own word, God has promised not to destroy Israel when they sin against him. This brings us to God'southward alternative way of dealing with Israel'southward sin and rebellion. It's a symbolic ritual that takes an existing exercise among Israel'southward neighbors (animal cede) and transforms its meaning. Let'southward get into it!

The Symbolic Substitute

Past at present, the basic dilemma assumed in Leviticus should be articulate: The Israelites are sinful and corrupt humans (similar all of u.s.a.), and they are going to keep sinning. They're in desperate need of God to purify and cleanse them. The Israelites needed a system that could plow them abroad from sin, pay their sin "debt," cleanse and purify the community and the temple from sin, and allow them to stay in God'southward presence.

That brings us to the practice of fauna sacrifice introduced in Leviticus. Brute sacrifice was a common do within the context of the ancient Near Due east. Merely it has a totally dissimilar meaning and significance in Leviticus—the Israelites are not dealing with the angry, volatile gods of their ancient neighbors.

For the Israelites, cut an animate being'due south throat and watching its blood (that is, its life) drain from its torso was a visceral symbol of the devastating results of their sin and selfishness. The stakes are high—human evil releases death out into the world. It may not seem like such a big deal to cheat your neighbor or steal a donkey. It's non similar you're murdering someone, right? Simply multiply that wrongdoing by tens or hundreds of thousands of people and y'all go a trigger-happy and corrupt customs. Sin released into the world compounds and begins a downwards spiral that we've seen before in the biblical story. So the animal'due south symbolic death is a physical symbol of what's really at stake—the life or expiry of the customs. You could call this part of the symbol a deterrent.

However, the animal'due south expiry was not just a reminder of sin's tragic consequences. The animate being'south life was also offered equally a symbolic substitute. If sin vandalizes God's globe with death and pain, then God has every right to make people confront the just consequences. But God loves his cosmos and does non want to kill them, and so the fauna's life is symbolically offered equally a ransom payment that would cover them.

Cede and Atonement

The give-and-take "cover" is the literal meaning of the Hebrew words kipper/kopher, and was later translated into Old English equally "atonement." The Israelites saw the blood of an animal every bit a symbol of the animate being's life itself (see Leviticus 17:11). Since blood represents life, or the opposite of death, its sprinkling around the temple would human action like a detergent. Information technology symbolically washed the temple of expiry and defilement (the natural result of sin). The stop result is that God's presence stays with the people of Israel.

These apologetic sacrifices were the ways by which God would bargain with the Israelites' sin and provide a reliable system to maintain a correct relationship between God and sinful humans. This substitute, then to speak, is not offered past humans hoping to gratify a volatile and aroused deity. Information technology'south precisely the opposite! In Leviticus, this substitute is provided past God himself.

The symbolism of animal sacrifice in the Bible is a concrete expression of God's justice and grace. It reminded the Israelites of the serious nature of sin and the consequences for the individuals and the customs at large. Ultimately, these sacrifices showed the Israelites how much God wanted to stay in his covenant human relationship with them. He wanted them to go the kingdom of priests he called them to be.

Jesus, Sacrifice, and Love

If we want to better empathise what the ancient Israelites idea virtually creature sacrifice, nosotros should read what they wrote most it. And if we want to see how this practice brings Jesus' sacrifice into new light, we should wait toward the ancient Israelites' writings. Fortunately for us, 1 John provides insight into this ancient practice and the significance of Jesus' death.

John was a disciple of Jesus who grew upwardly going to Jerusalem for Passover every year and offered many sacrifices in the temple throughout his life. He also spent fourth dimension with Jesus in Galilee and Jerusalem. And well-nigh significantly, he was 1 of the only male disciples who watched Jesus dice on the cross. When he reflected on the meaning of Jesus' expiry and how it was a sacrifice for our sins, he did not say anything about God's anger or how he wanted to kill people—merely the opposite. He speaks of Jesus' sacrificial expiry as the ultimate expression of God's dearest.

This is how God showed his love among united states of america: He sent his one and only son into the world that nosotros might live through him. This is love: not that nosotros loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son every bit an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love ane another.

1 John 4:9-xi

We should allow Leviticus and the story of Jesus to dismantle our distorted ideas nigh beast sacrifice and God's character. At the end of the mean solar day, Leviticus, just like the rest of the biblical story, is near God's love for his expert globe and his desire to exist in the midst of his people.

Source: https://bibleproject.com/blog/animal-sacrifice-really/

Posted by: clarksonoblipt58.blogspot.com