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III. House of Sacrifice

A. Seasons of Sacrifice

The Temple liturgy brought together all the strains of sacrifice that had gone before. Israel's ritual life consisted of a variety of sacrificial offerings:

• The Holocaust - an entire animal burnt on the altar as a "sweet smelling oblation to the Lord" (see Leviticus 1:3-17; 6:8-13).

• The Cereal or Grain Offering - milled wheat mixed with oil and incense and usually offered in conjunction with other sacrifices (see Leviticus 2:1-16; 6:14-23; Numbers 6:14-17; 28:3-6).

• The Peace Offering - an animal sacrifice in which the fatty parts and kidneys are burnt on the altar and the meat is consumed by the offerer and the priests (see Leviticus 3:1-17;7:11-36).

• The Sin Offering - an animal (young bull, goat, lamb, turtledoves, etc.) offered to atone for sin and to purify the sinner (see Leviticus 4:1-5:13; 6:24-30).

• The Guilt Offering - a ram offered in atonement for desecration or some offense against a neighbor (see Leviticus 5:14-6:7; 7:1-10).

Israelites measured their days, their weeks, and their years by sacrifices.
Each day began and ended with sacrifice - one lamb as a holocaust, flour and oil, and a libation of wine (see Exodus 29:38-42; Numbers 28:3-8; Ezra 3:5; Nehemiah 10:34). Every seventh day, on the Sabbath, these sacrifices were doubled (see Numbers 28:9-10).

At the beginning of every month, Israel celebrated the New Moon Feast, offering God holocausts, cereal offerings, a sin offering and a libation (see Numbers 28:11-15). Each new year was celebrated as Rosh Hashanah with ritual sacrifices (see Numbers 29:1-6).

And Israel's calendar included other annual celebrations, each marked by specifically prescribed ritual sacrifices - the Feast of Booths or Tabernacles (see Numbers 29:12-38;Leviticus 23:33-43); the Feast of Pentecost (see Numbers 28:26-31); and the Day of Atonement, known in Hebrew as Yom Kippur (see Numbers 29:7-11; Leviticus 23:26-32).

The liturgical center of Israel's year remained the Feast of Passover (see Numbers 28:16-25; Leviticus 23:4). In the time of Jesus, more than 2 million pilgrims from around the world would throng Jerusalem.

Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, reported that on Passover in the year A.D. 70, roughly 40 years after the Crucifixion, the Temple priests offered 256,500 lambs in sacrifice (Wars of the Jews, Book 6, Chapter 9, no. 3)

Though Israel's Law required that priests make the sacrifices in the Temple on behalf of individual Israelites and the nation, these sacrifices were nonetheless deeply personal affairs.

Imagine having to take an unblemished animal from your own flock, travel to the Temple, kill it, skin and gut it, and present it to the priest to be burnt on the altar. That was the reality of sacrifice in Israel.

B. What Sacrifice Means

Why did God institute sacrifice as the means of worshipping Him?

Certainly, God did not "need" sacrifices, as the prophets and psalmists make clear (seePsalm 50:9-13).

Early on, God seems to have required Israel to make certain kinds of animal sacrifices to teach the people a lesson and to purge them of their worship of false idols.

Moses seemed to recognize this when he told Pharaoh the Egyptians would be gravely offended by the Israelites' sacrifices (see Exodus 8:25-27). The three animals that God commanded Israel to sacrifice - cattle, sheep and goats - were all considered deities by the Egyptians.

God, in effect, was asking Israel to ritually slaughter the "gods" the Israelites once served in Egypt. Sacrifice was to be a form of penance for the Israelites' idolatry (see Joshua 24:14;Ezekiel 20:7-8; Acts 7:39-41).

There were other meanings attached to the sacrifices of Israel as well.

As we observed in considering the "guilt" and "sin" offerings, sacrifice often served as an act of renunciation and sorrow for sins. The "blood" of the animal symbolized the life of the one offering the sacrifice. Recognizing that his sins deserved death, the person offered the animal's life in place of his own.

Elsewhere, sacrifice was a "gift" that acknowledged God's sovereignty over creation.

By making a sacrifice from the first-fruits of the earth and their flocks, worshippers were giving a part of themselves - something they needed to live - to thank God for His blessings (see Leviticus 23:10-14; Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Exodus 13:1-2; Numbers 3:11-13,44-51).

C. The Thank Offering

In the Temple liturgies reflected in the Book of Psalms and in the prophets' writings we see a growing understanding - that holocausts were not all that God required; that He demanded an "interior" or "spiritual" sacrifice as well.

Spiritual sacrifice was not opposed to animal sacrifices. Ideally, the sacrifices the Israelites offered in the Temple were to reflect their offering of themselves with a contrite and humble spirit to do God's will.

For the prophets, however, there was a "disconnect" between the sacrifices the people offered in the Temple and the condition of their hearts.

Isaiah said their lack of faith and justice made their offerings "worthless" (see Isaiah 1:10-16; also Amos 4:4-6; Malachi 1:10,13-14).

Jeremiah reminded them that God did not command holocausts upon freeing the people from Egypt. Instead he desired His people to walk in His ways and listen to His voice (seeJeremiah 7:21-24; Micah 6:6-8).

Over time, Israel came to see that love, not sacrifice, is what God truly desires (see Hosea 6:6).

Psalm 40 specifically mentions the animal sacrifices, grain offerings (oblation), holocausts and sin offerings. God did not want or seek these, the psalmist sings. Rather, He wants "ears open to obedience" and hearts that delight in doing God's will.

Psalm 40:1-11 is classified as one of the todah (pronounced tow-DAW) psalms (for example, Psalms 18; 30; 32; 41; 66; 69; 118; 138).

Todah is a Hebrew word that means "thank offering" or "thanksgiving." In fact, it is often translated by the Greek word eucharistia, which is where we get our word, "Eucharist."

Many of the psalms were written to accompany the offering of the todah sacrifice, a specific type of "peace offering" involving a sacrificial meal of bread, meat and sometimes wine, offered with friends and family in the Temple (see Leviticus 7:1-21).

A person made this "sacrifice of thanksgiving" and offered the "cup of salvation" (see Psalm116:13-14,17-18) for having been delivered by God from some life-threatening circumstance - a serious illness, persecution, or any mortal danger.

In singing the todah psalms, the worshipper glorifies God and celebrates the new life granted to him by God's saving deeds.

Psalm 69 is a good example of a todah psalm. It begins with a plea for God's help ("Save me, O God!"), includes a long lament about the afflictions the believer faces, and ends by glorifying God with thanksgiving, praising His name and exhorting others to hope in the Lord.

Psalm 22, which Jesus prayed on the Cross, is another todah psalm. The psalm starts with a cry of dereliction ("My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?"), recounts the torments at the hands of evildoers, and concludes on a note of triumph - praising God for hearing and saving the psalmist.

Many other psalms were composed as "processional hymns" to accompany the Israelites' sacrifices in the Temple. And they, too, disclose a similar "inner meaning" of these sacrifices.

In these psalms, sacrifice is joined with praise to God for delivering the Israelites from their foes and oppressors (see Psalms 54:6-7; 66:5-9,13-20; 107:21-22; 116: 3-4,8-9,17-18).

In offering praise and thanks, the worshipper was pledging to give His life to God in thanksgiving: "I am bound, O God, by vows to you; your thank offerings I will fulfill. For you have rescued me from death...that I may walk before God in the light of the living" (seePsalms 56:12-13; 40:6-8; 51:16-17; 50:14,23; 141:2).

Later Old Testament texts even offered "role models" for the sacrifice of the heart that God requires (see 1 Samuel 15:22; Proverbs 21:27; Sirach 34:18-19).

Isaiah prophesies God sending a "servant," who will offer his life for the people (see Isaiah 42:1-4; 49:1-6; 50:4-9; 53:11)

This servant is compared to a sacrificial lamb upon whom God "laid...the guilt" of all the people. Crushed for the sins of the people, pierced for their offenses, he "gives his life as an offering for sin" (see Isaiah 53:1-11).

In the heroic witness of its martyrs, Israel also developed a notion of people freely handing themselves over in obedience to God's law and to make atonement for the sins of the nation (see 2 Maccabees 6:12-7:40).

D. Everywhere They Bring Sacrifice

Sacrifice moves in the direction of praise and spiritual worship in the Old Testament. But sacrificial worship is not expected to disappear from Israel.

Even the prophets, who sharply criticize the Israelites' for their hypocrisy, saw a place for sacrifice in a new and everlasting kingdom of David (see Jeremiah 17:25-26; 33:16-18).

Isaiah even foresaw "an altar to the Lord" in the land of Israel's arch-nemesis, Egypt. In the kingdom to come, he said, even the Egyptians would offer sacrifices and oblations and fulfill vows to the Lord.

On the threshold of the New Testament, in the final book of the Old Testament canon, Malachi prophesies the same thing - but on a far grander scale. He sees people the world over bringing sacrifice to God:

"For from the rising of the sun, even to its setting, My name is great among the nations. And everywhere they bring sacrifice to My Name, and a pure offering." (see Malachi 1:11).

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