Three Types of Sacrifices in the Bible « Eternally Significant
2 Chronicles 29
There are certain sections of the Bible that are difficult reading. When I was in the first grade and first began to read, my mother thought that it would be a good idea for me to start reading a chapter a day in the Bible. This was in the days before Dobson was everywhere telling us how to rear our children. Now I was the oldest child and my mother knew practicing reading was important and that reading the Bible was important, so she combined the two and got me started reading Genesis. I enjoyed Genesis and I enjoyed Exodus, reading the stories exactly as they were first told by God rather than in the pared down version that is usually given to children. But then I got to Leviticus. The first five chapters were okay with descriptions of the burnt offering and the meal offering and the peace offering and the sin offering and the trespass offering but then I got to Leviticus 6 and the multitude of rules describing the sacrifices and the priests and the laws concerning cleanliness and eventually just lost interest. It was too great for my elementary school aged mind to handle.
How then can we in the short time we have today understand all the detail of the sacrifices of the Old Testament and how they might apply to us today? Simply said, there are three general categories of sacrifices found in the Bible and all three of them are found in their spiritual order in 2 Chronicles 29.
THE SIN OFFERING
The first type of sacrifice we find in this passage is the sin offering (verses 20-24). We have already read how that Hezekiah became king at the age of twenty-five. His father before him was Ahaz. If you look in the previous chapter, we find an account of the sins of Ahaz. This was a man who was described as continually unfaithful (28:19) and in times of distress increasingly unfaithful (28:22). He worshiped other gods and treated the temple of God as his property. He gave some of the temple items to the king of Assyria in an attempt to appease their king but it did not work. Then he turned to the gods of Damascus, shutting the temple down, destroying some of the temple items, and setting up gods all through Jerusalem for worship. His son, Hezekiah though was a different sort of man. He immediately determined to change the direction of his kingdom and commanded that the temple be cleaned and prepared again for use and committed himself to a renewal of the covenant between God and Israel. He recognized that their problem was a sin problem and that they as a people needed forgiveness of sin.
Of course, this is what we most often think about as Christians when we think of a blood sacrifice and it is the primary picture that we have of the sacrifice that Christ paid for us on the cross. He died as the sacrifice for my sin. That is what we celebrated today during the Lord’s Table. Christ paying the penalty for my sin. That is what the word “atonement” means. Forgiveness of sin through a sacrifice does not mean that God is ignoring the sin but that the sacrifice is bearing that sin. That is the significance of the laying on of hands on the animal. It was a symbolic transfer of the sins from the people to the animal. We know that animal sacrifices could not take care of all sin because it had to repeated over and over and over but there came a day when the perfect Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, was nailed to the cross to bear our sins in His own body, to suffer the penalty for sin once and for all.
That is what was necessary for us to be reconciled to God. Sin is what separates us from God. That is the common trait of each person born and that is why Jesus had to die and that is why without faith in Jesus Christ alone there is no forgiveness of sin.
THE BURNT OFFERING (AN OFFERING OF CONSECRATION)
Hezekiah, however, did not stop with the sin offering but then had a special burnt offering sacrificed (verses 27-31a). A burnt offering was for the purpose of dedicating yourself or something to God. Through it one says, “I am consecrating myself to God.” Now this word “consecration” is an important word and we need to explain what it means. The Hebrews had a unique phrase for this word, “filling the hands”, i.e., making your hands complete. This is discipleship. This is dedication. This is saying that God has all of my life. This is worship in that I am submitting my life to His will and control. We find in this passage that music accompanies worship but music is not worship. Worship is a sacrifice of dedication and submission.
We find this concept in the New Testament also. Paul begged the Romans to “…present their bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”
To Timothy he wrote that when we pray we are to life up holy hands, hands that are consecrated, hands that are made perfect before God. In the sin offering I am putting my hands on Christ’s head so that He can pay the penalty for my sin but with the burnt offering I am lifting my hands to heaven and dedicating myself to Him and Him alone.
CONDITIONS FOR CONSECRATION
Not just anybody however can give offer a burnt sacrifice. Not everyone can dedicate themselves to God. You have to be holy. You have to be clean. You have to be blameless.
Now what did it mean to be holy. Two things were necessary to be holy. You had to have a relationship to God and you had to live in such a way that showed your holiness. Look at Leviticus 22:31-33.
- 31 “Therefore you shall keep My commandments, and perform them: I am the LORD.32 “You shall not profane My holy name, but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel. I am the LORD who sanctifies you,
33 “who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: I am the LORD.”
What happened is that God established a relationship with Israel when He brought them out of Egypt and through bringing them out of Egypt, He made them holy. He made them clean. He made them blameless. He filled their hands. He completed their hands and He expected them to live like the special people that they were. He commanded them, “Be ye holy for I am holy.”
We no doubt have a number of people here who have believed God, who have trusted His Son, Jesus Christ as Savior but have gone back on the commitments that they have made to God. They have accepted the sacrifice that Christ made for them on the cross of Calvary but they need to make again that sacrifice of commitment that God demands from them. That is the emphasis of Hezekiah. They were already God’s people but they had forsaken Him and forsaken His ways and forsaken His temple and Hezekiah determined that it was a time to recommitment themselves to the covenant that God had made to them under Moses. The sin offering is sufficient for forgiveness of sins, the cross of Christ is sufficient enough to bring you to heaven but Christ demands commitment with that faith.
THE PEACE OFFERING (A SACRIFICE OF PRAISE AND THANKSGIVING)
The third category of sacrifices that follows the sin offering and the burnt offering is the peace offering (verses 29-36). These offerings are those of praise and thanksgiving. Hebrews 13 calls this type of offering the sacrifice of praise, the fruit of our lips in thanksgiving to God. This sacrifice was not for forgiveness of sin, neither was it was a sacrifice of commitment to God, but rather a sacrifice that signified a close relationship with God that is going well. Now it is possible to have a close relationship and it not be healthy or it being one sided but a true relationship with God is a relationship in which things are going well.
This third type of sacrifice is best exhibited through a song that we used to sing. “Everything’s all right in my Father’s house. In my Father’s house. In my Father’s house. Everything’s all right in my Father’s house. There is joy, joy, joy!” This is the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.
IT’S KINDA LIKE GETTIN’ MARRIED!
It’s relationship to the other types of sacrifices is the same as that of the wedding anniversary to the marriage contract and to ceremony. The contract, the piece of paper that you sign is like the death of Christ for our sins and our acceptance by faith of that sacrifice. The wedding ceremony and other times of public and private commitment that you make to your spouse are like the offering of consecration. It is a time where you are taking ownership of your part in the relationship. The sacrifice of praise, though is like the anniversary date. The party that you throw for your spouse after five, ten, or twenty years of marriage. All of these are important to a strong relationship but they are different from each other in purpose.
In the same way, God will not accept your commitment until your sin problem is taken care of, there is not true thanksgiving if you are not holy before God both in relationship and in life. One of the prophets, Amos, in the fourth chapter of the book (Amos 4:1-13, page 618 in the pew Bible) that bears his name writes about those who offered thanksgiving offerings that God found unacceptable. Rather than read all the verses, let us look at just a few.
5 Offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, Proclaim and announce the freewill offerings; For this you love, You children of Israel!” Says the Lord GOD.
6 ¶ “Also I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities. And lack of bread in all your places; Yet you have not returned to Me,” Says the LORD.
12 “Therefore thus will I do to you, O Israel; Because I will do this to you, Prepare to meet your God, O Israel!”
These people were offering the proper sacrifices but they had strayed from their relationship to God. They were celebrating Thanksgiving but they were living in a way that was displeasing to God. God says, your sacrifices of thanksgiving are unacceptable. Prepare to meet your God!
Now we use that phrase sometimes to talk about death and that is partially in view here but the fuller view is prepare to meet your judge. God is going to judge you. If you do not have that holy relationship that He provided for you through Jesus Christ or you have that relationship and are not committed to that relationship, you will be judged. If you do have that holy relationship with God through Jesus Christ’s death on the cross for your sin and you live committed to that relationship, then your praise and your thanksgiving will be pleasing and acceptable to God.
No doubt it is due to our evil human nature that we forget God and break our commitments to Him who has helped us the most and instead of committing ourselves to Him, we focus on ourselves. According to thecatholicpriest.com, “The post office official in charge of the Dead Letter Box in Washington, DC, reported that he had received hundreds of thousands of letters addressed to “Santa Claus” asking him to bring many things, but after Christmas, only one letter came to the box thanking Santa Claus for bringing the toys.” Obviously, that one letter came from someone who really believed, who was really committed to Santa Claus.
THE SACRIFICE OF PRAISE IS NOT A SMALL THING
There is a sense that all of these sacrifices are given from a willing heart but what makes the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving so great and wonderful is that it can only be given willingly. The highest obedience is the obedience that is given at suggestion and not at command.
Let me give you an example of what I mean. Spurgeon “knew a youth who had wished to be baptized, but his friends kept him back. When he fell ill, he fretted because he had not confessed his Lord according to the Scripture. “But Isaac,” said his mother, “you know baptism will not save you.” “No, mother,” he replied, “of course it will not, for I am saved. But when I see Jesus in heaven I should not like Him to say, ‘Isaac, it was a very little thing I asked of you; did you not love Me enough to do it?’ ”
Concentrating on being thankful to God may seem like a little thing. Praising Christ in word and deed may not seem significant. What makes it significant is because it is an indication that “everything’s alright in my Father’s house.”
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